From next Sunday, 1st November, our Sunday services will be as follows: Holy Communion (said) at 8.00amSung Eucharist at 10.30amChoral Evensong at 6pm All of these services are open to those who wish to attend St Stephen’s in person. However, we do…
Annual Parochial Church Meeting
Sunday 4th October 2020, 10.30am The Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM) will be taking place on Sunday 4th October at 10.30am at St Stephen’s and online via Zoom. Numbers in church will be limited due to social distancing; alternative provision…
Update on Churchyard developments
You may have felt that not much was happening about the plans to improve the churchyard in recent months, but quite a bit has been going on in preparation work and you will start to see the results of this…
New site for my writing.
I started writing regularly on my blog here at the start of lockdown, and posted quite a few reflections on that unique period as my “Diary of an Involuluntary Acolyte. ” I decided to draw that to a close a…
Ride & Stride 2020
Ride and Stride is the yearly sponsored bike ride or walk in which people all over England walk or cycle between churches, raising money to help save historic churches, chapels and meeting houses. Last year, Kent raised £140,602 ! The…
Photographic Competition
Canterbury Society is holding a competition for the best photo of a natural environment scene in the area to celebrate National Meadow Day. It is open to all members of the community. The closing date for entries is 15th August.…
Personal Pleasures no 3: Sunflowers
I like all flowers, but there is something particularly wonderful about the sunflower. I love to see fields of them in the South of France, rows and rows of yellow faces all lined up with soldiers on parade. I love…
Personal Pleasures no 2: Being in a Garden
A friend long since deceased used to say that the main point of a garden was to sit in it. In our culture where being busy is seen as a virtue we tend to feel we have to apologise if…
Personal Pleasures no 1: Gardening
Aristotle teaches that virtue is both a means to an end (eudaemonia, a worthwhile life), and an end in itself, because being virtuous is one element of eudaemonia. History does not relate whether Aristotle was a gardener, although it is…
Personal Pleasures – an Introduction
This series of reflections is inspired by a work by the novelist Rose Macaulay, who published a book under this name in the 1930’s. As is the case with many good interwar novelists, much of her work is now almost…