A fresh, bright day at Holy Trinity Dunoon...

...and look who's coming to church!



A shiny red cherry picker, especially brought in to get a plumber up onto the church tower to patch holes in the leadwork around the roof. Hopefully that will stop the water cascading inside the bellchamber and down into the rest of the tower!



Later that day, the picker-driver returns to the car park, job done - and frozen solid by the stiff winds at the top of the tower, right up above the Clyde. Some photos of the tower top should follow, once the contractor e-mails them.

Now to wait for the next rain to test the repairs. Shouldn't have long to wait in Argyll!

A busy day in Cowal and Bute - sampled

Words & phrases to sum up today...

Wet weather - very wet weather - chance to spot leaks in the tower roof - lots of leaks, easily spotted. Easily fixed? Hmm.

Deliberate (little) holes in the chancel wall - better news than hoped for on redecoration.

Busy (relatively) eucharist on Bute.

Possible ecumenical wedding in the summer - hmm.

Smoky (literally) eucharist in Dunoon.

Worrying about hospices being closed - and agreeing to do something (small) about it.

Sermon on looking for God in the ordinary at Candlemas. Keeping our eyes open.

Impressions...

Impressions galore.

An indolent seal lolling on a rock on the beach at Innellan, gawping lazily at folk stopping to take his picture. Some more circumspect colleagues on rocks a little further offshore, silhouettes rather than photogenic tourist traps.

Deer sniffing around the trailers and bins. Toads sneaking into the porch while Jenny has her late-night hobble around the grounds before she settles to bed. A particularly puffed-up toad that I scooped up in a shoe and returned to the rain outside. I don't think two toads constitutes a plague, so the Mosaic plague-log for our time in Dunoon remains at midges (biting gnats, I would suggest) and rain (not quite full biblical grade hail, but not a bad substitute). The Kyles at Colintraive have yet to run red with blood, even if the northerly-ish wind on Sunday threatened the safe transit of Dunoon travellers to Rothesay!

More people to get to know! Lots of cups of tea and bits of cake. Lots of walks around Bishop's Glen to try and wear off the cups of tea and bits of cake.

A rather empty echo where a 'central diocese' would usually be, down south at any rate. It's summertime, we are in a vacancy and I have a feeling we're not in Kansas, Toto! Still, much time to get to know the people further afield.

Good impressions.

Damascus road experiences...

Good acclimatisation for future west coast living today. Leadership/team-building exercises in the rain in the Forest of Dean. I'm sure someone has muddled up membership of the Church of England and the Parachute Regiment. Never mind, it was an entertaining if potentially pointless set of exercises.

I did get that single blinding insight, of course, as one always does at these sorts of things. I am, by nature, a person who leaps into action full of ideas and directions for how the team should achieve the goals. Over the years, this has been tempered a little into facilitation, gathering other views, enabling team members to participate etc. etc. etc., but essentially I still like to jump in and say, 'So based on all that stuff - this is what we are doing - RUN - JUMP - GO THIS WAY...' etc.

However: Putting a set of blacked-out goggles on me during an exercise and I was as quiet as... well something that is really quiet. Very docile, lead around by the lovely lady who was my partner in the exercise - very obedient. Now, if they could bottle and sell that effect on mouthy people like me, they would make an absolute fortune.

The insight? I still love telling people what to do (in a very affirming, collaborative sort of way) - and you would probably have to poke my eyes out to change that... Ho hum.