This morning I fielded a whole range of phonecalls to do with the Harvest Festival. Rector in bed with flu - will be unable to greet and assist visiting retired clergyman. Thank goodness for our tradition of relieving our own rector of one of her seven harvest festivals in the group - especially as there are a few of us who go to several of them so she needs a new sermon for each!

Organist still disgruntled - have substituted "All things bright and beautiful" for "All creatures of our God and King" which she claims not to know, and have got rid of "To Thee, our Lord, our hearts we raise" which everybody claims not to know. Less familiar than some harvest hymns, but by no means wholly obscure I would have thought.

It's at the wrong time - it used to be earlier. Yes, and everyone complained that they couldn't get turned around in time for a 6 or 6.30 service. Not to mention that a 7 o'clock start will make it possible to see the whole of the England match before rushing to church. (Not for me, alas, but for general congregation without additional duties such as my father.) (NB It was a lack lustre goal-less draw against Macedonia)

There are fewer people coming. Yes, we have had to move it to Saturday when people go out for the evening. And last year we were severely over crowded going beyond the numbers allowed in the hall by fire regulations.

Nobody put a flyer round asking for puddings. No, but it is the same every year and, despite the number of houses for sale at the moment, there are only two new families in the village who might not know our traditions.

Ditto church decorating.

To cap it all, when I arrived at the village hall just after the agreed time of 10.30, it turned out that those people on both the VH committee and the PCC had made a unilateral decision to start at 9.00 and had pretty well finished.

Much Later

Well, it all went very well. The service was excellent and you really understand why Limber was so happy to hang on to Canon Phillips for more than thirty years and why they were so sad when he retired - the whole service was almost an informal talk interspersed with bible readings, prayers and hymns which flowed quite naturally one to another, made the adults think and kept the children's attention with the directness of the language.

Sadly one man was taken ill during the service; fortunately my fellow churchwarden is a retired doctor and she went out with him, took his blood pressure and recent medical history, and packed him straight off to hospital.

Afterwards everything went smoothly - we had about two portions of fish and chips left over, and four portions of pudding; so we'd got that right. The raffle went well. The auction went well, although David Slater can't build up the frenzy of getting people to bid silly money which David Cleve could, he got reasonable bids on everything - no £20 cauliflowers, but no 20p ones either. With three accountants on the PCC you would think we would have a total of money raised: but we haven't. I managed to persuade quite a lot of people to gift aid what they could so there is more money to come.

However, the money may be nice, but more important was that it was a pleasant convivial evening enjoyed by all who were there.

I started the day feeling seriously Eeyore, came down to a Piglet level of mild anxiety, am now a touch Pooh, and may well wake up restored to Tigger.

Sunday Morning

I believe that if we lived in Germany I could be arrested or fined for what I did when I got home from Church this morning: I hung out the washing on a Sunday - tablecloths from last night's supper. I've had a cup of coffee (the thirst after righteousness, as my grandmother called it) and now I am off to the village hall to help finish the clearing up. Kath and I would have been happy to go straight from church, but Christine needs to hear The Archers.

And speaking of Christine, the man she treated last night refused to go to hospital, but went to bed instead and is a lot better this morning: his wife is going to exert as much pressure as she can to persuade him to get himself checked over. I know this because Betty Cleve has just rung to apologise for her friend's disrupting the service!

This morning I find that I am more Kanga than Tigger.