Back Inside

On Wednesday I and Margaret from the congregation went in through the airlock-like door of Widelake care home, and followed a member of staff to the 'pub' where we celebrated Holy Communion for a group of residents. This unremarkable event was the first of its kind to happen since March 2020 when covid was first gripping us. I'd had discussions on and off with Amy who runs Widelake about starting up services again, but for a long while we would have had to stand behind a perspex screen and have no contact with residents, which makes a communion service a bit of a non-starter and there's little point in doing much else. But now all is, more or less, back to normal. My face mask was all very well but seemed a little bit tokenistic.

One change is that we no longer have the services of Alec who used to play the piano so I had rigged up some music and a couple of hymns on my iPod. It turned out that the speakers weren't up to the job, leaving the music so quiet that even on 'All Things B&B' and 'We Plough the Fields' we were a bar out of time after a single verse. More kit required. I could barely remember what to put in the bag as it was, and spent a good chunk of Tuesday morning frantically photocopying hymns after the folder with the old hymn sheets was nowhere to be found.