Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Paddington, Westminster, and cricket...

...and a warm September day. Spent the day at the Mad Bishop and Bear at Paddington station, which is a convenient and pleasant place to meet my co-author Clare Anderson. We start with coffee and open up the computer and get to work, and then move on in a talkative way via lunch to more coffee and then finally Tea...the team at the MBB know us and ask how the book/TV work/etc is going and the whole thing has a cheery we-feel-at-home-here mood.

On to Westminster Cathedral for the sung 5.30pm Mass - the choir is now back after the summer break - and there was a mild stir and heads swivelling to look as a team of young men in clerical dress and smart blazers arrived. The Vatican cricket team! They are all young priests, deacons or seminarians, and they are a simply wonderful group, and afterwards I had my photograph taken with them on the cathedral steps...and in due course, yes, I'll post it on this Blog.

Auntie feels a special link with the St Peter's team - their blazers are a glorious mellow gold and feature the crossed keys badge - as this whole venture was the brainchild of  HE John McCarthy, the Australian ambassador to the Holy See, and a longstanding friends of the Bogles. John and Christine McCarthy - he is a distinguished lawyer and she is a concert pianist - have a wonderful family and have often welcomed us to their home in Sydney and, more recently, to the Embassy residence in Rome.  The cricket team is just one of a number of goodwill initiatives launched by John McCarthy, and among much else the matches will raise funds for the Vatican's work in supporting international efforts to ban child slavery and human trafficking.

Big match on Friday: St Peter's v. C of E....

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