Who reads blogs?

I am always amazed by who reads this blog....it goes far and wide and there are more readers in the USA than I would ever have imagined possible...
The spread of readers throughout the world is America  and Canada first, then Australia and then Britain and the occasional visit from  Russia and India. I do have a regular contact in Poland which is wonderful as her English is excellent and she gets the jokes!
To think of people with no common language taking the trouble is a truly incredible feeling....I love some of the remarks from a Swedish friend who also regularly beats me at Scrabble.. and now I am fairly ashamed of my own lack of any other language beyond pigeon French and Welsh...
I am truly awed by the numbers recorded . Last week was a quiet week but we are off again winning all records for readership over night...I can only imagine that many of my readers were away for half term!
Lots of my friends do read it, people I have known for over twenty five years or longer ....its a way of keeping up with what I'm doing and sometimes they say I have got a memory wrong or it didn't happen quite like that which is I suppose normal....if 20 of us witness an accident there would be twenty different versions of what happened.
I am not in any way complaining about the numbers, I thinks its wonderful...and long may it continue...
perhaps a few jokes thrown in......or maybe not...I always tell the truth and stay true to my convictions about God and the universe... and its a bit like writing a sermon.....if it starts with a good story then the attention is gained and it might endure for a bit longer....
I know my grandchildren read it...on and off....they are occasionally shocked but  it might  make them think of me as not a crusty old woman... but just as a person..who is happy with her life and all the things in it. And thats worth a great deal.

Autumn to winter wardrobe panic.

Some years ago now I used to visit a friend who was dying. Our chats were not gloomy but as he got worse he used to tell me stories mostly about his dozy wife. His wife in fact was anything but dozy. She was an efficient business woman who ran her own firm but who was out a lot.
One of this mans favourite story was the way his wife tackled the change over from summer to winter.
That she had too many clothes was not the problem, it was the fact that every Spring she would place her winter wardrobe in boxes and put them in the loft. It was getting them out that was the problem. His description of her on a step ladder chucking out skirts, jumpers, jackets etc onto the landing was a particularly good one as the whole landing used to end up under layers of woollies.
This morning I became that woman.
The church I am preaching in is well known for its inefficient heating. It is cold this morning so for the first time I wore my dog collar with a wooly skirt...still no tights but the change over was definitely under way.
I failed to find the cardigan I was looking for in any of the usual places...
If I had not had an extra hour to play with all would have been well but thinking I had loads of time I went through cupboards, drawers, shelves, tossing out winter wear as I went out. The spare room now looks as if a whole encampment has arrived from Siberia!
I will sort it out tomorrow.
JUst as well that my husband was out. He went to the 8 o'clock as  the clock had gone back!
Too late I remembered that the cardy I was looking for had been on the last cruise with me.
Of course...panic over, there it was, waiting patiently for the next one!
I now have more fellow feeling for the lady once described as dozy...we clearly have much in common!

Summer time? Again?

The last time we experimented with Summer time or lack of it was during my first winter as a single mum. I had two children to get to school and I also taught. Getting up in the dark and getting us all off to school was a nightmare. It felt highly unnatural to pull the children from deep sleep and tell them it was time to go to school!
My car was the main  problem. It was a very ancient Wolsley,  built like a tank with red leather bucket seats and a starting handle. It simply refused to start  most mornings during that winter of ice and snow and I became adept at taking out the plugs, and fiddling with the carburettor...but try doing that in the dark!
I did try starting it with the handle on several desperate occasions but each time it felt like I'd broken my arm in the process. It was a very old car. There were no MOT tests on those days and it was all I could afford.
There was a garage nearby for really desperate times but they were expensive and I was very hard up.  During those dark days I had to sometimes make a choice as to whether to buy it much needed new tyres or feed my children. Times were hard and not helped by the experiment with time.
Most people I knew hated it even though the lighter evenings were a bonus.
If they go through with it this time it will be interesting to see if the mantle of age makes it more acceptable.

A modern saint?

