Beer & Bishops

Last weekend we made the pilgrimage to the homeland of Canterbury for the Annual Kent Beer Festival... good beer, good cider, good cowshed location! Yep the 2nd oldest beer festival is held in a cowshed, lots of ventilation (and outside field area for smokers/ festival overflow bounded by maize). It was a good job we went for the start of the saturday session as by 3:30pm they were only picking up those who really wanted to go (and were meeting others already there) as they were starting to run out and not likely to last until the posted 9pm finish time. When we left at 4pm there was not really many light ales (my preference) left and the cider was starting to run out. I also love this festival for the way they set their beers out; the only other one I've come across this system is Southampton. They split the beers into 'Kent' and 'Rest of UK', its good as I always want to try the local tipples (my recommendations are: Whistable - Raspberry Wheat, Gadd's - No.3, Nelson - Seasider; for the supermarkets across the UK, Shepherd Neame - Whiststable Bay, its even organic!).

We didn't see a lot of the olds as they were spending a lot of time up the hill at the once every 10 year Bishop shin dig known as The Lambeth Conference. They are being local volunteers at the enquiries desk in hope they can help the many bishops with their queries ... at the weekend though you didn't want to talk about tote bags (there were 200 odd missing, assumed somewhere on the UKC campus, containing hymn & worship books and its hard to tell some bishops to share!). I'm not sure if the issue my dad was trying to resolve on Saturday (the publised in some press of the lost parcel with the Bishop of Durham's robes ... they were assumed in the end to be in a locked office for the weekend ... as the post and message system wasn't working...) this wasn't as oiled as international camps and jamborees we're used to. I think they were trying to use technology too much and it wasn't working... not sure how things are now.

I've tried to see if the issues have resolved through various blogs ... and to see if the enquiries desk or Mothers Union Wooly Jumpers appear. My mum was already known as the wooly jumper lady by some stewards as she's spent that much time there ... they were out of L & XL and East Kent isn't home to many 18+ sized women so its likely the women of 'traditional build' from the tropics will be weathing the cold britsh summer without jumpers ... good job the sun has some out.

Mind you much like WSJ it is an event of many coloured lanyards ... of course the Bishops and their spouses (as this time we have Mr Bishops ... as some churches are more advanced on the ordination of women as bishops than the UK) have ecclesiastical purple, the olds have yellow as volunteers and the paid staff have red, then we have the hard working green stewards (with a hint of orange high vis waistcoat) and they have to keep the media (turquiose) out of the big blue circus tent that is being used as the large meeting place as thet don't have a place big enough for all those bishops!!!

So I've been doing some blog surfing to look for photos from the event (in case a yellow lanyard I know pops up) and a different view... here's some of note I've encountered...

From the green lanyards:
Tales from a Lambeth Steward
A Canadian viewpoint

Some other views:
For Pictures even features photos of my old church hall ... many a Brownie & Guide meeting held there....
A bit of Humour
Then the local view from the Rector of the Parish that covers UKC, so they're meeting on his patch! Its also the parish I grew up in ... and as featured towards the bottom of the picture blog!

So a bit of mix of a weekend ... how much Shepherd Neame Bishop's Finger will the purple lanyards drink ... maybe in the Bishops Finger pub near the city walls....