Today is Palm Sunday and, after showering, having breakfast and walking Mix, we set off for Gavinton Church (Rachel, Mum and I). At the door we received our Palm Cross, our Order of Service and our hymn book. The service consisted of two reflections and a litany (with, of course, prayers and appropriate Bible readings). The first reflection was on the theme of today, Palm Sunday, and contrasted the arrival of Jesus to Jerusalem with the almost simultaneous arrival of Pontius Pilate – the one to challenge and overthrow, the other to maintain and defend. Remembering that those who cried Hosanna later shouted Crucify, it was a challenge to remember where we stood. The litany, from a book by David Ogston, was a litany about people’s needs and the prayer to God to supply those needs – the idea of opening a window figured in the litany and this was picked up in the second reflection which invited us to meditate on three imaginary icons as windows into the events of Holy Week – Palm Sunday, the Crucifixion and the Harrowing of Hell – deliberately challenging us to think about these events because it is all too easy to go directly from Palm Sunday to Easter Day, missing out all that is in between.
After the service we joined the congregation for coffee and then, having dropped Mum off at home, we went off to Tweedmouth, to Halfords, to buy a tool chest in which to store all of the tools and equipment which we are accumulating. I had seen one at a bargain price on the internet and wanted to see what it looked like in reality. My surprise was that it was a half-again more expensive in the shop. I told the assistant that I thought I had seen it advertised so much cheaper on the internet web-site and he immediately said, ‘Let’s look and see’. It came up as I had thought and the assistant immediately said, ‘That's OK, you can have it for the internet price.’ Now that’s great, but what if I hadn’t looked at the internet last night? It’s like the railway ticket bought for me yesterday. If you don’t know what you are doing, you pay more. Surely that can’t be right. Anyway, now I have a tool chest which will fit under the stairs in the Hen House and will free the kitchen and the spare room from being tool depositories.
Back home, Sue and Scott came to join us all in the farmhouse for a lunch to celebrate Sue’s birthday. It was a lovely lunch, soup, ham with all the trimmings and birthday cake, washed down with wine and coffee. Afterwards we talked the afternoon away until it was time for Rachel to drive to Berwick for Evensong and Scott and Sue to return home. I took both dogs for a walk and at 7.30 p.m. we assembled in the Granary to watch Sunshine on Leith, a DVD which Scott had brought for Mum earlier in the afternoon. It was good and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved the final dance sequence on Princes Street but I did find myself wishing that some of the songs had a few more lyrics.
Later I walked Mix and retired to bed with my book. It is very light. I am fluctuating between the writings of the Venerable Bede and Edward Marston’s latest railway detective novel ‘A Ticket to Oblivion’. Tonight it is the latter (and I am enjoying it very much). Of course, I also kept my eye on the final round of the Augusta Masters (won in some style by Bubba Watson).
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