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Sunday, May 09, 2010

It's Amelie feeding her face in St Philip's Garden of Rest!

Phil's Garden
No seriously, that's what it's called. If you squint a bit, it looks like they have my name on the gate.

As it happens, Lisa, Amelie and I have just got back from church. I'll give you a moment to get over the shock of that news. It's true that we're not what you'd call regular church-goers, but we do like a good buffet, and Lisa's always been keen to try a communion wafer, so we decided to pop over to Hove this morning for a Sunday service.

Our main (some would say only) reason for attending was to witness the confirmation of Lisa's sister and nephew. To be honest, we had no idea what that meant, but having established the presence of free food, we decided to turn up anyway. And let's face it, we're both Godparents to that boy, so anything he gets up to in church is officially our business. Unless he's caught throwing stones at the stained glass windows.

Anyhoo, the service lasted for an hour and a half. It just felt much longer. Amelie and I walked out halfway through, but our protest didn't seem to attract much support, so having eaten a rusk in the garden, we went back inside. I don't think we missed much.

To be honest, I'm not a big fan of formality, and I'd run out of steam by about page 9 of the Holy Eucharist & Sacrament of Confirmation, but I did like the church's multi-faith play area. In addition to selling colouring-in sheets for only 10p each, they had a range of books to read, including 'Buddhist Stories' and 'Muslim Stories'. It made me wonder if the teddy bear Amelie found was called Mohammed. I thought their attempts to acknowledge other religions was admirable (keep your friends close and your enemies closer), but I do think they're taking a bit of a risk. One boring sermon, and all the kids will convert to Islam.

Anyhoo, I thought Lisa's sister looked very pretty in a floral dress, although her outfit was slightly upstaged by the bishop. She also came close to setting Lisa's hair alight with her confirmation candle, but fortunately Lisa was moving with such speed towards the buffet, that the flames were put out by her whirlwind. I'm not saying she was keen to get to the food, but having consumed the body of Christ in the communion service, she pretty much ate all twelve disciples in the church hall afterwards. Now I know where Amelie gets it from.

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