Crack of dawn
Categories: uncategorized
Date: 10 April 2007 20:44:13
Yes, we were there. At the crack of dawn. On the recreation ground.
It was a real experience - a silvery half moon greeted us as we arrived, to have its place taken by the most beautiful sunrise. As we stood in silence, soaking in the sound of the dawn chorus greeting the day, from behind the line of trees and over the sea suddenly appeared a ball of gold, rising before our very eyes right on cue. It was truly awe-inspiring. As the worship leader said, creation proclaiming that He is risen indeed. Halleluia!
Though small in number, we were in good voice and the sunrise service was just perfect. The quality of the music deteriorated, mind, as the accordionist's fingers succumbed to the numbing cold of the frost and gradually all feeling disappeared, and with it all capacity to work out where on earth the chord buttons were! But we persevered and managed some rousing music. Wonder if the neighbours appreciated it :o)
Thence back to church for a scrummy breakfast and to witness yet again the amazing transformation of the Easter Garden.
From breakfast we raced home to get changed for church and to check whether the Easter bunny had been. For those of you who enquired, the tent is a "Smudgie-Towers" invention. The first year I had Tiddles he liked to play at making a tent from a clothes horse and a blanket and just happened to have made one in his room Easter weekend. It occured to me that it'd be rather fun to hide his Easter basket in there on Sunday morning and just wait to see when he found it. It proved such fun that the following year he asked if he could make the Easter bunny a tent again. And so it has continued for eight years' worth of Easters. Sometimes a plain tent (as this year), sometimes far more ornate, depending on the time available... but the contents always quite exciting. And amazingly the Easter Bunny also left something rather nice for me!
The Easter tree is a tradition I brought home after spending a year in Austria, and which made an impact upon Tiddles when we visited my friends out there at Easter time too. We use willow branches from the tree in our garden and decorate them with ornamental eggs and bunnies and the like.
Sadly Tiddles decided to grace the day with a massive tantrum just as we were setting out for church. The less said about that the better. But it meant that we forgot to take the Easter hats we'd made. Mine isn't in the picture as it's not as exciting as the Smudgelets' ones.
The tantrum was definitely the lowlight of my Easter this year (his too, methinks) but the highlight came from my other son. Normally quite shy, he has suddenly discovered a love of singing and has become more confident of his lovely little voice. This has generally come about through his singing with the choir - but he won't even sing in the back of the car for me because he's too lacking in confidence. But after the concert last week he asked if he could have singing lessons. And in anticipation of this, Honorary Auntie M who was taking the service at our church asked him if he would be willing to sing a solo. He stood in front of a packed church, held his head high and sang - so beautifully - "Good Joseph had a garden". And me? I cried.