WildFlowerWeek - Purple Toadflax

Bombshell time at the end of this morning’s communion service at St Luke’s, where I was serving as an acolyte and therefore standing at the altar right next to our Rector, Anne-Marie, when she made an announcement. She has been offered a post as an Archdeacon in Wales and will be leaving us in September having been here since 2011. This will coincide with, hopefully, the arrival of two new full-time team Vicars in our restructured and enlarged Benefice and therefore a completely new era for this area. Eventually, after what is termed an “interregnum” (period without a priest-in-charge) we will have a new Rector at St Luke’s to oversee the team. As the post will be a little less onerous than it has increasingly been for Anne-Marie, we’re hoping it will be more attractive when advertised. I have no idea how much say PCC members have on who is appointed, but having just been elected to it I’m assuming I will have some kind of input or influence. If so, I will be gathering views from church members, just as I used to do as a Union rep. Having been a regular for ten years I know everyone who attends quite well (in part thanks to Mum), so I’m in a good position to chat and canvass opinions. Interesting times ahead, perhaps? I have mixed feelings about Anne-Marie’s departure. It’s most definitely something she needs to do, but I shall be sad to lose yet another person who remembers both my parents - indeed, Anne-Marie conducted both of their funerals and then the interment of their ashes together. She led us through the Covid lockdown and managed, with the imaginative use of Zoom (she worked out how we could sing hymns without blocking out the music), to keep us strongly bonded together throughout the pandemic. All while surviving a divorce, being a single parent of a son and daughter growing from childhood to adolescence, and then overcoming a breast cancer diagnosis and surgery. I shall miss her sermons - the very best I have ever heard - and her encouragement to me personally through some difficult experiences of my own. She’s quite a lady, and I wish her the very best in her new role and home by the beautiful Brecon Beacons.

And so another life chapter draws to its conclusion over the next few months, another link with the past will be broken, and I will march ever onwards.

My slightly late entry for WildFlowerWeek is one of the wildflowers which have sprung up in my jungle, er, garden - the pretty Purple Toadflax (Linaria purpurea). Thank you to Miranda1008 for hosting the challenge in May.