Nunraw

I'm just back from a week's holiday with my family at Nunraw Abbey Guest House. We've been going there for over 20 years and it's become a home from home. The monastery and the guest house are situated in the beautiful countryside of East Lothian. It's a lovely part of Scotland, very prosperous and boasts some top class golf courses, which ticks all the right boxes for me. I did'nt really do very much, just slept, read some books, played golf and lazed about. I finished 'The Kite Runner' which is a brilliant book. It is by an Afghan/American author called Khaled Hosseini and, althouhg my finger is not really on the pulse of modern fiction, he must be one of the best contemporary writers about, along with Louis de Bernieres. It is extremely well written. Very powerful, honest, compassionate, moving. The same can be said of his second novel 'A Thousand Splendid Suns'. I can't recommend them highly enough. I enjoyed the two games of golf with my dad, although my game was very erratic, especially my short game (pitching and putting). It ususally takes a month or two to find your feel for the short game. Golf is strange. One minute you are playing well and all is sweetness and light, and the next minute you have triple bogeyed a hole and you feel like snapping the putter over your knee and wondering why on earth you play the infernal game. I like the challenge and it's a father/son thing to do, which is important, but futhermore I like the feeling when the club connects sweetly with the ball and soars through the sky like a bird or when a long putt rolls in to save par. I play the game for those moments. When not playing golf or sleeping, we visited Haddington and Gifford, a town and a village about six milles from Nunraw. Both are charming. I did'nt make mass in the morning (I'm an insomniac) but my room was near the chapel and I enjoyed going in and sitting in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. Sometimes I would pray, sometimes I would just be still and rest. Compline in the evening is the last prayer that the monks say. It's a lovely service but the community numbers have noticeably diminished in the past few years and it's quite sad. The voices chanting passages of the psalms are old and not as strong as they used to be. It would be a great shame if Nunraw closed but it is a possibility if there is not an influx of new vocations. I don't think that the monks are worried, they just get on with their life of work, prayer and community. They are holy men and the world is crying out for people like them.