Love lost.

Back in January I got an email from someone wanting to know if I was in any way related to another Rev Rolt who lived in Suffolk. Well yes I was. Eric Rolt was my brother in law but had already died when I married his brother.
The next E mail was from a carer who was looking after an old lady who was desperate to get in touch with the Rolt family. Could she ring us? I said she could but  as we were at that time in the middle of the South Atlantic it had better  wait till we got home.
The call came this week. The old lady was finally connected to my husband who remembered both her and her family well. The conversation was poignant.
The lady had been going out with Eric before he went off to college. They had met a few times and she was certain they would be married eventually. There was a wistful note in her voice at this stage. Then she described their last meeting. He told her that he had been called to be a celibate priest. There was heart ache in this statement heard clearly by both me and my husband.
She is  ninety five years old, has never married, taught in various colleges and universities and quite clearly was still in love with her childhood sweet heart.
I shed a tear or two at that and the joy she now had in finally getting in touch with his family again. Her carer says that physically she is weak but the voice was strong...her intelligence shone through..and I am sure she will ring again.
Thanks to  modern communications  she has been able to resume a connection lost  70 years ago.
My husband is glad too.....it came in a week that he had spent looking through old photos of his family and much reminiscing prior to the wedding we went to at the weekend. There is a satisfying feeling of loose ends being tied up!   I am more concerned for the grief in un requited love still sharp for the old lady after all these years.
Its not a single story. That generation born between the wars have often heart rending stories to tell.
Its good to listen to them...we can still learn a lot from them.

Bank holiday congestion?

Cornwall is busy at the moment, lots of people  on the roads and in the shops and pubs. I had to go to the next village this morning to collect my dog from my sons. Its a pretty easy road and usually no trouble at all. We have roads where its possible to pass other cars and then we have lanes where there are passing places. In the busy seasons I often go miles out of my way to avoid the lanes.  My reversing is not good.
This morning all was well, Crispin was asleep in the back seat having had a lively weekend. At the bit of road which leads down to an estuary and then climbs steeply up the other side there were cars by the side of the road. I stopped the car on a steep bit of bend and waited. Nothing happened for a while then a man came and said we would all have to reverse. The low loader ahead of us couldn't get up the hill.
I said something encouraging to myself and started to roll back.
"Its easy." said the man  walking alongside, "You just need to turn it in  a bit." I did turn it, straight into the hedge, There were now two idiots causing congestion. The low loader and me.
It got worse. The girl from the Range rover behind me jumped out and offered to help. Like a craven coward I accepted her offer, feeling bad at having to be rescued by another woman, several decades younger than me and looking gorgeous with it.
She tried, very hard to pull me out of the hedge...tyres screamed, and then there was the smell of burning...oh hell....
Eventually I was released from the hedge, got into my car and drove back home a few miles away.
My husband says theres nothing much wrong with the car he thinks...but he said it with a very big grin on his face!

I suppose all families have their black sheep and their betes noir....by which I mean things in the past they would rather forget and with some people who have transgressed against family law in some way.
My new family is no different. Its now almost 6 years since I became a fully paid up member of the family but there were in the early days many stories of years gone by that I had didn't know and probably didn't want to.
In the grading of family horrors most are tiny....the wrong person said the wrong thing at the wrong time. The wrong person inherited money or property against all known reason.  There are some people who are spoken of under cover of the confessional almost and there are those whose names are never mentioned except with a sneer or a curse.
And yet for some reason not all the members of the family agree on what constitiutes a crime and there lies the pitfall for the unwary or new member who has not had a good enough prior briefing.
Yesterday at the wedding of my husband's youngest grandson were many many people I didn't know. had never met or had forgotten completely after one conversation.
We were very cold and our only excuse for drinking more than we should have done was that it seemed the only way to get a bit warmer.
I wandered into the marquee which was splendid and promised well for what was to come. I chatted idly to various people I knew and drank some more.   It was still freezing. A  person I had never met came to chat to me. It was clear that she knew who I was but failed to introduce herself except by saying that she knew our bit of Cornwall very well indeed and so she did, we quickly found people we knew in common and got on like a house on fire.
Then I saw two other members of the family gazing at me in horror.
What had I done?  Too late I realised who it was I had just spent a few minutes in conversation with and thus transgressed a family feud.
The penny dropped resoundingly. All unwittingly I had made friends with an outcast, a person who was  non grata with my bit of the family. No wonder she knew all about me!
Soon after that she went and I got taken to task by everyone. My protestations fell on stony ground. I had been told about this person but had failed to recognise her.   Indeed she didn't look as  wicked as say an axe murderer...
There was only one thing I could do.  I graciously accepted another Pimms and hoped that I would be forgiven...  It might take a while!

I phone triumphs.

The joy of new technology was enormous today. We set off in the morning not instructing the sat nav where we were going. This was my darling Davids choice ? He knew the route like the back of his hand. Hmm.
We got lost after lunch. We saw some pretty villages but I realised that the main route had escaped us. Gentle enquiries led me to a trip down memory lane when we had driven through the same village three times en route to Henley!
He finally stopped the car and fed in some but not all of our destination. We failed to put our hotel in so when the female voice of calm announced that we were there we were not.
He fiddled some more with the sat nav to no avail. I got out the iPhone. Two minutes later it had told us where we were, found the hotel a few miles away and then led us there.
Wonderful iPhone. How could anyone not love you?


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Pets in our life!

