Farewell already!

It seemed impossible but this morning we had our farewell service at the village church. We began our duties on Palm Sunday and now nearly a year later its all over with. I've learned a lot during the year, and enjoyed most of it. But now I'm ready to move on- we have three months until we leave college. I'm champing at the bit to be moving on as are most of my friends here. We've tasted what we are preparing to be doing and can't wait to really start working. We then had a lovely lunch with my partner sacristan and his wife. A lovely young couple- we are old enough to be their parents, but in college where we are all learning together and share the same love of God, age doesn't matter and we all get along together.
We've one more week of this term left, and I've got a couple of interviews for my dissertation research then its five weeks holiday. I plan to really get my head down and write the remaining 17500 words!
Yesterday we went for a day out in Painswick and Stroud. I hadn't planned to do any research but as always we went into the village church and was pleasantly surprised to find they were doing many of the things I am going to suggest is how churches should be reaching out to their visitors. So out came the camera and I made a number of notes. More for me to write about! Then in Stroud we visited a Christian bookshop where we took part in the Big Brew and I delved into the second hand books and came away with 6 books for £8 So all in all a very good day. Oh and the sun shone and the daffodils were nodding their golden heads and it felt wonderful.