It was Harvest Festival today and the new (since April, I’m going to have to stop this soon, aren’t it?) Rector decided to start the event at 3 in the afternoon.  I hadn’t quite taken on board that there was going to be a treasure hunt and so on first and that the service wouldn’t start until 4, but no matter.  I saw people and was hugged, so that can’t be bad.

It went jolly well, actually.  Around 100 people there, including children, though I don’t think a head-count was done.  I helped with food and drinks afterwards, all sausages were eaten and astonishing amounts of cake.  No charge, it was a community friendship thing, though there was a bowl for donations.  I like our new Rector and his wife, I hope they will be happy here.  They have three young children, two at the village school and they are seen going for walks and being friendly – which shouldn’t be remarkable, but we’ve not always been quite so lucky in the past.

This morning, I turned out a cupboard.  It wasn’t that hard, took an hour and a half (big cupboard), nearly everything was thrown out, most of it onto the bonfire (in spite of heavy rain yesterday, it was still smouldering this morning and the papers I added soon caught alight) and I have a good shelf for my files and the bottom of the cupboard for logs, coal and sticks, so I don’t have to bring them in every day,  I’ve lit the fire again tonight – I’m not really cold, but it’s so nice to have.  I know people – well, women – who complain that a fire is too much work.  They don’t bring in the fuel, their husbands do, and clear out the ashes too.  It’s just a matter of a bit of extra dusting, I can’t think what they’re complaining about (unless they’re well into their eighties and arthritic).  A fire is worth the small extra trouble to the person who cleans.  It’s also worth the extra to the one who does the rest.  As the one who’ll do both – yes, no problem.  When I buy my own home, I shall have a fire.  There’s every chance, I suppose, that I won’t have an Aga and I’ll miss that very much, but doing without a proper fire would be another matter.

Thank you for your comments on my last post.  I’ll explain more of what I mean in a day or two, or when I feel like it (I’m so tired by the evenings, I can hardly write sometimes) but I appreciate your kind thoughts.  And there will be a blog party next year.  This year, when the Sage was so poorly, I asked him if he wanted to postpone or cancel it – “no,” he said, “I enjoy it, I’m looking forward to it.”  So am I.