Categories: uncategorized
Date: 27 September 2004 11:58:33
The men in our office are holding a "Bake-off" this week, and I have the heady responsibility of judging their entries. This has come about because I refused to make them any more muffins and suggested they did some cooking themselves. Being men, this has inevitably turned into a competition, with a different "entry" every day. First up is my newest, Australian colleague, who has produced a chocolate confection covered (fittingly enough) in bits of kiwi fruit. Such is his ambition to fit in with office culture that he was on the phone to his mother-in-law early this morning, finding out how to make icing. He gets top marks for effort, but we haven't tried it yet. It's going to be a fattening week....
In other food-related news (hey, a seamless link), my better half and I have been trying to organise a harvest service at ridiculously short notice. We aren't even going to be there next Sunday, but the pastor is (to use his words) "desperate". He maybe could have thought about it before, rather than ringing the only two ex-anglicans in the congregation in a panic because we own a grand total of three books on liturgy (and one of them is the alternative service book). Least said about that, the better really - although since I had two glasses of wine before he popped round last night, I probably said more than I should.
I haven't thought about Harvest in years - and it brings out the traditionalist in me. My top suggestions included singing "We Plough the Fields and Scatter" and getting small children to arrange a pile of vegetables and tins in a pyramid to be later given to old ladies who would have been happier with a selection of Tesco Finest ready meals. That's the normal harvest thing isn't it? We've grown a marrow by mistake (forgot to pick one of the courgettes) so they could always have that.
Actually, the thought of the congregation singing We Plough the Fields and Scatter, complete with funky drum beat, electric guitar and people shouting "Yes lord, we want to plough those fields for you!" is comical enough to make me want to go along- except we'll be in Scotland. Pity.
It's funny, isn't it, that an urban charismatic church that forgot to celebrate Pentecost this year is so desperate to do a harvest service. Perhaps we have some great yearning to get back to basics, but I really don't think a display of tinned beans is going to do it.