Looking at the readings for All Saints day led me to ponder once more whether there are any modern saints anywhere in the pipe line....most of us know one or two who will never be recognised by the church either of England or Rome but apart from Mother Teresa no one really came to mind so I  indulged in a spot of googling!
That brought up the name of a man born in Cumbria early in the century. John Bradburne was the son of an Anglican priest who converted to Rome and then became a Fransiscan who adopted the role of pilgrim with no means of support other than what people gave him in his travels...Having spent most of his life on t this pilgrimage. he then settled in Zimbabwe where he looked after a leper colony, taking care of the children and still maintaining a wonderful Christian sprit of joy and praise..
He was martyred during the civil unrest there so he ticks all the boxes. I had never heard of him before today but I am sure many of you are already conversant with  this man and his life. He wrote poetry as he travelled and leaves a legacy of joy with all those he met.
I am just glad that the spirit of the first Christians is still alive and well and hope there are more possible Christians living amongst us who will achieve sainthood in due course..
Not me though...I could not  cope with the pain!

Gift from God.

When my first husband died we were here in Cornwall looking for a house, living in the caravan whilst we took time to look. He had a massive heart attack and died on the spot whilst we were house hunting and I retreated to my van.
On the first day after I was still in a state of shocked bewilderment when there was a knock on my door.
It was a woman who lived near by who had heard what had happened.
I didn't know her but invited her in.
She had come to tell me that she had had a similar experience. She talked to me about the trauma and stress and how it was possible to come through it in time.
Her husband had been an Olympic show jumper. I had never heard of him but I saw that she was struggling to tell her story...so we comforted each other as we talked. It helped not so much then as later as I remembered that she had moved house on her own.
I never forgot her. When I came to live here I was not a priest. That happened a couple of years later but when I met her again I was wearing a dog collar and she didn't recognize me.
She died last week. Her funeral is tomorrow. I never saw her in church but I have no doubt that her impulse to help me was a gift from God for us both.
May she rest in peace and rise in glory.


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Picture

I took this after writing the blog! One of the confused rhododendrons .


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Confused signals

The weather here is always slightly warmer than the rest of the UK but it's actually balmy out there this morning and in a good way. We had torrential rain yesterday and today the sun is shining again.
The plants in the garden are now confused. After a very warm Spring we then had drought conditions meaning that I had to water every day for months. But several shrubs suffered badly because in order to have given them the water they needed I would have had to be out there night and day!
Now they are watered well and warm winds do shake the darling buds of....October!
We have Spring flowers out now!
The bride is showing her wonderful white flowers. Several rhododendrons are in flower, two ceonotis are out ,their wonderful blue flowers looking amazing. The whole garden is suffering a severe case of schizophrenia. Bright fuchsias and hydrangeas spread along the Cornish hedges.
The horse chestnuts have dropped their conkers and leaves ages ago... all the fruit has fallen off the trees...and yet there they are the brave ones, facing winter with a wonderful show of defiance.
"You are nearer Gods heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth. "

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Time for a prayer.

This week is going to be very busy and it  follows a very quiet week last week  , such is life in the clergy!  The main reason for all this is that its half term! And its pouring down outside so the phone calls have been coming in thick and fast. Relations often fail to realise that I am still working and that funerals and ashes etc need preferential treatment!
I am very glad to see everyone but its a question of juggling the time carefully without making people feel that they are being a nuisance!
Tomorrow I am burying the ashes of a much loved lady whose children are all teachers and thats why it had to be half term...One of them has sent me a prayer to say at the graveside, where her husband already rests..Its not one Ive ever seen before but it is lovely and if anyone knows who wrote it I should be glad to know.
 

             God hath not promised skies ever blue

             Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through.

            God hath not promised sun without rain,

             Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.

            But God hath promised strength for the day,

             Rest for the labour, light for the way,

            Grace for the trials, help from above,

            Unfailing sympathy, undying love.

Culling is good for the soul.

I had a cull this morning when, waking up in the dark I turned on Twitter to find that I was skipping over many of the tweets because I'd seen them before!
 Its even more annoying when its someone who thinks that by quoting what other people have said that some how makes it fine to just keep doing it.
There must be a way of preplanning the tweets otherwise some of these people never sleep. And some of them come every minute or so until they get put in Twitter jail for tweeting too often.
They take up a lot of the time line and it makes you wonder what on earth they get out of it.
The men who put ism after their name are the worst.....there are Fredisms, Lesisms, but no Barabara or Helen isms!
You switch off fairly quickly when people are trying to sell you something so why do people think peddling God or goodness will succeed any better that someone flogging computer ink!
The fact that many of the quotes are definitely worth reading makes it worse because you then feel bad about blocking out Gibran and his ilk.  
Twitter is surely about communication...... being fed a diet of worthy sayings just doesn't do it for me so I apologise to any I have unfollowed...but I need interaction!   Please!