I've just taken my dog Crispin over to stay with my son Adrian for the weekend.The dog was over joyed, not just because he loves my son but the house is where he used to live before I moved here. He knows every crevice, every crack, what time the postman comes, its his old territory from where he used to forge out every day to walk the cliff paths or to play on the beach.
I havn't asked if my son is planning to take him to the pub but Crispin is equally at home there, greeting old friends and wagging his tail hopefully at any  new ones.
We are slowly reaching the realisation that when Crispin dies we wont have another animal, ever. Our cat went last week and Crispin will be 14 soon.  When he pops his clogs we shall have no pet family left. My husband's children bought him his last kitten and may well try to do the same thing again but the bottom line is that any young dog or cat we take on is going to outlive us in all probability. Sad but true. Also we go away alot so it wouldn't be fair on any animal until our wandering days are over.
Adrian told me earlier that they are thinking about getting a dog. His partner  says she'll think about it if he gives up smoking!  Sounds a brilliant idea...a win win situation!  I told him it was a small price to pay for the wonderful gift of a dog.
What sort of dog was the next question.  A springer spaniel!!!  A hard choice for your first dog but wonderful!  Our Springer, William was balmy, utterly, gloriously balmy.  We had him in North Wales where he had an entire mountain side to explore and run and dig in.
I would love to be the Grandma of another Springer....but not its mum!
He was hard work!  He also had what they call in America, a rage syndrome. He would be happy curled up on your knee, at peace with the world when suddenly he would go stiff and start growling.
The only member of the family he never bit was me so on those days I would take him up the mountain till the vets closed!
In the end he had a brain tumour and had to be put to sleep....
That's not going to happen again I am sure.  I would love to have another springer in my life, even if just as its nan!

Charitable giving.

When we got married David and I already had our own charities. Mine go out on direct debit each month and so do his.  I know roughly what he supports and visa versa. Lately there have been alot more phone calls about charitable giving.  I know times are hard but you can be over pushy, anyone out there engaged in any campaign.
It doesn't help that all the calls seem to be in the early afternoon when one of is is having a little power nap!  First rule of vicaring, don't arrive un announced at the door of anyone over 70 after lunch!
No ones told the charity workers that if they wake someone up their chances are very slim of getting more money.
Once it was  just charities we didn't contribute to. Now its charities we do already support. I overheard my husband shouting down the phone yesterday.
"But I've already told you we support you....I already get your bleep bleep news letter.  Look at your lists then if you don't believe me."
And so it goes. I have never worked out the proportion of our income that goes on charitable giving.  but its quite a lot and I like to keep some out of the monthly pot to support things on a one off basis that stirs the soul.
There's a lot of desperation around just now. I do understand. But a softly softly approach when we are both awake is far more likely to get results than some of the  brash calls we have had lately.
Yesterday a man rang me just as I was sorting out a christening. I cheerfully asked if he would mind if I passed him over to my husband. He asked why so I told him that my husband dealt with that particular charity. He was affronted. It was me he wanted to speak to. Perhaps asking if someone has the time to speak would be a good idea to start a conversation.
We are both aware of how lucky we are in being able to support those charities we feel strongly about but there have to be limits. We have both decided that our limit is just about reached, apart from serious emergencies like the recent tsunami.
I support the local charities as much as possible.  There's so much unhappiness and poverty growing every day that it seems likely that the cold calling will increase...but beware, a newly awakened pensioner can  be dangerous!

Fishers of men

Whenever I was here on holiday we always took out our little boat to go fishing. My husband navigated. I fished using a line coiled around a wooden frame with a spinner on the end. As we breasted the waves the spinner attracted all the surface feeders like mackerel and pollock. We did well most days and took enough home to make fish pies and feed the local cats. The odd sea bass had to be put back naturally. ( it's against the law). Ahem.
One summer the fish catch was well below average....we decided the mackerel had gone the same way as the pilchards and had a couple of bad days sitting in the boat without even a small tug on the line.
Having caught the odd sea bass of the right size I knew from experience just how exciting this can be....you have to play with them a little or they get off the line. I kept a priest in the boat to kill them with...odd name that. The dog and my husband had to look the other way whilst I dispatched them but it was better than letting them gasp for ages in the bottom of the boat. We never took anything we were not going to eat.
One afternoon late in the holiday we hadn't caught much at all and we spent our last afternoon trawling for anything that might pop up!
I felt a massive pull just as we were turning for home. Wow it was a big one. My husband turned the boat back whilst I tried to gently get the fish nearer to us without losing it.
This went on for some time and I seemed to be getting no where. I wound the line around the rowlocks and my husband increased speed. Then we heard a shout.
Perched at the end of a rock some way away was a small figure. He was desperately trying not to get pulled into the sea, his rod was bent and it looked like a losing battle. Then we realized it was us. Our fish was in fact a man. A very cross man. We abandoned the line just in time to save him from going in. I cannot repeated the words that came in our direction that day...but my great catch of the day had not been amused! However I had fished for and caught a man. It was before I became a priest but whenever I read that Jesus had promised to make us fishers of men I recall that I have actually done just that!


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Time to reflect?

