Sunday March 4th

CATHOLIC PAPERS

I enjoy cycling in rain - provided one is headed for a warm home and the chance to dry out. To Mass in mild drizzle, home in a satisfying downpour. Actually, I didn't go straight home - partly because of the rain, I stopped half-way at a Costa Coffee shop in the High Street and enjoyed the Catholic Times. You really are missing out if you don't read the Catholic papers. Jamie has a rather good letter in this week's edition! And.....er.....yes, I do have a couple of features in it too.....

Spent the afternoon writing a couple of book reviews for American publications.

ROME....
is our destination at the end of next week. Am hugely looking forward to it. We are attending a conference - will report on it in due course. I hope we'll get a little time to potter about, too. One visit is usually to the monument to Bonnie Prince Charlie in St Peter's basilica. Easy to find....if you think of St Peter's as a cricket pitch with the altar, as it were, being the wicket, then the Stuart monument is at the bowling end, on the left-hand fielder's side.

I hope we might catch a glimpse of Papa Benedict (OF WHOM I AM A HUGE FAN!!!) and I want to get some postcards of him, and - if I can find one - a statue or bust for a blind friend, who longs to know what he looks like....

And we want to dip into some of our favourite churches, and trail our hands in the Trevi fountain, and talk with friends over coffee in a place with an agreeable view, and possibly visit the Colliseum at night and see it standing hauntingly there, with those little wild cats and kittens scarmbling about, looking so charming and actually ridden with fleas....