Last night we went to bed around 11, but the noise from the guy in flat 5 was just horrible. He is a paranoid schizophrenic, and keeps the TV on all day and all night at a relatively high volume. The poor lady in 6 and the people in 3 suffer worse than we do, but even two floors away one can discern the voices on the TV (if not what they’re saying). That kind of noise at night is the worst kind of noise, as your brain wants to understand the words but cannot.
I’ve complained to the housing association, and they are going to send him a stern letter and get his caseworker to get after him. I have told him (the last time I saw him) that I can hear his TV in the middle of the night, but he doesn’t seem to have believed me. Next step is to tip off Sky that he’s using an illegal box, I suppose…
My first task today was to take the morning service at St. John’s. The Vicar called me last week and said that there was no one to take the Mass of the Presanctified Saturday morning and could I do it. It involves a service of the Word and then distribution of communion from the reserved sacrament. No sermon, thank goodness. So I did that; it was very nice really that he thought I could do it for him.
When I got back I was looking at my email and planning to dismantle my computer area, clean it up, install a new DVD writer in the computer and take out the two older drives in it, get the KVM working so that I can control my Sun Ultra 10 and my PC from the same keyboard, mouse, and monitor. A satisfying day, one thinks.
The phone rang.
The Rector of St. Matthew’s is away this week for a “study and reading week”. Not that it will do much good, but one lives in hope. A priest with Permission to Officiate lives in the parish and comes to St. Matthew’s, so he was going to take the Eucharist for the Rector.
This priest was on the phone. He said, “I’m stuck in Armenia.” He’s a professor of Law at South Bank and is advising the Armenian justice ministry on reforming the judiciary. Yerevan Airport is fogged in and no planes were going in or out. He might make it for tomorrow’s service (at 10 am) but probably won’t.
I called the Area Dean and got another priest to take the service, but it was unfair to expect him to preach too, so I had to write a sermon.
All my plans for hardware revamping were put on hold. In the afternoon I took a nap (after finishing half the sermon) and then we went to see the exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. Very interesting: HWMBO gives it 6.5 out of 10. Then we walked to New Oxford Street from the South Bank and had dinner, then bused ourselves home. I finished my sermon while HWMBO made himself beautiful.
Now I’m trying to rest and relax.