We are getting ready this week for a family wedding on Saturday up country.  This means I have no services here because we are going to be away for the weekend. A quick look at the diary reveals a nice quiet week which is always a mistake because it  often suddenly lurches into life as I type.
When I first came to live in Cornwall I was a widow who had retired from teaching early.
This is where my first husband David and I always came on holiday. It had been our dream to come and live here for many years before he retired. Whilst we were looking for a house he had a massive heart attack and died. He was 56.
Coming here on my own took a huge effort and I thought I might find too much time on my hands. I had always been busy and suddenly the need for it had gone.  The unforgiving minute beckoned and I worried about all sorts of daft things, whether  I would make friends, whether I would be accepted by the Cornish, whether I would be able to go to the pub on my own without  a husband to accompany me.
My old dog  led the way on that one.
He was incapable of walking past the door of the local. It was undoubtedly a comment on the frequency of my husband's visits but it meant that right at the beginning he used to pull me in...that was my excuse and I am sticking to it.
I need not have worried. Gradually my life filled up with so many things that just getting round to all of them was the real problem.
Dog walking, singing in the choir, becoming church secretary, worship leader, deacon and priest, they all followed on in logical progression.
So this week, looking at my diary and finding it innocent of activity is wonderful. I can do all those things I've been putting off. I can go to the local beach, have a swim, a cliff walk.  I can do a bit of shopping on the internet, I can read a book lurking long  on the kindle. I can play backgammon and scrabble with out worrying about all the other things I should have been doing.
If you are newly retired, don't fret about finding things to do. They find you.  And with the help of God we can tackle anything!

Not failure but real faith.

Its the morning after for us now and we are all still here but how sad for those who were not raptured. I do not share the mocking prevalent at the moment, I feel real sorrow for those who were let down instead of being taken up.
One man said that he'd spent money on his children knowing that using his credit card would be irrelevant after the rapture. Another had gone off around America, he wanted to see his great country for the last time. He had also maxed out his credit card...The temptation to spend money that never needs to be repaid must have been huge.
Some had given away their homes, some their businesses and some their wealth. How they are feeling after the non event I shudder to think.
But let's not knock them or gloat at their failure.. Its not really failure to have such massive faith. .To go forward with that belief   takes  belief of a very real order. We should salute these people that they had sufficient belief in both Christ and themselves to be able to do all of that. It takes immense faith and I applaud them.
As a test   there can be few things in life that will ever be so meaningful again.  Once they have recovered from the knowledge that this particular  faith was misplaced  I pray they will go on with their heads held high and not be scorned by the rest of Christendom.  Not fail but real faith.

Rapture here now.

I really didn't think I was going to blog on this but I find it impossible to ignore. I have like everyone else in this country taken a certain amount of pleasure from contemplating those in the USA getting ready for the rapture. I was invited to the first rapture party at the beginning of the week. Two more followed but unless I sprout wings I'm not going to make it. They are all in the Bible belt!
Of course we don't actually believe it's going to happen here. I've written tomorrow's sermon in the expectation of being there to deliver it. Hopefully not to an empty church.
There's a lot of humor in the situation and I am as guilty as most of finding it funny. Today though the mocking has reached heights which dismay me. It's just too easy a target and when those doing most of the mocking are also those that are piously exhorting us to pray I give up.
No more laughing at those people who have given up their homes and businesses in the sincerely held belief that we are in the last days.
Rapture is what we experience when looking at a flower , a wave arching over before crashing. Sacred music in a beautiful church. A poem that touches our soul. These are the raptures here on earth that matter. They are all gifts from God.
Rapture takes us into places out of this earth. We can experience it every day of our lives. Thank you God.

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Exotic random flowering.

John the Gardner has struck again! I went out to talk to him about trimming the top of a hedge in the next few weeks and trimming a tree that is obscuring a view. This made him a very happy man. Cutting things down and keeping everything under control is what makes him happy.
I love poppies. Their colour and exotic papery petals are wonderful and we had a lot here growing wild. He disapproves of "weeds" and has finally got rid of most of them. I have scattered seed given to me by people who know how much I value this plant. They took and were growing happily in a small paved area. Gone now....he tidied them up earlier. Arghhh
I am going to put more seeds in a pot. If he knows I've put them in specially they should be safe, in theory.
Friday morning is John's holy morning. He goes on to Father Terence after me. We share a common frustration! I wondered this morning about trying to get a religious aspect to this.
Really John if God has seen fit to put the flowers there then who are we to strim them away? The only trouble is that he thinks he is God as far as gardens go.
I have explained to him that I value all flowers and that the wild flowers that proliferate in the hedgerows are not to be tidied. I have also told him that my grandma taught me about herbal medicine and that many flowers are useful as well as beautiful. He just looks at me and shakes his head. I wonder what he'd do with the marijuana the birds sometimes plant around here?


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Green or just too old?

I had lunch yesterday with a colleague who told me another way of green energy. It is PV cells and they are put on the roof of your house and are charged by the light, unlike solar panels which need actual  sun.
We want to use renewable energy where we can. On the roof of our last house we had solar panels which provided us with enough hot water never to have to turn the immersion heater on.
This old farmhouse stands close to a cliff where the wind blows every day. Wind power for us is the obvious answer but people's perception of windmills are not good and it is,  as people keep telling me an area of outstanding natural beauty, so we can forget that one.
My friend cheerfully told me that there was a capitol outlay involved but that they had recouped their original outlay in a couple of years.
This sounded promising so my better half looked into it. the wonder of google!   The outlay would be somewhere in the region of £15 thousand pounds. it would take about ten years to recoup if we lived so long!
We havn't written it off...it could still happen...but a windmill would look so much prettier and there would be no need to surround the house with scaffolding. We have both had experience of ancient roofs in our past and are not anxious to send anyone aloft right now.
In the interim we go on using up the electricity and the oil and know we could do better!
If we were just a few years younger I think we'd just get on with it but theres the rub!  Anno domini approaches.

