Hello and happy Sunday. We made it to the end of the week – phew! After harvest last weekend, I definitely struggled with my energy levels, but a double day off this week has made up for it.

This week has involved; a funeral visit, prayer with a colleague, nursing home visits, the Start course, church council meeting, a photoshoot (!), warm space, delivering the harvest donations to Foodbank, time in the Hub, volunteering at Breastfeeding Support Sefton, a 1 year old birthday party, Sophia’s first trip to the dentist, and lots of admin.

Highlights include Sophia’s first cinema trip, making contact with a new (for me) nursing home and coming across the most amazing retired minister who is faithfully serving her community there, and a good time at St Michael’s Blundellsands for our pulpit swap this week.

The Ta-Dah moment has been organising the MOT and service for my car.

God moment: I was so moved by my trip to the nursing home. I had dropped my card off before a few months back, but I thought I’d try again. I’m so pleased I did because they had lost my card, and I ended up being invited to meet one of the residents and subsequently stay for their weekly prayer meeting. It was brilliant! The staff were so lovely and warm with the residents, and the place had such a sense of community. No, more than that, it had a sense of family! I went away feeling so blessed and filled up.

All of which was great because I’d had a challenging day the day before. I ran out of steam after my busy weekend and Sophia’s lack of sleep didn’t help (not sure what’s going on there but it’s been a tough few days!). Anyway, I ended up dropping some extra work I’d been doing outside of parish. I was sad about it at the time, but literally the next day God opened the door to something new.

This week I am grateful for my lovely church and for my warm and safe home. With terrible things happening in Gaza and lots of homes in Retford flooded, that’s not something I take for granted!

Mum moment: hearing that Nathan got Sophia and her little pal Ruben to carry the cross in the procession today!

New words and phrases: literally anything and everything we say! She’s now on such a role that it’s impossible to answer.

But I did have my first ‘why?’ conversation with her today when she asked ‘why?’ after everything I said. Eventually, I came up with ‘because that’s the way God made the world. You need to take it up with Him’. To which she responded ‘fine’.

Next week I’m looking forward to doing the flowers for a friend’s wedding!

Blog banner this week is of Nathan reading Sophia a story at a ridiculously late hour because she just won’t sleep. Still cute though.