An end to a hectic week.

The courtyard of my Theological College.

The arch to Heaton Park.


St Therese looking resplendent.

The Sacred Heart Altar.

Our Lady.

The Woodthorpe Public House. A riot of late Gothic Revival fittings inside.

Yesterday I went into Church in the late afternoon for a few minutes peace and realised that the opus Dei never stops as Sheila and Josie were there arranging flowers. I was momentarily stunned at the quality of the arrangements so I thought that I might take some pictures for you. I have also photographed the arch to Heaton Park which is five minutes walk to my house. Passing this, you then see the Woodthorpe Pub on the left hand side which is where I spent much of Friday evening and where I may well be spending the evening of my birthday as well next week. This morning I went to the library at my theological college to withdraw some books and I thought, as I sat idly in the cloisters, listening to the tinkling of the fountain and the empty bottles from the previous week being thrown into the skip, how blossomy the blossom on the blossom tree looked and that turned my mind to the sainted Dennis Potter and that incredible interview he gave the week he died. For those who did not see it you may wonder that it turned me off the Television for ever, so banal and drivel filled did everything since it seem. The interview was with Melvyn Bragg and it showed Potter, the only true media artist of our times, literally dying, swigging from a flask of morphine and talking about, amongst other things, the blossom on his blossom tree, the need to dispatch Rupert Murdoch and his amazing legacy. He had the ability to move you from madness to sanity, or vice versa, through his work and he was a genius, rather than the demon which some prudish tabloids made him out to be. I pray for him whenever a blossom blows in my path and reminds me of the frailty of life. I commend his work to you, particularly 'Vote, vote, vote for Nigel Barton', 'Son of Man' and 'The Singing Detective'. It is to our detriment that his arch nemesis, Murdoch, has taken control of so much of the drivel-disseminating power in the Television world and the good which it could do and the truth it could offer, is maybe lost forever, sold down the river for another hundred episodes of the Simpsons.