Imbolc Waning Bridgit Moon
This room is the Bishop’s bedroom. B-1 in the Bishop’s wing. Which has only B-1 and B-2. When the Bishop comes, he stays in this room, uses this pigeon-hole desk, which I find surprisingly user friendly, and has a whole sitting room for himself and his entourage.
(lined up to reserve this room. this first guy just couldn’t believe they’d let me in ahead of him.)
I imagine I have it because, since Tuesday, I’ve been the sole retreatant. Just me and 14 monks. By chance I stayed in B-2 during the Woolly Retreat in February, so I’ve completed a tour of the Bishop’s wing. This room’s better. It has this pigeon-hole desk while the other has a flat top desk that would look at home in a down-scale dormitory room at a community college.
The shower here has sliding doors and a plastic molded seat. B-2 has a narrow stand-up shower almost under a window. Here, I have a bookcase bed. In B-2 it was just a bed. There is also a small nightstand with four drawers and brass handle pulls. I put my pajamas in there. Oddly, the drawers all have a divider which makes them less, rather than more, useful.
Tonight, after I wrote in praise of silence, I discovered that the monks kick up their heels on Thursday night, dining in the guest dining area and, wait for it, talking during the whole meal! I sat with Brother Paul and Brother Chris. Father Tom joined us, too.
We talked bees. Brother Paul and Brother Chris are bee-keepers here though they’ve not kept any bees for the last couple of years. Sounds like they’re going to give it a go again this year. They have large fields of clover, one of the best honey plants, and alfalfa.
