Harvest Festival

A busy and emotional Sunday.  Although I woke quite early this morning I had a bit of a lie in before getting up at 9 a.m.  I was taking the 11 a.m. service at Farley this morning together with morning Star and I arranged to call around to their premises for us all to go off together to the church.  Sara had intended to take Mary to St. Paul's this morning but, last minute, Mary didn't want to go so Sara, Thom and Mary all stayed at home.  After picking up the service sheets from St. John's I arrived at Morning star a little late but we made it to All Saints, Farley by 10.30 a.m.  A really packed church this morning (about 40-50) which is really good for Farley.  As it was the Harvest Festival service we had the old favourite hymns - We Plough the Fields and Scatter and Come ye faithful people come together with another two favourites.  David read the Gospel and Bev and Jake gave their stories just as they had done at Alderbury last week.  Again we had an amazing response and we left Farley with a van load of food which had been collected around the village and presented this morning in church.  Wonderful.  I arrived home at just after 1 p.m. and had just finished a wonderful sausage casserole when Sara received a text from a relative which suddenly changed our whole day and she had to rush off into Salisbury leaving me with the kids.   I briefly phoned Mum this afternoon before I had to dash off again to Morning Star as I had agreed to help them navigate their way over to Lover, near Redlynch, where we were to take part in another harvest service but this time with the Rev. David Bacon officiating.  A beautiful Victorian Oxford Movement church. Another wonderful service with a packed church - about 60 - followed by a really nice harvest supper in the village hall just up the road.  A total amount of £250 was collected for the charity. I arrived back in Winterslow just in time to take part in the second half of the pub quiz.  My team was lying in second place when I arrived and I helped to complete the dingbats and with the rest of the questions.  In the end we managed to win and I came home, once more, with a bottle of red wine as a prize.  Went to bed quite late after a long discussion with Sara about the ups and downs of the day.