The final full day of Summer School dawned, with the knowledge of a return to the real-world looming. I arose early and went to the yurt to meditate with Sandra and several other hardy souls wearing jumpers (it wasn’t that cold, but 7.30am in Derbyshire requires a warm jumper). But even with a return to real life on the horizon, our hearts were full, because it had been a wonderful experience with wisdom to take back and new friends to stay in touch with, and also we were about to have the pleasure of Sheena Gabriel and friends’ theme talk. Again, I can’t really do justice to this, not least because you’ll have to watch the full video to understand why anyone who was at Summer School in August 2025 will fall about laughing at the phrase ‘furniture-coloured’. Alongside such gems as “I don’t think I can beat Chicken Licken…”, I was struck by the phrases “The need to model authenticity”, “I’m not sure I can take on God yet…” and “The Magic Faraway Tree has come back into my life!”. Here’s the full talk:

And for our final Engagement Group, we gathered to complete our house of belief. As Danny and Arek said, “A house is a house – we need to live in a home”. We also spoke of the importance of not mixing up rule 34 and rule 62 – there was much laughter in our groups, it wasn’t all seriousness! We touched a little on the rich history of the local area, and Eyam in particular – here’s a podcast episode about it from the ‘Lore’ podcast, a favourite of mine: England’s Plague Village. During the group, we spoke of different types of spiritual gathering: Movement-based, communal and relational practices, silence and simplicity, creative and artistic, nature connections, structured prayers, communion service, Shakespeare and music, and mindful eating, finishing with the moving words: “Your life is a shrine to meaning”. Here’s some photos:

From lunchtime, we began to transition towards going home, including the taking of the group photograph, and the collecting of the Silent Auction items. For once, I attended two events in the afternoon, a free dancing session in the Peach Room organised by Nick Morrice in honour of Dawn Buckle, the ‘Dancing Queen’ of Unitarianism and the long-standing Secretary of the Unitarian North West Provincial Assembly, among her many other accomplishments. We struck our best poses in her honour! After that, I joined Michael Allured and others in the lounge to talk about ‘Going Home’, what we would take from our time together and what we had learned. I felt the need to do a farewell walk around Hucklow, pausing in the Forest School to do some outdoor meditation and say a fond farewell for now. I also popped in to the Queen Anne; I’ve always rather wanted to visit the pub in Hucklow, and their terrace is the perfect spot to sit outside and quietly contemplate the world as I prepared to go back home.

We ate the last dinner of Summer School together, then processed over to the Chapel for an extended Epilogue Service, led by the Summer School panel. We repaired to the lounge for a final evening of fun, friendship and reminiscing over the past week – here’s some final photos:

The following morning, we had a final meditation in the yurt, ate our breakfasts, hugged, laughed, and headed off home. I dropped off several passengers at the local railway station, and pointed my car north and home to the tune of an appropriate song for an adopted Geordie. We will return.