Sunday.

 

Teatime (see photo above). our son, Jonathan, his partner Jude, her daughters Tia and Margaret, and Margaret's fiance, Adam (not in that order in the photy - they run, left to right, as Ann, Jude, Tia, Margaet, Adam, and Jonathan), came to lunch, and spent the day with us. It was lovely to see them all, and to meet Margaret and Adam. Ann had excelled herself as a cook, despite an electricity cut this morning, while we (Ann and I) were in church. Must go back to this morning to tell you of our small drama in church this morning :-

At morning service, Ann was serving, and I was singing in the choir. It had been a nasty morning, windy and gusting with rain, and, I suspected a thunder storm was hanging around (electricity flickering occasionally!!). During a hymn there was a loud rumbling noise (even I could hear it) and I found myself thinking "I wish someone could keep the Sunday School under rather better control, the children shouldn't be kicking the pews like that". At that point the lights went out, and the organ groaned and expired. As the choir was now singing unaccompanied we tried to compensate by raising our volume to FF, and I think that this helped matters. The service carried on as usual although the Churchwardens and one or two others near the Church main door were quietly rushing about, and it was obvious that there was a problem of some sort. After the service had come to a perfectly orderly end some time later, and the choir had filed out into the vestry to unrobe, we were told that the rumbling noise had been part of the church tower falling down. Most of our church dates from the 1300s, but I think the tower is rather earlier. A few weeks ago a crack was discovered in the tower and arrangements were in hand to repair this. Like many Suffolk churches our is built of flint. When we went outside after the service a large area of flint facing had fallen from high up on surface of the tower ( I would think about twelve foot by six or seven foot). I will try and post a photo of it later in the week.

When I said the Sunday School, it would be more accurate to call it a creche, held in a small area at the North side of the nave, and although the children can be noisy they are usually fairly quiet, and always well behaved. Must guard against blaming the children for making a noise, when really it was what used to be called 'an act of God' (especially if lightning was to blame.) Goodnight all.