General Chat

A goodie bag twice a year and staff shop once a month. We were just the packing plant working a three hour shift.

Sharron, did you get EL freebies? I hope so!

Your friend landed on her feet. I hope she enjoyed her work there.

The C of E usually does look after its flock.

Many bishops' palaces have gone because of the horrific costs of upkeep. The Bishop's old residence here is now owned by someone called Jonathan ????? (I forget). It is open to the public though and is worth a visit if you ever get to this neck of the woods.

One of the fab things Jonathan ? has done is to introduce Kynren. It is an open-air spectacular that is well worth a visit - although due to covid it is on hold. We took our younger grandson the first year it opened and what an experience!

If anyone is heading this way during July, August, September, look out for it (not this year, perhaps). There is a similar event in France but Kynren in Bishop Auckland is the only one of its kind in England. I can't imagine anyone, child or adult, being disappointed with it.

Edit: I've just checked and it's on during August and September. I recommend it.

When I worked in the Estee Lauder factory, I had several other jobs going, as did my mate who worked with me.

She came in to work one afternoon and said he had picked up another job and had to go up west street fo the interview and that it was behind the cathedral in a big house.Big house, I'm sure, she had just picked up a job in a palace!

They looked after her very well and lent her a bike to get there more easily, loaded her up with veg from the palace garden and even let her stay in some sort of cathedral flat in Brighton for a week o give her children a holiday.

Am going to message you Maggie. <3

Weirdly, my eldest was a cleaner for Michael Scott-Joynt, the Bishop of Winchester, for a couple of years from about 2000 - unfortunately, just after I'd finished my degree, or I may have staged an interview with him!
I say 'weirdly', because we're not Christians - indeed, my dad was a convert to Islam, no-one else was!
A Cathedral official who lived near the local shop, asked Denise & Brian - regular church-goers who owned the shop - if they knew an honest, trustworthy person who would be 'up for the job'. They suggested my daughter - who, at the time had just returned (with dog) from a couple of years as a 'traveller' complete with piercings and deadlocks!
Anyway - Mr & Mrs Scott-Joynt were, according to my daughter, lovely, not stuffy, and their children - normal!
However, my daughter rarely 'spilled the beans'.
She was home late once, because their son had come back home drunk the previous night, and left the bath tap on - thus flooding Wolvesey Palace! :-0

Staid is not at all what I'd describe some clergy to be!

Maggie, I've actually worked among vicars and those from the even-more upper echelon in my time. Some were good to the core but others not so good.

Often, I thought some of the lay employees were stuffy when compared with clergy. They often drew wry smiles.

Perhaps the parishioners adopted the stance of their incumbents of the moment? :-0

It's probably not as 'staid' as you'd imagine, JoyLouise, and relates more to the behaviour of the parishioners, rather than the overlords.

Somewhere, I have similar books relating to other religions.

Keep that Christian sexual book, Maggie, if only to remind you how vicars ought to be. ;-) :-D

:-D :-D :-D :-D

So was 'The Perfumed Garden'! :-D :-D

I've just read 'War Crimes For The Home' - nothing about war crimes as such - more about sex and relationships! :-S

Excellent read, though :-D :-D

:-D :-D :-D@Kay

Mind you, Book titles can be deceptive. I once bought a copy of 'The Perfumed Garden' thinking that it was a book about domestic horticulture

Hope you're settled into your new house Maggieinwinchester and have many happy years there and make lots of lovely memories. Best wishes. X

A monkey knows his own tricks best, as my mother used to say Allan!!

You can always cover it in plain brown paper; no one would guess :-D

Oooh Allan! 'Liberating Sex' is a paperback - no dust cover

Dust covers on books can be changed, Maggie, so that the most smutty can be hidden under a veil of innocence ;-)

Not that I've tried it, of course :-D :-D

Having moved house, and, therefore, having to pack my books away, and then reinstate them in the 'library', purely so I had some floor room, they've been shuffled around a bit.
Most shelves were 'double banked' so I've found books I haven't seen for years.
I was squinting at the title on the dust cover of an old book last night - I thought it said 'Ales of Old Pubs'. Picked it up to read it - it was 'Tales of Old Pubs', but nonetheless, interesting.

Then another title caught my eye - it said 'Liberating Sex'.
Ooo-err, thought I, Where did THAT come from,definitely not my usual purchase :-
and decided I ought to hide it before the person came to fix my internet connection today.
I picked it up to see what it was about - and the full title is 'A Christian Sexual Theology' - so no smut whatsoever, no dirty pictures - bought for my Uni course, and I just put it back - didn't hide it :-S