Plough Blessing Service 2017

Tags

Blessing the Plough, church service, folk dance, Molly Men, Old Glory, Plough Monday, Plough Sunday, Rumburgh, St Felix and St Michael's church Rumburgh, Suffolk

Those of you who have been reading my posts for a while will recognise the title of this one.  Every year my church of St Felix and St Michael at Rumburgh holds a special Plough Blessing service on the first Sunday after Epiphany.   Epiphany is on the 6th of January and celebrates the arrival of the Wise Men who brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to Jesus.  The first Sunday after Epiphany is Plough Sunday and the following day is Plough Monday when traditionally, work on the land is recommenced after the Christmas break.  These days there is no real break for Christmas and farm workers do not suffer from the terrible poverty they did in former times though they are still not very highly-paid.  Here is a link to the ‘Old Glory’ site of our local Molly Men.  Please take time to look at all their pages if you can.

The decorated plough in the nave of the church

The decorated plough

I enjoy this short service each year.  In it, we look forward to spring, summer and harvest and pray that not only will there be enough warmth and rain to grow the crops but that we will not take anything for granted and will thank God for his care of us.  We don’t just pray for ourselves but for all farmers throughout the world.  Each component of the plough is blessed – the beam, the mouldboard, the slade, the sidecap, the share and the coulters.

I love the words from the prayer of gratitude.

From God comes every good and perfect gift:  

The rich soil, the smell of the fresh-turned earth.

The keenness of a winter’s frost and our breath steaming.

The hum of the tractor, the gleam of a cutting edge.

The beauty of a clean-cut furrow, the sweep of a well-ploughed field.

The hymn at the end of the service is ‘We Plough the Fields, and Scatter…’

During Harvest-tide we get a little tired of singing this hymn as all the churches in our benefice have their own harvest service and the hymn is very popular, especially with the farming families.  However, singing it at this time of year, so gloomy and cold as it is, gives hope and cheer so we all sing with gusto!

The plough and some of the costumes of the Molly Men.

The plough is left in the church over-night and is ready to be processed down the lane to the pub the next evening on Plough Monday.  There are no street lights here and the nights are black at this time of the year.  Flaming torches are carried to light the way.  This year they won’t be accompanied by the church bells which will be silent out of respect to one of the ringers who died suddenly a few days ago.

Here is a film made in 2010 of the procession of Old Glory with the plough from the church to the Rumburgh ‘Buck’ pub.

Thanks for visiting!

Plough Sunday

Tags

church service, Evening Prayers, Plough Sunday, Rumburgh

The Crib in Rumburgh Church.  As we are still celebrating Epiphany the Crib shows the Three Kings or Wise Men visiting the Holy Family.

 

I seem to have spent most of the day in church today.  I woke this morning to clear skies and when the sun rose everything looked beautiful and sparkling.  There was still a strong wind blowing which made it feel much colder outside than it really was.

I had promised my mother that I’d take her to her church this morning, as the services at our church were both in the afternoon.  I left home at just after 9.45 am, picked Mum up at 10.10 and got to Eye just after 10.30.  There were a couple of places near the church where I could park which is the advantage of arriving a little early.  The service went well but is always much longer than our one and by the time we left the skies were beginning to cloud over.  I dropped Mum back at her house at about 12.30 and then went home for something to eat.

Richard and I went to the Plough Service at our church this afternoon.  We set out in plenty of time for the 3.00 pm start but we discovered the road was blocked by a fallen tree.  It wasn’t a large tree and most of it was dead but it was very heavy and Richard and I really struggled to get it to the side of the road.  By the time we had got it half way to the side a few other cars had arrived and first a woman in the car behind us and then a man from a car two behind her and then a young man who had driven up from the opposite direction all got out to help clear the road.  Richard, the woman and I had managed to get it almost to the side of the road by dragging it one way but the young man said he would be able to get it further off the road by taking it a different way.  He was very strong and put the tree over his shoulder and with the other men’s help he got it right off the road.

The cover of the Plough Sunday service sheet

To quote from the service sheet –

‘The Blessing of the Plough is traditionally celebrated on the first Sunday after Epiphany, January 6th.  Often the plough was feted and drawn through the streets to be blessed in church.  This was thought to ensure food for the coming year.  The following day, Plough Monday, was the first day that work in the fields recommenced after Christmas’.

The decorated plough in our church

A local family bring their plough into the church and decorate it with ribbons and rosettes.

