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8.15 am: A communion. 9.00 am: Essays (again). One student had managed to upload their submission with the ‘track-change’ settings still ‘on’. (This was a first, for me.) At least it demonstrated that the work had been thoroughly redrafted and edited before it was sent. As a consequence, the assessment felt like a collaborative endeavour. (In the background: King Crimson’s…

‘When morning gilds the skies’: 8.15 am: A communion. 9.00 am: Back on the treadmill that is the semester 1 assessments. (In the background: Bill Laswell’s Transmutations (1997). DJ Disk’s contribution to this improvisation is as impressive for its restraint as it is in the execution.) During the day, I opened my ears to music by the new generation of…

As with gladness, men of old,Did the guiding star behold.As with joy they hailed its light,Leading onwards, beaming bright.(W Chatterton Dix, ‘As with Gladness, Men of Old’ (c.1861)) Sunday, January 5. 11.15 am: Morning Prayer, St Padarn’s Church, Llanbadan Fawr. I reflected on one of the lectionary readings. God had forgiven the Apostle Paul (formerly Saul of Tarsus) for prosecuting…

9.00 am: First, a computer fix: ‘full-disc access’, please! I’m endeavouring to configure each of my old laptops for specific software. I rarely dispose of laptops. They can be stripped down, rebuilt, and augmented with further RAM to become almost as good as new, or at least as good as I need them to be. Whatever one might think about…

8.00 am: My lower back and thighs remained tense. I maintained my regime of painkillers, icepacks, exercises, and periodic alternations between seat-based and feet-based activities. 8.45 am: A communion. 9.15 am: I returned to essay marking. This would be my focal work for the day. (In the background: King Crimson’s Larks’ Tongues in Aspic (1973). I’m reading Sid Smith’s excellent…

Joy, hope, peace, trust, obedience, thanksgiving, and love. December 23–30, 2019 December 31, 2019–January 1, 2020. We drove to Manchester to take our younger son and his belongings home, as well as spend the transition from 2019 to 2020 in less familiar surroundings. The hotel overlooked the Cathedral area: From there, we had a grandstand view of the city’s pyrotechnic…

8.15 am: A communion. The side effects from the antibiotics were beginning to kick-in; and I’ve a month of this to endure. Today would be my final opportunity to conduct postgraduate and research meetings. No doubt, there’d be closures and openings, as well as matters that couldn’t be resolved until next year. (Life is messy.) The School was, once again,…