Not Yet Par!

A very active day today despite the heat - it seemed to be the hottest day so far this year. We had a hasty breakfast and then off the church. Tom was very reluctant to go and moaned about how boring church is. Despite all this we still arrived in relatively good time and found the church quite empty - a combination of holidays and the fact it was a praise service I think. Linda took the service and gave us another one of her very inspirational and fun talks - about manna and bread. The songs were on a CD as we had nobody to play the organ or piano and Linda chose some really great ones - favourites from Spring Harvest. One of the most beautiful was "Be Thou My Vision" which reminded me of the ending of one of Jeff Lucas and Ruth Dearnley's mornings at Minehead when Jeff "accompanied" this song on the piano! Tom was completely changed after this service and was so inspired by the music that he asked for the CD of the service to play at home. It is quite clear that the way we will get younger people into the church and retain them is to make it fun and lively. The more traditional and contemplative worship will follow. Once home I mowed the back lawn and the bank including mowing some of Geoff's bank where the grass had started to overflow onto the pavement. It all looks much tidier now. I also washed my car which was looking grimy after its trip to Surrey and Oxfordshire. Australia managed to bowl out the English cricket team to win the Fourth Ashes Test by an Innings and some 60-odd runs. Appalling. Nevertheless, I raised the Australian flag to mark their superb victory which we really can't take away from them. This afternoon, after a lunch of chicken noodle soup and bread, Sara took the children swimming whilst Richard C and I went off to Wilton to play 18 holes of golf. It was really hot and I ended up looking like a red panda! The round was not without its excitement. On the 15th tee I dropped my tee-peg down a hole and in trying to retrieve it discovered that the hole was the entrance to a wasps' nest. About fifty of the angry b......s came for me and I was stung behind the ear - a really painful experience. I shrugged it off, after Richard retrieved my hot and ball and I whacked the ball down the fairway from the 6th tee. Richard remarked that I ought to be stung more often as it seemed to improve my driving! As I write this on Monday it still hurts a wee bit. At dinner tonight Richard (another one) and Alice, friends of Kynn's who are dog-sitting whilst they are away in Devon, came over and shared our spag. bol. and chili con carne. Once finished it was down to the Lion's Head and the pub quiz. We had a team of five - me, Richard (Dog Sitter), Richard (Golf Partner), Geoff (next door neighbour) and Steve (Tom's teacher). We called ourselves "Not Yet Par" - a description of my day really. Yet again we won and I came home (at 11.20 p.m.) with a bottle of winner's wine. That's five time in a row I've won now! I set about writing up this blog to find that the Internet wireless was not working - so to bed. It'll get written up tomorrow.