New arrival.

We have this feature in our church service called the "sayonara blessing" for those who are leaving the congregation to come forward and say a bit about what they have been doing and what they intend to do, and have a prayer of blessing for their future. Now I have always seen this particular aspect of the service as absolutely ghastly. Basically because, what invariably happens is that whoever gets up there feels the inclination to gush on for about half an hour about how marvellous TUC is and how much they will miss us. Naturally by this point in the service, I am more interested in my forthcoming lunch and don't really care...

This morning, Winda from Indonesia was leaving and asked if anyone would like her hamster, Pastor Colin had already volunteered to take two- one each for his children, Erica and Calvin, who have decided that despite the fact that the hamsters are both male, they are actually brother and sister and both called Nemo... So Winda was left with a baby girl hamster which she "didn't want to have to throw away".... Lady are you kidding???! Maybe it was an English issue - at least I hope it was, she surely couldn't really have been considering that. Anyway, obviously I had no intention of adopting a hamster and when would I have gone to fetch it anyway, them woman was leaving on Tuesday. However, Winda is obviously a good deal smarter than me, and she had brought the unsuspecting hamster to church with her. I saw her and made the mistake of saying "oh I want it!" within earshot of my friend Mary, she of the uncommonly good sense- who then said "then take it!" and shoved me, and I do mean shoved, in the direction of Winda and her hamster. So now I have a new flatmate. This is mary-the-hamster. Needless to say that Mary does not approve of the name I have chosen. I wonder if you can baptize a hamster.... You know, just to make her name official....