In the Mountains

Well and I have arrived in Austria.

We flew out to Munich on Wednesday and spent the night there before taking the train over the border to Kitzbühel the next day.

The snow is not brilliant, but I have seen it worse.

We got up early today and did a bit of skiing before the lift queues got too big.

Hopefully some more snow soon!

Christmas Eve Night and the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord

Christmas Eve saw and I at the Cathedral for Form of a Servant. Music was very good. No smoke this year though.

We were then at Midnight Mass at Mary Mags. Mthr J was celebrating and we did a proper figure of eight procession with the Celebrant in a Cope carrying the bambino and blessing of the crib, with the Celebrant then exchanging the Cope for a Chasuble for the rest of the Mass. It was good to see things done properly. I was thurifer and enjoyed generating lots of smoke. Mthr J said to me before the service she expected to see 360s in the procession. Well of course!

On Christmas Day morning we had Fr T celebrating. was thrurifer and did her first ever 360 in the procession. Well done!

We then retired home for Christmas Lunch.

Advent IV / Christmas Eve

Well the first of todays services is out the way.

I was Crucifer at Mary Mags for the 10:00 Sung Mass this morning and was thurifer. We had a visiting celebrant who preached a wonderful sermon about how although The Blessed Virgin Mary was the mother of Our Lord if you looked through her ancestry (as given by St Mathew) (OK it is actually listed as St Joseph's) some of her ancestors (notably David) were not exactly 100% moral. He also said that he enjoyed celebrating for us because we did liturgy well and that poor modernised liturgy with no real meaning was driving people away from the church. He also criticised those parts of the church that claim to speak 100% for God, normally when discussing sexual morality. There was more too, but I enjoyed it which is unusual for a service that went on over the regulation 10 minutes.

After church we went to Whitefriars for s couple of pints.

Now I am relaxing before serving at Form of a Servant at the Cathedral this evening and Midnight Mass at Mary Mags where I get to have fun by being thurifer.

The Christmas run starts.................

Today was the Lord Mayor's traditional drinks reception.

This evening I have the first of my Christmas services as and I are serving at the Carol Service at the Cathedral.

After the service , , mkp, Mthr J and I are going to Whitefriars for a few pints.

According to Snow-Forecast.com its is going to sn...

According to Snow-Forecast.com its is going to snow tonight and tomorrow in Kitzbühel and carry on for a lot of next week!!!!

I had a text from a friend in Kitzbühel today ask...

I had a text from a friend in Kitzbühel today asking me if I was coming over soon. And I replied "Yes, in just under two weeks"

Hooray!

And snow is predicted for the weekend too.

I had my first Christmas drinks reception of the ...

I had my first Christmas drinks reception of the season this lunchtime, with BBC Coventry and Warwickshire. They had got a proper robed children's choir singing carols, but I didn't find out where from.

Update

Yes it is time again for one of my irregular updates.

Was serving at the Cathedral on Sunday. On Sunday the Dean was preaching. In my personal opinion, even ignoring the content, he is a poor preacher. He basically spend his entire sermons making quotes every other sentence - it makes him sound like he has swallowed a concordance!

He also likes to keep his chasuble/dalmatic/tunicle on after the service during coffee. This is at odds with the fact he always is pictured (eg on website) wearing collar and tie pretending he is just a minister and not a priest.

In other news it is 's birthday on Monday, and on Saturday we will be celebrating at the Nursery Tavern. They are having a beer festival! :)

And speaking of pubs the Whitefriars web site is now live.

Last night was Full Council. It got quite fractious and didn't finish until 23:30. Mind you that is short compared with some of the ones we were having a couple of years ago.

Update

Well this is my first post for a while.

I went to the party conference in Bournemouth at the start of the month. I attended various meetings there.

Apart from that I have had another website go live www.wyken.info which is a site for Wyken Conservatives

Aprt from that I am working on a couple of other projects, one web based, one software devlopment.

And I have planning committee tomorrow.

I've visited the counties in yellow.Which countie...

I've visited the counties in yellow. Which counties have you visited? made by marnanel map reproduced from Ordnance Survey map data by permission of the Ordnance Survey. © Crown copyright 2001.

create your own visited countries map

Happy Birthday to me!

