Thursday June 28th

CATHOLIC CULTURAL QUIZ

A splendid meeting of the Catholic Cultural Group last night (informal group, meets in London for people liiving/working in the capital, has guest speakers, wine, talk) - member Amanda Hill, who is a former Mastermind finalist, ran an excellent Quiz, and the evening was hosted by another Mastermind finalist CCG member, Chantal Thompson who produced delicious food and a welcoming atmosphere. Questions included saints associated with various places in England (non-Catholic Evangelical member triumphed here as the only person who got St Swithin at Winchester, and no one managed St Wulstan as being the saint from Worcester), writers of various hymns, burial-places of well-known people etc...talk and discussion so agreeable that things went on until a late hour and I was

TRAPPED IN HYDE PARK...

...as, having cycled gleefully across it in the rain-lashed dark feeling free and London-belongs-to-me-ish, I found that there are in fact gates at the Piccadilly end and I was locked in! I don't just mean that those big Queen Mother memorial gates are locked, I mean all the exits are locked, including obscure smaller ones that give access from the riding-track that leads up towards Knightsbrdige. Gulp. Enlisted the support of stout formally-dressed respectable gentleman who was also trapped in - we hunted for unlocked gate without success. Realised that was no go, so I asked him to help me heave the bike over the railings - this was accomplished with the aid of two chaps on the other side who responded to my bleats for assistance and turned out to be Somali refugees. Getting the bike over wasn't too hard (regular readers of this Blog will know that I previously accomplished this on my own when locked in at Brompton Oratory) and then I got ready to climb over myself, at which point the nice gentleman looked scared and pottered off. The Somalis were v. nice and helped carry me safely over and we talked and shook hands and I went off to Victoria where, by a whisker, I was able to get the very last Tube chugging out to the suburbs...