A farmer or his representative says:

‘Reverend Sir, we come to ask for God’s blessing on the work of the farmers of our country, of which this plough is a sign and token’.

To which the Minister replies:

‘I welcome you in the name of the Creator God who made this earth and all life upon it’.

The short service that follows includes verses from Psalm 104 which is a lovely song of praise for all creation and is worth a read for the wonderful phrases like ‘…..You cause grass to grow for the cattle,/ and plants for man to cultivate,/ to bring forth food from the earth,/ and wine to gladden the human heart.’

‘…..You bring darkness, it becomes night,/ and all the beasts of the forest come creeping out.’

In the service we acknowledge our forgetfulness and our gratitude for God’s Gifts.  The blessing of the plough follows and then ‘God Speed the Plough’ – some verses about ploughing.

‘God Speed the Plough,/ the plough and the ploughman,/ the farm and the farmer,/ God Speed the Plough.

God Speed the Plough,/ the beam and the mouldboard,/ the slade and the sidecap,/ the share and the coulters,/ God Speed the Plough.

God Speed the Plough,/ on hillside and in valley,/ on land which is rich and on land that is poor,/ in countries beyond the seas,/ and in our homeland,/ God Speed the Plough.

God Speed the Plough,/ in fair weather and foul,/ in rain and wind, in frost and sunshine,/God Speed the Plough.

 

We are then blessed and we sing the harvest hymn ‘ We Plough the Fields and Scatter the Good Seed on the Land’.  Even though there were only eight of us in the church we all sang heartily and made a joyful noise.  And the service was over.

The Rector, Richard and I tidied up and blew out the candles and then had a pleasant chat together for a while until it was time for the Rector to leave for home.  He is still suffering from a bad cold and has to visit hospital very soon to be assessed for heart surgery.  He will have some fairly unpleasant procedures to go through and we wish him very well.

Richard and I had put the heater on in the Ringing Chamber (where the bell-ringers ring) and after Richard had done some maintenance in the church and tidied up the candles we sat and read and talked and Richard drank some coffee he had brought with him in a flask and waited for the next service to start at 4.30 pm.

Maurice our Elder arrived to take Evening Prayers and three other people joined us for the service.  Maurice always prepares his services so well; it is a pity more people don’t come to hear him. 

Harvest Festival

Tags

bats, church, church decorations, Evensong, flowers, Harvest, hot-air balloon, Rumburgh, sowing

Rumburgh Church

Here is an autumn photograph of my church taken on Sunday as we were on our way to get it ready for the Harvest Evensong service.  R is one of the Churchwardens and so we got there early to make sure all was tidy (no bat poo on the pews) and to turn on the lights and take the plastic covers off everything.  As I have said before, our poor church is damp and has a colony of bats living in it and to protect the furniture etc. we have to cover what we can with bits of plastic sheet.  No money to repair the church, no money to buy proper protective covers, not enough money for anything, unfortunately.  I like bats and am very pleased that we have two resident pipistrelle bats that fly round our house every evening.  However, I am not happy about the bats that live in our church because of the damage their urine and faeces do.  The urine especially is so acidic it etches into all the furniture, pictures and flooring.  We have to be so careful when serving refreshments after service in case food and drinks are contaminated.  Bats are protected and it is virtually impossible to get them moved elsewhere.

Our benefice is made up of eleven parish churches and one redundant church which we use once or twice a year.  We have one over-worked priest who has recently acquired an assistant (actually the priest in the next-door benefice who does holiday and sickness cover which is reciprocated), a couple of retired priests who step in when needed, one reader and two elders who take services without communion.  All of the churches in the benefice like to have their own harvest festivals, so for weeks on end there are one or two harvest services on most Sundays.  Last Sunday was the third consecutive week of harvest and our service was taken by Maurice, one of the Benefice Elders.  Next Sunday and the following one there are no Harvest services but then they start up again and we have another three consecutive weeks of ‘We Plough the Fields and Scatter’ right through until the end of October.

Decorated pulpit. Our talented flower arrangers make the church look so bright and festive.

Any harvest contributions of food, fruit and vegetables at our church go to Adele House, a nursing home run by the convent at All Hallows.  Other churches in the benefice send their contributions to a local food bank which provides food parcels for the needy.

Decorated Rood Screen.

The Chancel

The Font

The Altar

The Porch

The Porch. Look at the enormous beetroot!

Bunches of wheat tied to the pew ends.

One of these window sills was decorated by me.

