Gravestones

The sun is shining again and there is definitely spring in the air and in everyone's step. A day for the outdoors, spending an hour this morning talking planning with the nice man from the Diocese about what we could do with the land between the church and the hall. We want to remove a wall and shuffle some gravestones to create a nice place to sit and to link the church and hall together. We had originally planned to build a link building but then we realised you don't need a physical link you can join together with greenery and paviture, horizontal architecture as I have learned to call it.
Followed this formal meeting with an informal wander with three of the young women from our church and Ferdinand who is oneish and wise. He managed to find every puddle and every muddy patch and had a wonderful time as we explored the church's land. It's wonderful to imagine to Ferdinand playing along the riverbank we reopen, walking in the park we create with his girlfriend, pushing his child in a pram, walking along the riverside with his grandchildren to feed the ducks, and maybe even joining other friends and family amongst the beautiful gravestones.
Lunch in the High School is followed by a rather solemn Evening Prayer with Howard in the next door parish in which we talk about life not being complete without pain. Pain being a motivator for the London marathon he is taking part in in two weeks time.
Evening and it was policies and buildings at School Governors and great excitement as our £1,000,000 project takes shape and they're on target for an early finish... ready for Ferdinand to come to the school in two years time.
I wonder if he realises all these people doing stuff for his future... probably not, more interested in jumping in puddles!

Low Sunday

To Todmorden today on Low Sunday as it's called, although it was not that low. St Mary's is an interesting church at the centre of a town on the Yorkshire border. It has experienced considerable renewal, and today had a congregation of well over a hundred people of all kinds. It has also spent a considerable amount of time and effort renewing the physical environment around the church. In addition it runs a counselling centre that is open to everyone.
What is baffling is that they are not directly involved in the Town Team. They are one of the reasons I am looking into the faith & regeneration question. Talking this morning it would appear that they are not engaged because they are not invited. I need to look into it more I think.

Open

Mission Statements are funny things, lots of peopple claim to have one but when you ask what it is they say "It's in a file somewhere." I am very fond of the traditional ones: "To boldly go where no man has gone before." or "Beanz Meanz Heinz." The point is that unless you can remember them, or say them in a simple way they are not worth having. they need to be part of the property that you can carry out of a situation when everything else collapses.
I was reminded of my mission statement today on a visit to huddersfield, where i used to be University Chaplain and was involved in the regeneration of the centre. it was whilst doing some work with one of the Huddersfield churches I found the perfect one word mission staement. I have kept that one word mission statement and used for my churches here, it is the word: "Open." I'll preach on it tomorrow at Todmorden. Working out how we can be a faithful faith community but also and open one has been the journey we have been on for the last ten years in this area.
It's amazing how one word could encompass so much of what we are and where we have gone.
An open faith, open to God and open to others, open for business and open to the community. Open to change and open to renaissance, we have therefore change and been reborn.

Seeing further than the span of one life...

Find myself tonight a little thoughtful as I have visited a dying friend. She wanted to tell me that she wasn't afraid, but she didn't need to it was clear in her eyes. I think I was a bit afraid though at the thought of having to cope with those who are coping with losing her. It's funny how the dying often take on this role of caring for the living. She certainly did as she made me a coffee, got me some cake and asked about everything that was happening in my life. The only thing that saddened her was that she wouldn't be there to see the end of some of the stories around her, not least her grandchildren growing, but at least she was there to see them start.
It's a million miles from regenration issues but maybe not, because this business of doing something for a future that you wont see fully realised is at the heart of many of our projects. Like Capability Brown the Landscape gardener we plant trees that someone else will sit under, we shape hills that will take centuries to truly become green and we create spaces that future generations will campaign to preserve! But if we are generous in our work we will also be passing on our acheivements and oru wisdom to those who follow.
We are five years into a twenty five year project which God willing I will see complete when I am just going into retirement. There's a thought perhaps I will be able to sit on one of the riverside benches and admire the end of what we begun.

