Friday May 18th

Yesterday at Westminster Cathedral, evening Mass was a glory of Latin, glittering candles, flowers...larger numbers than usual for a weekday Mass so probably quite a number of people assumed they were celebrating Ascension Day....what a great pity we weren't!

I met a number of friends there, and afterwards lingered agreeably over coffee in one of the innumerable eating-places on the new Cardinal Place opposite the piazza. You get the most fabulous view of the cathedral from there. The buildings near Victoria station have now all been ripped down, revealing the pleasing facade of the station, and this too is to become part of the whole new look for the area. It's all about time: for decades this was such a shabby part of London, for all its nearness to Parliament and the Abbey and so on.

I spent the morning with members of the Catholic Women of the Year committee - the Luncheon is in October and plans are well under way. We have had a huge number of nominations for the Women of the Year, and there are so many magnificent stories of service, courage, neighbourly service, and goodwill. Many letters say something like "She'd be appalled if she knew she was being nominated..." "She would be so embarrassed to be thought of as special...." etc. The CWOY project began in 1968 and has gone from strength to strength - in the past couple of years we have had a number of new young members on the committee which has proved a great boon.

EWTN.....

Home late, and then sat up watching a preview of a new EWTN programme which I made with a team a few months back and has now been beautifully edited and put together with the right music etc etc...it brought back memories of the week we spent on location, the hard work and the rain and the great fun and the laughter, the planning and the researching and the re-takes and the utter enjoyment of the whole thing. I am actually thrilled with the results...But I won't give the details on this Blog until I know when it is all to be broadcast.