St. Surreal of Aylesford
2002-06-12 || 6:53 p.m.

I had a really surreal day today.

I had to go on a course in Aylesford, which is a village in the middle of Kent. I left the house at 7.30. It was eerily silent everywhere, hardly anyone about. Most people were indoors watching the football. The train to Strood has to go at 20mph through the tunnel because the tunnel is so old it keeps caving in. So what did Railtrack or Connex or whatever shitty privatised company it is who are in charge of timetables, do? They kept the timetable the same! Bright eh? So the train is always late and you cannot get your connection at Strood. Which I didn't. I had to wait for half an hour. The few people who were around me, were plugged into radios presumably listening to the football. Anyway I finally get to Aylesford approx. 30 mins late. I have 10 mins to find the centre and I haven't a clue where it is. The station is unmanned. (Actually coming home it was very interesting watching the old fashioned signals. All I could think about was the Railway Children and Bernard Cribbens).

I had a map. It was a grey line and a box marked 'Station'. A couple of centimetres away was another box marked 'The Friars' (my destination).

I walked the wrong way for 20 minutes.

Anyway, to cut a long story short I was about an hour late. But the wierdest thing of all was that the conference centre was a monastery! No kidding. A Carmelite order of monks. How freaky is that.

Sitting in the refectory for lunch was an awesome experience. It was a galleried building and must have been at least 500 years old. There was chatter all around and I could just see the monks there centuries before, eating in silence of maybe listening to someone saying a prayer. A few hundred decades of the rosary perhaps.

Whilst we were eating a real live monk came in to get his lunch.

How sad is it that a spiritual life means so little these days that the place has to be hired out to companies or, as in my case, the local County Council who are my employers.

There was a massive shrine in the middle of the monastery.

I will go back there some day and have a proper look.

It made me want to get down on my knees and pray. It took me back to my childhood. Oh, how I would love to believe. No-one knows how much I would like that. But alas, no.

In the room we were doing our drama in there were giant pictures on the wall. Religious ones. They were very reminiscent of William Blake. A mix of dark and light. God, the very essence of life eh.

I've either had a very strange day or I've been in a Monty Python sketch unwittingly.