Category: St Mike’s

  • Black Pudding

    First day back at uni. No colour coded timetable so a frantic dash between lectures and the timetable board, which all turned out to fruitless as a third of them were cancelled, ok one out of three, and were all about how the work really starts tomorrow, I tell you, lecturers, don’t they get enough…

  • Hands on the rail

    Today was the first day of the new term. Along with the hour and a half Methodist covenant service which normally accompanies the beginning of the spring term, there was a really good insightful sermon by the newly licensed member of staff, ending with the words from the Iona community’s morning prayer: ‘We will not…

  • Nurture and Nature

    Spending a day with a compulsive liar, thief and violent young man is not everyone’s idea of a good day. Nor was it mine! Yet I find it hard to condemn the man when he has increasingly shown in short moments that nature which, properly nurtured, would be welcomed in the best of humans. He…

  • Last day in rural life!

    The performance of ‘Jesus in the boot’ went down so well at Gladestry that we get a second engagement at Garth Primary School this school is larger and has a dedicated hall for assembly and lunch. The children were evidently overawed by our presence as they sat quietly through the song ‘Amarillo’, but enjoyed the…

  • Last Wednesday

    Recycling. specifically relative recycling. Relative to what? Well no not that sort of relative, your granny, and old dear of some description. Yes we were somehow discussing these issues, I think it began when we tried to out wierd the local vicar You may think that we have spoken of this before, and you would…

  • Last Tuesday

    Today began as any other, toast on the range (cooker) a swift, but early, drive to morning prayer. Then a frantic drive in an MG to Cardiff for an exam While the others swanned off doing assemblies and church spotting, I had to exercise the grey matter Although during the school visit, there was a…

  • Today we wade through …

    No actually the farm was really quite nice, couldn’t believe that they were still getting back on their feet after the foot and mouth, especially since everyone outside of the farming community thinks of it as a long and distant memory! Today started with a very strange topic Just like vicars to want to out-weird…

  • Last Sunday

    I get picked up at 7.30am, driven like a rally to another car which then speeds off towards the first of the days parishes. Arriving about an hour early, (due to travelling logistics) I am greeted heartily by a large black Labrador, an indifferent cat and a jovial vicar. It is shortly after 8am –…

  • Last Saturday

    Last week I and three others were out on a ‘Rural Life Collaborative ministry project’ This week, I am writing about it! Saturday 14th January Departed Cardiff and after 58 miles, one live Army Range, and any number of cattle grids, we arrive at Llangammarch Wells Rectory in the arse end of beyond (Powys actually)…

  • Ticket to ride

    Cast: Young Man of Eastern European origin 2 Young Men from South Wales 1 Conductor 2 Old Dears On a train from Bridgend to Cardiff, the air in the carriage is blue, fulminating and procrastinating they sit organising the world into compartments they can cope with, arranging society so it fits their understanding. The two…