Back to Coventry

This has been a week dominated by Coventry - of all places!
On Saturday we went to Coventry for a jolly and visited the Cathedral.
Yesterday I worked with a Canon of Coventry Cathedral in an interview at Oakhill.
Today I visited Church House Coventry for a meeting...
Is God trying to tell me something? Should I be sent to Coventry more often? Should I be sending other people to Coventry? Any candidates?

Church House in Coventry is a wonderfully strange place. Part of it is an old town house and the rest is a huge modern building at the bottom of a steep garden. The main entrance feels like the back of an office where they keep the bins... Having said that, it's a lovely building and the people inside were very friendly.

The occasion was a Standing Committee meeting for the Local Ministry Consultation. We reviewed the feedback forms from the November conference and started planning the next one - a mix of principles and practice may be on the agenda... We also did some thinking about networking and the website. All in all a good and positive meeting.

I feel I need to drop in a quick note about my journey. When I told the team I was off to Coventry today there was some concern about my sanity - given the recent problems on the west coast line. According to the BBC however all would be fine - although they didn't predict that when I got to Northampton the train would be stuck for half an hour waiting for a platform, then break down. We then spent an hour in another train waiting for it to leave before being rushed across to another platform where another train finally took us on our journey...

Having had such a complex journey up I was not hopeful about the journey home. Fortunately, however I hopped on a nice Virgin Pendolino which seemed to take me home in half an hour - whoosh! Well worth the extra pennies...

It's a fair cop in Coventry

It's always good to have a new year adventure and this year we decided to take a trip to Coventry. Neither Isla nor the girls had been before so we it was about time they did. John and Rozi were also keen to go so we all popped on the train together...

I bought the tickets yesterday before the announcement on the news that the whole west coast rail line was in trouble because a light aircraft had hit power cable near Stafford. Having bought the tickets we had to go - although we had to risk a potential bus journey between Rugby and Coventry - after a change of trains in Northampton...

We didn't do too badly in the end. Izzy had bought her cards so we had a few games of Go Fish and Belgian. This made the time fly by - even when we found ourselves stuck in waiting rooms with a cup of tea. I think we only had a forty minute wait in Northapton on the way up and an hour long wait in Coventry on the way down... All in all it wasn't too bad - although it would have been nice if trains could have been announced on MK station - this would have saved a mad dash between platforms!

As for Coventry... was it a spiritual experience?

Well, we did see Lady Godiver's statue which commemorates an act which could either be seen as a bold act of self sacrificial non-violent action - or a moment of medieval naturism. We missed the clock and so didn't see Peeping Tom - although John gave us a good impression.

We walked through the old and new cathedrals which is always a powerful experience. I'm not sure what the girls made of it, but I'm sure I'll find out one day.

There's an exhibition about Anne Frank in the Cathedral at the moment which includes some videos and statements about racism. This exhibition includes a number of vidoes which are on continuous loop - providing a wonderfully evocative background murmour in the nave - like the ongoing mutter of monks in the scriptorium copying out books...

We had some mixed feelings about the Cathedral. It's certainly impressive and is probably one of the best examples of post-war archetecture you can name - making good use of concrete, steel and pebble dash. There are also many examples in the archetecture of outward looking thought - making connections with local industry, ecumenism and reconciliation...

On the negative side, we found little sign of current life. There were very few signs of diocesan life - and the references to local industry and reconcilliation were a few years old. We wonderred what was going on now. That's not to say that nothing is, but we couldn't find it in the Cathedral. More research may be needed here...

The highlight of the day came after the cathedral visit when we hit the pub for lunch. We found ourselves in a supporters pub on match day and enjoyted the chants of "Kiddiminster!" through our beer, burgers and onion rings. There were lots of police arround who seemed fairly friendly. It was interesting to watch them escourt the fans off to the ground - surounding them like a ring of lumiescent sheep dogs. Unfortunately there was a bit of a scuffle at this point and one fan was escourted off to the vans - presumably to spend the match in the local nick...

One last postscript: we managed to get home in time for Doctor Who Confidential and therefore heard the announcement that the next Doctor will be 26! - oh I'm feeling old...