A Big Sunday for us all

An important day today for me as my training officer/mentor was visiting West Dean Church to observe me leading and preaching so that he could report back to the diocese and, hopefully, sign me off as competent to be licensed in September.  There were 14 in the congregation this morning including Sara and three of my support group who had come along specially to give me moral support.  The service followed the usual pattern for Common Worship Morning prayer and I delivered a 15 minute sermon on the theme of Abraham and his call from God where he was asked to look up into the heavens and try and count the stars.  A copy of the sermon can be found at http://pulpitmichael.blogspot.com. After the service my mentor spent about fifteen minutes with me going through his various observations and suggestions for improvement but generally he seemed to be pleased with my performance and didn't indicate any problem.  His report will now go in my ever growing file.  I was pleased to be able to hand over to him my penultimate portfolio.  I just have to finish my pastoral care one which I intend to complete by Tuesday night. This afternoon, Thom, Richard and I spent an enjoyable afternoon at the Ageas Bowl watching Hampshire beat Essex by 30 runs in the YB40 series.  Essex won the toss and elected to field.  Hampshire finished the innings on 216 all out which seemed to be quite a small score for YB40.  However, Essex could only muster 186 runs before their last wicket fell in the penultimate over.  A good victory which places Hampshire second in the table - only 0.75 of a point behind Durham with a game in hand.  They must be favourites to win the league stage of the competition.  It was also a really big day for Mary too - she flew on her own from Southampton to Edinburgh to spend a week's holiday with her friend in Alloa.  Sara saw her to the airport and, unfortunately, her plane was delayed by nearly two hours.  It was good, therefore, that she had cabin crew assistance to keep an eye on her. Her flight made up time and she landed in Scotland safely and was picked up by the family she is staying with.  Such a big girl now and my pride and joy.