Visit to Alma Mater

It's been an age since I posted a blog - sorry, but there's a lot more coming in the near future. I'm posting this one because I want space to reflect on a recent experience and share the ramblings of my disorganised brain with anyone foolish enough to connect.

As retirement approaches - gradually - I find increasingly I want to connect with significant points in my past. Every year for the last decade or so I have thought of going to the college where I trained to be a minister for the College Conference - a day-long affair involving news, catching up, food, some theological input and trying to avoid the painful realisation that we are all looking rather old these days. Every year I have also found a good excuse not to go, but this year I decided that if I didn't do it now it probably wouldn't happen, so climbed aboard Bromwyn (my BMW K75 RT Ultima) at 6 a.m. for the 110 mile journey down the M1, through central London and across the river to reach South Norwood, where the college is based.

 The relatively grand entrance is new - when I was last there these flats were not built, and a petrol station occupied the site. So much for filling the fuel tank up here ready for the return trip.
The journey took a jaw-dropping 3 hours 15 minutes. By 7 a.m. the M1 in Buckinghamshire was very full of traffic, but this was as nothing compared to hitting the North Circular at 8 a.m. when everything literally ground to a halt. The choice when you come off the M1 is between going about 180 degrees round the North / South Circular or blasting a path through the middle of London via the A5, Marble Arch, Hyde Park Corner and Vauxhall Bridge, then finding a way through Brixton to pick up the A215 to Crystal Palace and South Norwood. By now the heat was sweltering and though it was fun riding a bike down Park Lane, it was just a relentless grind after that. Amazingly I didn't collide with anything. In places you can use the bus lanes on a motor bike, but not in all of them, so the rest of the time I either learned to be patient, or else followed the kamikaze tactics of other bikers and simply rode aggressively down the wrong side of the road hoping that either oncoming traffic would make space, or if it was a London bus heading straight for me that there would be some space to pull in somewhere in the traffic queue. This was hairy stuff, but it seems it's what everyone expects bikers to do, so I told Bromwyn to be brave and trust me. Still the journey took well over three hours, with no stops. Question was would going back be any easier, and would the conference be worth it?

The new car park - this was just grass when I was there, but the expansion of the college community has clearly necessitated the substitution of some tarmac for some turf.

How I always remember the entrance to what was, before it became a theological college, a large country mansion. The first time I set eyes on this place as a youngster of about 18 I knew I wanted to come here. It took me another 7 years before I was accepted as a ministerial student, but the waiting was worth it to belong and be allowed to prepare for ministry here.

Now this I completely approve of - the increased car parking includes a motorcycle bay, so Bromwyn (left) had some company for the day.

The wonderful front elevation from the lawn - this was always a great sight. By this time, in the warm June sunshine, I was so glad I had come. The rigours of the journey forgotten, some caffeine revitalising my spirits, and a great flood of very happy memories.
I spent 4 academic years here, and another after I returned from a year-long placement in Dallas, Texas, working for the college and the then principal whilst looking for a church that would have me. I loved almost every minute, made some wonderful friends, and collected a very useful tool kit to equip me for my calling. Wherever I looked I could recall only happy memories, including bringing our first child here just after she was born at the end of my third year. I sat with my coffee and simply allowed the warmth of nostalgia to wash over me.

 This is the chapel - scene of so many interesting experiences, including weekly sermon class, where a student would preach to the whole college community, after which everyone would adjourn to the lecture theatre to criticise it. I was fortunate - they were very kind and gentle with me, a courtesy not afforded every student - especially those who had an elevated opinion of themselves!

Here the main sessions of the day took place at this year's conference - three mainly academic papers on the nature of the persons of the trinity - as well as the news of college and the "in memoriam" slots. The latter caused a certain amount of sadness as I had known the first two names on the list of those members of conference who had died - the first being the minister of the first church we went to when we moved to Croydon in 1980.

It was interesting to listen to the talks / lectures, which were largely academic in nature. On one level it had been a while since I had been exposed to good evangelical scholarship, so it was good to soak up some biblically-based thinking of an academic nature; the third talk on the Holy Spirit was I thought especially well put together. 

