Visits arranged - tick

Vestry cleaned - tick

Admin tasks completed - tick

Programme of work identified - tick

Cat-sitters lined up - tick

OK, what have I forgotten?

It has struck me how odd it is going to be having the potential for a (mostly) 9-5 life for the next three months and that I only have one preach to prepare for.  I am looking forward to listening to other preachers and seeing how other churches style their worship.

So, I think that today can be legitimately a gentle day, with some food shopping and other mundane tasks!

Yesterday saw the vestry cleaning completed, a huge consignment of card taken to the recycling centre and a few bags of non-recyclable stuff filled ready for council collection today.  To be honest, the four or five sacks seemed not too bad as the result, in some cases, of more than four years storage (some of it travelled north with me from Dibley!)

Today I have a couple of meetings, need to try to track down an invoice I've managed to lose and do a few last bits of admin then I'm probably as near to 'done' as it'll get.

Feels strange, but it is good that I now have a nearly complete 'calendar' and know at which church I intend to worship which week.  Just a couple of catch-up trips to see family and friends to arrange and I'll be done!

This morning some workers arrived to make minor repairs to the church roof - but were driven back by nesting seagulls protecting their young. 

Makes me chuckle that we humans ever have the audacity to think we are in control of anything.  Bit of a nuisance, as the workers have to be re-booked for a few weeks time once chicks have fledged and flown, but it still amuses me.

So today is partly devoted to finsihing the vestry de-junking session (loads of stuff to take to the tip, carpets to hoover, and several bags of stuff to bring home (i.e. to further clutter the house!)) and partly to a raft of smallish admin jobs that need to be cleared before Sunday.  Then the slightly odd task of working out what needs to go to church that normally lives at home, because people will want to borrow it whilst I'm out of circulation...

Sabbatical diary now almost complete - just need to decide which local Baptist churches I will visit on which Sundays, fix a date to see my folks 'down south', note the two extra little projects that have popped up to assist other ministers with bits of research (both really interesting, one linked to church/mission history and one looking at congregations whose ministers get sick or die). 

Between now and Sunday I also need to get the last of the travel booked, invoices printed and the resultant mega expense claim in!  There is that 'holiday' feeling now that it will good when it's Monday morning and if it isn't done, it won't get done!

Today is the Coffee Club annual outing to the seaside, and the sun is shining... this is a bonus as last year it poured with rain!  This is a great group of folk who support and encourage one another simply be meeting and chatting over coffee once a week.  It will seem very strange not to meet up with them for a whole three months (though actually for various reasons I've recently missed several weeks) but I know they will continue to meet and minister one to another.

Betwixt now and then, a bit more admin and chasing up of sabbatical related stuff.

I am still debating how best to blog though that time... do I carry on here, or do I set up a dedicated blog?  Each has pros and cons, but at the moment I am leaning towards staying here, at least as it's better the devil you know!