Killing fields

I am not good at killing things.  It goes very much against the grain to kill poor innocent insects who are only doing what nature intended. But there are limits and I draw the line at snails and aphids.
I had to come to this decision slowly . During my couple of years toying with the idea of Buddhism I decided that to kill anything was not following the 8 fold path of righteousness so I left everything be. This resulted in a house full of spiders.My daughter developed an insect phobia during this time so I had to carefully clear them all out and hope they would set up home elsewhere.
When I finally decided I wasn't good enough to be a Buddhist I did not go back to killing things. I still tried. It was the sight of the roses being eaten alive that made me snap in the end. I sprayed them but with a systemic  that ensured the plant stayed healthy from then on!
Snails I still have problems with. Here out in the country are acres of stone wall full of the blighters ready to start munching the moment the annuals arrive.
Now I can still not actually do the deed.  I fling them over the fence onto the road. If they can run fast enough they can get back in!  I once did just that and a dear child here on holiday collected them all up and thoughtfully put them back on the petunias!
I am not a good person. There is no need to shout at once. I know about drowning them in beer and all the other cures....but my way is less messy. and I can pretend ignorance if I have to.

Do dogs know about death?

I would dearly like to know how much an animal understands what is going on around him and in particular  about death. Death is entirely natural in the plant and animal world and we forget that we are animals at our peril. Each year we watch die back and renewal as part of the seasons but what happens in a dog's mind when the other animal he has shared his life with is no longer there. Do alarm bells ring somewhere in a gentle warning that nothing is forever and it could be his turn next?
I don't know...and if anyone does please tell me.
When Crispin was a puppy he had another golden retriever that he adored. I had been told that getting a puppy would extend the old dog's life and at first that seemed a most unlikely statement. Major, the old boy simply backed away from the bouncy pup who kept trying to make him play.
Crispin used to tumble over him and I worried for his arthritis but gradually a sort acceptance  became the norm and as Major grew into majestic old age Crispin became his willing nurse and keeper. He helped him up when he struggled. Every morning he cleaned his ears and eyes...he deferred to Major...he would never go in front of him or eat or drink from his bowls.
When Major got to the age Crispin is now his pain became too much for him to bear and the vet came out to the house to put him to sleep taking great care that the young dog was in a different room with one of my friends.
Crispin looked everywhere for him. They had always travelled curled up together in the back of my Discovery. The first time out after the death Crispin sniffed every square centimetre of the car...and he did the same to the house...
Even two years after the death Crispin would still bound up to a golden in the park or on the beach and then fall back disappointed when it was the wrong one.
I was reminded of all this this morning when he was clearly looking for Tosh. He did the outside  and then came inside and started again.
Bless him its had taken almost 6 years but I know he is missing a friend, a companion in crime when food was around. It felt very unnatural when I was cooking fish at lunch time not to give the odd prawn to Tosh who stayed at my side through out  the cooking process.
The vet offered us the ashes for the garden but we refused.
" The body is only an envelope." I explained "Once its empty it has no significance" Years of dealing with ashes has been part of daily life  here..so I am used to the whole process, no need to have a spot thats special.
All our animals have a place in our hearts and I am more surprised than I can say about how much I am missing that small but dominant character who yesterday quit his envelope for the celestial playing fields where his first Mum Netty was waiting  for him.  
Crispin is still here using his envelope....hopefully for some time yet before he joins all the other friends he has made in life.  And as someone wrote on the blog comment yesterday....if dogs and cats don't go to heaven then I don't want to go either.

The old cats gone aloft.

When me and David got married  he had his cat. I had my dog.  They did not get one. They spent the first year of our married life in separate rooms. Gradually they accepted each other but for three years at the various churches I visit the main question was always, "How are the cat and dog getting on ?"
Moving house helped because it was shared territory and gradually they have become closer and have even got to the stage of standing one on each side of me hassling  for food. They had finally managed to work as a team.
Tosh had been a dominant cat in his time. He was clearly part wild and he was adept at running up, bashing Crispin on the nose and away again. It was his stock in trade.
David's grandchildren asked me  when we were first married if I had to walk around the house in wellies as they had had to do in their youth because Tosh had an endearing habit of rushing out and lacerating their ankles as they walked.  He had already grown out of that by the time I knew him.
He was a good hunter though and brought the mice and birds back home as presents for us all......often still alive!
In the last month we have watched a sudden decline in his health and I was shocked to find that he was 15. He did not behave like an elderly cat until quite recently. He started to collect water in his stomach and looked about nine months pregnant so today we took him to the vet.
The man was sensitive and we trusted him after he had looked after Crispin so well. The prognosis  was not good...the kindest way was to euthanise him. We sat apart in a small room and nursed him and stroked him until we were ready.   He's gone now...I told him his first mummy was up there waiting for him and would look after him.
Rest in peace Tosh....he's been a good cat.

Swimming with sharks.

