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This has been the year of the great celebrations! Forty
years of marriage coincided with Adrian’s first sabbatical since he left St
John’s, so though it has been a busy and sometimes quite pressured time, we’ve had quite a party, and are very
grateful.
The Easter break was our only holiday in the last three
years not to feature snow! We spent a week in a cottage in Northleach in the Cotswolds
with very good friends, in fairly indifferent weather that prompted us to
explore the National Trust. The eccentric collections of Snowshill Manor, the
wonderful gardens at Hidcot and the Roman mosaics at Chedworth are all highly
recommended. We also had a week at Henley in our caravan and caught up with
other friends at Hughenden.
The sabbatical proper started with the month of July in
France, and not a theological book in sight. Adrian is fast learning that the
less he reads theology, the more theology happens, which is quite liberating.
Most of the month, though, was spent in the Auvergne and the Alps hiking and
exploring. The GPS indicates that we walked 120 miles (mostly on very steep
Alpine paths) and climbed between 3000 and 4000 feet on most of the Alpine walks,
the record being 15 miles and 5000 feet on one day. Our last two days in the
Auvergne were very hot and we became 'tourists' looking at fabulous chateaux,
churches, pretty villages and spectacular medieval wall paintings.
The anniversary present was an out-of-character cruise up
the Nile from Luxor to Aswan, mostly totally sedentary when we weren’t being
bussed around antiquities. It was an astonishing experience, and we were glad
to be in Egypt just after President Morsi had been elected and before the
present uncertainties. The tourist trade has taken a huge knock, and we were 30
on a boat designed for 130, comfortable for us but depressing for the country’s
economy.
We ended the sabbatical with a month in South Africa, where
Adrian did his usual two days’ examining but topped and tailed it with a week
in Kruger and two weeks in the Drakensberg Mountains, camping in our ancient
tent with borrowed equipment. Highlights were seeing the big five (leopard
really for the first time) and cheetah, 141 species of birds including
about 30 for the first time, hail, lightning, thunder and scorching sun in the
mountains, and a helicopter ride at Monk’s Cowl. Jill really enjoyed catching
up with old friends for the first time in seven years, and we felt as if we had
never been away. Strange holidaying at home which is no longer home…
Adrian’s sabbatical has enabled him to write two articles
(one on the spirituality of Wilfred Owen and one on ‘Who am I?’ Some
Missiological Implications of Theological Anthropology). One has been published
already and the other will be published next year. He also wrote an overview
course on Church History at Certificate Level for TEE College and carried out a
number of speaking engagements. The zaniest (and most fun) of these was a
lecture on the theology of Elgar’s last religious oratorio, The Kingdom.
Jill’s big news is that she is finally retiring from paid
employment at the end of this academic year, having realized that at the age of
63 she doesn’t really need to go on, and on, and on J. Adrian will stay on
in his present post for the foreseeable future as he can’t be laid off at 65,
and is enjoying the fact that he can step down when he’s ready. Both of us are
working towards a more measured lifestyle, but it’ll now be Adrian’s fault if it’s
too manic. It probably always was!
The family are all well. Michael is based at RAF Northwood
and Northolt for the moment, having spent three months in Kandahar earlier this
year. Helen has qualified as the excellent teacher she’s been for many years and
the girls continue to be heavily involved in a whole range of sport… Rachel and
Dave remain in Stapleford with Charlotte and Lucy, the most geographically
stable of the family, negotiating the uncertainties of the NHS and the motor
trade in the current climate. They are now really enjoying their local
Evangelical Church (in a converted pub with facilities for mud wrestling) and
Dave was baptized earlier in the year, a joy to us all.
Our prayer for you all is that in the coming year, you will
find hope and peace even when life is turbulent, and we’d love to keep in
touch, and welcome some of you to Hotel Chatfield if your travels bring you
this way.
Jill and Adrian Chatfield
