BB

BB
That was a weird dream the other night?


St
Too right. I didn't think my Dad was anything like Jeremy Clarkson. And the car hasn't got a sun roof. And I don't recall Chester-le-Street like that at all.


BB
It's the product of a mind winding down I should think.


St
Winding down? Packing up more like. This mind is full of mush. It's not been reading. It can't write. Roll on next week's holiday.


BB
So how was the year for you?


St
Are you trying to tell me I haven't done my review of the year yet?

BB
Well?

St
I think it was disappointing. Mind you I get disappointed when things are only good not great so who am I to say.


BB
Was nothing great?


St
Oh there were a few 18 certificate moments, REM in Cardiff (so good I forgot to mention them in my Christmas letter; how mushed am I?), some nice meals out, a good holiday, No Country for Old Men, West Brom's promotion. These were all pretty good.


BB
Pretty good? Don't you ever do superlatives?


St
I don't want to peak too soon. Anyway I've spent two days with my mother. Everything that happens in her life is either an unmitigated disaster or absolutely beautiful. I think I am rebelling against that. Most of life is OK, no more no less.


BB
So what has 2009 in store?


St
Hopefully a new Rector of Holy Trinity, Nailsea. That would leave me feeling a little less like I'd been applied to life with a butter knife. Followed by a priested curate and then there would be three of us who could do the magic bits.


BB
Magic bits?


St
You know. Bread - wine, wine - bread, thank you, thank you.


BB
The Tommy Cooper setting of the Eucharist?


St
Quite so.


BB
Anything else?


St
Well a trip to Japan, but you know me and travel.


BB
Not good. Ever thought why not?


St
Lots. I think I spend so much of my working life trying to persuade people to risk the unfamiliar that when it comes to holidays I want the comfort of the familiar myself. The unfamiliar feels like work.


BB
Is there a lesson in there?


St
No.


BB
Sure?


St
I could be the sort of minister who simply gave everyone a nice gentle dose of the familiar week by week and only visited the congregation. I reckon we'd not shrink apart from natural wastage but we'd be gone in a generation. Would you stop prying?

BB
You invented me, remember. How's that cut you got with the butter knife?

St
I can't believe it's not better.

BB
We should do this propfessionally.

St
I think the word propfessionally tells you everything you need to know about why we don't.

BB
I've been Big Blogger. Good night.

St
And a Happy New Year.


New readers need to know that Big Blogger is an imaginary friend who turns up every now and again and gives St a hard time.