The

The Welcome back to Nomad podcast. I'm Tim Nash and I'm very pleased to say this is still Joy Brooks.

Hello.

Hopefully you're refreshed and restored Joy Brooks because you've been in quotes wasting time, haven't you, a little reference there to today's interview at a retreat center. Did you have a good time, Joy?

Yeah. I'm going to quibble with the phrase

retreat centre because it was a Franciscan friary. I don't think they'd call it that because they're

literally just doing their Franciscan stuff and they offer hospitality to people who can come and

stay and if they want, join in their rhythm of prayer and all of that and can otherwise get on and do their stuff.

So I think you can ask to have a chat with a brother if you feel like you could do with some spiritual input.

Did you have a chat with a brother?

Well, I had lots of chats with brothers, but not a formal I need to talk to a brother kind of conversation.

But yeah, I mean, they were lovely,

very lovely, warm human beings. And the time wasting I did was marvellous. I wasted time

going for walks along the seafront. I wasted time sitting in their gardens, listening to all the

it was never silent there because of so much birdsong. I wasted time having an accidental afternoon nap in the library on the sofa that looks out to see.

Beautiful.

I had so much sleep.

I wanted to stay up for Compline, which is meant to be a really nice evening prayer thing.

And I kept falling asleep before it, and it was only at half eight in the evening.

So I was falling asleep around that time, getting nine hours sleep and still managed to

have an accidental afternoon nap.

I have not felt so relaxed in decades.

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