It’s been a few years since we’ve sent out a Christmas newsletter: an omission which probably now needs some explanation. The fact is that since the COVID pandemic, we’ve faced various health issues which were depressing enough that we couldn’t face writing about them. We managed to avoid getting COVID for two years; finally, after we were allowed back in church, we caught it from the vicar, who tested positive the morning after the Sunday in question… we didn’t have it very badly… but a few weeks afterwards, Alison started falling over in the street. Not losing consciousness, but simply having her legs give way under her. This was apparently caused by sudden drops in blood pressure (yes! COVID can apparently cure high blood pressure). But the cluster of symptoms that are lumped together under the heading of ‘Long COVID’ have been causing her problems for over 3 years now: brain fog, lack of concentration, impaired balance, weariness and vertigo. She’s had batteries of tests and scans, but none of them have revealed anything apart from the fact that Long COVID is still something the medical profession don’t know a lot about. (Probably not quite true: they do know that there’s a lot they don’t know about it.) Thanks to exercises and physiotherapy, the balance problems are much better than at first. But the depressing thing is that she suffers headaches, tinnitus, and loss of hearing in her right ear. This is apparently caused by ‘COVID-induced Ménière’s disease’, which apparently can be helped if it’s treated in the first fortnight or so. Of course, in that first fortnight back in 2022 no one even knew it was a thing. So there have been times when life has felt a bit of a struggle.
The upshot was that she has found it increasingly difficult to preach, or preside at Holy Communion, so in May she sadly felt it was time to give up her public ministry and PTO (Permission to Officiate). She’s still a priest, so you can still call her ‘Rev’, but you won’t see her at the altar or in the pulpit again.
Still, 2025 has brought things to enjoy and be pleased and proud about. First of all, our family, pictured above at our last Christmas get-together at the end of 2024. 20 of us… we think that may be all for the time being. It’s always a great, fun-filled (noisy!) joy to get together once or twice a year. The family are all well, and growing. Dodie our youngest started school in September. The six oldest are now at secondary school, and Libby is hoping to move on to sixth-form college after GCSEs in the summer.
In April we got away for the end of Holy Week and for Easter in Peterborough, a city we’ve not visited before. The city itself has seen better days, and it feels like every other shop is a betting shop, a pawnbroker’s, or a ‘food and vapes’ shop (where ‘food’ means crisps and alcohol or sugary drinks). But the Cathedral is splendid, reminding us of a time when Peterborough, originally Medeshamstede, was one of the leading cities of Mercia. We loved the services we went to there, especially that there was so much for children to be involved in: a children’s choir, jobs as servers, carrying the Gospel book in the Gospel procession… On Holy Saturday we made a little pilgrimage, driving out to Little Gidding to visit the home, the church and grave of one of my Christian heroes, Nicholas Ferrar. (Obligatory quote from T. S. Eliot coming up:)
You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry away report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid.
And so we did.
In May we went on SAGA’s Island-Hopping Round Britain Cruise, visiting Fowey (because the weather wouldn’t allow us to make the planned landing on Guernsey 🥲), Belfast and the Giants’ Causeway, Anglesey, the Isle of Man (great to visit Gill Poole there), Ullapool, and then Orkney, where we visited the Stone Age village of Skara Brae and the standing stones of the Ring of Brodgar. These in particular were ancient Celtic sites that Alison wanted to see.
Our next holiday adventure was to Germany in August, visiting Berlin, Dresden and Wernigerode (where? what?) This was Tony’s special dream: his last, and only, visit to Berlin was in 1970, long before the Berlin Wall came down. (Major understatement of this letter coming up:) A lot has changed since then… In fact the hotel we stayed in was in the former Ostzone, where nearly every building is from the last 30 years or so. Alison didn’t enjoy Berlin so much… but Tony enjoyed such highlights as Currywurst mit Pommes, the Legalise Cannabis demonstration we watched one afternoon, the Brandenburger Tor, the queue of tourists waiting to have their photos taken at (a mock-up of) Checkpoint Charlie, the Trabi cars, and of course practising his German. Not easy in Berlin, where many of the waiters and hotel staff are from Eastern Europe and further afield, and they prefer speaking English to German. Dresden was wonderful, though it took us a while to get over the feeling of guilt about the Allied bombing of the city in February 1945 – surely a war crime, unnecessary since the war was already won, and aimed at civilians in a non-military target – a reminder that not least of the evils of war is that even the ‘good guys’ end up committing crimes against humanity. We loved seeing places and monuments connected with the Reformation, including a visit to Nimbschen, where we saw the ruins of the convent where Katharina von Bora was a nun, before she fled to Wittenberg where she met and married Martin Luther. Paintings in the restaurant where we ate lunch, of young nuns escaping the convent by night, to join the Reformation! And Wernigerode? It’s a quaint little medieval town, more visited by Germans than foreign tourists, from where we joined excursions to visit the Harz Mountains and the Brocken (witches galore) and Colditz (where they kept mentioning the war).
The excitements and joys of the autumn included Sephy’s baptism – as a pandemic baby she wasn’t ‘done’ back then. And Tony’s ‘First Voyage of the Coracle’. This is what it’s called when you make vows to become a Voyager in the Community of Aidan and Hilda. Alison has been a member since 2015, but it’s taken Tony a while longer to make up his mind. It was an inspiring little service at St Mary’s Church here in Thame, in which the Members’ Guardian Sr Thenue told me to “be ready for the Spirit to lead you into wild, windy or well-worn places in the knowledge that God will make them places of wonder and welcome”. I look forward to it!
That about brings us up to date. We wish you all a very happy Christmas, with many blessings in the coming year. As I said recently on Facebook: I can’t believe we’re already a quarter of the way through the 21st century. Here’s to the next three-quarters.
Christus est natus, ex Maria Virgine, gaudete!
With our love,
Tony & Alison
tonyprice01@gmail.com
alisonjeanprice@gmail.com
Godspelled 