Happy New Year

Hello world!

You may, and not entirely unreasonably, be wondering why I am wishing you all a Happy New Year. Surely it is still August; surely the daylight (here, at least) lingers until almost 8pm; surely the Turkey population of Norfolk is in fine fettle. While I am at it, let me introduce you to the cartoon characters that most helpfully illustrate my personae - the one people think I have and the one I actually have. There you have it, in the forms of Ren and Stimpy, a timely pointer to my inner-misanthrope. 

Well, I took my rest. I stopped, I read, and indeed have written. It is true to say, dear reader, that I am using you as an excuse to step away from all matters "epiclesis", such as is my scholarly pleasure these days. The summer has proffered its own ups and downs but the English weather has erred towards the optimistic and my vegetables grew so that is alright. In fact, if you want runner beans, let me know - I am sick of bloody runner beans. 

Back to my unseasonal greeting. It bares a specific relationship to my last post when I effectively signed off for a while. During the intervening period I have also had a specific and full break from work (including the severing of electricity from the Silicon Chip Mistress for a full two weeks). I have discovered the very real pleasures of the Isle of Wight and enjoyed some very real quality time with my family. I continue to miss the worlds of Twitter and Facebook but not the effects that they had on me. Now, you may know what I mean when I say that in taking some time away (and I even locked my own study door and gave the key to someone else) I found some return to form in terms of creative juice. During my ordained ministry I have discovered that the summer holiday becomes a very rich seam for new and good ideas. So much so, in fact, that the return to work after a good summer holiday feels like a proper and good new beginning. 

For all sorts of reasons I have had to give serious thought to my working patterns. I, like all clergy, am my own worst enemy and only by my own hand will I live or die in this job. Fr Haggar will claim that I am bragging again, but the truth is, that 60-70 hour weeks, every week, is tantamount to gentle suicide and as such is quite removed from boasting about being awfully busy, to being a confession about getting the balance completely wrong. I think it is fair to say that I have approached my incumbency with the mindset of a business manager. I have placed high regard on targets in their form, the delivery of the product, getting it "right", success and growth. When I was a business manager, I was fairly successful and it paid the mortgage, but that was that and this is this. I am not a business manager, yet have significant responsibility for the Parish Plc. There is, whether we are honest about it or not, something of a spiritual profit involved, and for those profits to slip is regarded as anathema, failure, bad, wrong. So what to do?

Do you know what? I am going to try and achieve more by doing less. I am going to stop more, even start having lunch once in a while. The fact is, my summer vacation has been teaching me a yearly lesson that I have completely lost sight of - that when I am still, God speaks. When I am silent, I hear. When I shut my eyes, I see. When I stop thinking, I start to learn and begin to know. When I put down the tools of the trade, I can become very creative. It is also fair to say that pathological workaholism is an uneasy escape from the real work that is asked of a priest.

And after all, the results weren't and aren't ever really mine in the first place. 

Happy New Year, friends. Thank you for your companionship and for taking the time to stop by and read my paltry offerings. You are a blessing. 

Vernacular Venetian Ventures

Please forgive the radio silence of late, but it seems that the economy of God's most holy Kingdom and Mission  is contingent upon us have Annual General Meetings!

Oh, and we have been away.

So, here goes - the Vernacular Guide to three days in Venice. 

1. Arrive in Venice before lunch - eating is a good way of assimilating the cost of things, and an easy way to try out the language and not make too much a Muppet of oneself. If the weather is nice and you have previously resigned yourself to bankruptcy, arrive in style on a river taxi - a speed boat all of your very own. You will feel like the Duke of Earl and you don't have to attain proximity to the armpits of fellow travellers at this early stage. There is no better way to enter Venice the first time!

2. Spend all afternoon walking around every and anywhere. An early ascent up the Campanile is recommended as it will give you a chance to actually come to terms with the fact that you have stepped into a postcard. We didn't queue for long, and again, it is another opportunity to learn that the money you once had is soon to be taken from you like daylight robbery! Time it right and the bells will deafen you! It is also a lot chillier up there, so don't be a fruit-loop like me and cast aside the warmer garments!

3. Explore hither and yon - grab coffee and don't worry about grabbing a seat. Coffee is received on the hoof in Venice and you prop up a bar much like the stubbly geezers at my local. It is, though, good coffee and typically administered short and black. Take in the promenade in front of the Doge's Palace - to be standing before 'that view' is just a little weird at first. The streets that project from St Mark's Square are loaded with the finest boutiques and if, like me, you find masks a little disconcerting, be prepared for a full onslaught of a million of the buggers. Masks everywhere, including those dark ones with beaks. Actually, there are some wonderful things to admire - lots of glass, lots of art, some Dali stuff: browse at leisure. For me, it was no less good time than the paid-for tours - just meandering. 

4. Food - I am not made of money and neither is Mrs Acular, so we entered the food-chain lower down. There are lots and lots of places to eat, many selling very good fish dishes (I am told). I wanted to eat Italian food in Italy to plonked for lasagne and the like - it is really is a lot better than home. Expect to pay around £75-£100 per couple before any volume of booze, and don't forget that a meal in Europe is expected to be paced over a whole evening. Oh, and 'service' (12% for us) is not the tip. 

5. Day Two - an absolute must is a vaporetto ticket (a 12 hr one will suffice). The Vaporetto is the river-bus-boat-thing and a ticket will allow a hop-on hop-off endeavour. Just explore Venice and the Islands at leisure. Murano is worth a stop as it the island where the famous glass industry is based (oddly enough) - oh, and its church has a stunning brand new huge icon of Christ on the Cross. Needless to say, a schlep up and down the Grand Canal is a must. Again, you will enjoy that odd sense of being on a movie set or within an arty text-book again. Questions like: "am I really here looking at this?" will haunt you. Yes. You are. Lunch is cheap if you grab a bread roll and a coffee (take-away), and two such lunches will leave you change from a twenty. For dinner find a new restaurant, and as a rule of thumb (in any place you may care to visit in this world), if the menu is laminated and bears pictures of the dish, it is likely to be questionable. 