At the same time I couldn't help feeling that I had moved on from here, and that whilst it was intellectually stimulating and challenging, and without doubt helpful at various points, it was also somewhat too esoteric, with too many conclusions based on assumptions that were smuggled in unannounced, or perhaps taken for granted because after all this is an evangelical college so everyone accepts the authority of the Bible without asking many uncomfortable questions. Perhaps it's just me that has moved away from this ideologically attractive sanctuary, and perhaps I have sold my birthright, but I now work in an environment where one has to argue for the trustworthiness of what the Bible says before expanding on it, and if I'm honest I feel more comfortable where I am now than where I might have been in the early 1980's.

I had two other reservations; firstly whilst all the talks were well researched, put together and presented, I couldn't help but feel that the whole 50-minute paper could have been summarised in two sentences with no real loss of value. Secondly, that when this college was founded it was intended to teach often uneducated people to communicate the love of God and the message of Jesus with uneducated people many of who would not be able to read or write and bring them to faith and help them grow as followers of Jesus. I couldn't help wondering whether something of this original vision had been lost somewhere.

This plaque stands just inside the doorway. I passed it every day, and it was a perennial reminder of my life's calling and the reason I was a student at this place I loved so much.

The main entrance hall, with the stained glass window with a picture of a hand holding a cross with the motto of the college - et teneo et teneor - I both hold and am held, as well as a bust of the founder, who was dead before he reached my age but achieved far far more. We used to hold Christmas concerts in here with a real fire in the fireplace and enjoyed many scintillating performances from students and staff. More wonderful happy memories.

The return journey?
Even worse - three hours to Watford Gap where I decided it was dinner time, before completing the ride back to Leicester.
Was I glad I went? Yes - wouldn't have missed seeing the place and soaking up that atmosphere again for the world. Will I go to another conference? Maybe, but possibly not, especially when my home is another 250 miles further away, as it will be in a few years.

The start of Munroing

A few months ago I realised that I had achieved nearly all the objectives I set myself when younger; the handful that remained were either now beyond my reach, or were going to have to wait for retirement years and hopefully the health to complete them.
Then I thought "I'm too young not to have a bucket list" so decided I needed a challenge. I had always been drawn to the romance of Munro bagging, so decided this was something to occupy spare time in the immediate future.
A Munro is a Scottish mountain above 3000 feet, a little over 900 meters, and there are nearly 200 of them - much debate rages over the precise number, but there are plenty for me to get on with. Until now I had climbed two - Ben Nevis at 1344 m and Meall Buidhe in Knoydart at 946.
Today I left the cottage at 6 a.m. to travel to Ardvorlich and attempt to "bag" Ben Vorlich and Stuc a Chroin (985 and 975 m respectively.)
I should have known it wouldn't be that simple - the drive was 140 miles each way and two and a half hours in duration - missing the Edinburgh rush hour was a bonus. But as I drove along the south shore of Loch Earn the cloud was moving in and the temperature was down to 3 centigrade.
Undaunted, and nothing if not determined, I set off full of enthusiasm and just reached the road into the Ardvorlich estate and realised I had left my glasses behind. Do I go back or try to do without them? The question was whether I would need to be able to read fine map detail in poor light. I took one look at the low cloud shrouding the lower hills and retraced my steps.
Having irked a local by not following the path the right way through the grounds of Ardvorlich Houe (see picture below) I was really pleased with the first half of the ascent - a nice broad track and a steady ascent. The down side was definitely the low cloud base, which was forecast to lift by lunchtime. I have one of these clever watches with built-in altimeter, which is actually pretty accurate. At 400 metres I was immersed in cloud, and I began to realise I had probably underestimated the challenge.

The very pleasant steady climb reaches the first of two steep ascents at around 700 metres, and it was around here I encountered this patch of unmelted snow. This I just wasn't expecting, but I could feel the almost freezing temperatures as an easterly wind gave me good cause to wish I had brought hat, gloves and an extra jumper.

But the path was distinct and clear so I kept going till I reached this - the path disappearing under a blanket of snow, and with only ordinary walking boots it was simply too steep to traverse. But my altimeter told me it was only about 20 metres to the summit so surely I couldn't give up now. Then I remembered that this was the north face of the mountain, and there might be another way up, so followed the coutour round and sure enough I was soon on a clear path from the west to the summit, and there was the trig point peering through the cloud.

