Slower Progress but still progress

Snowdrops and Crocuses at my parents last week

Sorry not to write last weekend, I did intend writing but I just did not manage to find the energy when I got back from my parents on Sunday. It was a week when I concentrated on reading. Indeed for the first time since before starting the thesis I sat down with a book, "Religion since 1945: Believing but Without Belonging" by Grace Davies, and managed to digest most of it in one sitting. I should explain as a teenager I read everything including the noticeboards at school so many times I knew the notices by heart. This high level of reading hid a underlying difficulty although several people were aware that I sometimes wrote badly for my obvious depth of reading. In the early years of this century I developed depression. This severely hampered my ability to concentrate. The difficulty that was underlying now meant I found reading for long spells difficult. I developed techniques for dealing. I found I could often make a very careful reading go a long way. I would therefore spot things others would gloss over.

I was already well on the road to recovery when I started my thesis and I have read widely, if perhaps not as much as I would have liked. The difference last week was that I could do it without getting too distracted and even enjoyed it. I do suspect that Grace Davies' book was relatively straight forward but at the same time I enjoyed it.

However what did not happen last weekend was me clearing my head with a walk. I visited my parents, Saturday evening to Sunday evening and we planned to go walking on the Sunday at Lyme Park. The weather was dry but it was COLD and there was a biting wind so we called it off and went for a coffee and cake at their shop.

However after last weeks decent progress this week has been slowly. Some of this is my fault, I started a migraine on Monday, I know this looking back though I was in work, Tuesday it declared itself, however there was teaching in work on Wednesday so as it was "reduced" and I hoped going I went in. Then Thursday about four O'Clock I realised that I still had no concentration at all and things were breaking up again. In other words by going in on Wednesday I had simply allowed it to hang around. So I took Friday off to try and recover. It finally worked but it took a good while on Saturday for me to do the reformulation of the chapter I was suppose to do during the week. I did it and wrote one section on Saturday with reshaping a second.

Today was Annual Church Meeting at my home church. I have not been a serving Elder for most of the time I was doing my PhD but I either had to stand for re-election today or this time next year. My congregation is also going into vacancy. I decided that a three month or so overlap was doable, not least because I am also Table Elder One this year and that makes going to Elders meetings pretty essential. The problem was persuading the congregation they had to vote for this. Elders should be re-elected every five years. I served three to four years and then took a sabbatical for a couple of years when the depression was at it worst. I then came back and did about another three years but because I had been on sabbatical I was not re-elected. I think congregation had decided my thesis was another sabbatical and not that I had finished serving my time and therefore was not standing for re-election. After that I finished the second section of the redraft of the belonging chapter.