Parish Club Presentation...

Tonight saw the Parish Club's celebration of Fr. Tim's Silver Jubilee. Mass beforehand was well-attended (I wasn't actually present for that: having been to Mass in the morning, followed by Adoration and Benediction, and then a Nuptial Mass where I sang the Ave Maria, I figured that I'd earned some time off!) and there were five visiting priests... two can be seen here with Fr. Tim: Fr. Stephen Dingley on the left and Fr. Michael Cullinan on the right.

The Parish UCM had been working hard all day to prepare refreshments...

The Club had bought Fr. Tim a beautiful chalice and paten, and here you can see Eddie, the Club Chairman, presenting it...

And Fr. Tim appears to be delighted with the present...

The chalice will be blessed tomorrow, after Mass, ready for use on Tuesday (the actual Anniversary of Fr. Tim's Ordination.) I shall do my best to get some more photos...

London Blognic

I was quite tired when I returned home after the Blognic (well, I had only come out of hospital two days before!) and today was pretty hectic, what with Mass in the morning, Adoration, Benediction, music practice and a wedding where I was singing Schubert's Ave Maria... As a result, I didn't quite manage to put up a post about yesterday's Blognic.

It was extremely good: lots of people turned up; for some it was just a flying visit - they popped in on the way home, just to say hallo. Others had made more of an effort: one couple had dropped in on their way back to Carlisle... from Lourdes!

I was delighted to meet up again with Fr. Mildew, Delia, Londiniensis and Dillydaydream. I was also very pleased to meet Red Maria: her blog comments in the past have demonstrated an incisive wit, and this was even more evident (and entertaining) in the flesh. Oliver Hayes made an appearance, and several of us did our best to convince him to blog more regularly. Sir Dan of the Blogosphere was there as well... along with many others.

It wouldn't have been a Blognic without His Hermeneuticalness and the indomitable (and charming) Fr. Z.

You can read Oliver's summary, and Fr. Mildew's brief report; Fr. Z did a quick post, and Fr. Tim also added some thoughts and photos...

Congratulations...

...to Monsignor Richard Moth, Vicar General in Southwark, who is to be ordained Bishop of the Forces. Twitch of the mantilla to Fr. Ray Blake, and also Fr. Stephen Langridge (who tweeted it!)

You can see the Vatican announcement HERE.

One Was Most Amused...

...by the following poster which appeared on Pundit Kitchen (the political version of the I Can Has Cheezburger? site.)

"New Mass" Given The Once-Over...

Seraphic Spouse did a series of brilliant posts on attending the Usus Antiquior Mass: I put up links to all four of them. She has now turned her attention to her memories of the Novus Ordo, or "Nervous" Ordo as one of my friends likes to call it.

Five parts, and counting (we've only reached the Eucharistic Prayer... a reflection, perhaps, of how wordy and cumbersome the Novus Ordo appears to those of us who love the Usus Antiquior?) Anyway, I shall update this post when the rest of the Mass makes an appearance!

In the meantime, check out: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5.

UPDATE: The final section, Part 6, has arrived. Check it out!

Home Sweet Home...

As you can see from the typo in yesterday's post title, I couldn't see straight due to the very effective painkillers I'd been given...

I'd just like to thank everyone for their prayers and best wishes: having a spinal anaesthetic was, quite literally, the answer to my prayers (not all anaesthetists seem too keen on them.)

Spinal anaesthesia feels pretty weird. First of all, I couldn't feel anything from the waist down. I couldn't move anything. I couldn't even feel myself trying to move anything. When I put my hand on my leg, my hand felt warm skin, but there was no leg detecting the hand, so it felt as if I was touching someone else's leg... but my brain did a sort of back-flip, because I knew it was my own leg. I also got a bit of a shock when I saw a leg being moved by a nurse, and then realised that it was my leg.

The major advantage of a spinal anaesthetic is that the immediate post-operative pain is pretty much over by the time you can feel anything at all, and sensation returns very gradually, so medication for pain relief is therefore pretty effective. In my experience, waking up from general anaesthesia has always involved a much more immediate awareness of pain... more often than not, it was the pain which brought me round, and the painkillers have a higher threshold to get over. Patient-controlled analgesia pumps work on much the same sort of principle: little doses of painkiller, administered very frequently, prevent the pain building up, and so less painkiller is needed overall.

I'm now safely back home, having unpacked my bag, cuddled the cat and wolfed down some hot, buttered toast. Normal blogging will resume shortly...

Suurgery Update

Thanks for the prayers and good wishes. My biggest fear - the general anaesthetic - didn't happen. The anaesthetist, on hearing how I react, was keen for me to have a spinal block. This is a major blessing. I shall blog more when I get home, tomorrow morning. All went well.

Hospital...

I'm off to hospital tomorrow. It's a minor operation, but I react badly to general anaesthesia, so I'm a little nervous. I will probably have to stay overnight. A very kind friend has offered to drive me to the hospital, so at least there's no chance I'll oversleep.

Right now I'm walking round the flat trying to think of what things I need to arrange before I leave. I've not been able to pack anything yet because Sylvester is eyeing me speculatively... my next door neighbour will be cat-sitting until my return, but she was begging me not to let Sylvester see any bags, or he'd go off in a sulk and she'd worry.

I'm sure that Sylvester would only sulk if he wasn't hungry; if he misses the odd meal because he's throwing a strop, it'll do his waistline the power of good. However, as a well-trained cat-companion (note, I do not class myself as an "owner") I prefer not to upset him...

Prayers would be appreciated. For me, not the cat...

Cricket Course Continues...

I managed to watch a little more cricket this lunchtime, and my education in the laws of cricket and the terms used continued apace.

I was instructed in the finer points of cricketing etiquette, (such as walking) and tactics (declaring).

I gather that, if the fielder is touching the boundary when he touches the ball, that counts as a four, because the ball is deemed to have reached the boundary...

Also, (I think) a googly is an off break which looks like a leg break to the batsman... so the batsman thinks the ball will be bouncing out when in fact it bounces in... (I probably got that completely wrong, but I can't quite figure out which is the leg side and which the off side... I guess that's lesson three.)

And I think a Chinaman is the opposite of a googly...

This is actually getting to be quite interesting.

Some things continue to escape my comprehension... apparently, England are in a very good position to win this test match, because the chance of Australia scoring 411 in the five remaining wickets is pretty low... so why bother?

UPDATE: It seems that Australia didn't hear that England's win was a foregone conclusion, and they ended up 313 for 5. This means that they need only a further 208 runs to win... and England need to take 5 wickets. Now, in theory, England should be favourites to win...