Arose and walked Mix before breakfast and then spent this morning in a conference Skype Call with Martin and Alison from the Alliance of Religions and Conservation and Chris, a notable conservationist. The purpose of the ‘meeting’ (and what a green way of meeting this was) was to take forward our Green Pilgrimage plans for the European Chapter of this now world-wide network. I have agreed to represent the network in Scotland and I will be attending the meetings of the Scottish Pilgrim Routes Forum and making myself available to meet with pilgrimage places who would like to become involved as well as helping places already involved to develop their pilgrimage plans. I have also agreed to help to bring in a representative of pilgrimage in Wales, working closely with Chris – a meeting will be called early in the New Year and a team of interested people have already been identified. And so that I am seen to be entirely Celtic, I have undertaken to attempt to open up links with Ireland as well. There is the possibility of considerable European Funding for this project and Chris and I will try to work something up before we meet our colleagues in Sweden at the end of February. It was underlined to me again today just how much these projects tick all of the boxes for large-scale funding from Europe – they bring together so many different strands of community involvement, they involve faith communities and secular authorities, they are conservationist, they enable other activities to grow out of them, they create employment and so on. It is a wonderful opportunity and I am happy to be given the chance to be part of it. I also believe that it is a colossal opportunity for the Church – something which the church in Wales has already grasped and has appointed staff who will work to develop these opportunities.
After the conference I wrote up my notes before setting out for Gavinton Church with Rachel to have a look at the organ. It seems that the congregation sometimes struggles to find an organist and it was one of the organists who asked Rachel if we would see if it could be controlled by midi. It can – but we haven’t yet worked out the best way of doing this. In an emergency we could do it tomorrow but if it isn’t as much of an emergency as all that then we will have time to work out the best way of doing it!
Back home I started to plan some of the Green Pilgrimage activities I hope to generate in coming weeks and before I knew it, it was time to walk the dog and go for our evening meal: steak and mushroom pie with potatoes and carrots followed by ice-cream and brambles. I love brambles.
Back in the Granary we walked the dogs and went to bed very early – we have a great deal to do tomorrow. (While I was busy in the ways described, Digger was working on the garden. The lawn has been cut and today all the leaves – and there were many of them – have been collected up and added to his collection of compost.)
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