A great return

Ed and I are just back from a great visit to one of our previous parishes. returning to your previous parish is frowned upon by the Church of England – former incumbents are expected to stay well out of the way to give the new incumbent a chance to settle in with the people.

However, since there’s no incumbent in place yet, we felt we could risk it. Anyway, this wasn’t exactly a church event.

Some years ago, one of the smallest parishes set up a fund to commemorate a well-loved member of the community who had died a few years previously. every year, the fund provides a Christmas lunch – free drinks, turkey and all the trimmings, wine, Christmas pudding, crackers (the sort you pull, not the sort you eat), a free raffle ticket and a house plant for all the over-sixties in the village. This was soon extended to all the over-sixties who had ever had any connection with the village, so has become a wonderful reunion as well as an excellent Christmas lunch (and it’s lovely to sit down to Christmas dinner in February.)

We met loads of friends and there was much fun and laughter – and Ed won first prize in the raffle, a bottle of wine!

On the way home we called in on our former next-door neighbour and had a good peep through the hedge at the rectory garden, which has been cleared off a lot of brambles and brush, ready for the new incumbent.

She was delighted to see us, so all in all, an excellent way to spend Monday!