With the bishops retreating to the cathedral, today the campus of UKC was curiously deserted, inhabited only by the bishop’s wives¹ (I would say “spouse”, being a good Guardian-reading liberal, but I didn’t see anyone who wasn’t a wife!):

There were wives from the sub continent:

There were wives from Africa:

Wives from Melanesia (who were in England for the first time, and having a ball learning about all sorts of new things):

… and wives from Canada:

(who thought, when I went up to ask if I could take their photograph, that they were about to be told off for being noisy! Canadians, eh? Noisy and conscientious!)

(That’s not sunshine outside the tent, but snow, brought in especially to make them feel at home).

There was a wonderfully calm feeling to the conference today, and as I wandered around I fantasied about today being the real Lambeth conference.

What would it be like if the Spouses Conference was the real business of the Anglican Communion?

What if all the bishops were like these women: looking out to make friends, learn new things, have a ball?

1. oops! typo! I suppose that should be “bishops’ wives”– I don’t think they all belonged to one man! [↩]

Thank you to all those of you who called by these parts yesterday, following the link from my good friend Simon (Anglican who Thinks) Sarmiento. The unexpected publicity pushed up my traffic from its usual:

to a fantastical:

(which all goes to show, there’s nowt so queer as folk, especially those who like to look at pictures of bishops in their (un)natural habitat).

There will be more in the following days, sheering exposes of “Signs of Life at Lambeth”™, but in the meantime, may I humbly present for your consideration, the following link to Amazon.co.uk:

(the bastards have discounted the book further since I grabbed the screen-cap, so if you buy now you’ll get even more of a bargain price!)