5 April 2015 (Sunday) - A Christening

I must have been tired last night; my alarm woke me this morning. Whilst not a regular occurrence, it's nowhere near as rare as once it was.
We got up, scoffed hot cross buns for brekkie, put on our glad rags and set off to church (!)

Back in the day (in the early 80s) I'd seen the light and was a regular church-goer. During my stay in Folkestone (Sept 1983 - June 1985) we went to church weekly at St Andrew's Methodist Church in Cheriton. Now twenty years later by one of those odd quirks of fate one of my oldest friends (and Godmother of both fruits of my loin) is superintendent minister of Folkestone (the Methodist equivalent of Bishop) and is the minister at St Andrews. We went to St Andrews today where Rev Sam christened Baby Jake.
All of the family assembled for the service, and a lot of friends too. Everyone had their best finery. The service was really good; cheerful, inspiring and uplifting. The only fly in the ointment was that Baby Jake screamed through the entire show. But seeing how he was being christened it was his show to scream through.
Ironically he shut up and went to sleep just as we all recited the final "Amen".

After the service there was tea and coffee for all the church-goers. "My Boy TM" led a contingent to the nearby pub. Seeing how the contingent included my brother, father, father-in-law, assorted nephews and an acquired daughter I thought it would be rude to let them wander off unsupervised; they might not find the pub.
Whilst there we were joined by the Rev who had a crafty half with us. It was really good to catch up.

We then went back to the church hall. Most of the congregants had disappeared to wherever it is that church-goers go when not going to church. We then had a rather good post-christening lunch. Actually it was extremely good. I for one scoffed far too much.
It was a shame that not everyone was able to stay for food. A lot of people had come a long way to the christening and needed to get back home; others had other committments for the afternoon (including other christenings). One had left a boyfriend in the car. There's no denying that we'd catered for too many people; but such is life.
But personally when putting on a spread I like to see two things hapen. Firstly I like to see people tucking in (they did) and secondly I like to see stuff left over (there was). Some see that as waste; it is to an extent, but food left over means that everyone has eaten their fill. Everyone has been fed; and no one is going home hungry.
No one went home hungry today.

We tidied the church hall, closed the place up and having delivered the star of the show home we came home ourselves. I uploaded a few photos of the day, and we then took "Furry Face TM" round the park and on to Singleton Lake for a walk. On the way he played nicely with a labrador and terrorised another Patagonian Tripe Hound; a baby one which was only nine weeks old.

Once home I showered and then spent a little while listening to the nutty neighbours ranting before making a rather good dinner out of left over gateau and cream. So much for the diet...

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