Palm Sunday

Today is the first Sunday of a stretch of five weeks for which I have no travel plans. Nice, particularly as it's Holy Week, and I now have some time to catch up on what's been happening at St. Bartholomew's, not just the occasional "visit" between trips.

As per our Palm Sunday tradition, we started out in the Parish Hall downstairs with a reading, the blessing of the palms, and then a procession outside up to the Nave. Just a short walk, but this year we were blessed with sunshine and fairly comfortable temperatures (which didn't last; by afternoon it was overcast and chilly). The windows to the church were left open so we could hear the organ -- but we didn't, so we were rather out of sync upon arrival. I think I've mentioned before in this blog that for such occasions we need a speaker outside.

We also had a number of birthdays to celebrate this week. Elle brought a cake for the mass celebration, her daughter being one of the group. (Next Sunday it's my turn -- my birthday will occur on Easter for the first and probably only time in my life, though the pre-calculated schedule for Easter in our Book of Common Prayer ends in 2013.) Little Danny is better known for liking grapes & cheese, but it was amusing to see him eyeing the cake today...

Update:

It appears Ranjit has a really good eye for photography. We were both armed with cameras this morning, but my thinking went no further than "event" shots, so I completely missed this one of the palms folded into crosses that Ranjit took.