Shorthand....

...whirl through Auntie's recent activities...

In Rome, giving a lecture at conference on Theology of Communication, sponsored by Sacred Arts Communications, met various old friends including a priest from Britain now working in a parish near Rome. Coffee with him and Edward Pentin, Rome correspondent for various newspapers (sample of his latest writing here) at a cafe near the Pallotine Sisters where I was staying.

There was a great deal to discuss...a significant time to be in Rome and to be tackling issues connected with the Church and Communication...much talk interrupted by my vocal worries about getting back to the Sisters in time for my taxi. I needn't have worried - was in plenty of time...but left my mobile phone at the cafe! Discovering this en route to the airport, I used the taxi driver's phone to contact Jamie and tell him... driver was v. helpful but oh, dear, I don't travel well in fast taxis on winding roads and was dreadfully carsick, a poor way to repay his kindness...

On arrival at airport I collected myself, got airborne,slept blissfully. Stanstead lights glowing...with a meeting in Oxford the next day, I'd arranged to get a late-night bus and stay overnight with my brother and his family who live near there. Journeying through blizzards...snow falling in huge steady feathery flakes from an almost luminous sky...Oxford silent, mysterious, beautiful, and bereft of the taxi I had booked...a kind passing taxi-driver however took pity on me and we made our way slowly...slowly...slowly....and with great care through snowy roads. "I will take you there, my dear, as best I can, and we will pray...." So we did, he a Moslem and I a Catholic, sitting there in the cab, committing the journey to God, and all was well...