BRISTOL - Same Old Bread and Rolls

Bristol is a funny place to come back to. On the one hand, I spent two very happy years here doing a job I enjoyed a great deal with people I get very giddy about at the thought of seeing. Especially when they have some potentially very exciting new hair. On the other hand, Bristol was the place I was in when I felt my very strong and urgent need to collect my moneys together and leave the country.

For me, Bristol has a history of being a place where I get things done. Much of this is due to people. Staying with Charity for a couple of days and having Jutta (she of the most impressive new hair this visit), among many others, very insistently asking about my future life plans has a way of making all those little thoughts rearrange themselves in my brain into targets, goal sheets and little spider diagrams written in different shades of purple pen.

It was most exciting to be back for the launch of the Bristol University Multifaith Chaplaincy. A project which was a buzzword when I first arrived in town, a catchphrase during my second year and has now become a state of mind. Half a decade may sound like a long time in a town where things get done: but anyone who's ever tried to get people of different religious dispositions to even agree what to eat and drink in the same company can appreciate the enormous blood sweat and tears (some English, many German) which went into a two hour presentation in a very nice university room to lots of very interesting people.


All the faiths, together at last in Powerpoint format!

Working back in the chaplaincy for an afternoon, though, did handily remind me why I don't work in chaplaincy anymore. When you're done, you're done. And there are plenty of lovely people (even more now) who will do wonderful things there until they too get the call and leave into their respective yonders. Also, I cut myself cutting fruit: I've shed way too much blood for this job already. It's time to share the love somewhere else.

The other moment which inspired some concrete future planning was at the commissioning of my friend David as a local Methodist preacher (or initiation into the coven, as Charity puts it) A lovely service in the Welsh border town of Chepstow, with some curious turns of phrase during the sermon. "There isn't just one culture in this world, but many cultures!" was one moment where, still having vague memories of having been on a different continent less than a week before, my universe suddenly felt it was closing in around me. The thing with living on an island? Island mentality. It's a scary thing to re-encounter when, the last time it scared you, you went off for a year.

So I resolved to be off again, soon. I already had the incentive but it was time to add a little resolution. I shall be in Cincinnati again by the end of this year or early next, seeing the winter with my American girl. Hurrah for Bristol! Travelers need a place which inspires them to make each trip and Bristol, the big city with a scary provincial underbelly, is my personal traveling muse. Also, it is a place of new and exciting hair. In this case, mine. But, boy howdy, did it *hurt*...