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Where did the Week go?

The past week has been . . . taxing. After our wimple-raising drive to Ringwood and the devastating news from garages across Oxfordshire (do they have a system for sharing bad news, one wonders, if so it may explain why there are so many pigeons flying about), our nice old Skoda is bound for "fresh woods and pastures new". Meanwhile, we have emptied our bank account and single-handedly rescued the British second-hand car trade by buying a "new to us" Ford. All this was accomplished on Thursday, just before our Virtual Chapter, which may explain why Digitalnun could barely string a sentence together and Bloggie was confusing everyone, including Digitalnun, by using Cybernun's computer. We even managed to rewrite scripture in our confusion. If you listen to the recording, you'll be astonished to learn that Saul anointed David king over Israel, although, to be fair, there was a hesitation which suggested that the speaker was wracking her brains for the right name. Poor dear.

Such things we can laugh about, but within minutes of ending the Chapter we learned that the brother of one of the community had been taken ill. We don't yet know how seriously, but it was a great shock to his sisters, one of whom found him on the floor where he had lain for some time; so please pray for them all. It brought home, in a small way, what the people of Haiti are suffering on a much larger scale without the services we take for granted.

In between whiles, there has been much activity: an edition de luxe for the English College, Valladolid, has been sent to the printers, all 800 pages of it, painstakingly typeset in Greek, Latin, English and Spanish, with some amazing illustrations tweaked in Photoshop to overcome the effects of centuries of wear and tear; two clients' web sites have been brought almost to the point of completion; the new recording technology for our audio book service to the blind and housebound has been exhaustively tested; and we have done our best to maintain the regular round of prayer and praise, welcome to visitors and the 1001 household tasks that make up the everyday life of any monastic community.

However busy we are, we do not forget God. How much less could he ever forget us?