Out of the depths I rise

It has been a most challenging day, Dear Readers.

An enjoyable morning - I went along, at Drayton's advice, to hear Bishop Pete talk about worship.  Although Drayton himself went to find something that wasn't being co-led by a woman. And I was most taken by the concept of the "Greeting" - the part where the congregation greets each other - as Eileen sometimes says, when she's in one of her Tridentine moods, "Pax vobiscum", and the congregation responds "et cum spiritu tuo".It's a short life but a varied one, in the Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley.
And I was musing on the beautiful call and response as I was on my way back from Burgh le Marsh this afternoon on my bike.

I don't know if you know Burgh le Marsh? An interesting place - mounted up on a hill above the fens like Mount Zion. But with less Sanhedrins and general trouble. The Fleece used to sell a nice pint of Olde Trip, but since Hardy & Hanson were taken over by Greene King they've got Speckled Hen instead. Which was still a very nice pint. Slightly sweet, heavy but with a good hop bite. In the Fleece, 9/10 in anyone's money.

And I was heading back to Butlins, swerving along the fen lanes, with the view of Skyline ahead of me in the distance. Like the view of the Celestial City in that book Drayton keeps going on about, or the view of Oxford that Jude the Obscure gets in that book whose name I can't remember, but which the Archdruid likes because there's a nice, pointless and poignant death in in it. Excep in the film with Dr Who in it, where Jude's still alive at the end.

And as I barrelled along the lane, I realised that someone was beeping his horn repeatedly at me. Taking my headphones off (I had been enjoying a nice bit of Kraftwerk) I turned round to see a man driving a Ford Mondeo.

"Whoi don't yew get out o' t'way, you gr't steaming poil o' donkey droppins'?" he asked. (I can't do the accent).
"And also with you," I replied, without thinking much what I was saying.

That ditch was very muddy. And the bike was much harder to ride after I'd dragged it out. And I'm very smelly now. And I'm not totally sure he was into liturgy, now I think about it. It was probably that which upset him.