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...

Hurrah! People have actually commented on my first posting. It works!

I am back at work today after three weeks off, and I am having mixed emotions about it. Is it wrong to enjoy large doses of daytime telly? Is there an episode of Place in the Sun or Homes under the Hammer that I haven't seen? Will I survive without the wisdom and insight of Jeremy Kyle on a daily basis? These are the questions with which I struggle as I get up to date with my work emails.

I can tell this is going to be a deeply intellectual blog....

Hello, and welcome to my first ever blog. It turned out to be much easier than I thought, but whether I'll ever say anything interesting remains to be seen.

I have been prompted to start this blog because I have just managed to sit through The Da Vinci Crud without leaving and I'm rather proud of myself. Having a beer in the sun would have been so much more pleasurable, but sometimes you have to suffer for a few hours in order to take the moral high ground later...

Yes, it really was as crud as I was expecting. The only saving grace was Sir Ian's skill at maintaining a semblence of character realisation whilst plainly revelling in the knowledge of just how poor the script, production and general quality of acting was. God bless 'im!

All for now. Speak soon,
Janet