This Weekend Was Brought To You By A Popular Variety of Cough Remedy

It's the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and we have been doing more than our bit at Swanvale Halt. The couple getting married on Saturday are members of Vineyard, an independent congregation in Guildford, and they took the service over rather, providing all the music and the preacher, a young woman who appeared about 17 to me but couldn't be as she referred to her teenage children. It's the bride's second go and she has a small son who at one point led his mum and stepfather-to-be on a little dance during one of the songs. I pointed out that during the Orthodox wedding rite the priest leads the couple on a (very stately) dance around the altar, but sadly I never got the chance for that. The couple wanted to take communion and that made it all very High Church even without my cope and biretta. 

Today it was the annual United Service at Hornington Parish Church, now itself united with evangelical Tophill. Tophill, it's worth pointing out, hate Vineyard Church as lots of their young families have defected there because they have a better band. I preached and told them all two stories about Nusreddin the Sage - it was relevant, honest, but I did get the impression that many people might only take away the final line, 'Who knows? The horse might sing' (you'll have to look it up). In my cassock, I was the only clergyperson who wore anything other than ordinary clothes. From my point of view, it was a bit sad to see that Hornington's aumbry is empty and surrounded by stacks of chairs, and there's no longer anything that you can point out as a Lady Chapel.

Technically, the Roman Catholics aren't supposed to come to the United Service (go to Mass, is the rule), and so in the evening we had a joint Evensong at Swanvale Halt so they could take part. That worked very well, and it was all to the good that the choir were augmented by some RCs and they managed to find someone to coax them all through the plainchant, as my vocal chords are still misbehaving as a result of a cold earlier in the week. I did warn the remarkably healthy congregation of nearly 60 that it would probably be more Evencroak than Evensong, but I got through it.

Then at 8pm I had an email to say that Sheila might not make it through the night. Sheila is Malcolm's partner, they are both 60-ish and they are the loveliest and sweetest couple you can imagine. She has been in hospital undergoing chemotherapy and the situation has not looked too bad until today. I found her fast asleep and unresponsive in the ICU, and did what was necessary, managing to get through it, as I had the rest of the weekend, with the aid of vicious Volcazone pastilles. At least they seemed vicious when I first encountered them not long after I arrived in Swanvale Halt: now I seem acclimatized to the wretched things and, like a junkie, need an ever-higher dose to have any effect.