Launching the Synod

I’ve been in the draughty Corran Halls all day, listening to three excellent talks and following them up with interesting discussion, which is what happens when you find yourself on a table with the right people, all part of the Conference Day with which our scattered diocese always precedes the annual Synod. After a brief interlude we found ourselves in the Cathedral, which back in the day used to be colder than any conference venue but which is now bright and pretty toasty. There Synod was properly constituted at a Eucharist. I didn’t know the closing hymn at all.

After that some of us ducked out of the formal dinner and went back to the fish restaurant , from which we have just returned to our hotel under a cold moon and some spectacular planets on show over Oban Bay. We left the restaurant in some hysteria - the kind of state where everything seems funny. So I’m having two photos tonight - one of the interior of the Cathedral with its extraordinary roof, the other showing our group, complete with haloes, in the restaurant and the other just outside it.

“Pose like a pop group,” I said.