Noisy Desperation

I don't know why it is but when you talk about a fight at a funeral people tend to smile. It's as though we recognise that someone has broken a rule, that we all know, a taboo, that funerals are not places to have a fight. They are places where people in great solemnity remember and give thanks... except that's not what we are left with when someone dies, is it... we are left with real, raw anger, just beneath the surface.
So it was today when I conducted the funeral of a lady in her fifties, a nice lady by all accounts, a loving slightly crackers rock to those who knew her. Those who knew her proceded to fall appart in front of me, crying, talking, sobbing and finally fighting each other, outside the church, inside the car, and at the crematorium.
My instinct was to tell them to behave and try and restore the peace, which is what we attempted and largely succeeded to do, but part of me wanted to rant along with them at the shock of their situation and the scandal of lives in tatters.
It makes me ponder the lives of those around me who to quote I think Bernard Levin: "...are leading lives of quiet and sometimes noisy desperation."
We are no where nearer making a community until we are able to share our depair, our desperation and our hopes and fears, however messy and noisy that feels to those who watch, or take funerals for that matter.

Passionate Meetings

Anger is a diffcult emotion to cope with especially in groups, but I think in the end it is essential in committees. It is some kind of wierd ideal in our culture that people remain calm and quiet, in other cultures, or other countries they talk about passion. Maybe it's not our culture that values the quiet but one part of our culture that does it. Why we need it in committees is that otherwise no-one knows whether people care. Our passions are great drivers and in a quiet committee no-one knows, no-one drives and many committtees need drivers.
I'm ranting about this because it was home with a bump today as I went to council. It was a great meeting, and on occasions passions flared but itfinished with everyone in the pub, celebrating the work done and the passions aired.
Not bad for twenty mostly middle aged people on a Wet Wednesday night in Hebden Bridge.

Tidal City

Into Cambridge today. Checking into the hotel and sleeping means that we enter the city at five. It's a weird time in cities, a bit deserted after the shift of city workers goes home and before the city entertainment and thrill seekers arrive. Everyone in the restaurant is in a relaxed post work, pre party mood. It may be a twenty four hour city but that doesn't mean it's continuous, there's a kind of tidal flow.
I noticed the churches were for prayer services to catch the passing flotsam like nets on the seashore.
One annoyance why do english hotels charge so much for internet access, in other places I've visited it's free.

The Queen's back garden

To Richmond in Surrey and first to Richmond Hill, cold and muddy. It was interesting to see this oasis of green in the middle of some of the most expensive real estate in Britain. I was wondering how they resisted the pressure to develop when I discovered it was a royal park. Not sure what that means but it appears it's like the Queen's back garden. She obviously likes visitors but not residents in her back garden.
To Ham House to sample the delights of the National Trust. It was cold... But the tea and scones were good. Another green oasis this time protected by somebody.
It's big deal all these bits of green, reminders that development is sometimes best served by not developing.

Don't be afraid be productive

Alleluia Christ is Risen
He is risen indeed Alleluia!

Easter Sunday finds me preaching to a packed church of 150 about Jesus' words 'don't be afraid.' It's what the angels said to the disciples on the first Easter Day. So I said to the good people of Mytholmroyd: 'Don't be afraid.'
It's funny because people always think religious people are motivated by fear... We're not. I don't know anyone who even thinks twice about their actions will lead to a time in a warmer place. Rather they find their religion sets them free from fear so that they can make the world a better place.
It strikes me that fear is no great motivator. Polly my friend at the Alternative Technology Centre reckons that no-one live more greenly to save the planet but they might do it to save a few pounds or for the buzz you get from doing good.
So don't be afraid be free, and with your freedom make the world a better place.

Are we nearly there yet?

We start celebrating Easter in Mytholmroyd a day earlier, we just can't wait to have a party. So here we are on Easter Saturday with a church full of flowers and people and cakes and buns and tea! It reminds me of when I first came to Mytholmroyd and they told me that they didn't do Lent, or Holy week but they did do Easter. It felt today like we just can't wait to get on with it.
That impatience is one of the great drivers in the world, it fuels those who want justice, it fuels those who want to build and grow a new world. Unfortunately it also rocket fuel for those who destroy.
The key is to focus our frustration into doing something good. jesus said: "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled."
I can't wait for Easter, but I will and while I do I'll try and do something useful with my frustration!

