The fire blazing away in my lounge.
Time for a drink!
Dining room before lunch.
Sacred Heart in the Dining Room. This house will, God willing, be available for rental in 18 months at reasonably good terms!
This is a day for quietness. I spent the morning, once I had returned from my parents house, slowly sorting the Church out and preparing it for the week, then I went home and had a glass of Petit Chablis (recently bought from ASDA at the incredible price of three bottles for ten pounds!) while preparing lunch. To my great surprise, my Parish Priest brought a litre of very fine Cognac with him, hence your scribe has spent the last two hours in front of the fire, fast asleep! Do not worry, there is still the vast majority left! Lunch was spent discussing vestments and candles and other mutually satisfying topics and quietly burping after a surfeit of garlic king prawns, roast ham, sticky toffee pudding and cheese.
St Stephen, the Deacon and first Martyr, knew a thing or two about treasures and valuing people. I am always reminded of him when I reflect on the long and arduous process of being selected for Priestly training in the Church of England as one of my selectors was the Parish Priest of St Stephens Church Astley. I have been asked by a few people to write at more length about the selection process and I will recount my story as well as I can in the near future. However, I am going for a little lie down now before going to the neighbouring parish and spending a couple of hours with my friend Fr Bryan in the Church Inn. I hope you all had a happy Christmas and made some effort to reach out to other people.
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