Loki's Head Gets Wet

Yesterday saw the massed gathering of family and friends at St Matthias' Church in Plymouth to watch Loki get water poured over his head and then to eat nice things in the church hall next door.

Firstly, there was some prep to do, starting with Mrs The Millbrooker making a cake...

...and ending with all of the early arrivals mucking in to set up the buffet or, in my case, just wandering around getting in the way and taking photos with which to delight the blog reading audience.L-R above, we have Lester, Cannonball Pam, Mrs The Millbrooker and Milly discussing matters of great import along the lines of "do we have enough biscuits and crisps?"

'Ere long it was time to take our pews in church, rather unfamiliar territory for a godless atheist like me. But, what with it being one of those family occasion-thingies, I did my best in singing along with the believers and nodding sagely as we all admitted to doing lots of sinning.

Mrs The Millbrooker, Milly, The Wizzers of Soz and I had prime viewing perches in the front row and I got a video of the dunking itself, which I can bring to you courtesy of the modern miracle that is YouTube. (If for any reason you can't play the video directly below, click here to go straight to its home on YouTube).

The dunker-in-chief doing most of the talking is Loki's Great-Aunt Phylis.

Once we'd finished with the worshippy bit, and with coffee at the back of the church, the christening party reconvened in the hall. Amongst our fellow buffet munchers were our own Dong and the very cold and shivery Shazzerooneypoos, fresh from their running-out-petrol-on-the-way-to-the-church adventure (thanks are due to Saint Anne of Jed for rescuing the fuel-less pair with just enough time to spare for them to make it to church before the main event).Loki himself, of course, took a free ride from whomever he could and enjoyed chomping lots and lots of cake; here's the toddler-of-the-moment sitting on his Auntie Lil's lap doing exactly that:Champers was forthcoming, once YarMatt had found the fridge with a little help from Mrs The Millbrooker......and Loki was duly toasted......before being handed around; here he is with his great-grandpa Charles who is, in turn, with his grand-daughter The Wizzers of Soz.It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: just like the water earlier, the whole thing went right over Loki's head, and it was far more interesting to play with a bottle of Fruit Shoot than to do lots of posing with grown-ups.There were lots of people there whom I've not got a photo of (or not a publishable one); apologies and "nice-to-see-yous" to everyone who hasn't got a personal mention above. Cheers.