The blog/epistles of St Paul.

I found myself in very august company today when I sat down to write the sermon. St Paul had none of today's means of transport or electronic devices and yet he managed not only to journey to all those places but then having reached home and been imprisoned he set out to keep in touch. Christianity is above all things about sharing and love...having found Christ on the road to Damascus Paul made sure he shared that joy with everyone else he met.
With the help of Luke he left us a body of work that sits at the very core of our religion but it came from that need to share.
Paul quite simply was a blogger. It really was Christian out reach in all that that involves...he kept all his converts in his heart and wrote them wonderful letters that have survived 2000 odd years.
The epistles have small stories, small personal details and a great deal of encouragement and love. I have no skills as an evangelical Christian of the sort that can go out and make converts on the spot but I can write and reach people who would otherwise never suspect that God is good...and that is what I try to share...with His help.


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First or second class?

David missed his train this morning. A couple of times a year he goes off to have lunch with his old firm. He enjoys meeting old colleagues and friends so this morning was a shame.
He was up before six, showered , dressed and looking very smart when he set off. About an hour later the phone rang. He'd missed the train.
I was astonished. I thought he'd set off in plenty of time.
He had actually been there, a little late , able to get to the last coach before it pulled out but the door was locked. He just couldn't open it so he watched it go and came home. No one was on the platform so he gave up. No other train would have got him there in time.
Later he told me that he'd had a first class reservation. After a stare from me he told me it had cost him an awful lot of money. He doesn't think it's refundable!
It reminded me of our time in Essex. My first husband commuted every day into Liverpool St. There were times when he would get home very tired, hot and cross. Eventually he made his season ticket a first class one. It was expensive but worth it if only in tempers not lost.
It led to some strange situations though. I never travel first class. I can never excuse the extra expense it cost. If we were going out in London for the night he would travel up in one compartment and I in another...it became a joke , having a second class wife.
It only became a problem when the trains were very late and very full.
I at that time worked in London during the evening about three times a week. Going in I had to fight my way off the train on reaching Liverpool St. Going home was worse when it got past ten pm. A certain rowdiness prevailed and I sometimes moved from compartment to the next. If he was on the train then I would join him. He always paid the excess fare.
Train travel these days is expensive. I hope my dear one gets his money back but I am trying not to think that it may be time to not go out for lunch if it means traveling half way across Britain to do it. Even a second class wife has her reservations.


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Location:St Just-In-Roseland,United Kingdom

Village life 5

We've arrived at Portscastho. Its a small fishing village  which does still operate as such. There is so much to say about this lovely place that I am in danger of  over doing it. So I'll try to be concise!
I moved in on  Friday 13 which was not auspicious . Within  two weeks of getting there I had to go off for major surgery.
The village was wonderful...they looked after me which shouldn't have been a surprise because the same village looked after me when my husband died a few years earlier.
It is a thriving busy little place even during the winter. There's a pub and a social club, both of which do good trade all the year round. There are all sorts of clubs and societies, one of which is named after my late husband! Naturally its the investment club!
To say I know everyone there is only a slight exaggeration. There is a delightful chapel at the far end of the lugger and an Anglican church at the top of the hill. I used to sing in the church choir even before I moved in. I first  became the church secretary and then a worship leader on my way to ordination.
Both churches were thriving, and co-operated with each other for all the special occasions.
I visited many of the older people and became the unofficial chauffeur for various old animals owned by people with no access to a car. There is a bus service and a school bus but they are no good for transporting sick animals around. My land rover did the job perfectly!
I would have been happy to stay there until I died had I not met  and married David the second. We now live in St Mawes so I had the problem of what to do about my house.
For four years I let friends and family use it, hard up clergy, honeymoon couples..etc...all welcome.
My kids have it now...so I am happy its being used properly again.
My friends in the village look after my dog if I am away, and he is  greeted by everyone  he meets, they have known him since he was a very young dog!
I used to keep my small boat in the harbour  but now its used by many of the fishermen.
David used to say that his spiritual home was Portscatho when what he actually meant was the village pub...but as description of a place which has been very good for me and to me it will do!
Getting to know everyone there was one of the great pleasure of  my life...
There is a saying that every three years someone rings a bell and they all change partners!  Its not true but sometimes it feels that way as you grow more and more aware of the complicated relationships.
Its worth the time and energy involved to earn the trust of all those good people.
I found scones,  cream and jam on the doorstep the first day I moved in.
Flowers and cards were sent in great abundance when I was ordained and almost the whole village turned up to my party in the village hall...        Thank you Portscatho and God!