It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming

A week or so ago when I was at the British Waterways Awards a groups of us started talking about how there ought to be award for the best demolition of the year. This would be given to the least loved building demolished that year… or to the building whose removal lead to the best redevelopment possible. There could be an award for accidental demolition or even if we were daring one for acts of terrorism that led to the destruction of buildings not people. I guess we started to get a bit serious then, but in the conversation was an unspoken realisation that before regeneration can happen often there has to be death.
It was the same in this valley: in the 1960’s World in action made a film about this valley called Requiem which was a documentary about how this valley was dying. After the end of the textile industry it certainly looked like it, but after death came life, and now thriving life, most of which would have been impossible without that earlier time of death.
Today is Good Friday and so inevitably thoughts turn to a death. That death too seemed like an end, but it wasn’t, it was a beginning.
Death before renaissance.
We should never be afraid of endings.
It may be Friday but Sunday's coming...

A recipe for a community

How do you create communities? Well the built environment is important, public spaces, infrastructure, roads and railways, canals and cycleways. Then there are the schools, the shops, the businesses, and of course sport faciilities and places of worship.
Today forty people of all age gatered to make things together and at the end of it we had also made community.
Tonight Thirty of us brought food together to celebrate the giving of communion on Maundy Thursday. We made a meal of it and we made a community of it too.
Tonight the leader of my faith is remembered for giving himself to his disciples in the ultimate sacrifice and through it made a community.
Making things together, eating things together, making sacrificess:
How do you make community?
Hmm, I wonder.

How long is a piece of string

Spent a great time today eating lunch in a nice restaruant, receiving an award; Fraser Teal and talking regeneration with people who are passionate about it. Great stuff and interesting because once again the issue of how long came up. Regeneration is the stuff of decades and not years and for organisation with a government or business basis this is difficult because economic and political cycles are much shorter. Businesses on average run a five year plan, politics runs the life of a parliament if you are lucky. Even faith communities are often running on a year by year or if they are visionary five year plan.
Tonight to church where as part of Holy Week we watched: "Amazing Grace" which is the story of William Wilberforce's parliamentary campaign to abolish slavery. The big theme of this big film is that it sometimes takes time to change the world.
How long is the piece of string we call regeneration?




As long as it takes.

Pub Crawls and Contexts

Just returned from a Church Pub Crawl, the idea of which is to read the story of the Passion whilst visiting pubs in our village. We don't read out loud but we do discuss out loud. I'm not sure why it works but it does, something about the context in which you read something effects what you read. We thought about doing it at Pentecost and drinking spirits in each pub, but we would be legless by the end.
It does make me think about the context in which people read the reports we write. How someone receives what we write must depend in part on what they are doing when they read it. Perhaps everyone in regeneration should consider that.
I suspect the way people read their environment dependent on their context too. The Gugenheim museum in Bilbao is exciting and exotic if you are on your holidays but annoying if you are short of someone to live.

Walk together, make community

How long does it take for something to a be a tradition. For a good number of years now we have taken the opportunity every Holy Week to walk from Mytholmroyd to Cragg along the valley side. it's a great wak as it takes us past spectacular views of the old factories that litter the bottom of this early industiral valley. Factory after factory straddled the botom of the valley to harness the water power to make the power to create the fabrc that people wore. I imagine that they would be amazed now that the way we scratch our heads about how to make a carbon neutral manufacturing process. It's obvious really, use water, not to generate power but to directly power. As you walk the valley you can see that they reused this power in factory after factory.
Today, due to that very water we were unable to walk the valley route and instead walked up to the reservoir above the church at Cragg Vale. Children in buggies, dogs on leads, older ones with sticks, journeyed together as pilgrims to get out of the valley and look back. It gets things in perspective when you can cover up the church with your thumb. It was great to be together and the twenty five or so people who walked grew closer together and closer to that ideal of community we all work to achieve.
Tonight we meet with the community associaton in that same church, that is coverable by a thumb to try to create community.
If we could walk together a bit, maybe we will begin to create a community.

