It's been great during sabbatical to reconnect with many thing not least myself! I've had space and time to see friends and visit a few places that are special to me. I'm currently sat in a little room at Alton Abbey somewhere I've known and loved most of my life. I was reminded by one of the monks that when he first came to the community I was just 8; around that time I used to say when I grow up I either want to be a punk or a monk! My visits here go back to my early years and certainly its been a formative place for me. I sometimes joke to people I've spent about a year in a monastery just in little chunks... The community here have been a real formative presence on my life and my faith (especially those who have been here for many years including my adopted uncle 'Unc the Monk' as we affectionately call him). My upbringing in a low church Methodist family was broadened so much by this community whose worship and life is so different than that I saw week by week 
in my home church. There is much in the worship here which remains 'strange' to me by that I mean that which I do not own as my own tradition, yet it speaks to me and has affected my faith and life. Hospitality, unconditional love, humour, liturgy, order, silence...I have learnt and gained so much here and the monastic community have helped form me in the person I am (and continue to become).
Whilst staying here I've also taken the opportunity of heading to my home city Portsmouth for a brief overnight stay with a good friend and a meal out with two more friends as well. Geography makes it difficult to meet many of my friends regularly, a sadness of life in this transient life many people now live. The experience of returning to my home city is always a little odd not least because so much has changed (I sound old now). The familiarity of some key places remain though and as I drove and walked round the city memories and experiences welled up within me, the theatre on whose stage I used to perform, the pub where I went on the night of my 18th birthday, the church I attended, the house where I lived, the hill we used to sledge... The place and more importantly the people I knew have helped mould and shape me, just as our experiences through life continue to do, yet the Abbey and my time in Portsmouth have a particular importance for they were my 'formative years'. I don't think I realise how much I owe to them, as I sit and type my eyes are full with thankfulness. I'm sorry its taken me so long to return to the Abbey to stay, I know for certain it won't be as long till my next visit and Portsmouth's due another visit soon too!
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