Monday, June 25, 2012

If the young lady...

...who was so kind to me on the train going to Portsmouth today is reading this, a big big THANK YOU!!!! And yes, I did finally make it to the meeting! and for other readers...here's what happened. At Waterloo,I hopped brightly on to a train for Portsmouth, and en route used my mobile to telephone a taxi to meet my train at 1.30pm . A kind young lady hesitantly approached and said that she couldn't help but overhear...and felt I ought to know that the train certainly wouldn't arrive at Portsmouth until at least 2.15pm. Gulp. I had caught a slow train by mistake...and when I started to think about telephoning the church hall concerned to tell them I'd be late etc, I realised I wasn't even certain of its name. St Saviour's? Yes, surely that was it...but no. We found - by now the young lady was an ally in helping to sort things out - an Anglican church of that name but the kind vicar there said I most certainly wasn't going to speak at any meeting that he knew of that afternoon (extraordinarily, he knew my name and had read some of my stuff over the years!). After some more thinking and googling, light dawned - St SWITHUN!! Yes, that was the name. But the only church seemed to be miles away near Southampton. Oh, dear...and at this point the kind young helper had to leave as we had reached her station...so, if she's reading this: IT'S ALL RIGHT! I telephoned the RC diocesan office, and with their help and that of the Southampton church, I found the right church, St Swithun's in Southsea! And arrived there in time to give my talk on "Celebrating the Church's feasts and Seasons". Phew...

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