A Monthly Publication

 (Church of Our Lady and St Edmund, Sandringham Road, with St Cecilia’s, Dersingham)

By Tricia Steel

To BBQ or not to BBQ - parish life versus the English weather

The beginning of August is right at the apex of the English summer, and brings both the promise of warm summer evenings and the lingering chance of heavy summer showers. The parish barbecue at Our Lady and St Edmund’s is a popular annual event which is open to all, and this year’s date for the barbecue was Saturday the first of August.

  A lot of hard preparatory work goes on in the parish throughout the week preceding the barbecue, and as this week went on, the weather forecast for the Saturday evening became more and more threatening. By the Friday evening, the Met. Office had firmed up on ‘heavy rain commencing in late afternoon’, and so the question in everyone’s mind was ‘should we cancel the event?’ Optimism and a bit of faith in providence won the day, however, and the BBQ went ahead.

  The event was as successful as usual and a good time of food and fun was enjoyed by all, both young and old. The ‘heavy rain’? – it did arrive, but later than forecast, just as the event came to an end.