Last month, on Saturday 17th February four of us took Alison’s car down to Birmingham and stayed there to attend her Licensing service on the next day. There was a lot of laughter on the journey down and I think, at times, Stuart maybe thought he had made a mistake travelling with three chatty women!!! However he still joined us for a meal in the evening so he was obviously a glutton for punishment and of course we went for a curry – it was Birmingham after all.
On Sunday the four of us met up with Oliver and Joan and also Pam and Gordon from St Margarets for the service. The church is late 1960’s build with quite a big space and no pews. We were all welcomed very warmly by the congregation and also by the Bishop, who is from Inverness. The service was in places very spiritual and in others extremely informal with the Sunday School (about 12 in number) sang a couple of songs and +David had the whole congregation joining in a reprise of the second one including all the actions! The headmaster of the attached CofE primary school had only moved there at the beginning of January and it turned out that his wife had been Alison’s sister Rosemary’s bridesmaid. What a small world.
After the service, we were all extremely well fed with a hot buffet lunch held after some speeches when Alison and Peter were presented with a cake and a bouquet of flowers.
The rectory is very close to the church being on the same plot of land and although we have been told it has its security shortcomings it all looks fine in the middle of the day. We had a bit of a tour round as +David carried out a blessing of the house which also contained some amusement. I must say we did ask +David if he fancied a move back up to Scotland. All too soon we had to leave to catch our train for the journey home but I think that all of us who had gone down to support Peter and Alison felt it had been a good decision. We wish them both well as they settle into their new home.