Valedictory Hugs
19 April
Well, the winding down has begun.
Most people have been more than gracious in their farewell statements to me. I've had telephone calls and e-mails from within UCL and from around the country. I've had a letter from a major College committee singing my praises and bemoaning my loss. It's been quite affecting. Pity they all waited until I was going before letting me know how much I was valued. Pity they didn't turn those fine words into resources I could use whilst I was there.
But let me not be bitter. 
Friday night saw me attending a performance of Bach's St John Passion at English National Opera. It was outstandingly well done. Director, Deborah Warner, had taken the only sensible decision and had made the setting and the action as sparse and Spartan as possible. Anything more would have gone against the oratorio nature of the work. She also sustained the community aspect of the piece by placing amateur choir members in the stage boxes o sing during the chorales and by inviting the audience to join in with three specific chorales (text and music available, house lights up).
The music making was of an exceptionally high quality. Stephen Layton conducted at a brisk modern pace but still found space to let the emotion and anguish of the piece come through. Choruses were dramatic, easily dramatic enough to suggest that a staged interpretation was not violating the work. Paul Whelan's Jesus was appropriately dignified, David Kempster's Pilate was a portrait of a governor caught between doing right and doing what is politically expedient and mention too of Susan Gritton's movingly expressed lament over the crucifixion of Christ.
Honours, however, must go to the Evangelist of Mark Padmore - quite easily one of the most powerfully achieved vocal performances I've ever witnessed. There were many individual moments, and in particular his singing of the tortured chromaticism representing Peter's tears after thrice denying Christ, but the sum totality of the performance bound the evening together into a cogent meditation on the death and loss of Christ with only the barest hint at the possibility of the hope of the resurrection yet to come.
Ross was in my bed asleep by the time I returned. I usually sleep easily with him besides me but that night, and for most subsequent nights, I have been restless. There are great tides of change buffeting my shores.
Saturday I said goodbye to Connie. It was the first of what will be many farewells. Yoga will come at some point but first came cranial osteopathy. Connie gave me some contact names in the North West that I may well chase up later in the year. We hugged goodbye. Later in the week I hugged Sue who has been my mentor at work and later on still I hugged Leslie who is a colleague and friend who works at the Bank of England.
I know I want to move forwards but the letting go is painful. However, I am letting myself experience it rather than fleeing the feelings.
Chris too has now resigned from UCL.
I appear to have started a trend.