Complete Rubbish

More inspiring insights into parish life: I was going to post about praying the Office, but will delay that in favour of discussing Bins. We are not quite sure how the church managed to acquire nine wheeliebins, nor how several of them lost their lids. We have been expecting the Council to come to collect the superfluous ones for some time, and lined them up along the church path like superannuated Daleks waiting for the knacker's van to turn up and cart them away. And there they have remained, for rather too long. We debated their ongoing presence at this week's staff meeting, and as a result I asked Sandra the office manager to try to find out what the Council's plans were. It turned out that the bin men wouldn't take the bins away because they were full of water. This is true, but invites the obvious response that the reason they are full of water is that THEY HAVEN'T BEEN TAKEN AWAY.

So after Morning Prayer today I did the only thing open to us, which was to tip the bins over, drain off the repulsive water, sort the resulting cascade of trash into the bins we're keeping, and then turn the spares upside down. In pity Fr Donald gave me a pair of the latex gloves he uses for refuelling his car, and I was grateful, as one pile of muck revealed a black bag not quite managing to restrain a sprawling dog turd. 'I thought your job was so full of glamour', commented Grant the churchwarden. He had come down to give me details of the damp in the gents' toilets.

In some relief I sat in front of the computer and found a message from a young mum asking whether she had to book into the Toddler Group. No, I said, but it's been really busy over the last few weeks so you might like to make sure you're here early. 'OK, I'll set off early,' she replied, 'I'm coming from Portsmouth'. Portsmouth? Gosh, I replied, did she have local connections? Thankfully she answered that she would indeed be visiting her sister-in-law in the parish and so they would both hope to come with their respective children. For a moment I thought that Swanvale Halt Toddler Group was being expected to serve the entire southeast of England.