On the seventh of this month I shall be going away to St Deiniol's Library in North Wales for a study week.  I know I shall be assured of a stimulating time, for the course I shall be attending is led by John Shelby Spong, one the most controversial figures in the church of recent times.  He was for many years Bishop of Newark, in the Episcopal Church of the United States (the Church of England's transatlantic cousin), and in a series of books, articles, lectures and sermons he has propounded a radical and controversial version of the Christian faith.

Thank you all for the wonderful welcome you have given to me, Neil, Toby and Guy.  Your encouragement and support for this time of settling in has helped considerably. I want especially to mention John Page, Martin and Dudley (the Churchwardens), for getting the house ready and preparing for the licensing and installation.  What a lovely service of welcome for us; my Mum, who is not a churchgoer, said she thought the service was really special: "full of love".  I heartily agree! John generously said at the welcome party that he felt God had called me here, and I feel that too: Hale with Badshot Lea is the answer to our prayers.

Hang on, that can't be right, can it?  It's certainly not what Alice Cooper sang back in '72, and anyway, it doesn't make sense; we've just started the summer holidays.  Surely you meant ‘school's out for summer'?

As I write this, we have just begun that period of the Church's year known as ‘Ordinary Time'.  Since the end of November last year,  the start of the season of Advent, we have spent nearly all our time observing special seasons and celebrating special days - Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Eastertide, and Pentecost.  But from now till the end of November again, though there may be the occasional special Sunday such as All Saints, there is no really major festival, and no protracted period of special time, whether penitential, like Lent, or joyful, like Easter.

This month it will be twenty years since I was ordained priest in Ripon Cathedral.  In itself, this is not a particularly significant anniversary - certainly not compared to the fiftieth anniversary of priesting which Revd John Innes celebrates this month, thanks be to God!  But nonetheless, those two decades have seen a remarkable series of changes in the world.

I expect most of you by now will know that we have appointed the Revd Carol Wilson-Barker to be the next Team Vicar in the parish, with special responsibility for St George's and Badshot Lea.  I will not spend time here telling you about Carol; she does that for herself elsewhere in this magazine.  But I do want to say how delighted I am that Carol is coming to the parish.