Guest blogger, The Rev\u2019d Humphrey Blytherington is Vicar of St Hilda\u2019s, Little Snoring with All Saints, Great Snoring. He is a graduate of Plymouth University. He completed his studies for the ministry at Latimer Hall, Durham. He is married to Daphne and enjoys home brewing, model railroading and is an avid member of the Great Snoring Morris Dancers.<\/em><\/p>\n Well now lads, I expect you will have heard the news that was announced in the parish yesterday. That\u2019s right, Daphne and I have decided to call it quits.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been thinking about the whole business for some time, I must admit. A couple of things have rather thrown me a googly. A while back you may remember Daff and Mrs Doyle came back from one of their jaunts to the continent and brought me a statue of St Therese of Lisieux. I didn\u2019t have much time for all that Frenchy sort of thing and put the statue in the cupboard. Mrs Doyle kept putting it back on the mantel piece when she cleaned so I left it there.<\/p>\n Well, back in May you may remember I had a bit of a dodgy spell. Came over all queer. Couldn\u2019t summon the energy to get out of bed. Huppo came around and we had a talk. He reckoned I was feeling a bit low, and I must admit I\u2019ve been rather troubled by several things of late. This same sex marriage business has rather put the wind up me. Can\u2019t figure out how the bishops could simply go along with it and not put up a fight. Then at the clergy meeting Lavinia was triumphing about it all and told me point blank that most of the bishops had been quietly in favor of homosexual rights for a long time.<\/p>\n So it got me to thinking about the whole matter a bit more. Then when the Romans elected this new Pope he seemed to be talking an awful lot of sense. I can\u2019t sign up to the whole Roman Catholic palaver with kissing bones and wearing spatulas around your neck and so forth, but I do like the chap\u2019s down to earth style.<\/p>\n Then the most rum thing happened. Hard to describe it really, and I suppose you\u2019ll think I\u2019ve gone completely round the bend, but when I was feeling a bit under the weather one night I couldn\u2019t sleep and I woke up with the sense that there was a female in the room. I knew it wasn\u2019t Daphne. She was by my side snoring like a chainsaw. So I sat up in bed and the moonlight came through the window and shone on that statue of St Therese of Lisieux. I\u2019m sure it was no more than a co incidence, but Mrs Doyle must have put it there when cleaning and when the moonlight shone on it I suppose it all sounds rather creepy, but it didn\u2019t feel that way to me. Instead I felt a sense of calm and a sort of energy all round the place if you know what I mean.<\/p>\n Next morning I was right as rain. Furthermore, I knew then that it was time to throw in the towel. I\u2019ve felt for sometime a bit like my batteries were running down, so Daphne and I are off. We\u2019ve found a rather nice cottage in Normandy\u2013as it happens just down the road from Lisieux so we\u2019re going to retire there and I expect I\u2019ll have some time to do some painting. Good neck of the woods for that sort of thing. Lots of picturesque scenes round about those parts.<\/p>\n What\u2019s that Kevin? Am I going to swim the Tiber? What you mean become Catholic? Oh good heavens no. I can\u2019t see myself kissing the pope\u2019s toe and all that. I expect I\u2019ll toodle along to Mass with Daphne. After all, over there the Roman Church is rather like the C of E is here. The village church, the summer garden party and the Christmas bazaar. I \u2018spect I\u2019ll get involved in that sort of thing, but I can\u2019t see myself joining the Church of Rome. Not immediately anyway.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Guest blogger, The Rev\u2019d Humphrey Blytherington is Vicar of St Hilda\u2019s, Little Snoring with All Saints, Great Snoring. He is a graduate of Plymouth University. He completed his studies for the ministry at Latimer Hall, Durham. He is married to Daphne and enjoys home brewing, model railroading and is an avid member of the Great […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n