Today I am 31.

New websites

A couple more websites I have designed have gone live http://www.kentaylor.org/ and http://www.st-mary-magdalen.org.uk/.

Remember if you need a website designing AW CompuTech are the people to do it for you!

Update

On Sunday I was serving at the cathedral. As it is the summer the Cathedral Choir were away and we had a visiting choir from Canada.

The Mass setting was Darke in F which was what and I had at our Nuptial Mass.

Canon Adrian, the Precentor, celebrated and it is always nice be serving when a Catholic celebrates.

Yesterday I went to Mary Mags for Low Mass on what is The Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary / The Massive Assumption / The Dormition depending upon you high on the candle and beliefs on the authority of Canterbury vs Utrecht vs Rome vs Constantinople.

The celebrant was the priest who had refused to wear a Chasuble when he celebrated for us on Ascension Day this time not only wore a Chasuble, but a Maniple too. Very edifying. He came to the pub afterwards too.

Happenings

Haven't posted for a long time but you can find out whats been going on in 's blog.

We went to Kitzbühel for a week for our 1st Wedding Anniversary.

We were invited by Her Majesty the Queen to a garden party at Buckingham Palace.

Then the weekend before last my Granny died. We had fly up to Glasgow for the funeral.

And that has been the last month.

School Sports Day

I went to the Schook Sports Day at Hollyfast Primary School, one of the two primary schools at which I am a governor today.

First time I have been to a school sports day in years!

Ordination

Serving at the Cathedral today for the Petertide Ordination Service.

It was very hot and very long. Two choristers fainted.

As usual the Dean said nothing to me despite walking past me (when I was in my cassock) several times. Ah well I guess I am just not sound and bible believeing enough for him.

Currently in Kitzbühel enjoying the mountains. ...

Currently in Kitzbühel enjoying the mountains.

Weather a bit wet but managed to do some walking yesterday (but was ill so missed out) and the weather is supposed to improve later in the week.

Finished off a website sale too, have just registered their domain for them and will be uploading their site soon.

Acension Day

Well we (lacking a priest at the mo and possibly for some time to come!) had a guest celebrant for Acension Day yesterday.

He refused to wear a Chasuble (never mind a Maniple!) and looked like he wanted to avoid the thurible, but he seemed a nice enough chap when I bumped into him in the pub afterwards.

Vicars or lack of them

Apparently the parish priest's post at our church is not going to be replaced because the diocese can't afford to.

Now consider there is a shortage of Liberal Catholic parishes in this city. Of the three that I know of, one is now being church planted by Evos. One is going to have to share clergy with the other (non Liberal Catholic) parishes in its benifice and who knows who is going what is going to happen to us.

Obviously provision for "non FiF" Anglo-Catholics is not of interest to the diocese.

AGM and Appointments

Well we had the Council's AGM yesterday, which elects the Lord Mayor for the year and appoints the cabinet, committees and oustide bodys.

I have been reappointed the Chairman of the Scrutiny Board 1 (Finance, Procurement and Value for Money, Human Resources, Corporate and Customer Services, Culture, Leisure and Libraries) and aslo been reapponted as one of the City Council's 3 memebers on the West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority. I have been put on the Planning Commitee this year as well instead of the Licensing and Regulatory committee I was on last year.

Elections

I retained my seat!

2006 Election results
for Bablake ward

Candidate's Surname	Other names	Party	Result
Simpson	Peter	Liberal Democrat	761
Williams	Andrew John	Conservative	2368
Youett	Christopher Nicholas	Labour	1213

Result: Williams, Andrew John - Conservative hold

We took control of the city too! (We ran it for the last two years with the Lord Mayor's casting vote, but it is nice to have an outright majority!)

Overall Results

Party	Number of seats 2005/06	Current Gains / Losses	Final Total 2006/07
British National Party	0	0	0
Conservative	27	+2	29
Green Party	0	0	0
Independent	1	0	1
Independent Voice of Longford	1	-1	0
Labour	20	-1	19
Liberal Democrat	3	-1	2
Socialist Alternative	2	+1	3