8.30 pm. I tidied up and printed the conclusion of the last Abstraction lecture before heading for the School. One wakes, occasionally, feeling instinctively at odds with the day. It’s as though the world and oneself has slipped marginally out of sync overnight. This is such a day. 9.00 am. There were networking problems effecting the whole university. My Dropbox was unreachable, SAMS (the online register database) behaved uncharacteristically, and, eventually, all web searches proved futile. I pressed on with postgraduate admin — corresponding with PhD inquirers, reading and commenting on draft proposals, and looking ahead.

10.30 am. The first MA Fine Art tutorial of the day followed by the final Vocational Practice class of the semester. After which, we headed as a group for Le Figaro for a spirited Christmas lunch together:

2.00 pm. I reviewed a PhD Art History resubmission (which had only minor amendments to be made) and, thereafter, caught up with my second MA Fine Art tutorial for the day. The tutee had arrived at the School later than intended, having been redirected through North Wales from Welshpool in order to avoid the floods. In between bouts of admin, I held two undergraduate Dissertation tutorials. They’ll need to submit a draft by late January:

4.30 pm. The final appointment of the afternoon: an extended pastoral tutorial.

6.30 pm. An early return to work. I’ve a 20-minute ‘talk’ on the theme of ‘The Nativity: Image and Reality’ to prepare for a Sunday afternoon congregation:

It’s one of the few occasions that I have work at the boundary of my professional and ecclesiastical lives in the public domain. In part, the talk explores the ways in which artists imagined the context of Christ’s birth prior the opening up of the Middle East in the nineteenth century.