Well I am glad last week is over and done with. It was rather full. This week looks like being much more civilized, including both an away day and a quiet day.

Thank you for all the advice on being a good Aunt. I will ponder and put it into practice when I next have an opportunity.

Joining in the general spate of blogging about reading, I have been having a non-fiction fest recently. I re-read part* of Salt by Mark Kurlanksy and am now reading Stephen King’s On Writing. I’m not a big fan of King’s stuff, but I found The Stand utterly compulsive. When he is not being too graphic, (well even when he is, but I am very squeamish and inclined to have nightmares after scary books) he is a very good writer. Yesterday, just for a break, I settled down for a morning with Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer – I do like the Artemis Fowl books, they really aren’t just for kids.

During term, I don’t have the energy to read new books, so I content myself with re-reading old ones. However, I do have a list of new stuff to read when I get round to it:

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susannah Clarke (stalled halfway through)
Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick (too disorganised to reject the publisher’s choice from my old bookclub)
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake (started reading it on a train years ago and realised I needed a dictionary to decipher what on earth he was going on about)
Middlemarch by George Eliot

So, I really shouldn’t be buying any more fiction until I’ve read at least some of these. Can anyone provide encouragement that they are worth persevering with?

Well I think that will have to do for now. I left the mains lead for my laptop in college so I have only 41 minutes left and some googling to do.

*i.e. started from where the bookmark was from last time I read it

Is it just me, or was Torchwood last night actually about the detention without charge of suspected terrorists? I wasn’t paying full attention because I was turning a heel in a sock at the time.

As promised, a special mention for Bimble who did manage to combine the answers to both questions in my previous post. I am not sure whether the fruit that is accumulating in my study this week will be directly of use to my niece: it might be quite rotten by the time I see her again. Point taken, nevertheless.

The all-age service is looking interesting now. The idea I have to play with is prayer through the medium of hopscotch. I may report back afterwards.

First question:

I’m having one of those weeks where fruit is accumulating in my study. This usually means that I am being more than usually idealistic, but lacking the will to put the ideas into practice.

1) Is it possible that the fruit is a symbol of wider spiritual truths?

Second question, to all aunts and uncles:

I visited Mr F’s family this weekend, including his sister’s new daughter. So, this means that I am an aunt. I never had any aunts or uncles (dozens of great-aunts, but they were very scary).

2) What are the normal duties of an aunt please?

Please specify which question you are answering when you comment. Special mention will be made of anyone managing one answer that will suffice for both.

I spent a few days up in the North this weekend and decided to have a break from blogging. I was very tempted to take my laptop since we were going by train and they have plugs for laptops now, but my bag was heavy enough. Besides, without the internet, I might actually have had to do some work.

This week will be mainly concerned with sorting out an all-age service for Friday. Oh how I hate them, but at least it is only half an hour. I’ve been following the discussions on Dave’s blog about family services with some trepidation. We had a really good session last year on all-age services that gave a good framework to base it on: making sure there is actually something for all the ages, including the ones that just want to sit in the pews or engage at an academic level. Trouble is, that is quite difficult to achieve when there is little time to plan and limited space to work in.

Next Sunday I will be going to prison… Just Visiting, as the Monopoly board says. No-one can say that vicar training does not widen your experience of society.

So, what did I miss while I was away?

New Torchwood last night. Marvellous!

Even better, new Torchwood with Spike (Do I remember correctly that he is James Masters?) from Buffy in.

The world just became a happier place to be on a Wednesday evening, even if I did have to persuade Mr F that we should watch Torchwood instead of Grand Designs.

The cake was lovely by the way.

Watching St Trinian’s was a very entertaining way to spend the afternoon yesterday. The earlier St Trinian’s films formed (along with the Carry On films) a significant part of my childhood film education. It was a very good updating of the genre. Particular highlights included Colin Firth as the man from the ministry and some very effective evil 10 year old twins. Rupert Everett was extremely disturbing in both aspects of his dual role. I don’t recall Alistair Sim being quite so creeps giving. Surprisingly, Russell Brand was also rather effective as Flash Harry. The one thing I really didn’t like about it was the number of drugs references, but you can’t say I wasn’t warned: my local cinema’s family guidance said ‘mild language, comic violence and drugs references’. The number of film references added to the amusement: I definitely spotted Italian Job, Thomas Crown Affair and Oceans Eleven.

In other news, I have just tested my new cake-tester. Most effective. Sadly, it means that over the next 24 hours I will need to eat cake. Ah well.

Over the last week I finished my final Christmas book: Robin Hobb’s Forest Mage. I almost gave up on this trilogy mid-way through the second book because she is so horrible to the hero. It was all feeling so depressing that I could not see a way out of the situation for poor Nevarre. After a hiatus of several months I finished the second one (it does not end well) and decided to persevere with the third. It was worth it. I won’t give away what happens in the end, but it is an ending replete with satisfaction, although not what I was expecting.

Having gorged myself on fantasy for a few weeks, I am now somewhat at a loss for what to read. I have the complete Sherlock Holmes open, but I find after a while that they get a bit samey. This weekend I started watching films again: Ocean’s 13 was great. Mr F was kind enough to explain the bits that were rather opaque due to my not having seen Ocean’s 12. Really good heist movie. Later on, I noticed that Phantom of the Opera was on tv and I fancied watching it. After some consideration I decided that it would make more sense to watch the copy I had borrowed off my sister on DVD, this having the advantage of no adverts and starting when I wanted it to. Mr F had only ever heard the soundtrack, while I saw the stage show about 15 years ago. It makes a lot more sense on film: you can tell who is singing what. The camera work was stunning, as was the setting. The only disappointing note for me was that the Phantom’s voice wasn’t as amazing as it could have been and his disfigurement was not really that repulsive at all, thus rather removing the motivation for the whole plot. Entertaining, though, it certainly was.

This afternoon I may well go and see St Trinian’s.

In the mean time I will crack on with some work. Celebrations are in order: my copy of the Big Magic Greek Book has finally arrived.

I went on a mission today. I needed paper, pens and lever-arch files.

Sadly, I had to compromise.
I wanted:
-an A4 pad,
-recycled,
-wide ruled,
-2-hole punched
-with margin
-and a glue binding across the top,
-about 80 sheets.

I got:
-an A4 pad,
-recycled,
-wide ruled
-4-hole punched
-with margin
-wire binding down the side and perforated
-110 sheets.

I suppose it will have to do. Previously I have compromised on the recycled attribute, but I decided not to today. I could have got a pad which was perfect except for being narrow ruled, but my handwriting really needs plenty of white space around it else it is utterly illegible. It should at least see me through the rest of the year. (I bought two).

Pens I had a mixed result with. I found some coloured pens with a very clever case that I have been coveting for some time. I was unable to get a new batch of fine, blue, biros without buying 20 of them.

Ringbinders were not a problem and I got some mini post-its for marking quotes in books.

I may be obsessed. Ah well.

Is anyone else amused that the BBC correspondent on the Greenpeace convoy in the Southern Ocean chasing the Japanese Whalers is called…

… Jonah?

We had proper snow here today, although it didn’t stick for long. A group of us were stranded in our study block for an hour or so because it was too minging to go out in. Thankfully we had laid in supplies of tea and biscuits (very Anglican) so we all came through OK.

In other news, a significant part of my sermon for Sunday appears to be a comparison between the American Presidential campaign and Jesus’ ministry. I fear it needs further tweaking.