This is a very dull post – don’t say you haven’t been warned.

Lent marches on. Today has been a day off, spent almost entirely with Rusk, due to Mr F’s continuing battle with the lurgy.

Rusk decided that we would play with tractors today. There is a large box in his bedroom with about half a dozen tractors of various sizes. Some make noises, some travel by themselves, one has a track to travel on and makes appropriate animal noises as it goes past the sty, duck pond etc. The one I find most bemusing is the tractor and trailer with a sheep attached. If you hold the sheep and the trailer firmly and pull apart, then set them down on the floor, the sheep retracts into the trailer, a hook between the sheep’s legs pulls up the gate at the back of the trailer and the whole shebang sets off across the floor, to market presumably. Rusk doesn’t quite have the strength to pull it so there was a lot of asking Mummy to help.

During his afternoon nap, I played a level of The Settlers:Rise of an Empire – the latest in my favourite series of computer games.

Late afternoon saw us headed for the beach, or rather the promenade at the local town. There is a long stretch of prom that has reasonable barriers on either side (i.e. no sheer drop to the beach) so Rusk was able to run about without reins or holding hands. This means he can run further than I have to walk = tired toddler and not so tired Mummy. We bought an ice cream and shared it. He doesn’t really like the coldness of the ice cream so only had a bit. Marvellous! There were only a few encounters with large dogs. I was under the impression that leads were to keep dogs away from danger, frightening small boys etc. Apparently not, although it is ok because “he (the dog) won’t hurt him”.

At teatime, he ate marmite on bread. This is a real breakthrough – he has refused spreads or toppings of any kind on bread or toast for the last two months. Looks bad when you give him dry crusts, but really that is all he will eat usually. Hurrah for marmite (bet he doesn’t eat it again for weeks).

After his bedtime, I finished the Settlers level (and another one) before a spot of catching up online before my bedtime (now a couple of hours ago – ah well).

So that, in case you were interested, is what the clergy do on their day off, at least this clergy on this particular day off. I cannot guarantee that the next day off will be the same. Nothing too exciting.

In other news, I am knitting another sock, having ripped a complete sock back to nothing. Oh, and the foghorn is going so I’m guessing the weather has reached us.

A small group of us had a planning meeting recently for the Palm Sunday Service of the Word – (non-Eucharistic service, mostly lay led except me). I was intrigued by this idea we (but mostly they) came up with and thought I’d share for the benefit of people like me who sit up late into the evening googling for service ideas.

It is quite a simple idea (and may have been done before, but I’m not intentionally stealing it from somewhere else). At the beginning of the service, we are all going to have palm branches to wave in accompaniment to shouting Hosanna. After the reading of the entrance into Jerusalem, the people will go up in small groups to the altar rail and lay down the palm branches. A short time of silent confession will be encouraged, before receiving the assurance of forgiveness (would be absolution if a priest was present), along with the traditional palm cross. The service will then move into the Passion narrative.

What do you think?

So, last time I blogged was the end of half term. A couple of busy weeks later and here we are. I’ve just got back from Mums and Tots (who knows where the apostrophes are meant to go in there?) group and have about half an hour before evening prayer. Rusk loves being around groups of other kids. Today there was only one big tumble, two sharing er incidents and one hand covered in orange ink from the rubber stamp set. Successful I think. There are a couple of new families there so a fairly full room. I do like that it counts as work for me. So many things I do for work I really enjoy.

I’m off on a training day on Wednesday – preparing for priesthood. Not quite sure what it is going to cover, but it should be interesting. It’ll be nice to have a reunion with all the people I was deaconed with last year. Our diocese is quite large and we don’t see each other very often. After that (and Lent group in the evening) on Thursday I’m going back to school for the day. I am doing a bit of work in school regularly with collective worship, but I wanted to get more of a feel for how the school day works, hence spending a day there.

Today the task is to get the bulk of the work for Sunday done. One sermon – to be used twice – and one all age talk. Mothering Sunday – should be able to find something to say for that. Tricky to know how to strike a balance between Mothering Sunday being a celebration and yet being a very painful experience for the bereaved or those who had bad experiences of mothers.

In other news, here is what I did for the Ravelympics, the knitters’ attempt to justify lots of sitting in front of winter sports:

They were completed by the end of the olympics and so I qualify for  medals:

The first one is the team medal for completing a project.

The second one is the event medal. I competed in Sock Hockey with some crochet socks. I also attempted the Lace Luge with a lace stole, but this will be a longer term project due to the faffiness of lace!

In case anyone was wondering, they aren’t meant to be a matching pair as far as colours go. Who said socks have to match anyway?

I’ve now moved on to making a scarf and am currently at the black hole stage of knitting, where you knit and knit and knit for an hour, yet the piece seems no longer. Ah well, it will pass eventually.

