On a cruise ship in the Mediterranean between Spain and France where so much of it had happened. We remembered.

It was a short commemoration led by the Cruise Director. It was well attended and included a two-minute silence, ‘For the Fallen’ by Laurence Binyon read by the ship’s Glaswegian Security Officer, a recording of Vera Lynn singing ‘We’ll Meet Again’, a short reflection by the ship’s Captain, a prayer and the Last Post.

It was important and very moving.

I am on the Seabourn Ovation which is moored off the coast of Gozo, Malta. The sun shines and my cabin (suite) is very comfortable. Those on board, staff and guests, are polite and friendly. They smile and say ‘Good morning,’ when we pass in the passage or on deck.

This is not a time for deep thoughts. However I do have to consider which entertainment to attend, which tour to go on, and at which of the five restaurants I will have my next meal – I am not giving a moment of thought to ‘In Suite Dining’. This is a small cruise ship with only about four hundred guests on board and there are things to think about and decisions to be made.

While having my early morning swim I met a Canadian at the end of his tether. It was a swimming tether which allowed him to swim continuously in the small pool while staying in the same place. He gave me a turn at the tether, a rubber line attached to the belt around my waist at one end and a rail of the pool at the other. Off I swam. Only it was not so much ‘off’ as I stayed in the same place, and swam.

Other people’s generosity which leads to new experiences can be great fun.

It’s the time of the year for a sermon.

It is easy for Christians to feel guilty in Holy Week – when the betrayal, abandonment, and death of Christ is recalled. It is easy to make good people feel guilty.

Many people think the church is only good at making people feel guilty. Certainly the church has been quite adept at that.

Guilt is only of any worth when it causes us to turn around. Feeling guilty isn’t what matters. It is the preparedness to change, the turning around however many times I betray the claims of love and high ideals, that is the point of Holy Week.

Guilt falls away when we make the triumph of love our own.

Quite a short sermon!

On Monday I kept my follow up appointment at Guy’s Hospital. It had been a while coming but there was no urgency. I arrived early and was seen promptly by the consultant physiotherapist. A student was in attendance. I was questioned, listened to, and examined for about half an hour. My condition (chronic lower back problems) was explained simply and clearly. Within two hours of getting home I had an email summarising everything that had happened and detailing what I am to do.

Everything I hear and read about the British National Health Service via the media is negative. My experience is positive.

I wonder what it is like to work for an organisation which continually gets a ‘bad press’? Those working for the NHS who I met did not seem particularly downcast.

Then again I shouldn’t be surprised. I worked for and am still part of the Church of England. It has had and still gets a terrible press!

St Agnes Kennington Park, where I go to church, thrives. And so does the neighbouring parish St Mary Newington. I’m told it’s the same story at St Mark’s just up the road at the Oval.

I am not suggesting that what I read and hear in the media is not true. I am in London and the experience of the NHS may be different elsewhere. The Church of England may be in dire straits in the country. What I am saying is that the negative reports are by no means the whole truth.

Thank goodness for young neighbours and great nephews.

I had to get a new television.  Mine was deemed ‘old’ by the BBC and unfit for ‘Iplayer’ or ‘Netflix’. It was not simply a matter of unplugging the old and plugging in the new. Who knew that the television was in some way connected to the box in the study that makes my mobile telephone work? It was. Then the new one had to be ‘programmed’.

Fortunately one of my great nephews came to Sunday lunch and offered to come back the next day and sort it all out. He did. It involved a good deal of work little of which I understood. I gave him dinner. It was the least I could do.

British Telecom have ‘Gone Digital’, whatever that means and sent me a new ‘box’. Going Digital also involved plugging and unplugging ‘systems’ and entering numbers. Fortunately I have a young neighbour who helps with my garden and who understands these things. 

He came round and we telephoned British Telecom on ‘speaker’. My friend did the talking and answering the, to me, incomprehensible questions. The telephone is almost sorted. No home line;  just the mobile and the television.

Thank goodness for the young!

I thought back wistfully of my childhood when there was a telephone on a wall in the cold back hall. You wound a handle, lifted the receiver and a voice would say, ‘Number please.’ You gave the number and the voice would say, ‘I will put you through.’ And that was it. Of course sometimes one couldn’t get through. We survived.