Mary's End of an Era Party

Woke early this morning (6.00 a.m.)  It wasn't raining but it was very cool and overcast.  Sara persuaded me to join her on a one mile early morning walk up Gunville Hill and back via the Cow Field.  I must say that it was a very good way to start the day and it cleared my head.  I am acutely aware that I am not getting as much exercise these gloomy rainy days as I would wish and my bicycle hasn't been out of the garage for weeks.  When I bought it I really thought that I would be cycling long distances during the summer and chose it, with its light frame and 21 gears, for this purpose.  I attended Mid-Week Eucharist at St. John's this morning followed by a full Staff Team Meeting in the Team Office afterwards.  This afternoon I chaired the Parish's Mission Giving Group at our house where we had to decide upon which charities to give our budgeted £5,500.  The meeting lasted about an hour and a half and we chose with care to give to some charities we have given to in the past, some new charities and have had to cut down on some others.  Everybody seemed to go away fairly content.  During the meeting the rain started to pour down again by the bucket-load.  Where is it all coming from I ask again!  It must simply be going round and round and round.  We all attended Mary's leaving do at Winterslow School where the boys and girls in her class had a wonderful time in the school pool totally oblivious to the rain hammering down.  Thankfully it stopped and we had a relatively dry evening which meant that the BBQ could go ahead.  Masses of food - especially calorifically high and sugary cakes and puddings.  Tonight, when I got back home, I had a phone call from my good friend Malcolm in Liverpool.We chatted for a good hour and a half catching up on each other's news.  He has had some interesting times at work recently and has followed most of my movements and news on this blog.  We agreed that I was long overdue for a trip to Liverpool and he would like to come down and go over to France and Belgium for a few days.  This will give me an incentive to crack on with my academic studies over August so we can arrange something in September.