Life just got better.  The Oxfam shop is selling fairtrade chocolate santa clauses.  

I know, it's too early to think about Christmas.  Well, I'm not.  I'm thinking about chocolate.

I had two very exciting days in York last week.  I was with a young friend who'd never beenthere before, and loved watching her discover the Shambles, Stonegate, and the Minster.  After all that, there was Betty's, where everything is so good, and you feel warm and looked after as you watch the world go by.  York is unlike anywhere else.   I once did a book called 'Ghost at the Window', later 'Fire Lion', about a house which never knows which bit of its history it's supposed to be in, so it changes to medieval or Victorian or 1930s when it feels like it.  York is like that.

I have to say, though, that the Minster, spectacular as it is, can't hold an ecclesiastical candle to Durham.  In the Minster for the first time, you say 'wow' or 'ooh'.  In Durham, you can't say anything.

We spent the next day learning about Godly Play, which at its most simple is a way of telling
Bible stories, but is really much more - a way of becoming focussed and involved in the story
and in what it says to you, which may not be the same as it's saying to everyone else.  It was
designed for children, but can be used with any age group.   Storytelling is one of the few things
I understand, and I think I may get into this in a big way.  

And the high point of the week was the arrival of two calligraphic prints I'd ordered from the
gifted and astonishing Tess Cooling.  It's hard to say how beautiful and awe-inspiring they are,
but for me, Tess's work is in the same realm as Durham Cathedral.

Life just got better.