We had a group of people in church this morning who were going off later to see the basking sharks further down the coast. I was explaining to them that these sharks were not of the "jaws" variety that in fact they were quite harmless and that it was possible to swim with them without any aggression on either side. They were frankly sceptical but it was true...they didn't even eat my dog!
When Crispin was a puppy, he and I swam most days during the summer. He was an excellent swimmer, used to swimming in first the Essex rivers and then the sea. He did not do dog paddle in an ungainly, splashy way. He was elegant and laid back in the water, looking as if it was his natural element.
When we moved to Cornwall permanently it was easy to walk down the lane and into the water just below where we lived and I would swim out a long way with him at my side as though we were on a walk.
 One summer there were a lot of basking sharks about. They were about two or three feet long and came up to look at us, never once showing their teeth! Mostly because they apparently don't have any!
Crispin reacted badly to start with but when I didn't worry about them neither did he...we had some lovely afternoons out with the sharks.
He was great company and often when we were out from the shore on our own we would meet people either in boats or like ourselves, just enjoying a swim. Being a friendly animal he would wag his tail to greet them. Unfortunately this meant that he lost his stroke and almost always went under. Up he would come spluttering and sometimes I worried in case it put him off.  No, he took everything that came his way in his stride.
We havn't been in the water together for a couple of years now. He's had the odd splash along the shore but not a proper swim like we used to have. We are both getting old I suppose.
This year he will be 14.  I would love to take him for one last swim together but I think it might kill one of us. I'm just not sure which one!

Green Energy?

I've been out watering the garden yet again. Its becoming an almost perpetual task just now and very reminiscent of summers in Essex when the lawns went orange every year and we submitted to the hose pipe ban with real anger and used up every bit of water from baths and washing up that we could find.
Since I moved to Cornwall the problem has never occurred until this year. The hot sunny April brought out the flowers and I now have lots of small green fruit appearing but also the tell tale sight of brown edges on leaves and some trees looking as if they are about to give up their new green leaves and keel over.
In the old days we would have got the hosepipe out and let the water just slowly sink into the ground. Job done. We have three large water butts around the place which do fill nicely when its rained but it just hasn't rained!
Now we are all on meters which is no bad thing but also I'm not talking neat small suburban gardens. Mines about half an acre with hundreds of newish trees and shrubs. I have to get out there and keep watering. I can console myself that its not water wasted. We need new trees in Cornwall....I  am being as green as I can get without wasting water.
The little fountain which runs the pump when the sun shines has given us food for thought.
The fact that the solar panel works so well inspires to think about using this energy more. We had roof panels on our last house which worked well and kept out water hot even in the winter.
The one thing we have in plenty here though is wind. We have always got at best a breeze, at worst a gale. Yesterday at a tea party for an octogenarian I mentioned the possibility of a windmill up here, to supply us and the neighbouring farms with electricity. Shot down in flames before the words left my mouth almost.
"Area of outstanding natural beauty? You'd never get planning permission." As the words were spoken by a local councillor I had to believe him.
In the meanwhile  the frog fountain continues to play gently and the dog and now the cat are grateful for it....

Friday 13 strikes!

Suddenly we are thrown into confusion. The blogger went down and stayed down all day. It even lost posts! Surely very appropriate for Friday 13. The thing is that we are now so used to jotting down our idle musings that it comes as a real blow when we are stymied. We have lost a limb, certainly our voice so to make up for it we gang together in solidarity. Ok that's the macho stuff. Here's the grovel. Can we have our blog back please? Pretty please? . Let's see!


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Staff.

Those of you who are regulars will have picked up by now that I have a cleaning lady. I also have a gardener. This does not make me rich or posh. It is a hang over from the time when I worked every day and often all hours of everyday. They both worked for my husband after his wife died and so had already got their routines and bad habits.
My cleaner is a friend. She drinks copious cups of coffee in between a huge amount of vacuuming. She keeps me in touch with the village and we get on. I married her to her long term partner last year.
The gardener is different. He thinks I am just plain bonkers. Whose to say he's wrong? He is a suburban gardener , used to keeping small areas under control. Mine is not small in any way..it was a field once and I am trying to grow an orchard amongst flowering shrubs and roses.
It has acres of Cornish wall and hedge around it and he doesn't understand when I forbid him to trim them into green concrete looking erections. the wild rose hedge mingles with the fuchsia hedge and they look and smell wonderful.
I love the valerian and the other wild flowers that proliferate and he is forbidden to root them up. He scowls at my approach and we have a healthy respect for each other.
He negotiates with me every week and we are slowly giving ground to each other. But I am winning....me and God together.


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It's not fair.

Right now I am feeling very unpriest like. It's not often I feel like shouting at God but this is one of those times.
My grandson Bobby is in trouble again. I have blogged on this subject before but here is a recap if you missed it.
Bobby was born normal. He was a lively happy toddler who talked a lot. When he was three, recovering from a very bad cold he had a stroke . This left him slightly paralyzed down one side, he had trouble with one hand and was noticeably less bouncy.
At seven he got meningitis. He spent three weeks, mostly in intensive care in hospital. I went on full time prayer duty and wanted him to survive and he did. They took out all the tubes and after another week he could go home. It was bonfire night and he couldn't hear the fireworks. Another trip to hospital confirmed it. He was profoundly deaf. Further medical complications showed up. He was still slightly paralysed and this seemed worse. He was epileptic. His fits were sudden and violent. He wasn't very bright any more.
His condition just got worse. He lost his speech and had to have medical care every day so a place was found for him in a home.
He has been in a home ever since. His mother got meningitis too and she died. He can communicate and is often lively. He is now 22.
Full time care is still needed and this week he has started fitting again after just having occasional ones for years. A stay in hospital reveals another problem. He is diabetic.
It's so bloody unfair! I just want to shout at God. I know He's there. But why on earth can this not get better instead of progressively worse?
It's ok. I'm not really asking for answers. Or even prayers. I never pray that people be cured any more I pray for the best possible outcome. I have no idea what that might mean in Bobby's case. But if you hear the noise of someone shouting at God from a long way away it's me. It's just not fair!



