Rachel Summers

I'm looking forward to speaking about 'Mud and Wonder: how we can explore our spirituality in nature', at this conference run by my friends as Grund School, Oradea, Romania, focussed on outdoor education and pedagogy. Booking link here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Winds of Hope Greenbelt is a place where, like it or not, we are much more aware of the weather than usual. Join Rachel Summers to explore what God has to say about the wind, to play and create together as we make and fly kites as an act of worship. Sun 12.30 Shelter

The Hosts with the Most Join our partners Refugees at Home to hear stories from hosts who've volunteered with them to offer short-term stays for refugees. Fri 6.30 Hot House

Looking forward to @greenbeltfestival.bsky.social 🙌

If you're coming, pop these two things in your diary. Come and make kites with me as an act of worship, and listen to stories about hosting refugees with @refugeesathome.bsky.social

Message reads, 'we all missed you. We're shattered and that's between 5 of us running it between us'

I couldn't run my usual family retreat week this year, coz appendicitis 😭. My lovely friends all pitched in and got it done 🥰

Would just like to note that 1 Rachel carries the force of five people. ADHD ftw 💪

Allan Ahlberg, celebrated children's author, dies aged 87 He wrote more than 150 books, including The Jolly Postman and Each Peach Pear Plum.

Huge thanks to Allan for writing the background stories to my childhood and my children's childhoods.

My favourites to read to my children were Peepo, which is a work of warm human genius, and Each Peach Pear Plum where the rhyme gallops along to a satisfying plum pie finale.

Build tiny house out of books?

There may well be reasons someone is overweight. Multiple ACEs show a 46% increase in adult obesity. Recovering from surgery is not the place to have this conversation 😂

📢 Would also once again like to remind health professionals that yes, I have eyes and know I'm overweight. Yes, I have a brain and know how to eat healthily. My weight didn't cause my appendicitis so we do not need to discuss it.

Feet in a hospital bed

Feet back home in a comfortable bed with the forest outside the window.

Spent my weekend having appendicitis. 💯 do not recommend.

It's good to be home, hoping for a boring and uneventful recovery.

Meanwhile in the Church of England...

(Full time is one day off a week. In my diocese we're encouraged to take *two days* off once a month 🙌)

Blackberries growing on a bush. Just a couple are ripe.

Woman priest and teen boy helper pick blackberries in the forest.

Glossy blackberries scattered in a dish with green and white slices of apple, bright yellow apricots, and red and yellow plums.

Crumble in a dish with jammy blackberry juice edges. It sits on a wooden table. There are shiny silver spoons, the spout of a teapot, and a glass of purple dahlias.

It's blackberry time!

Woman stands in damp forest. She wears a blue dress with orange patterns on.

Summer pond, very little water but what there is reflects a stunning cloudy sky. Pond plants grow bright green.

Bright green bracken under oak and hornbeam trees.

Beautiful London 🌳💚

Chalice with wine and paten with very rustic flat bread!

Fruit of the earth and work of human hands (our hands, we collected grains of wheat from ears of corn, threshed them, ground them, made dough and cooked it).

Fruit of the vine and work of human feet (we stomped on grapes in a ziplock and added to wine).

Blessed be God for ever!

Hand holding a postcard with pride flag and words 'You are wonderfully made'.

Have I told you you are wonderfully made?

Enjoying Waltham Forest Pride with local inclusive churches.

Happy priest with cuddly chicken

Priest looks adoringly at her chicken

Was just sitting drinking my cocoa when Daphne jumped up on my lap for a cuddle 🐔

Red admiral butterfly on my hand. Gorgeous red and white bars on the black, as well as shining blue at the base of the wings.

Found a beautiful friend.

My kid picked Swithun as his confirmation name 🕊️ 🌧️

Look, when it comes to reducing channel crossings you have two main options:
1) Invent a time machine and stop Britain colonising half the world so that people do not have strong ties to the country
2) Provide safer and simpler options to seek asylum without having to use irregular routes. #r4today

I'm so excited about this.
✝️⚓

Backs of heads in a church, film on a screen.

Collage of photos of activities with nettles

Collage of photos of nettle based food items!

Great for @stpeterintheforest.bsky.social to be able to host a screening of The Nettle Dress and nettle themed activities thanks to the London Forest School Association.

What a varied day- I started with an 8am BCP communion service!

They just mean, tell me a thing. Mindblown. 🤯

Oh and you probably know this but just in case- when NTs say 'tell me the most/best/worst', they don't literally mean the actual most/best/worst 🤷, you don't have to rank all your experiences ever and make sure you haven't lied by sharing what might have been the second or third ;)

I think this is something that NT folk manage naturally- they'll reveal the relevant bits of themselves in each situation. But I needed it spelling out.

Not a snack, but a friend told me when I went to mine- everyone always says be yourself. You can't always do that. Just don't be someone you're not. As a ND person, I found this really clarifying- it's fine to only show parts of myself some of the time, I don't have to be entirely exposed.

A pack of those almonds in dark chocolate. And Urban Fruit mango and pineapple. I always take snacks to things as sometimes when meals aren't when I'm hungry I get ravenous late at night, plus all that peopleing makes me hungry.

In one of those strange quirks of life, last night I picked up E, my equivalent baby's small sibling, from that no-longer-small sibling's party. They'd befriended each other entirely outside of their parental influence.

Isn't that a bit nuts? And more than a bit cool?

Twenty years ago I was a member of an internet message board (remember those?) of mums with new babies. One of those babies had the absolute coolest small sibling, one of those awesome internet babies, toddlers, children, teens who you never meet but you think are absolutely brilliant.

Computers used to scream every time they connected to the Internet. They knew. They tried to warn us. We did not listen.

Thank you!! Read it yesterday 🤩 (yes, all of it 😂) Can we hear about Al next? I'd like him to find a surprising girlfriend who isn't his type, please. Loved all the puppies, loved Janey and Essie, was brilliant.

It's St Peter's day, the saint our church is named after, and our patronal festival! Come along this Sunday to explore St Peter's qualities and the ways we try to embody these as a church, while we make Rocky Road for Peter the Rock 🪨

Day 19

Baskets of rose petals and service sheets

Altar with candles

Rose petals on the ground

#30DaysWild day 19

A beautifully small but special eucharist and benediction for thanksgiving of the institution of holy communion aka Corpus Christi. I collected rose petals, and they were scattered in the path of the holy sacrament as we walked round @stpeterintheforest.bsky.social ✝️⚓