Monday is washday in the monastery and it is raining. I suppose we ought to be downcast, but we aren't. It reminds me of the effect that laundry blue used to have on our grandmothers' washing. It seemed to make the whites glow more whitely and was especially noticeable on a grey day. Perhaps that is why one notices the cheerful faces of the community: the contrast with the weather is so marked.

Where does the cheerfulness come from? I'd like to think it stems from a sense of purpose, from a lively faith, a warm charity and a genuine hope. I suspect it may also have something to do with the prospect of a nice, quiet monastic Mass for St Edmund of Abingdon (co-patron of our diocese) and a decent dinner afterwards! We are not angels yet. Of course, we also have some unexpected blessings to smile about. Yesterday, coming out of Mass, a parishioner gave me an envelope. Inside was a very generous donation towards our work for the blind and visually impaired. That means a lot to us because keeping St Cecilia's going as a free service is high on our list of priorities but we have faced completely empty coffers before now. People tend to assume that all religious communities are well-off. If we were, I think we'd be a different kind of community, but I hope we come some way towards realising Benedict's ideal of the monk as one who "lives by the work of his hands as our fathers and the apostles did". That is not to downplay the importance of the help we receive from friends and benefactors, far from it, but it can be comforting to others to know that the community faces similar challenges to everyone else.

So, washday blues are not part of the agenda for today, or any day for that matter.