25th June - 2nd July 2009

A Chaplain’s Diary

 

Sunday  28^th June

 

Everything hangs on today. I had two weddings on Friday in Palma and Valldemossa, two weddings yesterday in Palma and Esporles and early this afternoon I had one in Cala d’Or with another later today in Soller. The brides were early on every occasion – I just could not believe my luck because usually we tend to start anything up to a quarter of an hour late but this weekend everyone has been slightly early. It is absolutely wonderful and makes life so much easier and less stressful for everyone involved. So I just need this afternoon’s bride to be on time and that will be an excellent run of six punctual weddings.

 

People tend to arrive for weddings very early, particularly if they are visitors to the island. They are terrified of getting lost and not being in the right place at the right time. Sometimes they arrive up to an hour early to stand around baking in the sun or glugging down bottles of water. So when the bride is late their guests can have been hanging around for anything up to an hour and half. Add to that fretful bridegrooms and mums who think she is not going to show up and it is not a good omen. Wedding organisers get panicky, musicians get twitchy and the whole things gets off to a bad start. And I’m always anxious about being late for the next wedding which shouldn’t have to suffer because of a prior bride showing up late.

 

So, fingers crossed that it’s going to be six in a row. As our organist once said to me at a wedding a few months ago, when the bride was forty minutes late, “I’ve run out of wedding music. All I’ve got left is funeral music.” “Then play it,” I said between gritted teeth, “because we shall probably need it!”

 

Monday, 29^th June

 

It is so refreshing to see someone sticking up for the BBC. As Ray Fleming pointed out in his column last week, the BBC is the finest broadcasting organisation in the world. It is the envy of every other country and I sometimes think we don’t realise what a national treasure it is. Where else could you find such an array of first class programmes for just £142.50 a year or £2.74 a week. Come on! It has to be an all time bargain. OK so we pay a license fee for the BBC but what Ray Fleming didn’t point out is - don’t believe for one minute that the other channels come free of charge; that is a total misunderstanding. Everything has its price. Every time you buy something you are paying for your non-BBC channels. There is still a charge, it is just that you don’t notice it. It is included in the price of your tin of beans or washing powder. Advertising costs and you pay for it. And the advertising revenue pays for the programmes and what you thought was free ITV.

 

The debate about the license fee has raged for the last twenty-five years and quite frankly it’s tedious, particularly when I hear it from people here in Spain, where thanks to the gift of SKY we don’t even pay the license fee anyway. Unless like me you have a home in the UK where I still have to pay the full license fee even though I’m only there for six weeks a year on leave. Even so I don’t resent one penny of it when you see what happens with state controlled television in countries such as Iran.

 

Tuesday, 30^th June

 

Our Church Treasurer has told me that she has now completed sending off all our charitable donations for the year. Our policy is to give away annually ten per cent of the money given by church members. We have resisted the temptation to swap and change our charities each year because that leads to situations where work that has been started has to be cut and sometimes leads to redundancies which of course soaks up money that could be better used elsewhere. So we have distributed eleven thousand euros between Christian Aid, Save the Children, Aspanob, Joan March Hospice, a food programme in Africa and Amaticia. On top of that,  as a result of fund raising events, we have been able to split a further four thousand euros between Cancer Research UK and Amaticia, making a total of fifteen thousand euros… and we’ve still got some left over to pay for a full time priest (I bet you are glad about that. Ed)

 

As we are dealing with other people’s money our Church Council has a strict policy of only giving money to properly registered charities, either in the UK or Spain, or to organisations which produce properly audited annual accounts that are open to public scrutiny. I think they are quite right and it’s something I would recommend to other organisations on the island. If you are going to donate money make sure that the recipients are either a properly registered charity or can give you audited accounts. We owe it to those who donate. No accounts, no donations.

 

 

Wednesday, 1^st July

 

I have lived with the music for the last three months and it is incredible how the rehearsals have improved. Every year the Georgie Insull Singers produce a summer concert in the Anglican Church. Friday 3^rd July is the big day. It’s not high brow music and is the sort that everyone over a certain age will certainly recognise. They have been joined this summer by a few guest artistes and it promises a pleasant Friday evening, followed by refreshments and drinks outside on the patio. Tonight was their last rehearsal and I think they are now ready for the big night. Tickets, priced 10 euros, are available from 971 737279 and include programme, refreshments and drinks.

 

Thursday, 2^nd July

 

The recession continues to bite. This morning son telephoned from York to say that the part-time job he had at a sandwich bar had come to an end. The owner had telephoned to say that business was so bad that he was having to lay off his part-time staff. Son was devastated because it had provided a bit of extra income during his time at university. I told him not to worry and certainly not to take it personally as something else would come along. Secretly I was quite pleased because it now means that there’s a possibility he will come home to Palma rather than stay in the UK for the summer vacation. Having arrived with three children in 2001 they have now all left. The nest feels very empty indeed and we miss them all like mad. Daughter is living temporarily in Algeria, son who commutes lives on a train between Manchester and London whilst younger son is coming towards the end of his first year at York University. As he moaned down the phone about losing his job and the economic situation (both personal and national I suspect!) I didn’t like to point out to him that as he was studying politics the solution might well lie in his own hands in the future. After all there are going to be quite a few vacancies amongst MPs at the next general election, though he will have to promise to stand for the right political party otherwise he’s not welcome back here in Palma. He knows which that is, I know, but you dear reader will have to guess. I’m told that politics and religion should never be mixed but if you believe that, as Archbishop Desmond Tutu reminded the Church of England recently, then we’re using a different Bible.

 

 

 

Father Robert Ellis is the Anglican Chaplain of Majorca

Nunez de Balboa, 6

Son Armadans, Palma

Tel: 971 737279

e-mail: anglicanpalma@gmail.com

www.anglican-mallorca.org