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Here we are home again, and Hawaii is fading away into the background as I come to terms with exactly how much needs to be done in the Diocese and how little time there is to do it. Hawaii is a strange place, sitting between two worlds like nowhere else I've ever seen. It is very American, with freeways and Hershey bars and Macy's and light switches that work upside down and those odd, shallow, flat toilet pans which give you more information than you ever needed or wanted to know. It is also very Pacific with reefs and coconut palms and earth ovens and pois and a language whose relationship to Maori is obvious and intriguing. Of course we only saw a bit of it: Oahu, at one end of which sits the city of Honolulu. Honolulu is like Disneyland without the rides: a city built on vacations and therefore on escape and fantasy. At the other end of Oahu is a series of small towns with plain architecture and tiny, tired shopping centres and steep, stark, buttressed mountains and gorge...

Yesterday I acquired a daughter in law. This was a wedding that had been in preparation for a very long time by people who are details people. Basically, it was perfect.The venue was a large stretch of lawn in a secluded bay. The Weather was sunny, if mildly breezy. The picture postcard Hawaiian sunset appeared on cue, and there was even a tiny shower to provide a rainbow. Of course, table settings, menu, clothes and all that stuff were stunning. I'm sorry I can't tell you what Charmayne wore except that it was white and she looked like everyones idea of what the perfect bride should look like and my daughters went into raptures over her Jimmy Choo shoes. Nick wore a cravat which he managed to tie with help from Youtube. It was a rich, full, wonderful day and there were some highlights: My first ever ride in a stretch limo; memorable not so much for the interior decor (chrome and spangles galore and a bar along one entire side) as for the skill of the driver in executing a u-t...

This morning my family had a large and leisurely breakfast sitting on the lanai of our apartment. The sea lapped at the wall within spitting distance, the waves broke on the reef about 100 metres away and beyond them the spouts of a large pod of whales shot periodically up into the morning sunshine. We ate eggs and bacon, or at least some of us did, and fruit and porridge and muffins and coffee, just the six of us and Clemency's two sisters. Later in the day our family increases: the boundaries break to enlarge and enfold themselves again around the beautiful young woman who has chosen to spend the rest of her life with my son Nick. This is one more of those life changing events which have happened in our family on about a monthly basis for the last couple of years. We arrived here last Monday. We picked up a big black vehicle of the type the Americans call a minivan, although there is nothing vanlike or mini about it, and drove out of Honolulu to Hau'ulu, about 40 minutes nor...