Non floreat CRC it seems...

...Just spoken with H, or rather been on the receiving end of a pretty sharp admonition, rebuke and chastisement! CRC will have to wait it seems.

Apparently, the imminent arrival of the new Archdeacon under our welcoming roof (or indeed not so welcoming to judge by H's take on the whole affair) is - and should have been, according to H, from the moment I received Bishop Tom's letter - a matter of pressing priority and urgent threat to civilisation as we know it.

Now I was not naive enough to believe that Tom would not have been expecting some kind of report from the Archdeacon's induction process round the diocese, but it had certainly not occurred to me to think that he is coming to spy on us, which is H's clear and entrenched view. She tells me that Mildred and she (as ever working in cahoots!) have determined that the Archdeacon is on a mission to drum up charges of more or less false parish accounting in order to prosper his puritanical position within the church.

My reassurance to H that no monies have been 'mislaid' - a common occurrence sadly in some other to-be-nameless parishes not a thousand miles away! - and that the petty cash is as ever penny-perfect, met with more blistering verbal firepower. I had, it seemed, totally misunderstood her central message, which is - I think I have it right now - that the Archdeacon (whom she wonderfully if scandalously calls a 'fire damaged hobbit' no less!) is intent on gathering evidence that we are so fallen from the ways of grace that we spend less time in prayer and penance than we do on raising much needed cash. That accomplished the FDH (I cannot resist!) will leg it back to Tom and insist that he orders all such activities cease forthwith, for the duration or unto the end of time whichever comes later!

Whisper it not in Tyre - but I actually think the Archdeacon might have a point. Perhaps we have become too much a thrifty owl and too little the eagle of gospel witness. Be that as it may I will have no truck with zeal of any flavour, and am not about to undergo some holy Maoist purge at the hands of the FDH!

H is herself too fired up about this to be trusted to take a sensible lead. (Her passion even had me momentarily mentally checking the weedkiller was safely locked in the garden shed!) We will together plan our very welcoming response to the Archdeacon and I shall ensure all steps - reasonable, rational and proportionate - are taken to leave him reassured as to our ecclesial probity.

....A brief pause: that was Maurice on the telephone saying he'd heard FDH (as even he now knows to call him!) is on his way and that he [Maurice not the Archdeacon] will be round this evening for an initial scoping session with H, Mildred and I - plus secretarial support and a flipchart!

Time for a pre-meeting meeting with a whisky glass methinks! FDH arrives for supper on Friday. Must ensure cook has fish to serve and not, sadly, that rather good pheasant Miriam's brother sent over.