We have lost
count of the number of conversations that we have had this year about what ‘retirement’
means, and the word grows more meaningless by the month! We don’t like the
Portuguese ‘aposentado’ with its hints of ‘sitting down’ – not much chance of
that! Our favourite is the Spanish ‘jubilado’ – from the Biblical idea of
jubilee. You can work it out for yourselves.
Life on the
street in Cotmanhay is such fun. We have no fence and a grassy space in front
of the house, where we have had many brief and a few significant conversations
about life, illness, death, God, sexuality, divorce and caravans. Both the
Midlands context and the so-called working-class environment mean that people
are refreshingly open and accept us for who we are, while being rightly
cautious about deep trust. And as for worrying about the Oxbridge label, it’s
been refreshing to be asked where Cambridge is.
The shape of
the year has in some ways been determined by Jill’s Dad’s failing health. We
came back a week early from French holidays because he’d fallen and been
hospitalized. After rehab, everyone agreed that he was not strong or mobile
enough to go back home, and he’s now living in a good care home in Carrington,
a suburb of Nottingham. Suffice to say that he’s accepting of the change, but quite
troubled, and struggles with life. We visit regularly, and are working hard to
get him in his wheelchair to us for Boxing Day and for his 91st
birthday on 30th December.
We helped out
in St Nic’s in the centre of Nottingham until Easter, and made some good
friends. Thank you! We are settled for now in a small and welcoming
congregation at St Laurence, Heanor, part of a team of four churches in the
exotic locations of Marlpool, Aldercar and Langley Mill. This too is part of
settling into an area which is very close to where both of our families come from.
Jill has been
volunteering with the chaplaincy team at A&E in the Queen’s Medical Centre
in Nottingham, and has now also been signed up as a bank chaplain. It remains
to be seen how much call-out she will do: it’s taken an unconscionable length
of time to be interviewed and do all the paperwork. Adrian, for his part, is
busy with spiritual direction and conducting retreats. He’s currently taking
bookings for 2019, and he and Jill are looking forward specially to leading the
Advent retreat 2018 at Launde Abbey together.
We’ve had
good breaks in Snowdonia and Nidderdale, as well as three excellent weeks
caravanning in France. It was special,
too, to go back to France at the end of September for Adrian’s niece wedding
reception, and a great opportunity to catch up with his two sisters.
Those of you
who don’t know our family can skip this bit (!), but Michael and Helen are
based now at RAF Odiham, with Michael currently on RAF placement in the
Falkland Islands. So Helen, Hannah and Naomi fly out there to spend Christmas
with him and the penguins. Hannah (17) is doing A Levels and applying to a range
of universities including Cambridge, York and Nottingham. Naomi (15) is moving
towards the GCSE season. Helen has stopped teaching, frustrated by political
and bureaucratic pressures, and is now Youth Officer for her local churches.
Rachel continues as a senior occupational therapist in the NHS, with all the joys and sorrows of that organization. Dave has
settled well into being a civil servant i.e. working for Broxtowe Borough
Council as an electrician in their housing department. Charlotte (13) is in her third year of secondary school, so GCSE
choices are around the corner, while Lucy (10) is having a final carefree (?)
primary school year.
We love
hearing from some of you, either by snail mail or through FB during the year,
and receiving the annual letters. They are much appreciated. We do pray for
many of you, and if you ever have something special you’d like us to pray for,
you only have to ask. Our prayer in a troubled and unpredictable world is for integrity
among our leaders and a reduction in corruption among the ruling castes of the
nations. It’s a sombre time, and so we end with one of Malcolm Guite’s sonnets
from his Sounding the Seasons, called simply ‘Refugee’:
We think of
him as safe beneath the steeple,
Or cosy in a
crib beside the font,
But he is
with a million displaced people
On the long
road of weariness and want.
For even as
we sing our final carol
His family is
up and on that road,
Fleeing the wrath
of someone else’s quarrel,
Glancing
behind and shouldering their load.
Whilst Herod
rages still from his dark tower,
Christ clings
to Mary, fingers tightly curled,
The lambs are
slaughtered by the men of power,
And death
squads spread their curse across the world.
But every
Herod dies, and comes alone
To stand
before the Lamb upon the throne.
Love and
blessings to all
Jill and
Adrian
