The before photo!  All set up ready to go, tables arranged cafe style with tablecloths, paper table mats (GCM and Operation harvest resources) grown up colouring and crayons, lots of crayons!  Elsewhere a room was set up for flower arranging and cake decorating as a "hospitality zone" and another area as a "creative zone" where it was possible to have a go at block printing or to make a GCM money box.  Plus of course a creche or 'play zone' as it was termed.

The service flowed on into lunch, with five kinds of tasty home made soup, crusty bread, dips and dunks, Indian snacks, home baking and biscuits.

We have raised some tidy sums for each of the charities and I think most people enjoyed themselves.

A lot of people mucked in to ensure we had a veritable feast, to wash up and to clear up. 

Now it's time for a little rest, then out to gather fallen leaves for this evening's service, a shower and a change of clothes (not least as I have bright yellow printing ink on my brown skirt...)

A good day, and it's not over yet.

Crane through the mist... a hint to just one of the things I've been pondering and preparing for two very different harvest-themed services tomorrow.

A few more pictorial clues... relating to the morning service (the crane is for the evening)

Many thanks to those who gave up time this afternoon to shift and arrange furniture in readiness for tomorrow's cafe style extravaganza

Today we commandeered the hospital chapel to share communion with one of our folk.  I did try knocking the door of the office to ask permission, but there was no reply.

These moments are so incredibly beautiful and precious. 

Grape juice in a paper cup (I have four glasses in my communion set, there were five of us), a bread roll precariously balanced on a paten so small that it would fit well in doll's tea set.  A piano stool doubling as a communion table.  Chairs gathered into a circle.

And then on into the (W)RVS cafe, one of the few that survive in this age of shopping malls in hospital, for steaming cups of tea and a conversation characterised by hilarity before the hour had flown and we needed to wend our ways whence we had come.  One to the ward, four in different directions home or to work.

You can't bottle it or buy it.  You can't manufacture it.  It just is what it is - people meeting and sharing and remembering and making memories - and it is as beautiful as it is fleeting, as precious as it is privilege.

Today's PAYG asked the question, "As you read the gospels, does Jesus still amaze you, or has he become cultural wallpaper?"

Hmm....

Challenging!

It's become a bit of a ritual that in September, as the leaves change colour and start to fall from the trees, I take my self out for a walk, savour the beauty of the season, and snap a few photos.  Nothing that would ever win any prizes, but that's not the point.  They are simply a reminder to myself that another year has passed and that, not only am I still here, I am well and healthy.

Obviously after five years, the intensity of feeling has dulled, and the wobbly moments are much less often and much less wobbly.  What doesn't change is the deep sense of gratitude for my continuing life.  I still don't take anything for granted, still won't look ahead more than a year, or two at most, but I am content, and that's a good place to be.