Monday Nov 13th
Opening of our new parish bookshop at St Joseph's, New Malden. It was great fun: Fr Peter, our parish priest, handed me a pair of scissors and I ceremonially cut the ribbon across the door and we all trooped inside.....lots of enthusiasm and goodwill, and a happy atmosphere in this beautiful new parish centre, which is bright and clean and smells of new wood, and blends most charmingly with the church, all of it having a most welcoming feel. In my speech, I noted that it is nice to have a new St Joseph's bookshop during the time of a Pope baptised with the name Joseph....and handed over a pic of the Holy Father to be hung on the wall....the shop carries the excellent new Compendium of the Catholic Catechism which of course is his work, and I was touched to see that there were also copies of The Pope Benedict Code (pic on its cover is the same as the pic that I had presented).

Afterwards, wine and snacks in the big new hall, and then I cycled home to write this blog before rushing up to London to meet Sara, a young friend who is blind, at Marylebone station. She is to stay overnight here, as she is singing at a fund-raising coffee-morning tomorrow to launch the "Young Journalist Awards" associated with Tamezin magazine (more on this tomorrow).