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Reluctant wedding couples

I went shopping this morning and I don't need a dog collar in order to shop so I put on my denim skirt and a jumper. I've had to get changed now as a couple I've been trying to talk to for months are finally going to arrive. Usually young couples can't wait to come and talk about their weddings but these two have needed to be cajoled into it.
Unfortunately for them the only other couple who have ever been hard to pin down ended up as the wedding from hell so today's vibes are not good.
The other couple were a wedding set up by my predecessor. She had been married before and was about 20 years older than the young man. I did have to talk to them even though they had already done the preliminary visit with someone else.
I finally pinned them down to a late afternoon one Saturday. David and I were going to a concert in the Cathedral that evening but we had lots of time.....in theory.
After I'd waited for them an hour we were worried. After an hour and a half, really quite cross. I didn't want to go out wearing the collar but it looked as if I was going to.
Eventually they turned up. They were almost 2 hours late and David and I had 20 minutes before we had to go out.
They were unapologetic. They had been sitting in the sunshine in the garden of the local pub....such a lovely afternoon etc. I explained that we couldn't talk now it was much too late. We were going out. She smiled and said we could do everything by email then.
Oh dear. I had to see the divorce papers.....they had been photocopied. There was no stamp...it was all a mess and I had to tell them that they must come back the following day. They were setting off back to London they said, never mind!
I had a bad week wondering what to do. I rang the diocesan registrar who confirmed that there were papers I must see. Had I rung her local vicar?
No but it was a good idea.
His opening words were, "You're not going to marry those two are you?"
The story was long and fairly sordid. On my own I would have just not gone ahead with it but the church had been booked, as had the reception and I felt I had to honour my former Rector's agreement.
Finally the words were spoken with some feeling. "I need you to start to be honest with me or this wedding's not going ahead."
Eventually picturing myself sitting in the next cell we did do it...it was not my finest hour.
So I am hoping that today's couple are going to turn up on time and in good order.... that prison cell still looms large!

Why go to the hairdresser?

What is it with hairdressers?  I used to have a hairdresser when I lived in Essex....I had to change her after a had a massive reaction to something she was using one day when I was in the shop . Some chemical  that was changing the colour of the hair of the person sitting innocently at the sink.
Since coming to Cornwall I have tried. Every village has its own hair dresser which the long term residents swear by  but I have yet to find one that I want to keep.
I think the rot set in during my training for ordination when I quite frankly did not have time to sit for an hour or so regularly. I let it grow. Faced with an ordination retreat the problem had become serious. I really did have to get my hair cut. So I did it myself. Very carefully a small bit at a time I got some shape into it.
I now almost always  do my own thing in order to look like the dotty old woman I seem to be turning into.
Today has been a hair cutting day. The process starts early. I get up, take one look in the mirror and reach for the scissors. It then continues throughout the day.  The cleaner tells me off  when she finds bits of hair in some very unlikely places. To appease her entreaties I allowed her to talk me into ringing the village hairdresser. Next time my cleaner came I looked just like she did  and every other woman in the village. She only knows one haircut!  I let it all grow out and then started the self grooming  process again.
Getting around the back is the biggest problem but I manage and it doesn't look bad. I will never achieve the gloss of many attractive older ladies who have a couple of hours of pampering every week  but then would I want to?
Nature has been kind to me in one way. I am not yet grey and I do not colour it. There are grey bits around but the overall effect is still mouse. The colour I was born with. I hated it when I was young. Now I see its advantages. Its still growing thick and looks Ok most of the time. Occasionally I see a wedding video of my hair tucked into the back of my stole and wince but the odd bad moment is worth it for the ability not to look like everyone else round here. And as none of you can see me you are in no position to judge!

Groom in the dog house.

We had a lot of people in church this morning which is not unusual for this time of the year. One or two of them did say though...
".I don't suppose there are many services in this old church any more." What?  Its not the first time that I have been asked if its still a "proper" church by which I think they mean having a vicar and doing normal services.
Just because its a very old church does not mean its a museum. It is a living breathing organism which self repairs as it goes in that when we need a new roof like at the moment it throws up people able to get the money together.
I once seriously offended a group of people who arrived to look at the church whilst I was doing a wedding rehearsal. We were having a laugh....they needed to get over some nerves...and we were waiting till the groom moved his van and trailer from the turning circle where he'd thoughtfully left it.
This was a groom who wasn't having much luck at all. He had lost his passport and the day before the wedding was still unable to find it. The honeymoon, paid for by his new in laws looked as though it would never happen.
If anyone needed a laugh that day it was the bride. She appeared in church absolutely furious.
When the vehicle had been shifted and I'd finally got them to the altar to rehearse their vows she refused to speak.
"Come on " I said,
"I'm  not speaking to him" she insisted.
It was very difficult as I pointed out, they could hardly get married the next day of they weren't speaking.
She shook her head. The boy looked embarrassed.
At this point I went into my stand up routine. I made them all laugh just as a group appeared through the door. They stood in the middle of the aisle and then flounced out again. One of the wedding party outside said that they had expressed disgust at the laughter and the noise....it was not what they had been expecting in such a beautiful church.
Can't win them all.  The wedding went ahead, the passport was never found and six months later I had a visit from the groom.
"Erm    look Jean."
He held out the wedding certificate. It was chewed. Lots of little holes all over it and a delicate shade of khaki.
He'd left it a pocket of his jacket in the barn....
"Rats I think," he said gazing at it mournfully.
"Is she back to not speaking to you again?" I asked him.
"Oh well we did have a honeymoon you know....not in Spain, country house job in Devon.   It was alright though!  Huge guffaws all round." Wink wink, nudge nudge. Just as well we were not in church.
Who know how many we may have offended?