So this is the selfie from the summit, with now freezing temperatures, a biting easterly wind and slight precipitation in the form of tiny snowflakes. I did not linger, other than to down a banana and some water and set off for what I hoped would be part 2 of the walk - from Ben Vorlich to Stuc a Chroin. Then the real problems began; the westerly path veering south-west off Ben Vorlich was nice and clear until it disappeared in rocks that had to be negotiated while descending steeply to the saddle between the two peaks. Then I found myself in the boggy ground where a spring emerged from the ground. I was already more than a little concerned that with visibility at about 30 metres and cloud base around 400m above sea level, and the promised improvement showing no sign of happening I was going to have to scale Stuc a Chroin by scrambling up rock (apparently a much tougher ascent than Ben Vorlich, but when I reached the summit I was then going to have to find a route off the other side, or else scramble back down and retrace my steps to Ben Vorlich.
Realising I had lost the path completely I consulted my compass, thinking I was facing roughly north, to discover I was facing almost directly south, and wherever the mountain was it clearly wasn't where I thought it should be. Fleetingly I wondered if the compass was faulty, but past experience has taught me that my sense of direction is a lot more fallible.
In short I was lost; I could see on the map (good job I did go back for my specs) where I thought I was, but all my senses told me I was somewhere else.
I had the further unsettling recollection that I had seen no one coming up Ben Vorlich and I might very well be on my own. I also realised that whilst it was Spring in Northumberland (my wife was busy getting sunburned while I was doing this) up here it was very much Winter. I could get completely lost and my only source of contact with anyone else was a 'phone whose signal was unreliable, though I had saved battery by not taking pictures on the way up (it has a really good camera so I didn't bring a separate one.)
The first pangs of genuine anxiety and common sense mandated an abandoning of the second peak, and a return to the nice clear path I had come up on.
But how to find it? Well I knew it was over to my left somewhere, and the ground rose there, so I just headed that way, my altimeter telling me I had about 250 metres now to climb to regain the summit of Ben Vorlich.
It was not fun, because I ended up approaching the rocky face I had scrambled down from a different angle and had half an hour's impromptu rock climbing to get up it. But I kept thinking "all I need to do is keep climbing."
What a massive relief when I clambered over yet another boulder to find the path back up to the summit. Back to the trig point (still a 100 m climb) and celebrated with some more fizzy water and demolishing the other banana. The only tricky bit now was to negotiate the snow field to regain the path back down.

 

This proved very simple, and knowing that all was now well I thought I would use my camera battery up taking photo's of the route back.
I felt disappointed, and a bit of a failure, and wondered whether I could have made Stuc a Chroin if my compass and map-reading skills were better, but in spite of all that I knew I had made the right decision.

I love it when routes are marked with cairns - the last 200 m or so of the climb had them beside the path periodically.
It was about here that I encountered a group of three hardy Scotsmen who had come up the mountain together - all with woolly hats, thick gloves and clearly more layers than I had on, who had reached the top and come straight back down because it was too cold and windy on the top and so had abandoned plans for the second peak. This made me feel a bit better.

Now at about 500 m the cloud was thinning out and I could enjoy the views. Somewhere near here I met a very nice American couple from Boston who described the atmosphere in the cloud as "romantic." Well - whatever floats your boat, but I think I will stick with the candlelit dinner.

Some pretty pictures of waterfalls and burns crossing the path.

Ardvorlich House seems to have its own hydro-electric scheme

How nice for a landowner to apologise to hill walkers for any inconvenience. A very pleasant change

Now just coming through the cloud base and just making out Loch Earn in the distance.

Errrr... another waterfall

Aha - things are becoming clearer

Almost down now I took this one of a hill near the start of the walk showing how low the cloud base was still - now 1.30 p.m.

The lambs here are only days old; some even in Northumberland were born around February

On the way up this little beauty came to a stile I was climbing over to say hello - so cute.

Nearly down and I spotted this Baptist digger

Why Baptist? Answers on a postcard

Ardvorlich House and the descent almost complete

Lovely pic of the burn just before it enters the loch - and a nice one of the tip of my left index finger.

Another one for the people who find little lambs adorable

In spit of this sign (which I think they had moved between me going up and coming down I still managed both legs of the walk by taking the wrong route through the farm buildings.

These three were just setting off - they were going to struggle to get up and down at the pace they were moving.

Pretty pics as the burn passes under the road and into the loch

Why a picture of dustbins? I just loved the crest of Perth and Kinross council

Nice one of the loch

... and another

This walking stick was given me by my little daughter, I think, some years ago. It doesn't have springs like my Leki pole, but it does have character, and I mainly want a stick - well, for company, I suppose, and the same sort of reasons boys tend to have sticks, so I think I'll keep it. This was some sort of a memorial stone to someone well-known who is buried nearby, but I couldn't read all the inscription.

