Marmalade Breakfast and Wedding Banns

A few Saturdays Zac and I went to a marmalade breakfast in the neighboring village of Otham (probably the most rustically picturesque village in our area of Kent). This "breakfast" (tea and toast, to be precise) was held at the parish church, and was essentially a sale of preserves- jams, marmalades and curds. We sampled the lemon curd and the marmalade on our toast, which was fantastic. I had been intending to buy some lemon curd there, but our money was otherwise engaged. That is to say, there was also a table selling one of the former church member's household items, and Zac and I got quite excited over the "20p" table. Zac's wonderful finds: old leather wallet, metal booklet for holding stamps, and an old-fashioned glass paperweight. My wonderful finds: a metal iron-worked tea pot, something else which I won't name since its a gift for Inga, and an antique wooden tray. Anyway, you may be thinking, "Why would Erica and Zac intentionally buy these silly old things" but consider, we paid hardly anything for them and now we've got what looks like the personal effects of C.S. Lewis to grace our desk with.

Our other exciting event was hearing banns read at church a few weeks ago. For those of you who don't know what this lovely ritual is, think of that moment in movies when the officiating clergyman says "If anyone has any objections to this marriage, speak now or forever hold your peace etc etc." In this case, banns must be read at the local church of both the man and woman (regardless of whether or not they attend there) three separate times before the wedding otherwise the marriage is considered void. The vicar today did say that if anyone had any objections they should discreetly mention them after the service, which I thought polite of him. (I can't remember if that part ever gets read in the US at weddings; I only know that I was not under any circumstances going to allow it at our wedding).