Pastures New: Hugo Lomax

At the time of writing, it is my twelfth day at Allen Hall. For those of us (of various dioceses) who have come here off the back of our propaedeutic year in Valladolid, I think it was always going to feel like a wrench, saying goodbye to our beautiful Spanish home and returning to the drab realities of life in England. As it happens though, life has gone on being anything but drab, and has felt something more like a whirlwind. My new home is the seminary of Allen Hall in Chelsea, just off the King’s Road, which to be honest, feels more of a contrast to Penryn than Valladolid ever did. 

Unlike Valladolid, where there was just a single year group, here my friends and I get to enjoy being ‘first years’ once again in house with multiple year groups, up to and including a few grizzled old deacons awaiting their priestly orders later this year. Fortunately, everybody, staff and students alike, has been extremely kind. (I have to say that of course, but it is true). The food is excellent, the surroundings handsome, the rooms sufficient to our needs, and the timetable full of interesting sounding subjects that I want to know about, like Patristics and Philosophical Anthropology. It’s early days, so there’s not much to add yet, except to ask that you remember me and my brother seminarians in your prayers now and then.

God bless the See of Plymouth and all who swim in her!