The first thing to note is that I’ve had the date of Dedication wrong on the back of the last few issues of the magazine. How could I do that – Dedication is my absolute favourite festival! It is to be celebrated on 13th October, the Sunday after its actual date of 8th October 1747. However don’t completely write off 6th because it’ll be the Community Choir’s 4th birthday and they’ll undoubtedly sing for us and share a glass or two.
Meanwhile back to the summer …. Sometimes after a very busy period it’s nice to relax and not to have to think too much about the next “thing”, so it may come as relief that we do actually seem to be slowing down for the next couple of months. Services as usual of course, but not quite such a plethora of events as we seem to have had recently. And that’s good because we celebrated some very important moments in June – Ayla’s Ordination and First Mass, both huge events in her life and the life of the parish as we accompany her on the next stage of her journey; Jeremy’s celebration of the 30th anniversary of his ordination, another milestone that we enjoyed sharing with him and with Julia.
I would make some remark about letting the dust settle but after the electrical work that’s been done and the filming that took place, settling is just what the dust has been doing – who’d have guessed artificial snow would make more mess than the real thing! We’re also waging war on mice. I’m sorry if you cherish all God’s creatures and don’t want to harm them but these have got to go – they have their seamy side too! Whilst we have traps galore everyone can help by not leaving food around, not dropping crumbs, not leaving your group’s biscuits and sweets out of tins (they LOVE chocolate – they quite like communion wafers too but we’ve sealed those up). Churches traditionally have mice and we’ve always had a few, but really there seem to be more of them than there are of us now.
So what is happening over the summer? There’s Macbeth – the Hampstead Players’ summer production gets us off to a dramatic start (4-6 July). The lunchtime concerts and literary hours continue in July but not August. We have an Art Sale on Saturday 27th July – if you missed the chance to buy one of Estelle Spottiswoode’s paintings at the Spring Fair this will be another opportunity to browse – but it is the last chance, after that they’ll be taken away. The sale will be open from 11am – 3pm, proceeds to the Hampstead Players.
The Bible Book Club meets on Wednesday 10th July and then takes a break till September – the schedule for the autumn is printed further on in this issue.
The big event in August is, of course, Holiday in Hampstead. This is a whole week of entertainment and splendid lunches, quizzes and afternoon teas – all at a very modest price. But places are limited so do take a leaflet and book up as soon as possible.
So whether at home or away, I wish you a very pleasant summer.