The Hearth of Mopsus

It was the morning of the Village Show and, despite the extraordinarily unfavourable growing conditions in recent months, some dogged local ...

 ... only with fewer actual dogs. In Swanvale Halt this sharp summer, the canines keep inside for most of the day the same way the humans do...

Swanvale Halt is quiet at the moment. Some of this is down to the schools being out, and some to the heat (it was absolutely deathly at the ...

Christine the dog lady maintained in 2021 that she would never have another Boxer after her third died . In the end she took a final beast i...

It has been deathly quiet in Swanvale Halt over the last week. Not only is it half term so as usual everyone who can be absent is, but the h...

The new-ish contemplative service on the third Sunday evening in the month was over. I've been trying this since September: there are ve...

It wasn't even the Archdeacon who came to do the Archdeacon's Visitation at the church this week; it was the Deputy Archdeacon, the ...

The gentleman who came to the church to talk to me about becoming our PCC Treasurer seemed singularly ill at ease. The current office-holder...

By mid-day on Christmas Eve, the church and the outbuildings were starting to get chilly. Still warmer than my house, but not very warm. Thi...

In the church office email inbox on Friday I found one from a solicitor's office. 'We act on behalf of the late Mrs JN of Bradley Ho...

It's sort of appropriate that tomorrow is the feast day of St Elizabeth of Hungary, the 13th-century princess who ended her life prematu...

The Borough Deans gathered for lunch yesterday. What the role will mean exactly once the local governmental structures of Surrey go through...

For some perverse reason the diocese always arranges the institution of new incumbents on my customary day off of Thursday, so on a Thursday...

The readings today were from Jeremiah 23 where God lambasts prophets who prophesy their own fantasies, and Luke 12.49-56, in which Jesus tal...

‘When we talk about the Mysteries of the Church’, I told the congregation on Sunday, ‘we usually mean baptism or holy communion. But there a...

Swanvale Halt church was refurbished in 2012, as some may recall, as part of which we installed a handsome range of new furniture, benches a...

From the vaguely theological and definitely pastoral we venture today into the realms of the severely practical. Back in the Old Days once a...

M asked me about being married in the church. I knew, not only that they’d been married before, but also met their new partner before being ...

Plants, books, burgers, singing and dancing, bottles and dogs and Hook-a-Duck: every church fair has the same elements, and thankfully I hav...

Anna comes to speak to me about various things, including her old family Bible. None of her family wants it, she says, and she doesn't f...