Lost and found.

I lost my iPhone last night.  This in itself is not particularly news worthy but my reaction to losing it startled me!  It was bed time. I always take my phone to bed to see whats happening on twitter and to listen to an audio book whilst  drifting off to sleep. And I could not  find it. I searched everywhere downstairs for it, then up stairs. I tried to phone  myself so that the church bells that are its ring tone would alert me.
Nothing.
 I then sat down to think where I'd had it last. Up the garden I thought so off I set with a torch trying to find a small object in the heavy dew that covered our half an acre of land.
My husband was not impressed....he kept telling me it would turn up eventually.
Eventually would not do....it was not going to survive a night in the open , hidden in the  long grass.
We have become so used to our toys now that the prospect of going to sleep reading an actual book did not appease me at all. And anyway it wasn't ringing!  Therefor it was lost.
Deep gloom  as I calculated how much it would cost to replace!
David went to bed. I stayed up and tried to retrace my steps...I might have uttered a brief prayer or two.....I looked everywhere, convinced that as I couldn't hear it ringing it was lost for ever.....and that was  another irritation....they only ring about three times before going on to someone who talks  just when you don't want her to!
Eventually I found it, on the floor under the sofa in my office. It hadn't been ringing because I'd turned the sound right down so as not to annoy anyone whilst I was listening to a very noisy video!
The thing that bothered me most is not the fact that I'd lost it, or found it eventually but on how dependent I've become on an electronic toy.  My granny should have warned me!  To play with boys toys can be  addictive!

Do we need two cars?

We are a two car family.  We are both independent people whose patterns were established long before we knew each other...I go off to visit churches all round the Roseland whilst David goes to the one he used to be the church warden of...Often on a Sunday morning we only see each other at lunch time..but age is taking its toll on us both...and yesterday I am aware that the first early negotiations started for us to become a one car family.
David is a much better driver than I am but yesterday for the second time this year he took his car into the garage to have all its scratches covered up!  It will be gone for several days and during that time he will drive mine...which at present is innocent of scratches because I am a careful driver. Some might even say timid!
Last time he had my car for a week he came back looking very sheepish...he had driven into a rock...not only were there scratches, he had burst the front tyre so he had  hit the rock with some force!
When I drove a landrover I once turned a tight bend and actually got caught! The big white rock that signalled the bend in the road was not clearly visible at night and I ended up stuck on top of it and could go neither forward nor back wards...
All the blokes in the local pub came up to help me off with great hilarity....but I was single then..
Now it makes complete sense that we should have one car between us but this could take years of negotiations....who has precedent, especially on Sunday mornings!
Also a major snag might well be that if it got scratched as often as the present one, there would be no relief car at hand.
David says he'll get an electric chair....well...
He would get into the village in record time but it would then take all morning to get home.....its a very long, steep hill.
The negotiations have started . We both know what we are aiming at, eventually not just because it would be good for the environment and for our pockets, but it could take quite a while to sort the rest of it out....if ever.

In Transit A Poem

I moved from Writtle in Essex to Portscatho in Cornwall.   Very different villages but first I had to get there apart from Crispin  on my own. Major my ancient golden died just a week before the move...He was the last of a whole group of dogs who had grown old together.
As I prepared  to leave one village for another I wrote a poem for my friends and their dogs.

I carry them with me these ghosts

As I move from fast to slow, chaos to peace

Essex  to  Cornwall.

A dream,almost  realised, this move approaches

And I feel their presence.

Sam, Win and Major, old frail and vulnerable.

Sweet memories overide the sadness of loss.

Keeping friendships pacts.

I loved them, all three and their caring people.

The dogs were young together, played, hunted and swam in tandem.

As each grew old the others steadied them and supported their infirmities.

We walked slowly side by side on easy tracks to protect their grace and dignity.

They were beautiful, faithful and true.

Gone now, Major went last.

The other two, old hands at being dead will show him the celestial rabbit fields, the rivers to breast, the sand to dig ……and David

David will be there to greet his dog, strolling in sunshine

Friends at his side, smiling at regained exuberance.

The four will rest easy with me as I drive home.

Away  from the old life and into the new.

