A casual glance

At Twitter says silly season.

It's making me want to go back to school.

Reminds me of when, rose- tinted specks on...

I held a small boy (11) back at the end of a lesson to confiscate his phone as per the school rules, it having gone off in the lesson - gets given to Second Master, boy then has to go and ask for it at the end of the day, before I get a com box full of anxious comments - listened to lengthy story ending with, 'My phone has been a bit funny, since I dropped it down a toilet.' On that occasion I did not follow through with the school rules. Oh inconsistent teacher, me.

Ah the nostalgia for petty class room disputes....

And now I am invited to eat burgers. Like proper summer stuff, followed by Mass.

Do people write awful things on Twitter? Yes.
Why do they do that?
A) they think they can get away with it.
B) the medium, like the Internet in general, disinhibits people.
C) it's a rubbish way of communicating compared to face to face. Hey we are into Incarnational type ways of being, being Catholics etc.

Are some people really horrible?
Definitely.

Best keep out the way.
They are not going to change any time soon.
Consequences can be very real world indeed.

Burgers. Ketchup. Yummy.

The Assumption

Happy feast day.

Immaculate Conception Basilica, Washington D.C.

Blogging-lite, these days.

Here are a few snaps of my hols, to stay with friends in Washington.






It's a huge church and contains side chapels to Our Lady of everywhere you have ever heard of and a few more besides.

The 'Hail Mary' features all over the building and one plaque reads thus:



After Mass on Sunday, there were the all important donuts. Mine was apple and cinnamon, if you are wondering and very good it was too.

Saucer in the freezer

Yes, the jam-making season has begun.

First off, black currant. Four jars. ( not handles. )




Unfortunately, as I have neglected to prune the bushes at all, the crop is not as abundant as one might have hoped for. Scaling the pic using a handy mug gives....




So a few ( OK a, ) celebratory breakfasts in store for the lucky recipients.

Five years those bushes have been there and I got 115g of black currants, I ask you.

I have now rectified the lack of pruning by watching a bossy Dutch guy on YouTube detailing correct pruning methods. A brutal Autumn to come.

My Welsh Grandparents never bought jam and had a cupboard in their bedroom containing the year's supply of jam in small honey jars. I aspire to this level of self-sufficiency.

I should reach it, thanks to next door's plum tree.





For the black currant jam, I used a Nigel Slater recipe. He says the stuff in the saucepan should, 'boil enthusiastically,' but what if your black currants are having a down day? Bring back the good, honest rolling boil.

A fantastic tool

Tom Windsor at St Bede's, someone who has produced one or two editions of chant himself, put me into this tool, via Musica Sacra.

We are changing what we sing and what we read from bit by bit and this will allow me to produce various bits and bobs with great ease.

A guide to the organ