Sat Oct 28th
Church schools and the big debate: I didn't do very well on the Radio 5 programme last night - I got far too annoyed with the chap from the National Union of Teachers - who said that education had nothing to do with religion, and that the Church has massacred millions of Aztecs and Indians in South America and that was what we should be teaching children about.....you can't really debate with this kind of bigotry, but it is certainly daft to lose one's temper.......

Today we finally, and at a late hour, when it was already growing dark, got a walk together on the Common. It is still terribly, unseasonably, warm, but the trees are turning golden and the houses looko so agreeable glowing as dusk arrives. We turn the clocks back one hour today. I telephone Fr Alexander Sherbrook at St Patrick's, Soho Square, asking if I could give out leaflets about the TOWARDS ADVENT Festival there tomorrow: he said an enthusiastic yes, and invited me to stay on for lunch as he had a number of other people coming.....he was with Cardinal george Pell of Sydney, who has been over in Europe: Fr Tim Finigan noted on his blog that he had met him briefly by chance in Rome. Fr Alexander had just returned from visiting the new Holbein exhibition at the National Gallery with the Cardinal "We made rude remarks about all those horrible Tudors". The papers have shown the picture of Henry V111 that is a main feature of the xhibition: he looks mean-spiited and vicious with a fat face and cruel eyes.....

A merry evening with friends, delicious talkative dinner in a beautiful candlelit dining-room, children scampering around about being got ready for bed......as it is half-term, I'm taking the oldest boy,Thomas, who is my godson, on an outing on Monday: we decided on the Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon.