England's Green and Pleasant Land - No biting please, we're British!

  A very bright and sunny day today.  No rush this morning as I was just preaching today over at Stapleford in the Wylie Valley at their 11 a.m. Holy Communion Service as part of a pulpit exchange with their trainee who was preaching at the Winterslow 9.30 a.m. Eucharist.  Sara came with me and we arrived at this Wiltshire “chocolate box/jigsaw” village at around 10.20 a.m. where we were greeted by the Churchwarden who, I think, thought we were potentially new congregants until Sara explained that she was the preacher’s wife!    The church is very old with parts of it dating back to the Norman period.  The bells were in full flow when we arrived but, unfortunately, the bell ringers did not stay behind.  There were about 13 in the congregation – a similar congregation to that which I am used to at West Dean and my sermon lasted about 9 minutes – the sort of time I was told they are used to. No peace was exchanged – except verbally from the pews, and there were no chalice bearers – the priest administering both the bread and the wine.  Reactions to my sermon seemed favourable and they seemed to be pleased with having a different style and a sermon which spoke of recent events – I talked about the Boston bombing this week as having challenged the faith of people.  The full text can be found at http://pulpitmichael.blogspot.com.  There was no coffee or refreshments afterwards and Sara and I slipped away after I had signed the preaching register and got unrobed. 

This afternoon, after gathering up to loose grass cuttings on our back lawn, I watched the Liverpool v Chelsea football match which was steeped in controversy – especially Suarez’s biting of Chelsea’s Ivanovic!  He also gave away a penalty with a hand-ball but went on to equalise in the 97^th minute by an amazing goal.  He is both a great asset and also an appalling liability!  Sara cooked me a lovely smoked haddock fishcake for supper which I ate hurriedly whilst watching the game as I had to attend the Annual Parochial Council meeting at St. John’s.  After this meeting, which took the usual format and allowed me to relinquish my position on the Standing Committee, I met with Richard in the Lion’s Head for our usual end of the week pint and chat about football and other important issues!