First fruits

Pentecost. The birthday of the church was on a day that was originally a Jewish feast celebrating the first fruits of the harvest - that was why so many people were there from all over the place. (See the things you learn when you have to prepare a sermon?) Anyway, that's what I was thinking as I took this photo of a new-mown hayfield, with its neat rolls in the place of the old haystacks, under the wide skies of Toward at the south of the Cowal peninsula. I was preaching this morning, and was glad I'd done my prep before my life became so hectic this past week - I was tired before I even got to church!

Other than that? Well, the afternoon at home was rendered hideous by the noise from a hitherto unexpected (by us anyway) Punk festival on the Coal Pier. There was the most hellish cacophony reverberating round the encircling hills, so that all of us within the town bounds must have been affected by it, to say nothing of any unfortunates who'd booked a room in the nearby hotel for the weekend. The combination of powerful amplification and amateurish noise drove us from our garden down to Toward for a walk neither of us felt up to, but it would have been a crime to waste such a beautiful afternoon. Happily the town is now more or less silent again and I've switched off my Victor Meldrew act .

Sometimes, just sometimes, I miss the magical silence of a lockdown night ...