Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief

… which must mean I have finally got over my nun phobia.

One of Mr E’s fervent interests is chess, which is lucky for me because it means that I often get to see parts of England I would not normally otherwise visit. I have a particular fondness for the seaside, in or out of season, and this year chess took us to Blackpool and Torquay. Small pleasures.

But sometimes the attraction of the chess congress palls even for the most dedicated chess WAG, and so this weekend just past I didn’t accompany Mr E to A City I Shall Not Name. Friday evening, he called soon after arrival. “You know I’m staying at the venue, don’t you?” he asked. “That’s a good thing, right?” I replied. It would mean that he doesn’t have to get up too early, and also if The City turned out not to be a very nice place (I have never been to This Particular City and can make no judgement on the matter) he wouldn’t actually have to go out in it. “Well, normally it would be a good thing,” he said. “But they omitted to tell us something about the centre.”

It turns out that it is some sort of  convent-turned-conference-centre run by nuns. Or rather nun, singular. “As soon as we got here, we were met by a nun asking us if we wanted sandwiches the next day! And there are pictures of the pope grinning at me!” He was not happy, although of course I found it very funny.

Now, I know some people have preferences for what a nun should wear. In this instance, it was a definite bonus that she was not attired in a wimple. Mr E is not one to notice much what people wear (although he would notice a wimple), and described her outfit as “some sort of a purple jumper.” But he said that she looked like a nun somehow, although that might have been something to do with the large crucifix she was wearing.

And apparently she was everywhere, always busy, completely engaging with her visitors and doing things like making sandwiches and collecting teacups and generally bustling in a welcoming manner. Come Sunday evening when he returned, I asked him about the singular nun and behold, she had completely won him over. “She was brilliant,” he said.

I had been a bit sceptical about the centre, because the way Mr E described it on the phone made it sound not very spiritual at all. There was a huge chapel, which would have been used for the congress if there were more participants. “What about all the pews?” Mr E had asked. “Oh, we would just move those out,” he was told. He was grateful there had not been enough numbers to warrant playing chess there. I don’t think he liked the idea of playing chess under a crucifix.

I was a bit puzzled. “What about the blessed sacrament?” I asked, mostly to myself because Mr E doesn’t really know what that is. “Oh, there was something called a Blessed Sacrament chapel, where people could pray.” So that was separate, which was a relief. “Were you sleeping in the same building as the Blessed Sacrament chapel?” I asked when he came home. “Well, I suppose so, it was all one place,” he said. And I thought that was a nice thing.

I don’t know if it is a convent that has fallen on hard times (or run out of nuns), or maybe it was never a convent at all; but although at first I thought it was a bit off to have a religious place used as a conference centre I’ve changed my mind. Although I think the key thing here was the nun; if it had been a catholic building run by lay-people as a secular conference centre, that would still feel off-key to me. (Nuns are still lay-people aren’t they? But you know what I mean…) However, the Sister was so hospitable and charming, and Mr E has never said such accomodating things about catholics before (general and particular) as he has in the past day.