Sunday's spotlight - raining cats and dogs

It's the first of November and it's raining. At one time folk used to say, "It's raining stair rods" and that is a pretty good description. For some reason that I never have been able to understand they also said, "It's raining cats and dogs". Do you know why folk said and still say that? Love to know. Anyway, let's say that the weather excels in its inclemency.


It all started yesterday - the 30th October - but I would surmise that the lateness of its arrival would not have affected the mildness record that was forecast for October. Some parts are flooding right now. Drains already clogged with LAST year's leaves are now impossibly clogged with this year's leaves. All the water companies act as though legions of fairies come down from their cobwebs and clear the drains every time it rains. You certainly don't see them doing it very often.


All this rain gives Pam plenty of time for making her cards however. Both she and Mary are keen on this and whenever we visit somewhere new Pam's first enquiry is always, "Have you got any craft shops here?" If the answer is in the affirmative then she will disappear for 6 hours or so. This leaves me with the boring task of having to spend time in things like computer stores and bookshops. You'll see some of the Christmas cards she has made for this year, scanned in to this post so that you can see what sort of thing she gets up to. One of the local craft stores had a free lesson yesterday morning. Pam went along but didn't stay. They were teaching folk how to use double sided cellotape. Not many other people were staying either.



I'm writing this in a spare half hour before we're off to church.... Lincoln, being an ancient city - even the Romans were, comparatively speaking, recent incumbents- we have a surfeit of ancient buildings, various other attractions and quite a few churches that can count on quite a few years of history. The one we worship in dates prior to the 11th century, when they really knew how to build churches. The heating system in our church is the ORIGINAL one.


We belong to a Federation of churches in the below hill area if the city. I've mentioned before that Lincoln is divided by a very steep hill. It's rumoured that in medieval times they had a competition to give that hill a name and decided on "Steep Hill". Almost as original a thought as our present city fathers would have come up with!! Anyway, we're situated in the bottom part of Steep Hill. Twice a year all the churches in the Below Hill Federation meet together for a service followed by a lunch made up of lots of naughty things like sausage rolls, pork pies, crisps, creamy deserts and tons of other things which no one likes! To give Ruth an idea for future jewellery - "Anyone can get fat at our communal lunches". Most of the churches are within walking distance of each other so, normally, there's a really good turn out. I don't think many people will be put off by the weather.

Don't let the rain keep you inside! Too much to miss.