Friday 13th July 07

ON THE ROOFTOPS...

An excellent party on the rooftop over looking Westminster Cathedral! There are a series of roof gardens there, none of which I have ever known existed. We were on the one on top of Clergy House, which you enter from Francis Street, but in a most satisfactory way this whole glorious solid red-brick edifice - Clergy House, Archbishop's House, Cathedral, Hall, Choir School - all interconnect with lots of roof-levels and, inside, interesting curving staircases and large important-looking corridors with portraits of Cardinals.

The party was given by the team that runs Oremus, the Cathedral's monthly magazine, for which I now plan to write...I had wonderful talks with Mgr Mark Langham, the Cathedral Administrator, and with Dominican Father Tim Gardiner (who when not working as chaplain at a hospital, and a big inner-city school, and more, writes rather good cookery columns for the Catholic press), and with Fr Peter Newby of St Mary Moorfields who is of course chaplain to The Keys, the Catholic Writers' Guild...and when I left there were still people sitting in the agreeably warm night and talking and London lay beneath us with the maze of streets around Westminster and the Big Wheel over towards the river and the humpy odd domes and unknown extra roof levels of the Cathedral.

I had left my bike padlocked to the Cathedral itself (those iron loop-things by the main doors - are they specifically designed for bikes? v. useful anyway) and cycled off warily to Waterloo. I say "warily" because earlier in the day I had a nasty bash - fell off the bike just as I was leaving the house, here in New Malden, and had to be mopped up by kind people who run the (I'm not inventing this!) tattoo parlour just round the corner...I was OK and hurried off to the committee meeting of the Assn of Catholic Women where everyone was v. nice, rushed off to a chemist to get soothing witch-hazel (worked well - much recommended).

My right eye feels a bit uncomfortable and will probably blacken. Standard greeting at the party was to ask who had biffed me...