What I love about Scotland - people caravanning in passing places on minor roads and no one around to tell them they can't.

A welcome sight at the end of what turned out to be a quite satisfying bagging of a Munro. I will be back for Stuc a Chroin - the views from the top of both are apparently fantastic, with Stuc a Chroin just having the edge, so I think an ascent from a different direction on a clear day will be called for.

Passions Old and New

 Trying to think of a title for this latest post I came up with passions - old ones and new ones. I am hoping that this will increase my readership because people will come across it in a search engine whilst looking for something ... ahem... slightly different.
One of my passions that is about 6 years old is my church. Not a day goes by without having an enormous sense of privilege being the minister to such a lovely big family. Now into my 7th year, one of the things we have done around this time of year is a student barbecue, really just trying to promote the church among the younger residents of the area, a great many of whom are students.

 We last did it a couple of years ago and it was an absolute disaster, mainly because the publicity advertising it which should have been sent out by another group sat on someone's desk, so no one knew about it. Result was a group of about 6 students who couldn't manage the 200 - odd burgers and hot dogs we had cooked.
So I was more than a little nervous waiting for the start of this one. But I have long believed that faith is only faith when you try something and are prepared to hang yourself out to dry if it doesn't come off.
Well it was brilliant - dozens and dozens of young people came, and all but 3 of the burgers were eaten. The remaining three, I'm ashamed to say, didn't survive the journey home, which was about 5 minutes.

Well now for a brand new passion - my brand new grandchildren. The observant among you will notice a difference in size. On the right is my first grandchild, a little boy who was born in early August, and who has rapidly put on a great deal of very healthy weight. Large appetites tend to run in our family. He is absolutely gorgeous and such a delight to his Mom and Dad, and to Mrs. L. and I.

At the other end are my twin granddaughters, also irresistibly gorgeous, and born about a month after our grandson. They are also doing fantastically well, having been 5 lb and some change at birth and now expanding nicely. We can't tell them apart - identical twins - so their Mom and Dad colour code them for us so we know what each one is called. Just as a fail-safe in case they get them confused or the clothing gets mixed up one has painted toe-nails!
Yes I am a proud Grandad.

 Is this an old passion or a new one? Well I guess its a bit of both. I had two and a half days at our home in Northumberland because I wanted some time and space with God to talk about one or two rather important things, and up there I am not interrupted much. And for me the best place to talk to God is Lindisfarne (Holy Island) where Aidan, who first brought Christianity to England, decided he would set up his base too.

  

 You don't always see fishing boats operating round the island so it's always nice to bump into a few islanders who make a living from the sea. There was something really poignant, I thought, about this small fishing boat plying its lonely way through the tidal waters just south of the island.

 

 But just to lighten the mood I came across this sign on one of the village greens. Really people ought to stop and think before they put home-made signs up - or perhaps it was deliberate. Anyhow some rather interesting and not altogether wholesome images passed through my mind for a minute or two after this.

 But back to the sublime - another picture of Lindisfarne Castle, surely one of the most iconic sights in the whole of the UK, if not Europe.

 I love October - it's one of my favourite months, and in my opinion the most underrated month in the calendar; people seem to think winter has set in and batten down the hatches once September ends. This is a shame I always think, because October offers an enormous amount. One of the reasons I love Northumberland at this time of year is because of the weather - often dry, not too cold, and with fantastic light. These two photos I took just because I thought the sky was so full of creative light and cloud formations.

 You see this a lot - the causeway to Lindisfarne after the tide has come in and a driver who is sure he (occasionally she but not normally) can make it due to his incredible driving skills. This is right at the start of the causeway at high tide, and the water at its deepest will be at least at waist height. There is more than three miles of road to navigate to reach the  island in the distance. Will he have enough sense to turn round or will he become another drain on the resources of the rescue services?
I didn't stay to find out.

