So Mary and Joseph were at church this morning, and so were a lot of the community, as well as some coffee and cake too.  I’m sure Mary just wanted a bit of breathing space in her condition, bless her, but after a few chocolate brownies and a bit of a give-away of the story sung by the school chidren, we went off looking for the donkey and somewhere to stay.

With strict instructions to stay behind Matt (he’s tall and so passed any Risk Assessment of getting burnt by it) we walked round the corner to St. George’s House.

Sure enough, we found the donkey that was planted there, but one of the little children wanted to carry him instead.  Fortunately, another one of the children fancied giving Mary a piggy back round to The Rock and so to quite a relief, she didn’t have to walk, but was carried up that hill.

Quite surprisingly, there was no room at the inn.  Neither Dan or Sasha came out to apologise, but they were probably worried that Mike may force the microphone upon them as we sang another hymn, and so we continued further up the road, looking for somewhere for Mary to stay.

Some odd characters were found along Longlands Lane (we don’t talk about them – it’s village gossip), and so no one was really that surprised to find that a penguin joined our Nativity walking group.  Now I’ve no idea if Mary travelled with this new companion at all, but Mike did tell us lots about the facts and myths of the Nativity story: Was it a donkey? Was it a camel? Was it a penguin?  Or did she actually walk all the way?  We’re just not sure… so we left Longland’s Lane quite sharpish!

Stopping off at the Rectory, I’m sure just to be teased by the smell of real coffee and nothing to do with getting off the road to let the backlog of tourists get passed, we stopped to…

  • hear from the children – arguing between themselves about who was going to carry the character next
  • hear from those without gloves – “Blimey it’s cold today.”
  • hear from those who were out last night – apparently some didn’t even make it this morning!
  • hear from Mike – “We’d better hurry, the baby is due!”
  • hear the person singing behind us – (‘Ooh, they’re good. I’d better sing up.’)

Then, fortunately for the person giving Mary a piggy-back, it was all downhill to The Green.  More cake, and this time some very well-needed hot chocolate to get our hands round – surely this would stop the moaners going on about cold hands?!

I’m really not sure where Jesus was found along the journey.  It’s possibly the fast paced downhill from the park that did it but, either way, it’s certainly going to start up another myth or misconception (there’s a joke in there) having Jesus delivered along the journey and on show at the Crib on The Green.

Gifts were brought too.  The school children had written prayers on Golden stars for the crib, someone (Frank?) had the sense to carry all the cakes over from the church and Micah and Jonah brought tonnes of Mmmm…marsh mallows.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them.  (Luke 2:9)