{"id":13149,"date":"2023-10-04T12:05:50","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T12:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/?p=13149"},"modified":"2023-10-04T12:05:50","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T12:05:50","slug":"happy-retirement-lesley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/?p=13149","title":{"rendered":"Happy retirement, Lesley!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Regular readers will recall that the lovely community caf\u00e9 at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stmarksbaptistbristol.org\/\">St Mark&#8217;s Baptist Church<\/a> in Easton closed at the end of August (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/?p=13038\"><em>posts passim<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Saturday last, 30th September, saw a retirement party for Lesley at the church. This was well attended by a broad range of people from Easton and beyond, all gathered to wish Lesley a happy retirement and partake of Lesley&#8217;s excellent cakes over which she&#8217;d laboured. These included not just church members, local traders, caf\u00e9 users, foodbank volunteers and Abdul Malik from <a href=\"https:\/\/eastonjamiamasjid.co.uk\/\">Easton Jamia Masjid<\/a>, the mosque that faces the church across the street.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure id=\"attachment_13169\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13169\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2023\/10\/lesley_do.jpg\" alt=\"Lesley with Abdul Malik from the church's close neighbour, from the mosque over the road.\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2023\/10\/lesley_do.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2023\/10\/lesley_do-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13169\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lesley with Abdul Malik the church&#8217;s close neighbour, Easton Jamia Masjid.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\nAfter a question and answer session with Lesley that covered the whole history of the caf\u00e9 from its inception up to its closure in August, various people were invited out to the front, given a microphone and said a few words about the caf\u00e9, Lesley and so on. Abdul paid a great tribute (<em>from what I could see wholly unscripted. Ed.<\/em>) to Lesley and the collaboration between the chapel and mosque, particularly on large community events such as the <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bristol.gov.uk\/press-releases\/05740760-3994-4a38-97c2-87a2bad7abdc\/grand-iftar-2023-celebrating-bristol-as-an-inclusive-and-diverse-city\">Grand Iftar<\/a> at the end of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ramadan\">Ramadan<\/a>.\r\n\r\n<p>One of those invited to address the assembled throng was your &#8216;umble scribe, who was asked to read out his above-mentioned blog post, which was composed on the caf\u00e9&#8217;s final day and was received with general approbation.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Lesley did drop some very serious hints that even though the caf\u00e9 had now closed, that did not mean the end of catering activities for the community. Your correspondent will keep his ear to the ground and relay any information that comes to light.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>In the meantime, have a happy retirement, Lesley; and don&#8217;t be afraid to use your bus pass! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Regular readers will recall that the lovely community caf\u00e9 at St Mark&#8217;s Baptist Church in Easton closed at the end of August (posts passim). Saturday last, 30th September, saw a retirement party for Lesley at the church. This was well attended by a broad range of people from Easton and beyond, all gathered to wish [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[40,36,25],"class_list":["post-13149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bristol","tag-bristol","tag-comment","tag-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13149"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13179,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13149\/revisions\/13179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}