Big lunch

We had lunch at Jean and Joe’s house today, as a farewell for Wilson who goes back to Ascension on Wednesday (Jean and Wilson in the photo). As usual, it was a fantastic spread of food: roast beef, potatoes, mixed vegetables, gammon and pineapple, rice, curry, drumsticks, and salad. It was all delicious and quite plentiful. To drink there was Chamdor (non-alcoholic champagne) in grape and peach flavours. We mostly let the conversation wash over us. Brenda asked me if it’s all double dutch to me or if I understood the conversation, and I said that I understood most of the words, but didn’t know the people they were talking about, so it didn’t mean much. But at least the dialect isn’t so foreign anymore! Pudding was apple crumble, custard, trifle, ice-cream, jelly, and another sort of cream and fruit tart. At about 3.30 the chocolates, chips and peanuts came out, so although we were still so stuffed, we indulged some more! We left before the actual “afternoon tea”, so Jean sent us home with mince pies, coconut fingers and scones, as well as a huge dish of leftover meat and potatoes. Phew! A very nice afternoon, definitely nice to be socializing on a weekend.

Church this morning was quite well attended. It was nice to have the service at 10, especially because we were going out for lunch. It leaves the rest of the day free, and because it was at 10 there wasn’t tea afterwards. Nick is coming up to the crucifixion in John, and this morning’s text was the Triumphal Entry. It is strange to think that Jesus didn’t ride into Jerusalem in triumph or victory, but that he was sad – he had to set his face like a flint to the events he knew were waiting. When he was hailed as King, it was as a political king – they weren’t giving any thought to his being the Messiah or the Son of God, merely a saviour from the Romans.

Yesterday afternoon we went for a drive around the island – I had told Nick that I would definitely like to be out and about in the car sometime yesterday because it’s going so well. So we took a drive. The weather wasn’t too bad in town, but inland it was really misty and rainy, so we took a more coastal route for our drive, going out to Rosemary Plain and back via New Ground. Nick took the boys swimming after, but I stayed home and did some weeding, then got supper ready. I did some grocery shopping last night after the boys were in bed, since it was a Saturday night and the shops were open, but I don’t think I’ll try that time slot again. There was less availability of parkings in town than there usually is! I thought it would be fairly quiet, but the night-life is quite busy on a Saturday. I only managed to get the Spar shopping done, and then couldn’t find a parking anywhere near Thorpes, so I just came home.