On the 22nd November I led the worship at St Ninian’s, Glenurquhart and we then drove over to Aberlour to attend the AGM of St Margaret’s and to celebrate at an evening Eucharist. We called in at the hospital on the way home and spent some time with my Mother. On Tuesday I had a Skype meeting with the Canons Committee in Edinburgh before driving over to Poolewe for the AGM of the congregation of St Maelrhuba’s.
On Wednesday morning Dorothy Strange aged 90 passed away and as you can imagine, life changed for me and my family. My Mother had talked about her funeral and I knew what she wanted and that helped us all as we planned. So we arranged for a service at the Cathedral with the hymns she had chosen, I asked Iain Macritchie to take the service and he and Dean Alison helped us through the initial stages of grief.
I had a couple of things which I still needed to attend to in the days leading up to the funeral. I had a very happy Wedding blessing to conduct, as well as a very upbeat Cathedral AGM to chair and I led the morning worship at Tain. The funeral took place on Monday 7th December and I will always be so grateful for the thoughtful and loving way everyone helped us through those days.
I had a few days of quiet before we loaded the car and headed North to Caithness. We were staying in Mackays Hotel in Wick and I have to compliment the hotel on its warmth of welcome, quality of food and the care they took of their guests, many thanks. We were in Caithness so that I could Chair a joint meeting of the Wick and Thurso vestries, this was a meeting to consider the future of the congregations and their mission after the retirement of their present rector. It was a really positive meeting and I came away feeling uplifted. That evening the hotel asked us if we would like to eat in the function room as there was a dinner dance on, we agreed and after the ice was broken we had a really lovely evening with the people of Wick. I led the worship in both churches the following day and the Carol Service in Thurso in the evening. A good weekend.
