Jules and I are not yet in Trevi. Instead, we are in Balestrand, a small place half-way long the Sognefjord, the longest and deepest of Norway’s fjords. We are here for two weeks, to look after the little Anglican chapel – surely one of the most unexpected buildings in the whole Church of England, sprouting as it does dragons’ heads in the best neo-Norse style. It was built in 1897 as a memorial to a remarkable Anglican woman, a vicar’s daughter from near Leeds, who became a pioneer mountain-climber and glacier-hiker in Norway. She married Knut Kvikne, one of two brothers who ran a hotel in Balestrand; and she used to lead church services for the many English guests (which really was pioneering for a woman in the 1890s; she did it on some proper official basis; I would love to know how). Sadly, she died in her mid-forties. Her last wish was that an Anglican church should be built in Balestrand, which it was, and to this day Kvikne’s Hotel – the grand dame of Norwegian fjord hotels – provides free bed and board to temporary chaplains, who come to take the services for a fortnight at a time.
The plan had been for Balestrand to be a break between packing up the vicarage, and unpacking in Trevi. Unfortunately, the packing up of the vicarage has turned out to be much more complicated and traumatic than I had imagined, and I ‘ve also had to go to Sweden in the middle for a family funeral – so there will be a few more days of packing to come once we are back in England. But Balestrand at least gives me the chance to catch up on some important things – and among the most important is to thank all of you, so warmly, for the wonderful send-off that you gave me on 7 June, and for the great generosity of your leaving gifts. For those of you who do not know, the package that Judy gave me that evening contained a beautifully bound and inscribed Book of Common Prayer. This is a treasure in itself, made more special by its being a gift from you, and in due course still more special by its being put to regular use in the years to come. Thank you too for your extremely generous financial gift. Our hope is to turn this into a plot of land just outside Trevi, to grow vegetables in. I suspect it will inevitably come to be nicknamed “St John’s Wood”. Jules and I thank you from the bottom of our heart.
When not taking services in the chapel, I have been hiking in the mountains behind Balestrand, and swimming in the fjord. The heatwave that has been oppressing the UK has even extended across the North Sea, though not as oppressively – I have never known such fine weather in Scandinavia. And we have been meeting and talking to the constantly changing and fascinatingly varied clientele of the hotel, who also make up the bulk of the congregation. The England-Norway quarter final (and its outcome) presented a diplomatically tricky moment, but it was surmounted with grace all round.