So, Nathan took some nice photos of Soph and I feeding the ducks this week, and they are on the phone he has misplaced. I was hoping to use one picture as my blog banner but… it’s Wednesday and the phone is still missing! So, here’s last week’s blog and here is a photo of Nathan, Sophia and the ducks. We do love ducks!

And the ducks were actually the highlight of the week. It was nice to take some time to be with Sophia, just going to toddler group and then feeding the ducks, rather than rushing around everywhere like we usually do.

The week also included prayers with colleagues, confirmation prep, a church council meeting, teaching about Holy Communion in Liverpool, our anniversary and a Sunday morning at a different church for the second Sunday of our local pulpit swap.

The Ta-Dah moment was finishing the final draft of our new welcome booklet for church. It’s got everything in it, from our vision statement, to the groups who use our buildings, to our childcare charity, to what to expect when you come to church.

I really noticed God was there when I was at St Luke’s on Sunday morning. We’ve done this pulpit swap – which is a fancy phrase for ‘vicar rotation’ – where we are all preaching on one subject each and taking it around the different churches. So I was preaching on prayer, and I took Sophia with me. She settled into the new space really well but during the communion prayer she must have tripped or something because by the Lord’s prayer she was howling! I scooped her up as we all said the prayer together, I was thinking, ‘if this doesn’t stop her crying, nothing will!’ Anyway, amazingly, she did calm right down and she was quiet again by the time we were giving out the bread. Rocking her while she was crying, as we said the Lord’s Prayer, was so powerful. It made me think about how God holds us when we cry, whatever we’re going through, and whatever else is happening in the world.

The challenge this week has been hearing of the death of two ministers I used to work with at different times. Both of these pieces of news were quite a shock. May they rest in peace and rise in glory.

I am especially grateful this week for a great group of people exploring their calling and service leading. I got to go and talk to them about communion and how to make worship more accessible.

I’m also grateful for my Nathan and celebrating six years of marriage. We didn’t do anything very exciting, but we had a lovely time nonetheless. We went out for lunch with Sophia and then to IKEA.

While at IKEA, I had a Mum moment when I looked up and saw Nathan pulling a delighted Sophia along the floor by her ankles. She was loving life and the staff all thought it was hilarious! Those floors, though, are not dust free, believe me!

New phrases include all the things we see on the way to nursery; tunnel, widge (bridge), wound-y-wound (roundabout), tip shop (chip shop), vast ‘it (fast bit) and water (canal)!

Next week (well, this week), I am most looking forward to preaching at St Peter’s, Formby for their Harvest Evensong.