It's exactly a year since the first posting - though it took nearly another month for me to properly get out and about. In the time since then I've visited/lurked outside/eaten my sarnis in the churchyard of plus or minus 118 churches in the Diocese of Peterborough (the plus or minus being the odd church in other dioceses, and not knowing whether to count the occasional oddball chapel, tin shack or derelict site!)
I've walked five hundred and thirty two kilometres in the course of twenty-eight different walks (I'll leave you to do the further arithmetical analysis on that).
I've written - ooh, far too many words - probably a short book already, and the walking and the writing have both been enormous fun. The experience has exercised my little grey cells as well as my quads. As the old pop song has it, there've been far more questions than answers. Perhaps the next few years' walking will find me some of the latter - there's still a very long way to go.
'And last week on the West Wing...'
If you're reading this, you probably know already, but just in case...
I'm walking to Peterborough by a series of circular routes which pass through every parish in the diocese, hoping eventually to visit each single church. The only rule is that every new walk must start somewhere on the circle of a previous one. Each incumbent gets a calling card through the post when I've visited their parish to say that I've been there and that I've prayed for them and their parishioners. The image on the card's front is the one you see above.
And your point is?
My point is that as our late and regrettable Prime Minister said: we're all in this together. None of our churches can be little islands on their own. We need to find ways to share and co-exist that don't just do the minimum or pay lip-service to that idea. That means me, and that means you, people of Peterborough Diocese, and that means clergy of the same - get wid da program!
So what about all the other stuff you waffle on about?
Well, it may be hubris, but I'm also writing a personal snapshot account of the way I find Northamptonshire in these transitional moments of the twenty-first century. Doubtless other people are doing the same thing from different angles and with different conclusions, and jolly good too. As at all other times in history, we need to chronicle these things, sighing over what we've lost, delighting in what we see, and fearing for what may come.
Where have you been so far?
Here goes: (They sound like bus routes from a fifties' timetable...)
Walk 1: Weston Favell - St. Matthew's, Northampton - Holy Trinity, Northampton - RC
Cathedral, Northampton - Holy Sepulchre Northampton - St. Peter's Marefair,
Northampton - All Saints, Northampton - St. Giles, Northampton - St. Michael's,
Northampton - Christ Church, Northampton - SS Peter and Paul, Abington - Weston
Favell ( 27.04.16)
Walk 2: Weston Favell - Great Houghton - Little Houghton - Little Billing - Weston Favell
( 08.05.16)
Walk 3: Weston Favell - Emmanuel, Northampton - Great Billing - Ecton - Rectory Farm - Overstone - Moulton - Weston Favell ( 14.05.16)
Walk 4: Holy Trinity, Northampton - St. David's, Kingsthorpe - St. Mark's Whitehills -
Boughton - St. John's, Kingsthorpe - Holy Trinity, Northampton ( 21.05.16)
Walk 5: Sixfields - Upton - Berrywood - St. Francis, Duston - St. Luke, Duston - Dallington - Kings Heath - St. James, Northampton - Sixfields ( 02.06.16)
Walk 6: Northampton Town Centre - Far Cotton - Hunsbury - Rothersthorpe - Milton Malsor - Collingtree - Wootton - Hardingstone - Northampton Town Centre (23.06.16 )
Walk 7: Sixfields - Harpole - Nether Heyford - Bugbrooke - Kislingbury - Sixfields ( 07.07.16)
Walk 8: Wootton - Grange Park - Quinton - Piddington - Horton - Preston Deanery - Wootton
(19.07.16)
Walk 9: Ecton - Cogenhoe - Brafield - Denton - Castle Ashby - Whiston - Ecton ( 26.07.16)
Walk 10: Earls Barton - Whiston - Castle Ashby - Yardley Hastings - Easton Maudit - Grendon -
Earls Barton (12.08.16 )
Walk 11: Grendon - Bozeat - Farndish - Wollaston - Strixton - Grendon ( 31.08.16 )
Walk 12: Quinton - Courteenhall - Roade - Stoke Bruerne - Ashton - Hartwell - Quinton
(07.09.16)
Walk 13: Wollaston - Irchester - Great Doddington - Wollaston ( 17.09.16)
Walk 14: Boughton - Chapel Brampton - Church Brampton - Spratton - Brixworth - Boughton
( 25.09.16 )
Walk 15: Milton Malsor - Blisworth - Gayton - Milton Malsor ( 29.09.16 )
Walk 16: Moulton - Pitsford - Holcot - Moulton (07.10.16 )
Walk 17: Gayton - Tiffield - Easton Neston - Caldecote - Pattishall - Gayton (15.10.16 )
Walk 18: Pattishall - Cold Higham - Litchborough - Greens Norton - Pattishall ( 04.11.16 )
Walk 19: Greens Norton - Abthorpe - Towcester - Greens Norton ( 24.11.16 )
Walk 20: Towcester - Alderton - Paulerspury - Towcester ( 29.11.16 )
Walk 21: Paulerspury - Lillingstone Lovell - Silverstone - Paulerspury ( 12.01.17 )
Walk 22: Alderton - Grafton Regis - Cosgrove - Furtho - Potterspury - Yardley Gobion -
Alderton ( 23.01.17 )
Walk 23: Cosgrove - Stony Stratford - Passenham - Deanshanger - Wicken - Cosgrove
( 28.01.17 )
Walk 24: Abthorpe - Wappenham - Bradden - Slapton - Abthorpe ( 02.02.17 )
Walk 25: Wappenham - Syresham - Radstone - Helmdon - Wappenham ( 20.02.17 )
Walk 26: Radstone - Halse - Brackley - Turweston - Whitfield - Radstone ( 04.03.17 )
Walk 27: Brackley - Hinton in the Hedges - Steane - Farthinghoe - Charlton - Hinton in
the Hedges - Brackley ( 10.03.17 )
Walk 28: Charlton - Newbottle - Kings Sutton - Aynho - Croughton - Charlton ( 27.03.17 )
If you follow in my footsteps, have fun, and take care...
Vince
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