"Come with me, for the conference is long"

... except that it wasn't, it was rather good actually - surprisingly good. After the nightmare that was the first candidates conference at St Andrews I had been gearing myself up for a long, dark teatime of the soul comprised of relentless, frenzied activity; little or no space at all; reflecting so much that I'd turned into a disco mirror ball.
But, not so. Gartmore, whilst busy, was fun and instructive and silly and serious. So, the week [and perhaps what I may have learned] in quotes:

• I am an ooooold lady
• Dog collars strangle you if you tell lies [Marjorie M, during worship]
• Deeep, deeeeeep down, all men are shallow [Jane, after several glasses of wine]
• ...developing a smelly hermeneutic [me, re. anointing of Jesus]
• Institutionalism is a 'binding spirit' [Peter Neilsen]
• All are created equal: in America this means all are special. In Scotland this means nobody's special. [Peter Neilsen]
• kill me noooooooooooooow [as part of a flurry of note-passing during the only really dull session]
• My, he's a big one. [Howard, kilted, stepping into a pulpit and singeing his hair on the light]

All of this to reflect on [possibly not too much on the notion of Howard preaching in a kilt!], in the midst of thinking through the implications of adding another year to my studies and getting my head around writing 25 000 words, on a topic yet to be decided, for mid-August. Hmmm, busy, busy yet all good - and underpinning the lot, as ever, God's goodness. So... yay, really.