It's Sunday, and I have settled in to the 'new routine' that goes with lock down.

I get up, a little after 6 a.m., feed the cats, and then walk up to our church premises for the weekly security check (in the 'olden days' it's something that two of us would do together after church, albeit more thorough than what I now do alone).  I make a point of looking around me, admiring flowers in gardens, children's painting in windows and, increasingly, chalk marks on pavements.  Today I focused on fences and railings - there are some lovely examples of wrought iron in the west end, as the photo illustrates.

I am loving being more intentional about my walks, not just thinking 'that's nice', but pausing to take photos (hopefully the police won't object!) and picking a theme each time.  This purposeful looking lifts my spirits, and makes me glad.

Once home, I have breakfast, listen to the Radio 4 service (most excellent from Holy Trinity, Platt, in Manchester today) and then go into my office to set up church.  Yes, even in this new world, there is set up to be done... A stack of music books to raise my laptop to the required height so that the camera doesn't focus on my nostrils, lots of links open on my laptop and smart phone, and the dial in details written out just in case the technology glitches (as glitch it quite often does!).  Papers ready, tea made, water glass filled... pause, breathe, and wait for to start letting people in from the 'waiting room.'

I love watching people wave as they arrive (or leave) and seeing more and more little tiles pop up on the screen.  I love hearing the different voices of those who take part in the service.  I love sing-a-long-o'-us as we play in recordings from services past to sing with.  It feels very real - because it is very real! I love that most people stay for 'coffee and chat' even if there's no coffee, and especially as they get allocated to groups by the software!   This, too lifts my spirits and feels good.

Then it's all over, time to convert the format of the recording and upload to a cloud for our tech folk to edit, to put the music books back in the shelf, send a few emails, shut down the laptop and get lunch.  And lunch is so early!  Not a snack scrabbled together sometime around 2 p.m. but a leisurely meal taken in my newly created 'chill zone' in the kitchen where kitties snooze and the sun warms my shoulders, all done by 12:30.

I have always loved Sundays, in their busy, demanding form, and I love them just as much in this new form, no less demanding and differently busy.  Low Sunday?  No.  Pews Empty Sunday (a new one on me, thanks KF)? Not it!

And now, gentle reader, I will post this and go and chill with kitties until it's time for the BUS evening Prayer Stream at 7 p.m.!