A damp day

And so the day dawns drab and gray.

I was planning to dig over the vegetable plot in the Manse garden this morning.It is the wrong time of year to start thinking about planting much now but I feel I need to make a start. Mr Whyte-Plumb, my predecessor, appears to have used the garden to bury all the bottles and cans of alcoholic beverages that he consumed during his tenure. As Lemuel was instructed - it is not for those in authority to find oblivion in wine, that is the comfort of the poor and perishing.

No wonder that the congregation eventually used Rule CXIX of the constitution to remove him. A normal vote of no confidence - say for heresy, immoral living or damaging men's souls through boring preaching - needs a two-thirds majority of an Extraordinary Church Meeting, followed by a simple majority of trustees. But because it could be established that Mr Whyte-Plumb was damaging the garden, the issue became a matter for that most feared and powerful of all bodies of the Frisby-on-Soar Independent Baptist Church - the Property Committee.  They passed a motion banning him from entering any church property - in other words the chapel and the manse - and in those circumstances he had no choice but to resign forthwith. First he had to work his notice, living in a tent on Frisby Heath, so he was a cold and beaten pastor by the time he finally persuaded them to give him his furniture and clothes back.