The church just before the service started.

Maurice plays the organ so he gets plenty of exercise, walking up and down the aisle from the front of the church to the back where the organ is then back to the front again then up the steps to the pulpit.

We were very lucky to get 23 people at our Evensong service – no children sadly.

Today, I noticed that the field at the back of the house was being worked on again.

Sowing the seed. I apologise for the poor quality photo. The sun was setting and it was a little hazy too.

After the coldest August in many, many years we have had a very warm and fairly dry September.  There has been mist and fog in the morning occasionally which has made driving to Norwich difficult.  It is all set to change this weekend with a storm coming in off the Atlantic which will get to us in the East sometime on Saturday.  When it has passed through the temperature will drop considerably, so we are told.  Yesterday evening I noticed a hot-air balloon in the sky – a Virgin sponsored one.  The thermals must have been just right.

E used to call them ‘hot hair balloons’.

Thank-you for visiting my blog.

 

 

A Wet Day

Tags

ash die-back, ash tree, calendula, clouds, collared dove, Eye, lupin, moon, Rain, Rumburgh, St Chrysostom's prayer, St Michael and All Saints and St Felix church, St Peter and St Paul's church, yellow iris

The past couple of days have been fairly busy doing mainly mundane chores.  Fortunately, I am feeling much better and have regained what little energy I usually have.

View from our front door on Sunday after one of many showers

I took Mum to church again on Sunday morning.  A windy day with lots of heavy showers.  Her church is currently full of scaffolding and difficult to get around.  Quite a few years ago they bought a new second-hand organ at a bargain price (still many thousands of pounds I believe).   They took out their old one and sold it on but before they could put in the new one somebody thought it might be a good idea to make a Parish Room with a kitchen and toilets too.   This could be done more easily without the organ being in place.  The church is quite a wealthy one but even so, some time was spent fund-raising and then all the architects reports, and surveyors reports and moving of tombs etc took even more time.  Bits of organ pipe and casing were handed out to all and sundry to look after at home as there was no-where to store the new organ in the church.  All money raised was spent on the Parish Room and the church had to make do with a little electric organ.  At last the Parish Room was finished and everyone was pleased with the result.  Saving up for the installation of the organ was resumed and was going very well until the boiler broke down and had to be replaced.  Fortunately, some very generous parishioner kindly paid for a new boiler for the church.  At last, a few weeks ago the installation of the organ began and should be completed in time for the arrival of their new priest in the Autumn.  When I got to church with Mum on Sunday even more scaffolding had been erected as they had decided to investigate a large damp patch that had appeared above the Rood Screen.  They also have a Doom painting up there (covered with whitewash) which they want to look at to see that it isn’t deteriorating too much.

I had lunch when I got home and then spent a quiet afternoon reading, checking e-mails, feeding the birds and preparing the vegetables for our evening meal.  Our church had an Evening Prayer service at 6.30pm and R and I went along at 5.45pm to get everything ready.  It is fortunate that the lovely prayer of St Chrysostom is used during Morning and Evening Prayer, because if it wasn’t one might be tempted to wonder if there was much point in having the service.  There were only five of us there including poor Maurice who had prepared a very thought-provoking homily and led the service so well.

‘Almighty God, who hast given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplications unto thee; and dost promise that when two or three are gathered together in thy Name thou wilt grant their requests…’

Monday was another showery day with a few rumbles of thunder as well.  I did a lot of supermarket shopping and washing and other necessary jobs around the house.  I took a few photographs in the garden in-between the showers.

The tallest tree here is a lovely Ash tree. It upsets me to think that it probably will be dead in ten years time because of Ash die-back disease

The lane in front of our house is looking particularly green at the moment.

A lupin in R’s flower-bed

Calendula/Pot Marigold in R’s flowerbed

Yellow Iris in bud by the pond

You can tell by the Collared Doves’ blurred feet that it was moving fast and I had difficulty keeping up!

The sky gradually got cloudier and more stormy-looking as the day progressed.

 

 

 

 

Living in the (fairly) flatlands of East Anglia you can always see what the weather’s going to be like before it gets to you.

This is a plane from one of the local air bases

I was glad I wasn’t flying before the storm.

I got indoors just in time.

(If anyone is wondering why there is a brick on top of the cage over the ground bird feeder, it is to try to stop squirrels lifting up the lid and eating all the bird seed.)

By dusk the rain had stopped and the moon had risen.

 

 

Wednesday 12th to Sunday 16th March

Tags

alder, ambulances, brimstone butterfly, chaffinch, church, cowslip, daffodils, dog violet, Eye, fields, figs, greylags, Harleston, hazel, heartsease, Lent, mallards, moon, moorhen, nesting, pond, prayer, pussy willow, quiz night, rooks, Rumburgh, silverlace primula, sunset, tortoiseshell butterfly, trees, Wissett

Wednesday began with frost and mist.  This soon cleared and the weather was then lovely for the rest of the day.  I did my usual shopping trip with my mother with a detour to a free-range chicken farm at Eye where Mum buys her eggs.  I had a little shopping to do for myself, so called in at Harleston on my way home.  I arrived home just after 2pm for a late lunch and had time for a few household chores and a quick walk round the garden to feed the birds, tidy up a couple of things and take some photos before R came home.

A moorhen and a chaffinch at the front of the house.

 

The moorhen again.

 

A couple of photos of the daffodils that have come up round the big pond.

Some violet leaves that have struggled up through the dried mud round the pond.

 

And some cowslip leaves too!

 

Reflection of trees and cloud in the pond.

 

Afternoon moon.

 

I had decided what we should have for an evening meal and was about to start it when R offered to cook and I gladly accepted his offer.  I didn’t have time to eat anything as I had to go out at 6.45pm to collect Mum and take her to Eye to attend a Lent course.  The course in her area is a deanery course.  A deanery is a collection of benefices and a benefice is a collection of parishes.  In rural areas to have benefice and or deanery meetings or courses means that there will be more people attending and any speakers kind enough to visit will have a good audience.  The only downside is that the distances to be travelled by many parishioners is very great.  This year’s course is on prayer and Wednesday’s talk was on ‘Prayer with Words’.  The speaker was the Precentor from the Cathedral at Bury St Edmund’s; a really pleasant man who gave an interesting talk.  He introduced us to poets and poems that were new to us as well as reading from old favourites.  My journey home was very difficult because of thick fog.

Thursday.  I was woken just before 6.00am by the rooks!  I had remembered to bring in the sunflower seed feeder but the rooks were trying to get the remains of yesterday’s seed off the bird-table and were tapping loudly on it with their enormous beaks.  I have a cage round the bird-table which is supposed to prevent large birds from getting on it. However, it doesn’t stop the birds from clinging on to the edge of the table with their claws, flapping their wings for balance and pecking food through the mesh!  Another lovely day.  Went in to Halesworth for a haircut and to get yet more shopping (I always manage to forget something each time I go!)  My usual hairdresser is on maternity leave so her Mum did my hair and we chatted about babies.  Both her daughters are having their first babies in the next two weeks and they are getting a little apprehensive.  On the way home I saw a tortoiseshell butterfly and an enormous brimstone butterfly.

I spent the afternoon gardening as well as having a short (for us!) conversation with my sister who was planning to visit Mum at the weekend.  The geese have been very argumentative this week.  The gander of the pair who have claimed the island has been spending most of his time swimming in the pond and seeing off any other goose/gander who dares to come anywhere near the pond bank.  He must be exhausted as he doesn’t seem to have eaten anything either.

A couple of photos of the mallards in our front ditch.

Miniature daffodils in the grass.

 

Goat or Pussy Willow.  Salix caprea.

 

When R got home he wanted to go out for a short walk across the fields.  The wind had got up a little and it had got cloudy but R managed to take some decent photos while we were out.

Alder catkins and cone-like fruits from last year.

 

Hazel catkins.

 

More fog overnight.

Friday.  A cooler, cloudier, breezier day.  I did some more gardening and lots of ironing.  The geese seemed to have resolved their differences.  The resident pair came to sit near me while I gardened and whenever I looked up they gave gentle honks.  I knew they were asking for food so when I had got to the end of my weeding I fetched some special goose and duck feed I have for just such an occasion (to quote Foghorn Leghorn) and cast it on the grass near by them.  Of course, the gander then hissed at me while the goose ate the food.  He is a very protective mate and even though I have provided the food he has to warn me off and so I do keep my distance!

