Let the Pantomime Begin.

Tomorrow is a nightmare day when everything has to be fitted in! Firstly, off to Glasgow in the morning for an all-day meeting of the Diocesan/Provincial Preparatory Committee. It is our task to seek nominations for the post of Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway, sift through these nominations, and after due process to present the Electoral Synod of the Diocese with three to five candidates to consider. Not everyone who is nominated will become a candidate, so there is a particular onus on us to get things right. Certainly, your prayers for this Committee are gratefully received, and my own prayer is that we will always be open to the promptings and guidance of the Holy Spirit in our deliberations.

In the evening, there is some light relief! Friends of St Augustine's are putting on a PANTODINE, as our big fundraiser of the year. It will be done in the setting of a very posh sit-down dinner, served by outside caterers, so it's fillet steak for me tomorrow! Everyone is encouraged to come dressed as a panto character, and the after dinner entertainment is our very own pantomime, served up by members of the Friends Exec.

I am, as usual, typecast as one of the Ugly Sisters in Cinderella, and I'm fair warming to the task in hand. My green wig is to die for, and I've got a frock that Cinderella herself will probably covet!

It is a testament to the level of talent and creativity in this congregation that new ideas and concepts are forever emerging, and so there's always something new and adventurous on the social calender! Around 70 folk from far and wide will have a great time tomorrow evening, laugh until they're sore, and raise some much needed money in the process. Whisper it, too, but it's mission at its rawest, introducing "outsiders" to the possibility that Church Folk can actually have tremendous fun, and that we are a closely knit family who care for each other and work well together. At least we are when we are at our best, and tomorrow we will be at our best!

At least the RW is off work tomorrow afternoon, so the Special One, Toastie and Peanut SHALL go to the park, as surely as Cinders SHALL go to the Ball!

Crazy? You bet we are!

The Care Home meeting about dad was fairly reasonable, but he is still very unhappy there, and the staff acknowledge that the home is not meeting his needs, simply because it's the wrong place for him. Damned if we can come up with an alternative though. My sister and I left him sitting on the steps in floods of tears, but there was no consoling him and eventually we had to detach and come away. I wish I had a magic wand for him which would make him happy or find the perfect place for him to find some happiness in his latter years. The bottom line is that he will always choose to be unhappy, and there is no place on earth which is going to change the way he feels about himself or others who happen to live alongside him.

The scary thing is that Social Work are talking of bringing in Advocacy for him, who, following the recommendation of the psychiatric lot, may well decide that he has a right to choose to live by himself in the community again. This is despite the fact that it has been proven over and over again that he CANNOT look after himself in the community, and always ends up extremely ill in hospital whenever he is left to live in this fashion. We don't know if there is a solution, but I'll be stealing the RW's magic wand, (she's the Fairy Godmother), after tomorrow's pantodine, in the hope it may actually work!