On Placement

With all the academic side of life finished until the end of September you could be forgiven for thinking that I'm going to be doing nothing for 3 months.

Wrong!

One course requirement is for me to spend four weeks hanging out with a friendly vicar, to really find out what life in a vicarage is like. You might think it's a bit late for that - vicarage life is going to happen anyway, but some people are still not quite sure what they want to do after ordination. The huge majority will go into a parish life, but others may be considering chaplaincy work, or other roles within the church. This month is a good time to find out how much you like day to day parish work; it's also a chance to do stuff you haven't done before.

So I'm spending a month with James (vicar) and Paul (curate) at St Andrews Histon and St Andrews Impington. As a former scientist I'm tempted to write that as an equation, to save use of multiple 'St Andrews', thus: St.Andrews (Histon and Impington), but that would require it to be the same St Andrews, which it's not. There are two of them. And I've now written more words than I would have saved. Enough rambling.

Starting last Tuesday I've been cycling a 10 mile round trip from my house to Histon, and spending large parts of the day accompanying James and Paul as they do their work. A cafe church ('Essence'), a home communion, a hospital visit and another home visit are among the highlights. This week holds the prospect of some schools work, a playgroup and some evening meetings, whilst also trying to maintain some semblence of family life.

Along the way I'm looking out for interesting situations to comment on, as I'll have to do a presentation and an essay on the placement when I get back to Ridley in September.

And as if the cycle ride wasn't enough I rounded off the week with a Men's Group cycle ride. I've done on of those before, in Ferndown, but that gentle 8 or 9 mile ride had nothing on this Cambridge epic. I never thought I'd cycle from the extreme north of Cambridge (Histon) to the extreme south (Grantchester), but I have now, and done the return trip too! 17.3 miles! Add to that the 10 miles for me to get to and from home and I was ready for bed on Friday night.