Magosto

Greetings from grateful Galicians. This is the season where we all give thanks for harvest in our various cultures. Here the event centres on chestnuts which was a subsistance crop even before the potato arrived. This year potatoes have been forbidden fruits as an imported moth from Guatemala attacked the crops and prevented any tatties being set this year. As usual we opened the building to host our own magosto and we had 44 people join in with songs, poems and rhymes about Chestnuts in 3 lanuguages, then we read Mark 4 in 9 languages, including the orginal Greek, Orcadian and Old Scots. The ladies from Reposteria made excellent cakes and José Antonio,  the Co-Pastor of Lugo shared a word. Two days later we opened the church oven and found an untouched tray of chestnuts!

Rainwoman

It has been a really dry year. We noticed as we drove back from Madrid the other Sunday night that the reservoir we pass over was empty. There is usually a sailing club on the water with lots of boats. now even the launching slip is 70 feet above the water level and the long buried villages and trees are visible. One or two of the trees have even sprouted. These are the lowest levels for sixty years. Anyway on the Monday following when we went out to pray for our town (as we always) do I decided to pray for rain. Not popular with the ladies who do laundry on Monday but when I got back home..