Back to the sermons I think.

We were hoping to get away for a few days over half term to spend time with my sister, who teaches and so is limited to school holidays. Ash Wednesday falling in half term meant an even shorter break than planned, but still lovely. We borrowed a cottage from friends and spent a couple of days in the Lake District.

We are now back. Rusk has actually gone to sleep without fuss. Mr F is catching up on stuff we’ve recorded and I am relaxing with Chopin on the headphones while I finish off my sermon for tomorrow. This particular congregation asked for something more interactive. We’ll see whether they still want it after tomorrow! I’m looking forward to finding out how Lent was marked 80 plus years ago in this area.

This is the first time I’ve deliberately used someone else’s sermon as a starting point for mine. Our Lent course includes an Ash Wednesday sermon in the front as an introduction, with the suggestion that you make it your own by adapting it. Useful exercise, although I’m not sure whether the person who wrote the original would recognise what I’ve come up with. The vicar preached on something else on Wednesday so I’ve grabbed this for tomorrow instead. Editing is easier than starting from scratch, particularly when there is no pressure to keep it recogniseable. There are bits from the Lent book I’m reading in there as well – the idea that Lent is not something you do alone, that the fast (whatever form it takes) is more meaningful when it is the whole community doing it. If this Lent course is part of the fast for our parishes, then it will work better if more people are doing it. Here’s hoping.

So we are all off out to one of my churches for a party.

I have many happy memories of village pancake parties in my youth so I hope I can pass that on to some of the people here. One particular memory is the vicar walking round waving a frying pan in a rather menacing manner, trying to get people to enter the pancake-tossing competition. I shall attempt the same!

Lent-wise, I’m intending to read Maggi Dawn’s new book – Giving it up. I’ll let you know how I find it. Interesting discussion with my incumbent today about how to burn palm crosses to make ash.

In knitting news, I’m working on a stole (of the shawl type, not the clergy type) as my contribution to the knitting olympics on Ravelry. Slow going, but enjoyable.

I left you just over two weeks ago with the announcement that I was off to war: sock war.

This was the first time I’ve competed in sock wars – it won’t be the last. The patterns were released on January 15th and sock knitters the world over (203 of us) cast on and began to knit socks as fast as our little needles could click. We all knew who we were knitting for, but the mystery of who was knitting for us remained. My assassin revealed herself via email before the patterns were even released, so I knew the socks that would kill me were coming from Tennessee. I was knitting for someone in California (with very small feet – hurrah), so the outcome of our section of the war would mostly depend on the efficiency of the postal service.

Having cleared a whole Saturday (except morning and evening prayer) for knitting, I got fairly far through the first sock, but with horrible cramp in my right hand. Does anyone do a class on the ergonomics of knitting? After that, I made sure that there were at least ten non-knitting minutes in every hour. On Sunday I resisted the temptation to knit during Church, but got to the end of sock number 1. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were busy with work. Despite encouragement from the vicar, (he was worried about ending up with a dead curate on his hands) I didn’t knit during the archdiaconal training morning – it was too interesting! Wednesday evening saw them finished and they were dispatched on Thursday. The waiting began.

I knew that my assassin had been even quicker with her knitting and had posted her socks to me on the Tuesday. A week later they arrived. Rusk was a little alarmed to see his Mum killed by a pair of socks, but happier when he realised it was just for as long as a photo took.

If I hadn’t finished my socks, I would then have posted the unfinished ones off to my assassin to finish, but since they were already posted she would have to wait until someone further down the line was killed before finishing. She would then get their socks to finish for their target.

My socks finally arrived with my target yesterday. Phew! Sock Wars is over for me, but there are still 103 people alive and knitting.

Next – the Knitting Olympics. An individual challenge to exceed your expectations for what you can achieve in knitting while the Winter Olympics are on.

My lovely W.I.S.E. parcel arrived well before Christmas (well before my offering had even been sent off – oops) and contained instructions to open straight away. Inside there was a lovely Snowman Christmas decoration (with the name of a city on) and a smaller parcel with instructions to wait until Christmas Day before opening it.

The snowman hung on our tree (indeed for some days it was the only decoration on there – December was right busy here) and entertained Rusk. The smaller parcel contained Scottish tablet – yum! Excellent choice all round.

I meant to take pictures over Christmas including the decoration and the parcel, for display from the 25th onwards. I appear not to have done so and the decorations are now packed away in my wardrobe. So there is the lack of WISE on my part. You will have to take my word for it that it was most tasteful.

The question is… who to thank? I’m going to go out of a limb here and say … is it Surfing? If so, thank you very much. If not, do let me know who you are.

