Al-Pha (Pint for the Fella; White Wine for the Lady; Holy Spirit for the Christians)

What an incredible and diverse day. Sarah M and I left home after breakfast at 9.00 a.m. to go to St. Paul's in Salisbury for the Alpha Retreat Day. I left Sarah M in the main room at the St. Paul's Centre whilst I went upstairs to join the Leaders and Helpers for prayer. We had four Alpha Groups for the day with about 50 or 60 people in total. A fantastic turn out. During the day we had three excellent talks for one of the Associate Ministers, Richard Morgan which were all very thought provoking. We also had one discussion session with the Winterslow Group and three short sessions of worship. The theme for the day was The Holy Spirit - all very powerful stuff which struck a chord with many of us - both existing Christians and also those seeking to find out more. We also had a lovely shared lunch and an opportunity to look around the new foyer and a peek at the main church. Apparently it can accommodate 600 worshippers each week. It is truly a magnificent centre and resembles a modern conference centre rather than a traditional church the pews having been replaced with more comfortable seating arranged in a horseshoe around a central stage in front of the quire. I do wonder, however, if it might lose the intimacy we have in Winterslow. In fact, some members of our congregation have actually taken to attending St. Paul's either instead or or in addition to All Saints services. I returned home feeling quite overwhelmed and exhausted by the event - but one I will always remember. Sara told me that the plumber had called round that morning and couldn't do anything until Monday as we required a replacement hot water cylinder as the top was corroded where the immersion heater fits in. We will simply have to continue to mop the leak up over the rest of the weekend. Klynn arrived just after 5 p.m. and we set off to Bournemouth to attend the Al Murray Pub Landlord show at the BIC. It was such a complete contrast to the earlier part of the day and he was really funny. I could not help but feel sorry for some of those he picked on in the front row - lesson to be learned - never go on the front row with Al Murray. We were safely up in the balcony I'm pleased to say. One poor individual with the unfortunate name of Rob revealed that he was a banker with RBS!! He was the subject of much taunting of "Where's the @%!$@ money? Our money?" At one point we were all asked to point at him and shout "Shame on you". Al Murray is extremely talented as a comedian and bounces off his audience so well. For two and a half hours Klynn and I were laughing continuously. There were about 4,000 in the audience so we realised it would take some little while to get out of the BIC car park. We decided to go for a late night curry at a close by Bangladeshi restaurant. The food wasn't brilliant but it was really lovely to sit down and chat about the show and have some quality time with a truly good friend. We got back around about half-past midnight. Chatting with Sara and watching the first part of the film Disclosure, we went to bed at around 1.30 a.m