I failed to take advantage of the clocks going back an hour, as I had to work overtime on composing an urgent business letter, but I woke up as did Clare and Rhiannon, early enough to enjoy breakfast together, including a feast of freshly cooked waffles, a Rhiannon favourite.
Today's Sunday duties were in two churches of the East Vale Group of villages, Peterston super Ely and St Brides super Ely. The last time I visited these churches was when I was a student at St Mike's taking Sunday Evensong and preaching. I'd never driven there before and was quite unfamiliar with the geography of that particular part of the Vale of Ely, which made me a bit apprehensive, but I arrived in good time nevertheless. When I entered St Peter's my memory of the place took a while to register recognition. Forty five years have passed, after all. Seeing the tall bronze figure of an angel serving as a lectern and a distinctive bronze mock mediaeval tabernacle in a single niche in the east chancel wall helped the sense of familiarity to return. The congregation of three dozen was lively and welcoming.
It was the same in St Bride's as well, albeit with a congregation of half a dozen. There is a distinctive genuine mediaeval Florentine statue of Mary and Jesus in a niche at the centre of the east window, giving it an unusual continental country church appearance. There are Flemish glass medallions depicting biblical scenes set in plain glass lights surrounding it, and these date back several centuries. The congregation knew they had been acquired and installed with the statue during the 1960s, but nobody knew where they came from or how. Both these churches are in beautiful rural settings and well looked after, as most country churches surviving still are - testimony to the commitment of people in small communities, rich and not so rich.
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