Now another older passion of mine - football. I played till my mid-30's and refereed for a while, but nowadays I am only a spectator. There was no premiership football this weekend so my beloved Aston Villa weren't in action, but Mrs. L. was in London at a craft fair or something similar with her best friend. So I looked through the fixture list of non-league football and noted that Atherstone Town were playing Barrow just about 45 minutes from home.It was a match in the 3rd qualifying round of the FA Cup, so for the minnows a great deal was at stake. Having expected to find a couple of dozen old chaps in cloth caps watching, all of whom knew far more about the game than any of the players I was pleasantly surprised to find the ground quite full. The home supporters were also letting off red flares in their stand, presumably to encourage their team who play in red and white.

I only just arrived in time, but some chap opened a gate to ease the queue at the only turnstile I could see in operation and announced "It's a fiver to get in" and then took the money off all of us who went in that way. I presumed that he was a club official, but I'm not so sure now. Still, I was in the ground, and £5 seemed quite a reasonable price to pay for the entertainment.
I was later to rate it as one of the best £5s I have spent in quite a while.
The match was really a David and Goliath affair - Barrow (the one in Cumbria) play in the Conference Premier division - that's 4 levels below the Premier League, and Atherstone are about three levels below that, so were always going to struggle.
Well it was all one-way traffic but heroic last-ditch defending kept the away team at bay for about 25 minutes, when a rather neat header couldn't be kept out by the hitherto immaculate Atherstone goalkeeper (pictured below.)

 Well he is clearly a favourite of the supporters, those standing behind the goal chanting "England's Number One." Well I know Joe Hart is having a bit of an off season, but such adulation seemed a little over the top.
This proved to be the case about 5 minutes after the first goal when he bent down to pick up the ball as it was moving very slowly towards him and his goal and ... well, perhaps it hit a bump, or perhaps it swerved suddenly, or ... errrr.... well, it kind of went though his hands, then through his legs, then almost with an apology for the inconvenience rolled sedately over the goal line coming to rest long before it got anywhere near the netting. 2-0

 

More relentless Barrow attacking followed, and two more goals in the first half, and the only real question was how many the visitors would score. In the immortal words of Bill Shankley (I think) 'It was four nil at half time and we were lucky to get nil.'

At this point my money would have been on 7-0 on the basis that the game was being played in a very good spirit, and at some point the away team would decide to have mercy on their opponents. Here they are shoulder to shoulder leaving the pitch - about the only expression of equality in the entire game.
Then the fun started.

I'd just gone to queue up for my Bovril. I should explain that if you are a Brummie and go to a football match, a cup of hot Bovril at half time is de rigeur. Disappointed to discover that they had no Bovril and could only offer me Oxo (a poor substitute in the same way that you can eat mincemeat if there's no sirloin steak available) and I understood still better why the country is going downhill so fast and has apparently lost its moral fibre.
So exuding chagrin I turned round, wondering what I would do for the rest of the half-time interval when I discovered the home supporters had laid on some free entertainment. About 30 of them had run across the field of play to launch an attack on the opposing supporters.
The artillery bombardment came first in the form of more of the red flares, hurled into the stands where the away supporters were busy gloating, and then the infantry went in brandishing fists and boots and goodness knows what weaponry in an all-out assault.
The police sprang into action - both of them and decided that another cup of tea would help them decide on the best course of action.  Now this was like football of old, back in the 70's and 80's at Villa Park when you could still stand up to watch a match, which made the obligatory scrap with any away supporters who came running across the pitch so much easier to engineer and so entertaining.
Because there was no one to intervene to break up the fighting we had three full rounds of no-holds-barred scrapping before the stewards lumbered into action with sufficient determination to separate the now exhausted fans. But what a wonderful show it had been.

 I really thought it might have been abandoned at half time, especially as the officials and substitutes from Barrow had to sit right in front of the home supporters, but to their credit they came out and played the second half.

This is the away goalkeeper whose only real problems were staying awake and staving off frostbite. And the assistant referee jogging over to check the net is ok.

Well to their credit Atherstone managed to draw the second half 0-0, though just possibly Barrow decided that if they wanted any windows left in their team bus to keep out the cold and rain they had better not score again. Amazingly Atherstone even made it to the Barrow penalty area a couple of times. The defender in yellow has clearly been taking lessons in holding opposing forwards in a way the referee can't see from the likes of Rio Ferdinand and John Terry .

 

They even created one clear header almost on target, though I think someone was offside at the time!

What a wonderful Saturday afternoon out. Hope no one was seriously hurt. Funny how the streets outside the ground were full of police but they didn't seem to make it inside. Well it was a bit cold and damp.