It's that time of year again when Methodist Ministers need extra prayer support - something that we ordinary mortals tend to forget.
For some Ministers it is the end of four years of ministry in their present station and the decision must be made as to whether they stay on for a further period at the end of their five years' ministry there. First, the Minister him(her)self must deside whether to ask to stay on, and then the church and Circuit have to vote whether to invite them for another three or five years. This can be unsettling even if the outcome is a positive invitation to stay but, if it is negative, there is a need for extra love and prayer support for the Minister in that final year.
It is also the time of year when our Ministers are preparing to move to new stations and again need our prayer support for the upheaval of moving, for the saying of Goodbye to well-loved people and places and for establishing themselves in their new situation.
A change of manse can be quite a challenge, as Richard describes over on Connexions! Not being a gardener, he has been tackling a rather overgrown garden in readiness for the next occupant of the manse. His congregation will no doubt be curious to know what his successor does with the garden. This can often be very interesting!
Our previous minister did away with the small lawn in the manse front garden and replaced it with exotic plants, with great energy and (no doubt) expense, so that it was very beautiful and a joy to behold.
Imagine, then, the surprise of our congregation when our present minister arrived and we found an invitation in the weekly Notice leaflet to all and sundry to come and help themselves to the plants in the manse front garden! You see, this minister and his wife arrived with two large golden retrievers who needed SPACE! So the manse front garden was paved over, with only periferal plants. I'm afraid this caused distress to our previous minister when she heard of it, but she can take comfort in the fact that many of us now have plants in our gardens that remind us of her constantly. We now have a very tidy and easily maintained manse front garden, which doesn't need to take up the minister's valuable time to keep it in good order.
The joy of our Methodist itinerant system is that our ministers are so very different and bring their own special gifts and preferences with them!
Showing posts with label gardening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gardening. Show all posts
Sunday, 20 July 2008
Wednesday, 21 May 2008
Catching My Tail!
I spent last weekend at the annual conference of Wycliffe Associates and I'm longing to write about it but instead I'm trying to catch my tail to catch up with all sorts of things - not least finding prayers and pictures and various types of crosses for our Prayer Day 'Wayfaring', to help participants coming through the room
'homecoming' (after 'the Fall' in the previous room). Our housegroup is responsible for the 'homecoming' room. Then I've got deadlines to meet in my capacity of media publicist, and I will also need to press on with drafting the Prayer Guidelines for June or they won't be published in time.
My spirits have been lifted today though by the tremendous amount of work that the gardening team of three put in to clear away the debris left by the early bulbs and plant out all my geraniums that have been wintering in my front porch. (Oh,dear! All the front garden will need watering tomorrow - unless it rains.) With the back borders weeded and all the lawns neatly cut, I catch my breath at such beauty whenever I look out of the window, back or front. It's my favourite flowering time of the year just now in the back garden, which is a mass of multi-coloured aquilegia alongside the blossom on the Cox's Orange Pippin tree.
The greenhouse hasn't been doing so well this year. Perhaps it's been too cold, but at last the runner beans are big enough to be planted out next week and the peas that we'd almost given up on are just peeping through. There are three very good tomato plants and two marrows (all given to me by a neighbour) but my own sowing of tomato plants are much smaller than they should be for the time they've been
a-growing! However, I have some magnificent broad beans outside, with tiny beans and lots more flowers so I shall have a surplus of broad beans soon. I cooked three tiny ones in their shells today to celebrate.
I'm also being pressed to search all my cupboards and drawers for old church magazines and photographs (as soon as possible) so that one of our members who is the archivist at the main Reading Library can write a book for the church's Millennium next year. This always takes longer than you think it will. That's one disadvantage of having lived such a long life!
'homecoming' (after 'the Fall' in the previous room). Our housegroup is responsible for the 'homecoming' room. Then I've got deadlines to meet in my capacity of media publicist, and I will also need to press on with drafting the Prayer Guidelines for June or they won't be published in time.
My spirits have been lifted today though by the tremendous amount of work that the gardening team of three put in to clear away the debris left by the early bulbs and plant out all my geraniums that have been wintering in my front porch. (Oh,dear! All the front garden will need watering tomorrow - unless it rains.) With the back borders weeded and all the lawns neatly cut, I catch my breath at such beauty whenever I look out of the window, back or front. It's my favourite flowering time of the year just now in the back garden, which is a mass of multi-coloured aquilegia alongside the blossom on the Cox's Orange Pippin tree.
The greenhouse hasn't been doing so well this year. Perhaps it's been too cold, but at last the runner beans are big enough to be planted out next week and the peas that we'd almost given up on are just peeping through. There are three very good tomato plants and two marrows (all given to me by a neighbour) but my own sowing of tomato plants are much smaller than they should be for the time they've been
a-growing! However, I have some magnificent broad beans outside, with tiny beans and lots more flowers so I shall have a surplus of broad beans soon. I cooked three tiny ones in their shells today to celebrate.
I'm also being pressed to search all my cupboards and drawers for old church magazines and photographs (as soon as possible) so that one of our members who is the archivist at the main Reading Library can write a book for the church's Millennium next year. This always takes longer than you think it will. That's one disadvantage of having lived such a long life!
Thursday, 20 September 2007
Bumper Apple Crop?
The Reading Evening Post reported on 18/9 as follows:-
"Gala Day for Apple Growers
The English apple crop is more than 10 per cent bigger than last year because of the summer rain, growers said today.
English varieties are hitting stores this week, around seven days earlier than last year. Producers have reported record crops of English Gala and English Braeburn apples.
But shoppers are confused about which apples are domestically produced and which are imported, according to English Apples and Pears Ltd. Research found that around 40 per cent of people did not know when the English apple season begins. And 76 per cent think Granny Smith's are English, when they come from France and Australia."
The shoppers aren't the only ones who are confused, though my confusion is quite different! Since I live in Reading, you'd think that my apple trees would be subject to the same weather and climate - and yet I have to report a strange difference in my apple trees this year! My Worcester Pearmain tree is in line with the other English apple growers and has a bumper crop this year, with apples very much bigger than ever before. My Lord Lambourne tree has cropped much the same as usual but, for the first time in 59 years two of my apple trees (the Cox's Orange Pippin and the Beauty of Bath) had not a single bud of blossom on either of them and therefore, of course, have no apples at all. Both these trees are very healthy and are producing prolific growth. My theory is that we had a heatwave in April when the blossom would have been formed but I would be glad to hear of any other possible explanation - fewer bees last year perhaps? So can anyone solve this mystery for me?
"Gala Day for Apple Growers
The English apple crop is more than 10 per cent bigger than last year because of the summer rain, growers said today.
English varieties are hitting stores this week, around seven days earlier than last year. Producers have reported record crops of English Gala and English Braeburn apples.
But shoppers are confused about which apples are domestically produced and which are imported, according to English Apples and Pears Ltd. Research found that around 40 per cent of people did not know when the English apple season begins. And 76 per cent think Granny Smith's are English, when they come from France and Australia."
The shoppers aren't the only ones who are confused, though my confusion is quite different! Since I live in Reading, you'd think that my apple trees would be subject to the same weather and climate - and yet I have to report a strange difference in my apple trees this year! My Worcester Pearmain tree is in line with the other English apple growers and has a bumper crop this year, with apples very much bigger than ever before. My Lord Lambourne tree has cropped much the same as usual but, for the first time in 59 years two of my apple trees (the Cox's Orange Pippin and the Beauty of Bath) had not a single bud of blossom on either of them and therefore, of course, have no apples at all. Both these trees are very healthy and are producing prolific growth. My theory is that we had a heatwave in April when the blossom would have been formed but I would be glad to hear of any other possible explanation - fewer bees last year perhaps? So can anyone solve this mystery for me?
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