Church peculiarities.

I try not to talk too much about the good old C of E in case it gets me into trouble  but after having read a couple of blogs recently by other priests I am tempted and have today fallen...here we go!
When the bishop suggested that I be ordained forthwith, he knew my age. I was already over 60. They knew that it was too late to start any courses and so I was put on placement for a year and had the bishop as my tutor.
Following another priest around for a year, filling in for everything that came up, was just about the best training possible. I am still firm friends with that priest. She taught me so much that its impossible to ever give her sufficient thanks.
At this time I was still the secretary of my local church through an interregnum so I ran that for a year as well.
After I was deaconed we had an incumbent appointed who did his best to teach me but his ideas were very different from the previous one. I had a fairly difficult and busy  year before being ordained priest. Soon afterwards I became the curate of the next parish and within a week of the licensing the Rector went off long term sick. I married the church warden and got on with the job...
When he then took early retirement my husband and I ran the parish for a couple of years, with weddings most weekends plus all the other joys of parish work.
By this time I was past 70 and got retired. My usefulness had come to an end. It was a fairly brutal business . at a large meeting the parish were told that as I was over 70 I was no longer able to work. Gasps all round.
 "Thank you for telling them my age"  I managed to make a joke of it but came home feeling let down.
The new incumbent was not yet in place and I continued to work.... even though I now got none of the handouts from the diocese. I did point out that as they did not pay me then talk of retirement was academic if not daft ....but no I was out. At this stage I was then told that I had done what they had priested me for...and given the impression of being a sort of sticking plaster to cover the gaps.
I couldn't help it. I felt very let down and the bunch of flowers from the diocese that marked my retirement did little to make me feel better.
I am now extremely lucky with the incumbent of this parish. He includes me in everything and makes me feel valued in a way that the diocese never has.
During my years as a curate I made huge sums of money for both the diocese and the parish...I have never ever claimed  expenses for anything I've done and never will. I do not cherry pick. I will do all the rotten jobs as well as the good ones.  I do what I do for the love of God and for the church. I count myself as a very lucky woman to have been ordained at all and so realised a calling heard in my teen age years.
That God has found me enough work in my old age is a blessing and I'm grateful for it.
Winifrid Holtby had it right.
God give me work till my life is done.
And life till my work is over.

Frog fountain

I admit it. I do have these weird whimsical notions at times. Today is an example. I saw advertised a solar fountain. I have had water features at other gardens in other places but the difficulty here has always been running an electric line under ground to power them. Solar energy!
Easy I thought, pop it down and let the sun do the rest.
It arrived yesterday complete with frog. My husband muttered something about it being one more hazard to mowing the grass so I've put it on crazy paving. It's all linked up despite the instructions being in esoteric English. naturally there's no sun today so it's not flowing. Crispin thinks I've put him a new dog bowl by the door. Most convenient.
The resident engineer says it should work. I am not over hopeful but if and when the sun ever shines again we may have the tiny tinkle of water splashing from the frogs mouth. Oh dear!


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Sex lessons in school

I have read the proposals by Dorries with some dismay. Now might be the time to admit that I was once an experienced mistress.
In Rochdale we had a very large Asian population with almost no English. A school was set up to teach them English as a second language. The head was a teacher who was also a C of E priest. He had spent much of his time in Africa teaching English and was rather naive.
After a couple of teen age pregnancies we decided that someone had to teach them the facts of life and it had to be a stable woman in a good marriage. I got the vote and the head sent out letters to all the parents telling them that "Hygiene" would be taught by an experienced mistress! I did get him to change the wording before they went out!
Teaching sex to girls with very little English was hard. I had to recourse to pictures and bought some excellent books to look at whilst I tried to get the basic facts over to them. The books were kept locked away in a cupboard where they were referred to as Mrs Sharples dirty books!
Naturally when I moved school I was again given the task of being the designated sex teacher so I have experience in this field.
To paint a picture of all males as only after one thing and to go back to the Victorian idea of shameful sex will simply not work today. That box of Pandora has been open for far too long.
Getting them to practice safe sex is an easier option though I did always tell them that it was Ok to refuse sex if it was not what they wanted. Sex as painted by Dorries as something wicked is a return to the days when hypocrisy was the norm. Using birth control in the form of safe sex is important for them to learn but the nature of sex between two people who love each other should also be stressed. A glorious, life enhancing experience to bring them ever closer together is what should happen...The fact that it often doesn't work out like that and what to do about it is what we should be teaching our children as they grow up in this confusing age with mixed messages all around them. Thank goodness I don't teach sex any more. I do still teach love though.

How not to kill squirrels.

The local tree expert arrived on my door step after lunch. He looked at my almost dead palm tree and told me it was not frost bitten but had some sort of disease and that he'd had to take down several in the area. He thinks he might be able to save it but is not sure. I showed him the tree that seems to be a cross between a eucalyptus and an acacia and was surprised to find him stumped.....he isn't sure what it is either. So the twitterati is in good company. 

Then we addressed the real problem of the summer. Squirrels at St Just.  They have been rampant, grown in numbers and several lovely old trees have been killed. The story is apparently that some well meaning people have trapped squirrels in their own gardens and not wanting to kill them have let them loose in a lovely place, the graveyard and gardens down by the creek surrounding the church. 

