I keep losing my ISP line some way through the entry. I have not long been awake � just to explain if a particular tone creeps in.

Yesterday the dog and I spent a long while on Guildown and the lie of the land. It was clear cold weather was coming from the East even though the sun was beautiful and now its here.

I was designated during the Guildford Civic Mayor Making service to stand in front of the Honduras mahogany steps to the pulpit (1770) and make sure that no one other than Rev Robert Cotton climbed up to do the sermon during the preceding hymn. Its not that I am hard (at all) � I just have the haircut.

I found Merton Priory Chapterhouse on a patch of earth framed by a low brick wall under a new highway near a Sava Centre. It is like archaeology is � the outline of a building about one or two feet above the ground. I picked up various information sheets � most of the archives had been pulled together by a Victorian Brigadier in the 1880s.

It seems the Roman Road to Chichester ran literally through the middle of the main church. So when the first 17 friars (Augustinians) selected (or were given) a site in 1117 it happened to be right by a river running off the chalk where the Romans had chosen to build a bridge and on an alignment connecting St Marie Overie at Southwark with the church in the Iron Age earthwork at Ashtead on the way to Box Hill. A decade or so later Thomas a Beckett turned up to be educated.

We did a Nones � the service that Augustinians do around 3pm in the afternoon. One of the readings was Acts Ch8 where the apostles go down into Samaria after Stepehen�s execution. They didn�t do the whole story about he argument with Simon the Magus � the man who helped get Pontius Pilate called back to Rome (probably).

Just next door is the waterwheel which William Morris had built to drive the mill which wove and dyed his fabric. The dye house is a Grade II listed building and probably contains bits of the Abbey. The wheel is still working and making electricity for a kind of New Age retail centre. I spent too long here and was late for the rehearsal for the next event back at St Mary�s in Guildford � which was one of the 60 odd churches linked to the Abbey.

But the band was on � Peter played Spanish gtr, John Fr Horn and I switched between D-Horn and flute. A soprano cantor turned up from Ockhamwho knew the material well. Annie�s liturgy was slightly to the left of Che Guevara.

Nothing much planned today other than trying to get the printer to work.