Events in Rural Home-place

Went to church this evening, to find that there were two clergy and only three congregation. Well, once we turned up there were eight, but it was still a pitifully small service. It's so small that the organist doesn't turn up any more so we just read through the book of common prayer, take communion and leave. This is possibly the most interesting style of service ever devised. Actually, I am being mean. There was a sermon in which the vicar tried to go along the tightrope of whether to expect prayers to be answered or not. That was certainly worth seeing for the care with which he chose his words, even if not for his originality.

On the way out of church, we found a gathering of people chatting in an animated fashion. A large calf ran past. One man tried to stop it and the calf just ran past him too. The man looked slightly flummoxed by that. A second man came and waved a stick manacingly and the calf stopped. A minute later, it decided to go past the man with the stick. The man with the stick looked slightly flummoxed too. It headed along the road (speed limit 30mph, average speed 45mph) to the crossroads and went straight across and into a garden. Apparently the owner of the garden is very proud of his lawn thank you very much and could we please disturb it as little as possible. The chase went on regardless, into the next field. By this stage I had left the chase and taken up a spot near its home, hoping to guide it in when it returned (instead of it going straight past again). Ten minutes and a discussion of how best to cook beef later, my uncle appeared at the end of the road. He was waving the aforementioned stick and prodding the exhausted animal back to its field. It seemed to have enjoyed its run but decided it had had enough. It finally went back into its field, wagging its tail and looking pleased with itself with very little effort on my part. Then we left the farmer to check that he now had all his cows in the field.

We went home for a nice meal of roast beef, which had been delayed considerably by this. It was yummy.