What joy - a Church with a real ale festival! That's my kind of Church.

The only problem was that they ran out of beer. This seems to be a regularly occurring phenomenon these days. Time and time again we read of beer running out at beer festivals. Why might this be? I have some suggestions:

1. Real ale is becoming less associated with beer bellies, beards and naff t-shirts. People are no longer afraid to be seen at a beer festival and will thus attend.

2. CAMRA's campaign is working. The profile of this great piece of British heritage is slowly being re-discovered, thus more people are drinking the stuff.

3. Women are now able to drink beer without fear of stigma. This is both a negative and positive thing. It is a positive thing because beer-drinking is a suitable past-time for women and I'm glad I'm not the only female at beer festivals anymore. HOWEVER - I have recently started having to QUEUE for the loo at such events. Also, a small dress and big grin no longer gets me a pint for the price of a half!

Might there be other reasons I have yet to think of?

Well, it seems that Jeremy Kyle was too compulsive to miss, and there was a new series of Homes under the Hammer on, so I took to my sofa to enjoy some telly under the cunning disguise of pleurisy.

Sorry it's been so long since I've been on my blog - and it all started so well too...

Anyway, while I was ill I went on a trip to Sellafield (is there a connection I hear you ask - no, it was arranged ages before). I was with over 30 other clergy people and the powers that be clearly thought we were "important leaders in our communities" and provided us with a tasty if not suspicously brightly coloured lunch, After a coach tour and an hour's heated debate between clergy (lots of hot air and bad sandals) and the directors of communications of nuclear-thingies (more hot air and pin-stripe). I found myself asking, do I really know anything at all about nuclear power? Is it really as evil as everyone thinks? And why, after spending two hours at the centre did I know no more about nuclear power than I did before I went there?

Perhaps I was just being blonde...