The problem is that we have a lot of visitors...there are always lots  of them walking around the gardens in the summer and he felt that in consultation with our verger Clive he could not  really shoot them...a dead squirrel falling from above might not give quite the right atmosphere  apart from the noise of the guns would make . 

Another solution would be poison but as he pointed out, the drays were a long way up...getting the right stuff into the right place could prove difficult. 

He had though been considering another imaginative solution.  Hawks. There are several hawking groups in Cornwall who might be prepared to come and see the squirrels off. Some how that didn't seem quite right either....would the squirrels then be dropped onto the visitors as if they'd been shot? He shook his head...

"There wouldn't be much left of them Jean" he said..." Not once the hawks had them and it would look wonderful, the visitors might like it.  

Not quite what they come to St Just for though.  Wed have to put up notices on that day. "Squirrel Hunt in Progress" ?  It could develop into a whole new visitor attraction 

Joys of supply teaching.

A follow twitterer this morning uttered the words best guaranteed to make me shudder. Great Baddow.
I had been out of teaching for three years whilst we lived half way up a mountain in N Wales. On arrival in Chelmsford I  left my name with the LEA in the hope of some supply work eventually . The phone rang whilst we were still in the packing case stage at home. They had an emergency...could I get there in the morning please?
I got there.  By the morning break I was able to ask what had happened to the lady I was replacing.
She'd had a breakdown of some sort, ending with her pouring a cup of tea over the headmaster.
After a morning I could quite see why anyone could have had a breakdown,  the children were unruly, unpleasant and very noisy. I had never ever had any disciplinary problems in any other school so I was confident I could sort it all out given time.
At lunch time all the teachers disappeared. I was alone in the dining room apart from one man who said we had to eat fast, there was going to be trouble. It was during a period of teacher unrest and they were all working to rule, not doing lunchtime or playground duties. They had sensibly gone to the pub. I would have gone with them if asked!
We ate our lunch at a rapid rate and then went back to the staffroom through corridors of boys who had just realised that no one was on duty. we walked past the head who was studiously looking in the opposite direction and making no attempt to quell the mounting hysteria.
The man I had eaten with barricaded us into the staffroom, locking the door in case they wanted to come in and we listened to what later we realised was an actual riot. Lockers were pushed over, windows broken. Small children terrified into rushing around screaming.
I have no idea what it all cost the school... but when it was described as a riot in the local paper the head hotly denied it...but I knew the truth!
I stayed for a term and was asked to make it permanent. I declined the kind offer.

The darling buds of May are shaking.

We are having a blow.   We live on a high bit of ground on a peninsula. This means that where ever the wind is coming from, we get it!  The soft damp westerlies are not too bad but occasionally the east and north join forces and then we really get it!  From one side of the garden   Falmouth  is visible through the trees and from the other side we can see Gerrans Bay and as far down as Nare Head and the Dodman on a clear day. We pay for all this beauty on days like today. It is possible to walk in our garden but we are buffeted as we go. Some days its impossible to stay up right and we head off bent double and do stupid things like tethering the trees to the hedgerow!  No wonder that in my old age I have had to start using hair spray!
Today we have found the dustbins lids scattered far and wide, we have lost a lid from a water butt completely, its not even in the garden any more.
Branches are coming down. Petals strew the ground and the new shrubs that went in last week are struggling to stay upright. This is why I am intent on making a windbreak and why I get so cross when various well meaning people "help" by tidying up the hedges and lopping bits off trees.
We get days like this in the winter and the summer and usually things survive. Its the black easterlies that coincide with very cold weather or rain that does most damage. Tops of trees vanish over night. Black replaces green on all the plants and usually we lose them completely. I've replaced everything we lost in the winter and in this battle with nature we are winning....we do now have a very pretty and hopefully fruitful garden. The ancient stone Cornish walls harbour wonderful plants including bluebells and these all survive because they come complete with their own protection.
I am sure its all part of God's great plan and there must be someone somewhere that benefits from the gale force winds. Maybe its time to put a windmill in...Renewable energy!

Strange happenings!

Shakespeare would have earthly disturbances such as  quakes or typhoons as arbiters of major  events in life. I am not sure that when a King dies, the stars all started going backwards then  but so far today has been made up of small indications of strangeness.
For a start my husband got up and came to the eight o'clock communion with me. Usually he sits up in bed and waves at me as I go. This morning I had a chauffeur!  Getting to St Just I then found my daughter in law in attendance with her mother.  This has also never happened before.
In  up the vestry the churchwarden came with another odd request. They had used up all the wafers last week after massive numbers had turned up and so we only had enough for about half the normal crowd. Could I make them go a long way please?.  I broke the priest's wafer up so small that the pieces were floating off the patten as I moved.
Afterwards I told her that a loaf of bread would be OK in emergencies so she should be alright for the next one.
Nothing too peculiar happened until the end of the next service at St Mawes. We had visitors and the service was almost over when as I was clearing the altar after communion there was an explosion quite near me.  The bulb in the aumbrey had burst with fairly dramatic sound.
Now, lunch over I have been out for a walk and the wind has got up. We needed the rain....its been very dry for a long time but this is torrential accompanied by great gusts. Whole horse chestnut flowers strew the ground.  Delicate new plants are bending, and stalks are snapping.
Our God reigns has taken on a whole new meaning today!  I hope nothing significant is happening on the world stage.