Agents for change

There's an old joke: "How many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb?"
"Change, change, we like it better in the dark!"
However it is a bit unfair, most Anglicans I know are not only up for a change they are desperate for it. Not surprising really because the whole point of faith is that it brings with the possiblity of change. I mean what would be the point of a faith that says in effect:
"Follow me and you can stay exactly the same.
In fact Follow me and you don't even have to follow me."
Faith is all about change, today in the christian calender kind of proves it as we celebrate the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. It was the beginning of one of the biggest changes in world history.
Faith is like a crossroads, a fork in the road, a change in the wind, a regeneration.
Which is why I can't understand why all people of faith aren't involved in regeneration.

The Perfect Market City

It’s that time of year again, when like the swallows it’s time for the return of the teenage children away at University. Still it’s not such a problem as Rebecca is at Durham rapidly becoming one of my favourite places on the planet. That’s not to say it is without fault as it is absolutely freezing… you need at least an extra layer.
Two things are particularly great about Durham, the first is of course the Cathedral brooding over the city like a hen sitting on its eggs, the city, the second is the market square. The something about the market in Durham that is just about perfect as it brings together all the elements of the city. On one side is St Nicholas, with its open plan reordering and Fair trade shop. On the other side a civic presence, discreet and dark stone. In the middle a market in the open air but tucked away next to the civic bit is an entrance to the indoor market which is full everything from meat and veg to electronics and satellite stuff.
Within walking distance then everything you might need, every person you might need to meet. If only we could create this in Mytholmroyd!
Oh and to finish the scene a statue of a bloke on a horse, he was green, not with envy, but I was...

Let's put on a show

This morning the board directors met, Upper Calder Valley Renaissance Company, gathered at a table, in Hebble End Works. It was, though I say it myself, a fine meeting, not a meeting of minds but rather a creative… argument! Stormy at times, noisy most of the time, creative all of the time, great. Why is that we always expect a good meeting to be a peaceful one, sometimes and in the case of the board this is so, strong minds, strong opinions, strong meetings, give strong decisions. What made it good was the common commitment to make it good, and a common commitment to do something, to make our valley better. It had that atmosphere of those sixties teen films where someone says “Let’s put on a show” and in minutes they were on the West End stage.
I guess that is the essence of the entrepreneur or rather this could be the entrepreneurial community where anything could happen and if it doesn’t there will be something new to try tomorrow.
Spent a very happy evening with another friend engaged in renaissance but this time in the painstaking business of corporate planning. This was long term solid stuff the opposite of our stormy morning meeting, but the only real way to get a big corporate plan off the ground.
I wonder what would happen if we got the sparky stuff of this morning to partner with the solid corporate stuff my friend is involved with? Now that would be an interesting meeting to watch... or perhaps a good, creative, fight!

Wonkey walls and master builders

It’s amazing the overlaps that happen in my life. To Angels this morning, our midweek congregation to discuss life the universe and everything with Scarlett aged two who will be a captain of industry, to marvel at Ralphy who managed to make a weapon of mass destruction out of a model plane. In the middle of this a conversation with a mum who in her day job is responsible for what we will do in a flu pandemic. It made me think that any twenty five year plans we have might not have much relevance in that particular scenario.
Afternoon found me looking at a Million pound extension on our primary school. “Look at this” someone said: “How wonkey the Victorians built their walls.” It was true, the walls were wonkey, bending and writhing throughout the building. It reminded me of something an old builder in the valley told me. He said that all the buildings in the valley had been built by master builders who didn’t use plans but rather responded to the strange topography of this gorge like valley as they built, it wasn’t straight but it was responsive.
Any regeneration plans we have need to be like the master builders, not so much sticking rigidly to a fixed plan but adapting as we go along, building with wobbly walls because that is sometimes the only way to create a building that works.
Whether that is adaptive enough to cope with a pandemic, who knows.

