4 May 2016 (Wednesday) - End of an Era?

I read some sad news on Facebook; St Helen's Methodist church in Hastings is closing down. Whilst this is a matter of indifference to most of humainty it really is the end of an era for me. I first went to the place in the spring of 1975 when a friend took me to the Boys Brigade company which met there. That place then became (effectively) the centre of my universe for the next nine years. I met so many friends there; we had so many adventures. At the time our Boys Brigade comany was the envy of the county. We did so many things; our marching band performed all over the place, And four of us even got the highest award the Boys Brigade had to offer; no one in the history of the 8th Hastings had ever got the Queens Badge before.
I met "er indoors TM" in that place; we got married there. The children were christened there. For a while I was even one of the church stewards (like a deacon in the Church of England).

Mind you I suppose I should really be surprised the place has lasted so long. The website for the place says they average eighteen people turning out every week. I can remember back in the early 1980s being told the place had running costs of over a hundred pounds per week and that the weekly collection rarely raised much over forty quid.

I popped the lead onto "Furry Face TM" and we drove down to Bethersden. Regular readers of this drivel may recall that about six months ago I hid a series of thirty eight geocaches in a loop around that village. One of those caches seemed to have gone missing. Personally I thought it was still there, but it doesn't hurt to check these things.
Well, these days it *does* hurt. Moving is becoming more and more painful, but we went anyway. It was as well tyat we went; it *had* gone. And it was a rather pretty place to go for a walk anyway even if my dog did roll in fox poo, eat horse poo, get straw stuck in his throat and spend five minutes quacking like a duck.

Once home I settled "Furry Face TM" and went shopping. I had intended to go into town but instead thought Tesco might do. I got petrol and the makings of a geocache for tomorrow's mission. I came back via B&Q where I got a new attachment to stick the garden hose onto the tap. I only needed a rubber washer but ended up having to spend ten quid on the entire assembly. I also got some new cord for the garden strimmer, and then spend an hour strimming and mowing the lawn. The new strimming cord wasn't very good. I shall have to get some *really* thick stuff.

With lawn mowed I then had a spot of lunch whilst watching this week's episode of "Game of Thrones". "Game of Thrones" has acquired something of a cult following; it is one of those shows that attracts the sort of people who take great offence at anything less than gushing praise being said about it. For myself I find it entertaining enough. I have heard it described as "Lord of the Rings" interspersed with soft porn, and in all honesty that is not a bad description.
Today's installment passed an entertaining three quarters of an hour. It was only a shame I didn't really remember who was who and what was what. I really need to watch the entire lot from the start again.

I spent much of the afternoon preparing for next week's interview and also organising something to do at the weekend. Silly ideas don't have themselves you know.

"er indoors TM" came home and boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we scoffed as we watched "Bake Off". We had a bottle of plonk too...


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