Hello my flock. Just to remind you that all church services will, for the foreseeable future, be “online” only. Last weeks’ “virtual” service worked well, thanks to the fancy filming skills of my current house mate Nigel Havers and to The Archbishop Of Canterbury for setting up my fast CofE approved Virgin Mary broadband. Church Warden Noddy Holder was on stand by to transmit the sermon with his phone through the kitchen window, but God in his wisdom had the wi-fi working miracles. Anyway, tomorrow at 3pm it is our annual Palm Sunday Service, which is one of my favourites. This is the day we celebrate the baby Jesus being led into Bethlehem, or Jerusalem, on a donkey to get an Easter Egg. In tribute each year I dress as one of the twelve disciples or sometimes as his dad Joseph and reenact the journey into town. I arrive at the church on a donkey just as Jesus did (actually one of Fern Britton‘s lamas from her farm) after parading through the streets with my congregation throwing down plastic palm leaves in my path. Sadly this year we can’t leave the vicarage so perhaps my congregation could just display the leaves in their front windows, just as rainbows have appeared for the NHS and key-workers. Have a wonderful lockdown and look forward to “seeing” you all tomorrow afternoon at 3pm. Or thereabouts.

May your God be online with you, Cyril Knutsford. Vicar. Beckworth St Faiths