A Vicar Queues for his Grant

The foyer of Yorkshire Forward was full of people waiting for... well what were they waiting for?
"Is someone handing out grants?"
"No," I respond "there were no vicars there!"
A bit harsh but in the UCVR process I only ever remember other clergy being present when there were rumours of grants.
I suppose as the only vicar in the foyer today I ought to confess: I was at Yorkshire Forward to talk about my Fraser Teal grant. It was very exciting as I get closer to the dream of travelling. Just as exciting was talking with people who cared as much about regeneration as I do, and who kind of get my problem with the engagement of faith communities in making their neighbourhoods a better place. Suddenly we were going to change the world, again, idealistic teenagers out on an intellectual adventure.
Back to earth with a bump with High School Governors nudging a school forward bit by bit. A bit like when I was an idealistic teenager and encountered for the first time the adult world saying no to my youhful idealism.
My admiration for our local Head is immense, his patience, his long term vision, his tolerance of annoying governors like me who want everything to happen just a bit quicker.

A headache: To do or not to do, that is the question?

I have a headache... having spent a chunk of the day either trying to sort out various ecumenical fallouts or sitting in boring meetings.
It's difficult because the fall outs were caused by entrepeneurial faith communities doing new things, hip hip hooray, but clashing with and to some extent undermining existing congregations.
The boring meetings were largely only from my perspective because I wanted to shout why don't you just do something?!
Do something and cause trouble to your neighbours or do nothing and become a bit... dull. Which option should you choose?
The answer is partnership, if you do the exciting thing in partnership with your neighbourhood faith communitnities, they get excited and not undermined. This is probably oneof the reasons we should all be involved in partnerships.

Bigger, smaller, shrinking and growing

To church and with a boiler on the blink we meet in the hall and dscover how many of us there are. It's amazing how full it seems with a smaller building and closer chairs.
It reminded me of something Robin Gill wrote in the myth of the empty church. he told how at the turn of the 19th century confident victorian christians built big churches so that a congregation of 100 found itself in a church that seated 200. Very soon that congregation would begin to shrink, somehow thinking that because it couldn't fill a building it was shrinking and so confidence left. Before long with the myth of the empty church we had a faith community in decline.
It's a worry that as we change from a pattern of growth to a pattern of maintenance in our community and country we don't think ourselves into decline.

You say "Slaithwaite" and I say "Sloughwait."

To Colne Valley to facilitate a meeting of their town team... part of my new equipping by Yorkshire Forward in the noble of facilitation. A bit strange because I think I counted three consultants (propper ones) at this gathering of a dozen. It was beginning to feel a bit like my Swedish Trip, all professionals and no volunteers. To be fair most of the professionals were on their day off, as of course I was. It turned out to be a great meeting if a bit over loaded: so much for Tom's advice of focus on a few things per meeting.
It was awkward at first, I discovered that Slaithwaite was only pronounced "Sloughwate," as I had learned to call it living nearby in Huddersfield, by people who could trace their ancestry back 500 years in the valley. You say "tomatoes" and I say "tomatoes etc." Very soon we settled into it and worked very hard to review their amazing work. It was a bit heftily reliant on RDA's and councils for it's activity and was trying to focus on ten projects at once but seemed to be doing it.
It made me think about our own situation in UCVR as any visits to anywhere make you do, why do you always have "home thoughts from abroad?"
I think it made me realise just how much we had grown as groups in the Calder Valley, how much confidence in each other and in our possibility of acheiving things, not just with others, but also on our own.
I had a Dorothy moment: "There's no place like home."

