Church picnic

We’ve had an absolutely lovely day occupied with the church picnic. The weather was just right to be outdoors – not hot, not cold, not windy but just a slight breeze, a blue sky with a few clouds – which was an answer to prayer, because on the way there it was cloudy and misty and not looking good. We got to the Blue Hill Community Centre just after 11 this morning, and as soon as we thought everyone was there who should be there, which numbered about 50 people, we started with some worship, and then Nick had prepared some reflection questions. He was going to preach a sermon originally, but this was actually more appropriate. The questions were along the lines of “have you grown closer to God in the past year?” and “what do you feel God is calling you to be involved in this next year?” and so on. Nick just read through the list of questions and explained a few, and encouraged everyone to take the questions home and think about them over the next few days. We launched into the lunch after that, which was the typical Saint potluck thing. Loads of food as usual, both in variety and quantity. I provided some chicken legs (when I called them drumsticks later in the day, one of the girls said, “why do you call them that?”…so now they’re just chicken legs). After lunch and pudding, we played a bible quiz game which Teddy organized and ran. We split into teams according to the chapels, and then had to answer a question, and then if we answered correctly, we could throw a dart at a dartboard and get whatever points we scored on the dartboard. Quite a novel way of scoring, and lots of fun. After the quiz, which I think Head o’Wain won, we played skittles (photo - Vincent having a go). St Helena skittles is very similar to your regular 10-pin bowls, except that it’s all manually done and the skittles are made of heavy wood, and the balls are big solid rubber balls. You have to toss it down a long alley, and it’s not allowed to touch the edges (the banks), otherwise it’s voided. It also has to touch a white section on the alley before making its journey to the pins, so there are a few techniques and rules. It was fun, and our team came second in that. I wasn’t terribly good at it, but then, I was never terribly good at 10-pin either. After the skittles, everyone just chilled and milled around. Being such a lovely day, we spent some time outside, chatting with some of the GNC kids who came, playing French cricket, playing guitar etc. After tea, Teddy got a game of rounders going (photo), which we played until it was time for the buses to take us home at 5.30. I think everyone really enjoyed the day. It was so great to be together in an informal setting. I hope we will be able to have this sort of thing more than once a year!