I've just (11.10pm) lost an hour's blog.  Must be a bit addledaddled.  I'll go to bed and re-blog in the morning.

[Sunday] Yesterday morning was Saturday.   Celebrated by lie-in till 8am.  Catch myself dreaming of coffee while shaving: real coffee; freshly ground real coffee; strong freshly ground real coffee; caffetiere thereof.   I've noticed I'm a two-teabag-in-a-mug man.  Tea is clearly the coffee junkie's methodone.  

Breakfast: bran flakes (with raisins - more than I expected - the packet says 'more flakes than fruit - still tasty.  Sainsbury's Basics are amazing: the packaging is not only simple - it's honest) and methodone-tea - two mugs.

Wind up my computer and off we go: I've time to skim the top layer off the In-box.  Mostly to do with yesterday.  Chase a brilliant photo of Parliament Square with a sea of red plackards, viewed from under the outstretched arm of Mandela.  Pity the photographer decapitated Big Ben: I wanted it for my book on Christian Tradition and the Practice of Justice to be published in November (Reader - please note. ... I know I have one reader because you told me, Chris, that you couldn't get your comment posted.  What I didn't tell you was that CAP promised to filter out the unprintable.  Klar?).  Google takes me to Harare and I find yesterday's demo was very fairly reported in at least one paper, with great picture (but no Mandela).

Off to Dean's Yard for opening of Choir School Fete.  Reckon I can spend 20p.   I'm not in for the tombola, the raffle or the auction.  So, no ethical dilemmas about winning champagne.   Settle to watch Morris dancing with borrowed baby.  I dance him up and down in time with the music and wave his dribble-blanket in time with the hankies till he begins to gurgle ominously and I think he's going to be seasick.  His smile never wavers: a true Brit.  I plonk him back on Granny's knee.  There's a falconry display - and a low-flying hawk - on a demo - lands on balloons, sinking ignominiously in a sea of pink and white - then is rescued and rewarded with a tasty gobbet of flesh.   The in-house newssheet carried the news of my week:  I thought it better to let them know that when I didn't spend I wasn't thinking. 'Bah! Humbug!' (though they might be when they read about me).   Several interesting conversations about the price of apples, Pimlico poverty and the location of Lidls.  Beer is waved under my nose to encourage me to stay the distance. 

Lunch is baked beans on toast (three slices) with spread, and a clementine: gobbets of orange flesh eaten one-by-one. 10p extra.

Jolly Stanford Magnificat at Evensong: 'He has put down the mighty from their seat ...'.   Find myself thinking 'Jolly good, I say' with the poet Charles Causley, and remembering the joy of Michael Mayne in the pulpit when he recited Causely's ballad of the hare getting away scot free and the hunter getting his cumuppance. 

Quick flip return trip to the Fete to touch base with choir school parent who runs Merchant-Gourmet.  He gives (ethical police please note) gives me four slices of sunblush tomatoes from Zimbabwe and an eggcup-sized container of cooked rice.  2000 people in Zimbabwe depend on him for income.   Last year he said he could barely carry on; this year it's worse.  What he tell me reminds me of what happens with un-smart sanctions.  Yesterday, China and Russia blocked smart sanctions at the UN.  I think of the 2000, and of the 25,000 who depend on Tesco's - who have just pulled out. 

I make my way - plastic container in hand - to the Zimbabwean High Commission to see how my friends are after yesterday.   From Westminster Abbey to the Strand I can't find a rubbish basket.  Rubbish is everywhere: job opportunities (for some) everywhere.   When I get there (they gather under the only tree on the Strand) I am welcomed and welcomed.  My hands are grasped: I must dance with them ('Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?'  Of course I will.)   I presume they are singing the Zimbabwean equivalent of the Marseilleise: 'Aux armes mes citoyens!  Formez vos bataillons!'  Not quite: it's 'Knock, knoock!  Let Jesus come into your heart.'  Still revolutionary stuff.

By the time I'm home I'm flagging - especially when I realise I've gone out without my key.  Rescued by daughter and retored by pasta, tomato and spread, with luscious red and green apple and methodone-tea.  Then a few bran-flakes for the raisins (very tasty).

In the evening I work on the 6.30pm Abbey service for August 3rd.  It will focus on the Feast of the Transfiguration (August 6) - the day when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

We'll finish with a favourite hymn:

There is God's garden stands the tree of wisdom

whose leaves hold forth the healing of the nations:

tree of all knowledge, tree of all compassion,

      tree of all beauty. ...

See how its branches reach to us in welcome;

hear what the voice says, 'Come to me, ye weary:

give me your sickness, give me all your sorrow:

      I will 'give blessing'. 

Spent on food so far: £3.11.  Other expenditure: 80p