Post-St David's Day

A very happy Mothering Sunday to anyone, of either sex, who performs mothering duties! Hope your day is good and you are feeling appreciated. I am being looked after and cooked for by Husband and Younger Son, and generally having a relaxing day.

Last weekend was busy. What with going to Cardiff for the game in the afternoon and then rushing home to get to Zac's Place in the evening for a concert I'd helped organise. Bryn Haworth, a blues musician and brilliant guitarist, was performing there and then, on Sunday morning, going into the prison for one of the services. I went along there too, so the weekend disappeared in three blinks of the eye.

I was looking forward to this weekend being quiet and relaxing. So it was a shame my mouth did its usual trick of talking without me.

Our community cafe opens Monday to Friday usually (Saturday openings were customer-less) but when we were offered money to open yesterday to give free tea, coffee and welshcakes to people attending a green fayre in the children's playground opposite, it was too good an opportunity to miss (both for the money and the chance to get the cafe more widely known). And when I was helping there last Tuesday I happened to ask Helen if she had enough volunteers for Saturday, she replied no and my foot stepped in my mouth.

It was manic. I was there from 10 in the morning till 5 in the afternoon - Helen was there even longer - and we didn't stop. There was no time for lunch, barely time to squeeze in a toilet visit when I couldn't cross my legs any longer, and the only cup of tea I had was one that was returned as excess from an order.

A few other people were there at different periods and every time anyone from church called in for a cup of coffee they were dragged into the kitchen to wash dishes. In the morning, John, who's in his seventies, called in to drop off welshcakes his wife had made; he spent the next few hours taking orders, clearing tables and washing dishes. Trouble is he's a bit deaf and had to keep going round the other side of the counter so customers could shout into his good ear. He suggested that we swap and he'd go into the kitchen, but I said, 'That's no good. I don't have my glasses and I can't read the prices so I can't go on the counter.' He couldn't hear and I couldn't see!

But it was a great day. As well as being a great financial success loads more people are now aware of the cafe and I hope it was a good advert for Jesus.

Jan, my boss, would normally have been in the cafe all day too but in the morning, she and her husband, who's chair of the trustees of the church, and another trustee, went to meet the High Sheriff to collect an award, on behalf of Red cafe, for youth and community work. It's not an award that involves money but does give prestige and publicity, and will look good on all those grant application forms!
xx