Monday Feb 5th

IN THE RAIN.....

....which I love. It's a weird obsession, but I do enjoy rain. The pleasure of ordinary everyday things, like cups of tea, and getting indoors when one is cold and wet, and interesting books and newspapers, are all enhanced when it is pouring and blustery outside. London looks nicer - much nicer - in the rain than in searing heat. Gardens need drenching with rain regularly. London's red buses look very cheery against a rainy background. Puddles are satisfying to cycle through if not too deep. And so on.

So....in the rain to the doctor (problem with foot continues), to photocopying shop for work for ecumenical project (more on this later as it develops), to bank, to supermarket, home to get some work done, and finally to London for pleasant supper with A., close friend of many years standing, visiting from America....long good talk about dozens of things. A. and and her husband J. are both good friends of Jamie and me and we always have great fun as a foursome: tonight with both husbands absent we had a long chatty supper. Home - through still more rain and ferocious winds, against which it was quite difficult to cycle.

MARRIAGE.....

Newspapers today announce that David Cameron, leader of the Tory party, is going to announce policies of support for marriage, ie encouraging a taxation system that gives advantages to a married man and woman raising children. Well hurrah - even if they simply stop penalising married people it will be a start!! But could we also please have a commitment to:

- allowing Church-based schools to teach Christian doctrine and morality, including sexual morality, with no restrictions and without fear of legal sanctions against them?

- a ban on giving contraceptive drugs and devices to children under 16 (which is the legal age of consent for sexual activity)?

- a commitment to emphasising marriage as the basis of our community, so that ambiguous words like "partner" will be removed from official documents and be replaced with "spouse" or "husband" and "wife"?