All change at Winterslow Parish

Another hot dry day today.  Walked to church this morning to get there at 9 a.m. as the family was acting as sidespersons.  Today was an All Age Eucharist which was advertised as with a baptism but there were no children to be baptised.  Not that well attended today - possibly because of the good weather - certainly not that many children in church. Nils announced that Richard and Linda would be leaving this church and team so that Linda could pursue her ordination training in an urban setting - probably Salisbury city.  This means that Richard will also be resigning as churchwarden and giving up quite a few positions in the church.  Norman has also announced that he will be resigning as churchwarden next April.  This will leave a major gap.  Although considered, I cannot take on this responsibility because of my own ministry training which starts in September and Sara has already turned down the opportunity of putting herself forward for the Team Administrator's role in view of her existing commitments. The new curate, Andrew, was introduced to us this morning. He seems a really nice chap and we spent quite a bit of time chatting after the service.  I then walked back home across the fields.   Had a light lunch of a burger and this afternoon I took Mary swimming.  There had been some misunderstanding as Tom thought that we were going greyhound racing again this evening as I had been given a voucher for free admission tonight.  Sara had told me that Mary didn't want to go but wanted to go swimming instead.  I took this to mean that any plans to go back to Poole were shelved.  In hindsight, we should have had a family conference to discuss what we were doing.  In the end, Mary and I still went swimming but Tom was very angry and upset that the trip to Poole was off (it was never entirely on in my book).  A major communication problem.  Feel everything seems to be my fault at the moment and felt quite down today.  Went to Sung Evensong at Whiteparish this evening.  Only eleven of us there.  Elizabeth gave a good sermon and Alan, the churchwarden who is also on the LWL course with me, was very pleased to see me.  John for the Astronomical Society was also present and we chatted for a while after the service.  Rang Mum tonight.  She seems much better and had spent the day with her friend Freda who is recuperating from a small hospital operation.  Had a couple of beers in the Lion's Head tonight with Richard and discussed the future of the church after this morning's announcement.