Organs, Ancient Beams, Architects and worms

Another exciting morning talking to an architect; this time for our £300,000 church regeneration project in Cragg. It’s been a hard journey for them with difficult turns in the road including trying for a lottery bid, which failed, the decision to sell the existing hall, heroically encouraged by one of our older members; Doris, and finally planning permission for change of use which was a victory but felt like a failure.
This morning it was the exciting business of dreaming dreams and what dreams we had, more of that another day but two things stood out in the process. The first is how hard it is to make decisions about old artefacts. We have a lovely old organ, it’s apparently significant and worth saving but if we are brutally honest it doesn’t fit into our church. In our discussions this morning it was literally “The Elephant in the room,” so much so we could almost hear it breathing heavily in the corner. To be honest my head says get rid of it, but my heart doesn’t want to let go. I don’t know what we’ll do. The other exciting thing was going above the ceiling to inspect the roof space, a place in my own church I had never visited before. It was dusty but the beauty of the structure, it’s simplicity and openness was almost moving. As our architect said it was “honest,” you could see how it worked, built in the same simple effective way that many of the mills of the area had been built. I caught our architect caressing a beam making a connection with his forbears which we hope he makes in the plans he has for our church. It was good to see and makes me feel quite hopeful for the future of our church and through it our village.
Today is my brother’s 50th birthday and so I have brought him after much searching something for the garden as requested. I have bought him a wormery... I’ll know later if it is well received.

Hand signals

Tried to explain the concept of shared space to a bus driver. I even showed him the video I have of a junction in Holland where people miraculously on bikes in cars and on foot don't bump into each other. Incidentally I discovered from my dutch in-laws that one of the reasons this works is that in Holland the weakest person has priority on the road. So a pedestrian has priority over a bike, a bike over a car, a car over a lorry and a lorry over a bendy bus. Somebody told me that this is true in Britain too but I wouldn't like to try it out.
Anyhow back with my bus driver, he was fairly unimpresed until I told him that it worked because people used gestures. He brightened, here was something he knew about, he used handsignals when he drove. I knew immediately what he meant and a friendly wave was not part of it!

The start of a beautiful relationship?

Tonight to Sowerby Bridge for a joint meeting between Halifax Town Team and the Upper Calder Valley Renaissance. Sixty plus people gathered to talk about transport issues in the valley. We were a bit awkward together like teenagers on a first date but amazingly we got on. Although one person said it was like we didn't get beyond the flirting stage. Remarkably we had common concerns mostly about railways and stations.
If I had left at the very end of the meeting all would have been happy but some of those left behind began to tell me how they hated most of what we had done so far and they would oppose everything in the future. I'm not sure why but it seemed to be because they hadn't done it.
I was depressed but on reflection, it's a good thing that they are now involved and maybe as they become part of the process they will appreciate the work done so far and help us to see new possibilities. It could be the start of a beautiful relationship...

Community Regenerators

For the first time I am really challenged about what I can talk about in the blog, which is funny really because I don't know if anybody is reading this!
Spent the morning in negotiations, this time with the council who were costing up for us a project to create a village square on our car park. This was first suggested by John Thomson's report which is somewhere online, but I am not sure where... www.rmtportal.com looks like a good start! It was quite exciting dreaming of the possiblities and great fun sharing some of my Holland and Sweden pictures. They weren't so hot about the shared space idea but that will come. The funding of this is another issue, I guess it depends how much the scheme costs, but it was encouraging to hear that Calderdale had already worked with Halifax parish in doing a landscape scheme.
Afternoon saw me taking to councillors from across Yorkshire about how communities can engage directly in regenration. It might be me but I didn't get the impression that these elected people were entirely convinced... they still keep talking about community groups delivering projects when given a grant rather than as propper partners with things to bring of their own. Every community group has assets, many don't realise it. They might have land, or buildings, they have the good will, but what they have most of all is connections.
Like Cinderella they need a prince to see through the rags to the princess underneath, to kiss the frogs, to kill the dragons! Our councillors need to be fairy tale heroes and not the wicked ones!