Saturday.  A quiet morning and another beautiful one.  Still very breezy but much brighter than yesterday.  Did some housework and spoke to A on the phone.  We drove to Mum’s in the afternoon to see my sister F who was visiting with her eldest son and her dog Ben.   We had a lovely couple of chatty hours and we then had to leave to get our evening meal before going to yet another quiz night.  This one was in aid of Rumburgh village hall.  I think it was the noisiest event I had been too since going to dances when I was young.  The hall had just been insulated and redecorated but there were no curtains or blinds at the windows yet and I think this was the reason it was so noisy.  The two farmers on our team were both a little deaf (caused by driving noisy farm machinery) and they were finding it really difficult to hear anything above the hubbub of loud chatter.  Our local Member of Parliament was taking part too.  He lives in Wissett, the next village along on the way to Halesworth, and is very good about taking part in local events and is a truely supportive MP.  He had been out all day on the ambulances as there has been an enquiry about the time it takes for ambulances to get to emergencies.  He was talking to R and one of our farmer friends and said he was very sympathetic towards the ambulance crews, as he had seen for himself the great distances they had to travel and also how many wasted journeys they had to make.  R told him about my sister’s job as a paramedic in Kent and some of the problems she has to put up with too.  Unfortunately we came ninth today but R won a picture of a tree in the raffle.

Sunday.  There was a Morning Prayer service at Rumburgh today but I couldn’t attend as I took Mum to her church.  She hasn’t got anyone to give her a lift at the moment and as she doesn’t usually see anyone at all during the week except me, and all her friends are at her church, I think it only right that I take her there.  I got back home at 1.00pm and had lunch before doing some chores, putting a loaf on to bake and then back out into the garden.  I fed the birds which took nearly an hour – all the feeders were empty, I have a number of them scattered about the garden and the garden is well over an acre in size.  I had noticed this morning when I looked out of the window that the goose has started sitting on her nest on the island.

 

A dog violet in flower.

 

A silverlace primula.

 

A heartsease flower.

 

Figs are starting to swell on the tree.

 

Lots of pictures of this evening’s sunset.

The rookery in the sunset.

 

A Busy Week

Tags

Ash Wednesday, Billingford, birds, burdock, church, embroidery, fish, Flixton, food, frogs, Goldbrook Bridge, goldcrest, gorse, Hoxne, ladybirds, Lent, lichen, moss, Norfolk & Norwich Hospital, orange tea bread, pancakes, Porgy & Bess, pulpit, rood screen, RSPB Minsmere, Rumburgh, Shrove Tuesday, St Edmund, St Felix & St Michaels church, St Mary's, tapestry, trees, windmill

This has been such a busy week that I have only had time for two posts.

R had Monday and Tuesday off work and it was so nice to be able to spend more time with him.  I always have lots of boring chores to do on Mondays so I rushed through most of them and was ready to go out with R at lunchtime.  We decided to go to the RSPB reserve at Minsmere which is about nine miles away.  The day was fine and not too cold.  We had lunch in the café at the reserve and then walked round the woodland walk.  The walk out past the Scrape to the sea seemed a little cold and windswept and we thought that as some damage had been done during the tidal surge in December we would be better off avoiding that walk.  It was very pleasant to be visiting during the week instead of at the weekend.  It was peaceful and quiet.  We didn’t see many birds as we decided not to go into any of the hides and it wasn’t quite warm enough to stand still for long.  We did sit on a seat in the sun for a while and watched a goldcrest in the branches above our heads.  I tried to take a photo but it flew away and I only got a picture of the lichen-covered branch it had been sitting on.

 

We saw lots of gorse bushes in flower and tried to smell the flowers (to find out if they do smell of honey) without spiking our noses.

 

We noticed many fallen trees from all the storms we have had this winter.

 

I love this picture!  Whoooooooooo!!!

 

A moss tuffet.

 

Tuesday began with mist and frost but both soon disappeared and the sun came out.  R took E to Norwich and they spent the morning there shopping and then had lunch.  I had to take Mum to the eye clinic at the Norfolk and Norwich hospital again in the afternoon.  She had both eyes assessed and all seemed to be going along well.  Afternoons at the hospital are very busy and the carparks are always full.  A new carpark, only opened at the end of last year, was nearly full when we arrived and completely full when we left so I think they will have to find some more carparking space before long.  It is quite a new building but the architects didn’t make it big enough.  It was apparent within a very short space of time after completion that they would have to add to the hospital and they have been adding to it ever since.  It is on the outskirts of the city and there is still a little land that can be used for building but not much more, I think.  They also assumed that most people would be arriving by bus from the city centre or using the park and ride service.  They were wrong there as well!

Tuesday was Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day.  When I got home I mixed the pancake mixture and then made us a light evening meal of fish and mixed vegetables.  R made the pancakes for us; he is extremely good at making them and we enjoyed them very much.  R and I had two each and E had four!

