Tortoise Tales

Dear friends,

“Like a mighty tortoise, moves the Church of God.”  Sometimes said in exasperation, sometimes in resigned affection. But the thing about the humble tortoise is that, although slow by some measures, it is tough, strong, determined, and long-lived. They are incredible objects of fascination, relics of wonder in the natural world. They are both animal, and reptile. We humans often mistake their slowness for stupidity, to our own disadvantage. Peter the Tortoise lived just down the road from us when we were at Scotby, outside Carlisle. His retired lady owner gave him free roam of her small, walled, front garden, and Emma and I would take Lydia and Tim – who were little back then – to peer over the low wall to see if we could spot him. Sometimes he’d be sunning himself on the lawn, at other times he’d be mooching around the flower borders. Most exciting of all were the times when he was “on the march” – stomping in a most purposeful manner to the “other side of the world”, with a look of concentrated determination on his face. “Give him the chance, and he’d be off, and there’s no stopping him once he’s decided,” his owner declared (you’ll have to imagine the broad Cumbrian accent.) We weren’t Peter’s sole admirers, however. It appeared most passers by who knew the garden’s little secret would stop, briefly, to see if he was “available.”  Did he offer counsel? Was he a good luck charm? No, just a small miracle, given his own little paradise, for those with eyes and hearts, of all ages, to marvel at.

Worship Services for Sunday 20th July 2025

9.30am Informal Worship at St John’s Stoke Row with Mr Peter Ferguson

11am All Age Service at St Peter and Paul, Checkendon with Canon Kevin Davies and Revd Romey Poston. A friendly all age service service, with the music group, and refreshments afterwards.

Midweek zoom service: Wednesday Evensong at 5.00pm  410 935 129

Adieu, and adieu

Revd Romey Poston preaches for the final time at Checkendon this coming Sunday, and leads the communion service at Stoke Row on the 27th July. Do come along, especially if you weren’t able to attend her valedictory service last month.

Our local schools break up for the summer holidays on Friday; you are warmly invited to Checkendon School’s end of year service on Wednesday (tomorrow) in church at 2.30pm. The school choir will be singing, and the year six (10-11yr old) school leavers will be prayed for as they take their leave of the Primary School Years.

In amidst all the changes and endings there are beginnings, too. We pray for Karina and George, to be married at Checkendon this coming Saturday, and for Jo and Tony, to be married at Wallingford on 1st August. May God bless their marriages, and may these be life giving, and lifelong.

Please also remember in prayer all local farmers; the severe heat and lack of rain will have seriously affected this year’s harvest. There is a field of beans on my daily walk which has no beans, is brown, and dry, and dead. It is more a scene reminiscent of sub-Saharan Africa than Oxfordshire. The extremes of weather, whether last year’s wet autumn, or this year’s arid spring/summer, test our levels of resilience which we are increasingly finding to be inadequate.  The importance of water, and its proper management will I am sure play a more prominent part in our lives in the coming years.  Humans have this in common with tortoises: we both require fresh water to drink everyday, and we both benefit (and enjoy) a shallow soak in it now and then. Although I’m not confident that Peter’s garden came with a bath in it. It was Cumbria, after all, and it did rain a lot.

“Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for all his wonderful works.” (Psalm 106:21)

Your Rector, Canon Kevin

Summer Bonus Extra: Planning your great escape from it all? You might consider visiting Jonathan, a very distant cousin of Peter’s, who lives in St Helena, a small volcanic island in the south Atlantic He is the oldest giant tortoise in the world, at almost 193 years. You can fly from Heathrow to St Helena (via Jo’burg)  for about £1500, return. The journey to this pretty island outpost will take you perhaps twenty hours. St Helena is a British Overseas Territory. It is also where we put Napoleon, when we found that exiling him on the Isle of Elba just wasn’t far enough away to prevent him causing trouble.