I'm just settling down after a seriously hectic weekend.
The stress hasn't completely gone though as my washer has decided to play up big time and I have a guy coming out this afternoon to fix it.
Anyway I've had a lovely weekend. The Framers market went well on saturday. Managed to sell quite a bit of stuff. In the afternoon I visited a local nursery Mires Beck which is a social enterprise. The nursery is run by adults with learning difficulties or mental health problems. it's a wonderful place to be. The sun shone, there were loads of beautiful plants etc and I had a lovely chat to some friends whilst eatting cream scones, was serenaded by beautiful music and had some lovely hugs!
Sunday saw us all up bright and early. At ten past 9 we were just leaving the house when one of the boys youth leaders arrived to offer his assistance. How blessed we are with the people we know.
Hopped in the car for the very short drive to church and then we piled out and juggled between us, buckets, violins, musics, spare clothes and chocolate cake!
The atmosphere on entering the church was very special. It was much earlier than we normally meet up. Quickly stands were errected microphones set up and chairs put into position and then began the marathan task of transporting buckets of hot water from the church hall round the church to the rememberence garden where a paddling pool had been set up and had been three quarters filled with water from the hose. The procession of buckets continued for about twenty minutes after which the water felt only slightly off cold.
By this time it was 5 to ten. I got hold of the forty leaflets I'd printed out and people began to arrive. I couldn't believe how many people arrived and nor could Ollie. You see, we had been getting ready for Ollie's baptism. He had decided to be baptised.
Although our church is an anglican church, the congregation is made up of christians from many backgrounds. I was brought up until I was 15 in the baptist church. When I was 15 we moved into the same anglican church. When I asked to be baptised there as an adult by immersion at 17 years old, the vicar at the time was shocked and had to do some serious thinking as to whether he'd be happy to. In the end, I was baptised by him in the garedn of a friend who was lucky enough to have a swimming pool.
As babies, we'd decided not to have any of our children christened as we wanted them to embrace the christian faith as their own when they were old enough to understand. and it was our very strong hope that each of them would come to faith for themselves. All my children have done. Which is something that we are daily thankful for.
Ollie had decided that this was the day on which he'd be baptised and our vicar Peter was more than happy to perform the ceremony and so at 10am yesterday morning infront of a huge crowd of people from church, youth group and school Ollie was baptised. It was so good to see how amny poeple had come along. No one was specifically invited but they all came to show support for Ollie and it meant a lot to us all.
The baptism was followed by a confirmation service and at this several of the young people in our church and several adults were confirmed.
The music was great and then some of the youung girls danced to the song I can only imagine and it was a stunning dance.
Unfortunatly Ollie had to then go straight to Music school as he'd only been given the morning off. Later that afternoon we were lucky enough to be at a concert where the music students performed.
What a perfect day!
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