Got to our day off on Friday this week and felt really tired. The week wasn't especially busy, but some quite demanding meetings.
We met after Church on Sunday to discuss our Worship and had a pretty constructive meeting, rattling through the issues quite quickly. I think we are all more or less on the same wavelength, which is encouraging.
We enjoyed a lovely lunch out on Monday as part of Birthday celebrations for our Churchwarden. Lovely views across the Severn and the food was good too. We were then out together again for the Visitation, where the newly elected (or re-elected) Churchwardens go and swear at the Archdeacon. We were all the way out at Castle Combe, and they had helpfully laid on a minibus from the car park at the top of the hill. First person I bumped in to as I got off the bus was Charlie, who had been Churchwarden when we first arrived at South Wraxall. Great to see him again, and chat briefly over a cranberry juice afterwards.
Tuesday was back to School for a really helpful session going through poilicies relating to the Church Foundation, and the previous SIAS inspection report. Really great to be able to both talk freely and make some good progress on lots of fronts in one go. The evening was taken up with our Church Council. We had a lot to get through and I think we sort of got there - it's difficult to tell sometimes from 'the Chair'. I had also got a first draft of revising our Team structure to try to reflect our Growth Strategy, but I decided at the last minute not to table them for discussion as that could have lasted all night, preferring instead to talk to the relevant people about each section and see where we get to...
I noticed that my back V-brakes were not working very well on the bike, so I had a go at sorting them on Wendesday morning. Not sure quite what I did, but they seemed to fix themselves, so I was all systems go for cycling to Chapter meeting across town in Soundwell. Google Maps suggested a bike route of about 6.6 miles, and it was great to do the ride there and back. I said I had done it to get some fresh air and one wag asked if there was any fresh air between Patchway and Soundwell. Well, there was - in fact there were some really lovely bits; Filton Road where it goes past the Cricket Club and under the M32, Frenchay Common and then down to the river. Really beautiful and pretty traffic free.
On the return journey I passed some of the old Rolls-Royce site near here...

The sight of these old turnstile gates with the piles of rubble behind reminded me of the loss of much of our manufacturing heritage. The ground, apparently, is still too contaminated to be turned over for housing (no doubt one day it will become economically viable to do all the necessary cleaning up). So whilst it may be easy to blame the Thatcher years for this loss, I guess the seeds of its own destruction were already being planted with such a lack of investment and care that allowed the land to become so poisoned. Perhaps we allowed too many important things about the land and belonging to it to become forgotten in the rush for easy money.
In the evening was School Governors, and we had some big plans to get going, so it was a long meeting, but some fantastic work had been done beforehand so it never felt unproductive.
A couple of visits on Thursday, and then day off - and boy did we need it! Great to be able to walk in the woods and catch the bluebells at pretty much their best.

It has also been a really noisy week on site as they finish some groundworks for the houses nearby. It is looking really lovely as the sun shines and the render makes the area look light and airy. There are also some fabulous landscaped areas just down the road as well. A photo for posterity of the houses opposite...

...and great to meet the couple who will be moving in next door on Monday. They seem really nice.
And I finished this morning with a new Personal Best at the Little Stoke Park Run AND I remembered my bar code, so it counts this week. All that's left to do is get tomorrow night's curry going and we're almost set for another Sunday.

It is easy to take a photo of the moment all the spices go into the wok, but if only there was an App to capture that magnificent nutty aroma...
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