In other news, I am competing in Sock Wars, starting tomorrow morning (well the patterns go up at 1am, but I need some sleep), so for the next few days I will mostly be knitting socks.

I’ve sat down to blog several times in the last month, but ended up enjoying all the previous wibsite posts so much that I’ve never actually got onto the writing.

I am now getting near daily comments from Mr F about it still being Advent on my blog, so here we go. I officially declare that Christmas is over (and has been for some days).

I realised this week that I have been ordained for six months now. Time really flies. In supervision today we had a look at my working agreement and have found some areas for me to concentrate on over the next few months. More visiting, more school, some website stuff and other things as and when they appear. Should be good fun.

Anyway, I’m heading off to one of the local hospitals this afternoon, so this really is a brief post.

Coming soon – pictures from WISE (and I think I’ve figured out who you are – thank you)

Just popping my head over the parapet to affirm that there is life after the dissertation…

I always knew Advent was going to be busy in parochial ministry. Now I really KNOW it is busy.

That being said, I have a relatively clear day today. The Vicar and I are off to the local old people’s home this afternoon to bring seasonal cheer and the Sacrament, but after that (and evening prayer), I think I may have a free evening. Tomorrow we make the Christingles (with the help of the Brownies and Guides – eep!) and then Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve is a bit of a marathon. Two of the Churches have joined together for their evening service, but that still leaves three ‘midnight’ services running from 8.30pm to 12.30am. The Christingle is at 4.30pm and may be the biggest service of the year. The puzzling thing round here is that people don’t want a Christmas morning service. We only have one Christmas Day service, at 9.30am and then that is it.

Advent has been lovely – watching the candles in the Advent rings light one by one, (I think we lit the pink one in the wrong week, but no-one seems to mind), going through advent reflections and services. The really jarring note has been all the Christmas services and concerts – I love Christmas carols and definitely value the integration with the community, but it is the mental effort to return to an advent frame of mind over and over again that is the struggle. It is sort of like – “He’s here” “No he’s not” “Yes, here again” “Still waiting for Him”. But then on a larger scale, I suppose that is what happens with every turn of the season. Bit different when it happens twice a day for a month.

What can we do as a Church? Do we give in and announce Christmas early? Put the twelve days of Christmas starting on the 14th? If we ban all Christmas carols and celebrations until after the 25th then it becomes difficult for people to see the joy of Christmas within all the ’stop that’. A previous incumbent here tried that approach and it did not go down well. There is part of me that wants to object that Christmas is ‘ours’ – it belongs to the Christians. In reality, of course, the midwinter feasting is probably older than Christianity, so the secular celebrations are as valid, if not more so. The only way that I can see to be Christian about it all is to join in, be glad that people still ask ‘the Church’ to be involved in celebrations and take the opportunity to share the good news. Waiting for Jesus is not meant to be easy.

… to think very carefully before taking on another degree or other significant piece of writing.

The MA was submitted on Friday. I even took a screenshot of the mouse about to click the ’send’ button, just so I would know I hadn’t dreamed it. I am not proud of the last-minute dash to the finish, but at least it is done. I just have to wait to see what mark it gets.

The last few days was not helped by something that happened the week before. I was at a curates’ training day, introducing us to MA level study. (I know, I have just finished an MA. Why was I doing that? Well, it is a module covering stuff I’ve not done before and my diocese recommends I do it. I’m not actually doing another MA – that would be silly) The lecturer was explaining various bits and bobs about how to write at MA level, then pointed out that we were all working full time, so not to worry if the occasional essay wasn’t up to scratch. I was liking what I was hearing there!

Then came the problem. The MA dissertation, he said, is one of two things. Either it is the jumping off point for a future academic career (MPhil, PhD etc.), in which case it needs to be the best work you can possibly do, because this is how you will be judged when applying for funding. Or… it is the pinnacle of your academic achievement, in which case it needs to be the best work you can possibly do, because this is how you will be judged (I don’t know who will be doing the judging here?).

This is a good thing to say to people at the beginning of an MA course, when they are still full of hope and optimism and the MA dissertation is a couple of years away. However, less than a week before my deadline, I can’t think of a single worse thing he could have said. Always inclined to perfectionism, I would rather write nothing than write something of lower quality. My goodness the week was a struggle with that hanging over me.

Anyway, following on from my previous post…

Yes Tractor Girl, you are on the right lines, although I wouldn’t say it was from a feminist perspective. The topic was looking at the effect first pregnancy and the first year or so of motherhood has on spirituality. Mostly looking at the Anglican perspective. My longest chapter was on Churching – I’ll be happy to send it on once I’ve had the mark back.

JTL – I’d definitely recommend the third book (Priya) – very readable and interesting. Trible I find a bit hard going, although an interesting perspective. The first one is a bit of a blur!