Well, I'm Back

My trip to Hobart and environs went well; about 630 km covered, on 53 litres of petrol!

I must say, I feel tuckered out, having visited so many good friends, then driven back home this afternoon; it is nice to put on my new slippers and settle back in my downstairs study, contemplating a quiet evening after enjoying some good roast beef...

Of course, I have acquired seven books and two CD's during my brief visit down south: I've been engrossed each night in reading through the largest of them, William Pitt the Younger, a biography by William Hague: he's someone I've long wanted to learn about.

Yesterday morning, I called on some friends in Tinderbox who were "at home" having a Twelfth Night get-together, and made the acquaintance of a pleasant High Church fellow, who confirms for me all I've heard about how the local Anglican Bishop, lower than a snake's belly, is ruining what's left of the C. of E. in Tasmania; since Keith tells me he's been reading up on the mediæval Church and on Pugin, I feel he is heading in the right direction, tho' of course we warned him that the Catholic Church has its share of philistines and empty heads...

In the afternoon, some other friends of mine welcomed me to their temporary digs, and I learnt more about the current skulduggery and schism involving the local Greek Orthodox in an intestine struggle, and even dragging the poor old Anglicans into the mess, as the party loyal to the Greek Archbishop of Australia and N.Z. is negotiating with the aforementioned Low Church Anglican Bishop to buy a famous old Anglican church from under the noses of its remnants of anguished and routed High Church parishioners: my opinion is that all denominations in Tasmania must be evil!

On a more liturgical note, I can't recall why Epiphany Matins starts immediately with the first antiphon and psalm of the First Nocturn, with no prefatory versicles, nor Invitatory, nor Venite, nor hymn - the Venite (Ps 94) does get used in the Third Nocturn, but why so?  (I wish I had one of the mediæval commentators to hand, but unfortunately the nearest copy I know of is in the Dominican Library in Melbourne.)