Wednesday morning was bright and frosty and poor R had to go back to work.  Wednesday is my day for taking Mum shopping in Diss and we managed this quite quickly for a change.  The supermarket didn’t seem as full as usual and we were soon on our way back to her house.  A beautiful day – everything seemed shiny; mainly blue and green.  The first day for months that I have gone out without a coat.  After a chat and a cup of coffee I drove to Halesworth to do my shopping and to visit the library.  I also drove up to the doctor’s surgery to collect my prescription and then called in at Rumburgh church to change the colours from green to purple as it was now Lent; Ash Wednesday.

The church of St Felix and St Michael, Rumburgh.

 

Rumburgh began as a Priory founded in 1064 which was later that century given to the Benedictine Abbey of St Mary at York.  In 1086 there were twelve monks under a Prior at Rumburgh.  It was never a rich priory, as you can see from the variety of materials the church was built out of.  It was suppressed in the reign of Henry VIII on 12 September 1528.  The church building here is all that is left of the original small priory.

In our benefice we are so fortunate as to have some very talented needlewomen.  Below is an altar frontal made a couple of years ago.  As you can see we have to drape everything in plastic sheets when the church isn’t being used to stop water (condensation and water penetration) and bat urine and droppings from ruining everything.

Our Jacobean pulpit with another example of our church’s embroidery

 

The Millenium Tapestry which hangs near the south door.  All the kneelers in the church have been covered with lovely tapestries too, depicting the houses, buildings, plants, animals, organisations, families etc. associated with Rumburgh.

 

The nave and chancel with the lovely Rood screen between.

 

There was an Ash Wednesday ashing service at Rumburgh that evening but I couldn’t go as I had promised to take Mum to the service at her church at Eye.  Mum’s church’s service had a communion as well so I didn’t get home until just before 10.00pm.

A much quieter day on Thursday also quite cloudy.  I took E to the surgery at 9.00am for an appointment and then went home for the rest of the day.  Did a little gardening and some ironing as well as other household chores.  All the ladybirds in our bedroom have woken up now and only two were left wandering about on Thursday.  Another quiet day on Friday spent catching up with the housework.

I made Orange Tea Bread on Saturday as we had all been asked to provide some food for a Bring and Share lunch party after church on Sunday.  This is to say thank-you and good luck to Caroline our former Reader.  It is quite amusing that the first thing we do as a church on the first Sunday in Lent is to have a party with lots of lovely food!  R took this photo.

R and I have bought a new really good camera that we can share.  We decided to go out on Saturday to try it out and so drove to Billingford, Norfolk just on the other side of the Waveney River to look at the windmill there.  Some of the following photos were taken by R and some by me on my smaller camera and one by me on the new camera!

 

Billingford windmill

Billingford windmill

 

 

 

R took a lovely picture of a burdock seedhead.

 

We then drove to Hoxne in Suffolk to look at the village.  Traditionally this was the place where Edmund, Martyr-King was captured, tortured and killed by the Vikings.  Nowadays, historians think this was more likely to have taken place at Bradfield St Clare just south of Bury St Edmunds.

This is the inscription on Goldbrook Bridge, under which St Edmund was supposed to have been captured.

 

Goldbrook Bridge.

 

Hoxne village.

 

The Old Butchery.  The window has a lovely etched glass picture of a bull.

 

We shopped in Harleston on the way home and had an Indian takeaway meal that evening.

Sunday morning service was at St Mary’s church at Flixton.  The weather was glorious – already 14 degrees celsius on the way to church and the sun shining brightly.  The service was quite well attended and the lunch afterwards was very nice with such a lot of lovely food provided.  We had all clubbed together and bought Caroline an i-Pod with case, a bench for her garden, a bottle of champagne and a couple of other bottles of drink for her husband.

When R and I got home we decided to work in the garden all afternoon.  We dragged some branches and other bits of plants out of the big pond.  I heard frogs croaking for the first time this year and the fish had woken up and were leaping out of the water.  This made me think of Porgy and Bess with the fish jumping – we don’t have cotton but R said the grass needed cutting so he tried to get the petrol push mower to start but couldn’t.  Fortunately, we have a sit-on mower which he was able to start, so our grass got it’s first trim of the season.

For our evening meal I cooked a tasty low-fat meal of lemon and honey chicken with rice and green and yellow beans.