It s trikes me that the Christmas Spirit is alive and well in the United Kingdom given the increase in the number of advertisements in the media by charities asking for donations. Christmas is still seen as a time for giving. There are appeals for the homeless and refugees together with usual animal charities seeking support. All are appropriate. The holy family found ‘no room at the inn’ at Bethlehem and became refugees with their flight into Egypt, and ox and ass, cattle sheep and a donkey feature as well.

Contrasting Observances of Remembrance moved me equally.

First the great Festival packed with people broadcast from the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday evening. Then the thousands led by the King at the Cenotaph at Whitehall on Sunday and watched by millions on television.

The last was the simple act of remembrance on Monday. The Vicar of St Agnes took the initiative and in time for the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month went, with a few parishioners, to the War Memorial in Kennington Park.

Seeing a priest in a cassock and cloak at the War Memorial a handful of passers-by joined us. There was a pause, a silence, a commemoration, and prayers. We remembered them. Eleven of us.

The large numbers are important but it is not the numbers that count.

It was when Father Vaughan was the parish priest at the church of the Immaculate Conception in Geraldine, New Zealand. On All Saints’ Day his homily at the mass was brief as he had been up all night watching the cricket on television. He had only one thing to say.

‘You can sit there thinking I’m not good enough to be a saint. I am telling you that there is nothing bad that you have done or could do that hasn’t been done by one of the saints. So you have no excuse.’

Or as St Augustine put it more than 1500 years ago,

’There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.’

I frequently use the time while waiting for a bus to say my prayers. I do this praying silently.

Lately I’ve taken to trying some of my exercises instead or in addition; leg exercises especially. There’s a particularly good one from my ‘Strength and Balance’ sessions.

Sitting at the bus stop I raise one leg, stick it straight out and point and flex the foot. Then do the same with the other leg. There’s a variant when I turn the foot in circles; first one way then the other. Sometimes this does get a quizzical look. Earlier this week someone watching me commented,

‘You ok mate?’

No one ever said that when I was saying my prayers.

I have often wanted to be upgraded and so, in hope, have worn a tie and ensured a pleasant manner at Check In. I was somewhat surprised to be told recently at British Airways Business Class Check-In in Barcelona that I had been downgraded.

My business class seat was booked and paid for and I was checking in two and a half hours before the flight. The official at the Check-In was apologetic and charming but could do nothing. The flight was over-booked and British Airways had cancelled the flight that was due out an hour later. I had been downgraded. It was ‘the system’.  I could apply for compensation. Even my age and my walking stick couldn’t help. Admittedly I was not wearing a tie but I did maintain a pleasant manner. I was downgraded and that was that. I was allocated a seat in economy in row 13.

I asked if my suitcase could go business class even if I could not and that was possible. At the lounge which British Airways uses for its business class passengers there was hesitation over letting me in but I explained the situation and as I was with a friend who had not been downgraded I was allowed in.

The flight was called and I duly presented my boarding pass. The official took it, looked at me, smiled, tore it up, and gave me a new pass for a seat in row 10; business class.

I had been a good boy and had not behaved badly or complained too vigorously over the downgrade – other than in my head. The staff at Barcelona Airport and on board were helpful and charming. B A systems lived up to its name B….. Awful.