"Presbytery!" said the parishioner, "what a funny name for a house; I'd never call my house Presbytery!" "Well, you couldn't." said I, "you aren't a presbyter!" "And you're not a Presbyterian!" came the reply. I could see this argument was going to go on for ages. "Anyway," I went on, "what else would I call it? Not the 'Priest's Home'. That sounds as if I'm being wheeled about in a bath chair ..." And so on.

Funny things, names of houses. My morning paper has just published a survey of the most popular names. Top are 'The Cottage' and 'The Bungalow'. Fair enough ... though what makes a cottage? Then 'The Lodge'; sounds grand, like an appendage to a stately home. 'The White House' may fall from favour if investigations into activities at the Washington equivalent bear fruit. 'The School House' is no longer that, the kids now being bussed to the nearest town. 'The Rectory' certainly isn't, the Rector now living in a modern bungalow while the new occupants live it up in Regency splendour. 'Green Acres' will only be true until the rest of the houses on the estate are built, and wreck the view. 'The Willows' conjures up memories of Toad, Ratty and all the rest.

No longer popular are names based on amalgams of the occupants' Christian names (as in Brookside, naturally). e.g. Leonard and Mary would live at 'Lenmar', and so on. On that basis, the Presbytery would until recently have been called 'Domdave' and now presumably would be 'Dave-O'.

Now what would we call the church? 'Mon Repos'? Well, no, because we aren't suppose to rest there; it is in one sense a refuge, but then there is business to be done (remember Peter, James and John not wanting to come down from the mountain of the Transfiguuation?) What about Shangri-La? That's Paradise. No, not that either. Paradise is the Kingdom, and the Kingdom is larger than the church

I think it would have to be 'Little Chef or 'Happy Eater' (perish the thought). A place we pull in to to refresh ourselves before heading on purposefully in our journey.