London

Though I set out (and returned home) in the dark, it was in fact sunny and bright in London today. So on arriving at Paddington I Borised to Marble Arch tube; and then from Holborn tube to my meeting. Later, I again had no problem finding either a bike or a docking station as - following lunch with Edmund at Mon Plaisir - I whizzed round Central London to catch up on photography at the National Portrait Gallery and the Photographers' Gallery, dropping in also to the National Gallery and RA (Burlington Gardens). All very refreshing for the tired Gloucestershire palate.

Lunch with Norman

I always feel that bit bolder about taking random photographs after a good lunch. This one was snatched whilst I paused at traffic lights on my Boris Bike: I was returning to Paddington to catch the train home after meeting a school friend at Mon Plaisir today. (I managed a quick visit to Edmund's newish office in Covent Garden beforehand.)

Norman lives and works in Rome, but comes over for Summer holidays. We haven't seen a lot of each other over the years, and it was a pleasure to catch up. As a prominent church historian, he comes in for criticism from time to time, mainly from right wing elements who see recent history rather differently to him. Yes, he agreed, Vatican II has taken a while to bed down, "but then so did Chalcedon". (Don't you love sweeping thoughts like this?) "It's easier with Councils like Trent and Vatican I, which strengthen the Pope's hand," he surmised.You don't get this sort of conversation much in Cheltenham.

I came away enlivened - and delighted that Norman had agreed to come and speak at a local Christian Ecology Link meeting at the end of his Summer visit next year: on ecology in the early Church.