CRUNCH

Into the secondary school today for lunch with CRUNCH: a group we started a few years ago as a safe place for people to talk about life, the universe, God etc. The group is growing in numbers and in noise... and now we have girls in the group for the first time. They are an interesting group with a range of ages and stages and a great sense of questioning about everything. There favourite quesstion is always why... which is not always easy to answer.
I have always found the why question one of the most powerful tools in our regenration tool box. It opens up lots of thinking and stops lots of mad projects in their tracks. Why are we so reluctant to ask. My wife often looks at buildings and says the architect has said: "I can so I will." without regard to whether it will work.
Every successful committee I have ever been on has had someone who takes the role of boy in the Emperors New Clothes, simply asking: Why is the King naked. A few more "Why"s and a few less disaasters.

A European Family

It turns out that I was not alone on my bumpy landing but unbeknown to me or them my brother in laws dutch parents were there too, travelling to my neice's baptism. You see we're a European family: my sister live in Germany with her dutch husband and two trilingual children, dutch, deutch and Yorkshire!
Talking to my Dutch inlaws I discovered their own verdict on Holland, just too busy, similar to my own view of it really.
It was an interesting conversation full of the places he had travelled which included every state in America and soudned like every country in the world. This travelling had given him an incredible asset which was so valuable to his company that they wouldn't let him retire. His valuable asset was not his intellect, nor his skills, but his network. Over the years he had built up such a big worldwide network that he was now invaluable and of course the one thing about this asset is that it untransferrable.
Malcolm Gladwell in his book "the tipping point" rates very highly the network people when it comes to changing the world. It really isn't what you know it's who you know after all.

Bumpy Landings

Finally one day later and after a further delay we take off for Leeds Bradford on a roller coaster ride. I have never been more delighted to be safe home. As someone unused to air travel I still marvel at the whole business. What is most surprising is that anyone can live with flying as a reliable and predictable part of their lives. Like many other things we can get in big problems if we assume that it will go smoothly. All schemes need a margin of error, all lives spaces, just iin case.
It's great to be home...

For a peaceful heart. (posted a day late)

It’s been a long day not helped by the fact that due to a slight misunderstanding between me and… the concept of time zones, I ended up waking up twenty minutes before I was due to leave the hotel. So many dilemmas, so little brain power: should I shower or eat breakfast? Eat breakfast: should I pack neatly or should I pack badly and eat breakfast? Eat breakfast: should I get up or stay in bed a little longer? EAT BREAKFAST. Duly breakfasted I leapt on the coach to discover that somebody else had done the same thing, how I laughed when he got on the bus late but it was really relief that my internal body clock had woken me up, just in time.
On the coach then to Utrecht to be put in a group that was going to look around the town hall whilst everyone else looked at exciting new buildings… seemed a bit unfair until we saw the town hall which had been designed by the man who made the New Scottish Parliament building. He sounded let’s say a bit eccentric, my favourite bit of eccentricity was that he used to come and talk to the building which he thought of as a person to ask how it was feeling. It made me think, eccentricity apart that it was a nice idea that we have a continuing relationship with the things we make, that we should come back from time to time to see how it is doing. The building was fantastic, hopefully I will be able to get the pictures on Facebook for people to see, full of wonderful wacky features but the best thing of all was that he had left the old building pretty much intact inside the new one. Literally the new embracing the old.
Utrecht was beautiful so it was a bit of a shock to go to Amsterdam, which was busy, noisy and full of people looking for drugs. Not many Dutch people in this pursuit but plenty of Dutch people making money out of them. We visited a number of innovative housing projects including one on a man made island where in a row of standard sized terraces each one had been built by a different architect, it looked fun but you were desperate to find out what it was like to live there and they weren’t telling.
One last thing: as we wandered and Amsterdam and I despaired a bit of the place we suddenly saw a gate and through the gate we came into what appeared to be a village green with a little church in the middle: “The English Reformed Church.” It was lovely, though we weren’t able to stay long, it was like an injection of peace. Was this because it was surprising to find it? Was it because it contrasted so completely with the world which surrounded it? Whatever the case we all decided that regenerating an area we had to find a way to incorporate these oasis of peace.