Two weeks in the UK

We spent the last two weeks in the UK, first at the first week of the Keswick Convention, then at our mission's own conference, the UFM Summer Conference.

We flew on the Friday to Manchester and stayed overnight at a friend's house before travelling to Keswick by train and then by bus.

The train was on time, comfortable and our reserved seats were vacant and we had a pleasant journey chatting with fellow-travellers who lived near Rawtenstall.  From Penrith to Keswick you travel for £2 on a double-decker bus (un bus impérial) through the winding lanes overhung with solid tree branches. It was pretty wonderful.

The Keswick Convention gives a grant to encourage and enable overseas mission workers to come, and we had found a room in the town not much over our budget. The room had a toaster, kettle and microwave oven, and we were alarmed at the price of the cafés and restaurants in the town. Is a jacket potato really £7 everywhere? Cheese at extra charge? Anyway, salvation was found in the form of a Wetherspoons. And the fact that our sluggish metabolisms require but little sustenance to maintain our ample form.

We met lots of old friends and I started a long, slow journey of investigation into Christian Anthropology.

The journey back was complicated by a rail strike, but we had places on a National Express coach from Penrith to Manchester so again we travelled unperturbed and undelayed.

We enjoyed a fine weekend in Manchester accompanying our friend to their local church, then set off for Swanwick for the Summer Conference, this time with a lift from a colleague.

The Summer Conference is always for me a mix of the sublime and the devastating, of glory and of horror. You hear stories of faithfulness, perseverance and heroism alongside tales of squalor, dread and genocide. I come away inspired and daunted, and more than ever convinced that whatever we face in Bordeaux, it's a doddle compared to what our colleagues labour through.

After another weekend visiting lovely gardens (who knew?) and eating splendid curries in Manchester we flew back to Bordeaux and melted in the tram home.

Times like this do us huge good. It's not restful like a holiday, but they do a lot to refuel us and to reorient us and set us off again.


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