5a - Day Two if it is a Sunday - get into as many of the stunning churches as you can, but don't forget that they are mostly active and will have services going on. But they are probably the most beautiful edifices in the world, kept open all the time even with the metal-work on full display. No English fear of robbery there! Sadly, in my visit to many churches, only one church was locked: the Anglican one. 

6. Day three - Tours day. There is a plethora of tours and other means by which the tourist industry of Venice will squeeze you dry. Our choice was between two short tours or a full-day one. The former combination set us back a hundred quid. The latter would have doubled that. In the end, we plonked for a visit of San Marco's Basilica and also of the Doge's Palace (the full day would have added a gondola ride, a tour of the Canal and some other bits and bobs). The Basilica is stunning inside and out, if you can overlook the fact that you are wedged cheek-by-jowel with loud teenage students, rude adults and pongy punters. It really is cattle-class, but it is the only way as every lens-wielding wannabe photographer in the whole of the whole world is also in there with you. You will guided towards the Pala D'Oro, a pretty altar frontal made of gold. It is, apparently, the highlight of the tour and those of you of a Christian disposition will notice that no-one bothers with the body of none other than St Mark of Gospel fame. I stood within feet of his relics the days before his feast day. I was the only one who venerated him or paid any attention to him - everyone else seemed more interested in the medieval frontal. Now - if you are reading this and think it is clever to take pictures in a church, over relics or during a service, know that you are a pratt. Enough Said. The second tour was to the Dodge Palace (as we quickly referred to it). Fascinating. You will stand before art that will blow your mind. Soak it up! Oh - if you like Salvador Dali (and I do, a lot), there is an exhibition in town of the genuine stuff. Visit it. 

6a - A Restaurant to try: we ambled aimlessly between hundreds of places, until we stumbled over a small and apparently modest affair, a jazz restaurant near Rialto Bridge (a bridge that, in itself, didn't do anything for me and I still find myself wondering what the fuss is all about). I am not a fan of jazz, or at least I wasn't until I went in there. The food was good, the service exemplary, the waiter entertaining and gracious (and he kept giving us free drinks), and it was the best evening we had (or have had for some time). Highly recommended: Bacaro Jazz Restaurant and cocktail bar (the limonicello with vodka was nice too)

7. Day Four: Go home - plan well as leaving Venice is either costly by taxi or time consuming by vaporetto. We opted for the latter in driving rain. To breakfast in Venice and lunch in London is a funny thing - but that is for another post. 

Friends Old and New - plus Ghosts

Vernacular, Mrs Acular and the Twins Aculae are now back from happy holidays.

We are at that happy stage in life where we can go on our jollies without being robbed by the tour operators and the hotels 'simply because it happens to be a school holiday'! Glady, we can toddle off just before the greatest volumes of red-scorched white man-flesh goes on display, the myriad snot-and-ice cream kids dig their endless sandy holes and the plethora of organised mums and their 'packing lists' descend on every coastal haunt known to civilised humanity. We went to Newquay where we avoided the other visitors and spent our time in a wonderful hotel  - the Sands Resort - that caters for families like us: parents with toddlers. Granted, to be a guest at this hotel you have to be earning squillions a year (or bag a really neat offer which is how we managed it), but it was a great place away from the naked navels and blond tresses of the Newquay surfing set. 

Part of the reason for the choice of timing was the Ordination to the Priesthood of my bezzy mate, Fr Simon A. Bone and his First Mass (about eight minutes after we left the wonderful Truro Cathedral). Five hours of good liturgy in one day - marvellous (isn't Jesus awesome?). Even the Twins Aculae sat through every minute happily, such is the quality of their up-bringing and the resilience of their excellent mother! Both services were emotional and finely done, and I pray that Simon has as good a ministry ahead of him as he clearly deserves. If you want to meet a good man, look this guy up. It was my pleasure, at the ordinations to sit next to a wonderful Australian bloke who liked wandering around taking pictures during the service (not just me who likes to do that then). He had a wicked sense of humour and we had a right good laugh. That he was the Archbishop of Wales' Chaplain made this interesting - but finally, another collar wearer a bit like me in terms of outlook - bloody marvellous! Nice to meet you, Chris!

Well, my face and arms burned as they do; my gut is somewhat larger that the week prior; I am bankrupt; I am happy. We had a wonderful time, I did lots of good pondering, I successfully won the World Cup (iTouch App version) and ploughed through most of a hitherto unread Mario Puzo novel. I got to watch the world-class 'Rev.'  in my hotel room (oh my word, how I identify). The kids were happy, Mrs. Acular was happy - we didn't divorce despite the close proximity that we enjoyed for a whole week. And I thought of ten (yes, ten) blog posts - not including this one - that I can scribble down in the days ahead!

Then a funny thing happened. A ghost, an apparition emerged - one that was born of my former retailing days. In carpet retail of a particular brand, it was the habit of the Inquisition to visit the store of a given manager during his holiday - to dig the dirt, the discover evidence, the build a case. I knew many managers who were relived of their livings two days after coming back to work (I merely attracted a demotion in the mid-90s for a policy oversight) - so in the later hours of yesterday, the old paranoia re-emerged. It wasn't very nice - and wholly irrational, but a surprise nontheless. In the end, Monday morning was the same as all Monday mornings (mostly), and so it is that The Vernacular Curate remains.