The people I have to leave.

The dogs come with me.

I aplogise for this bit of self indulgence....I found the poem again whilst contemplating Crispin's life span...ot lack of it.

St Just Feast Day.

Having done the eight O clock communion this morning I returned home to report back to the elderly and infirm in our midst. It is St Justs feast day....a more civic than religious event. All the school children and clubs and societies take part in this, carrying their banners high,  down from the lych gate  to the church door.
Thank goodness its not raining. I have in the past preceded some very damp banners to place around the altar!
This year is different though. We handed over the keys to the church to contractors last week and the building is now shrouded in scaffolding.  There is a driveway to the church where the infirm can be driven to a turning circle  and wheeled the rest of the way but not this morning or for several weeks to come.
The only safe route, is the path from the lych gate but as its very steep, its hard work getting back to the top afterwards and especially in a wheel chair.
It is fine for the children who enjoy their pasties as part of the feast but impossible for the really old. I hope its impossible anyway.....some of those I have rung are still set on getting there....I am just worried it could be for the last time...ever.
We sing a wonderful Hymn on these occasions...

All these Cornish shores are holy
Here the saints in prayer did dwell
Raising font and altar lowly
Preaching far with staff and bell
Piran, Petroc, Gerant, Filly
Anthony, Saints Mawes and Just.
There are three more verses but you get the picture I am sure...The sun is shining... Alleluia!

This is a picture of me and Rev Peter Durnford who gave me away on my wedding day walking down the path from the lych gate.

Village life 4.

When we moved to Essex it was to give easy access to London.  My husband needed to get into Liverpool Street to walk to the city every morning. We finally settled on what was a village but unlike any of the others I've mentioned in that it was definitely suburban and loosely attached to a town.  Writtle had its own village Green complete with a duck pond and grand Georgian houses clustered around it. We lived up a lane which linked us to the agricultural college and also a lovely path by the river , through the park to take us into Chelmsford, so we were back into bike riding territory.
We did not know everyone in the village but we did know those who drank in the village pub and also those who were connected to the Writtle society . I still get letters from the last group and Christmas cards from the first.
It was an historic village with many claims to fame, and down our lane there  had been a gibbet!
The young  farmers in situ at the college never minded my walking the daft Springer over its grounds providing he was under control. It was far cry from walking up a mountain every day but we did follow the path of the river most days into  a  lane called  "Cow Watering Lane"  It was a good description!   There were low bridges through which king fishers flew, plenty of fish  in the river and lovely spindle trees, bright with fruit all through the winter. It was very different from the last village but we stayed there longer than anywhere else....for 25 years and  we grew to love it.
I divided my church time between three other villages mindful of the time when I knew the church would get me...if it was going to get me  ,it needed to be when I retired.  
Village life was not the same as it was in smaller more compact villages. We missed the close relationships and the goodness of people willing to help in times of trouble but when my husband died everyone in fact  did come to my assistance when ever I showed the need of it.  People are good where ever you are,  thank God.

Village life 3.

The next very small village we lived in was in North Wales...it was actually not so much a village as a hamlet. There was a row of nine stone cottages, the big house and a chapel. We had the end cottage on the terrace and everyone walked past regularly so if we were visible they stopped to chat. It was mostly Welsh speaking and I found that whilst my Welsh had disappeared completely my daughter had to learn it in school..and found it fairly easy as everyone on  the school bus  spoke it all the time. No one ever stopped talking at my approach but they changed into English for my benefit . I loved it there.
Not being Welsh speaking  had its compensations...I was unable to get a job in school for instance,  mostly because all the advertisements in the news paper were in Welsh, I stood no chance!
For three years I honed my writing skills...and walked the bouncy Springer spaniel every afternoon to the top of the mountain. This was Moel Famau....and the village was roughly half way up it.  It rejoiced in the name of Tavern Y Gelyn   which being translated meant pub of the enemy.
The chapel stood where the tavern had once been or so I was told. The village was close to Offa's Dyke .and many people walked through it every summer and of course during the winter, after the first fall of snow, we had  winter sports people in transit  every weekend.
Because I walked the forest and mountain regularly I was put onto the mountain rescue team.  Not sure if its good news or bad news that I was never called out.
The chapel was within a few feet of our house and we did try..but the services were all in Welsh so mostly we attended the church of Wales in Mold and then the next village, Cilcain.
One Christmas though we went to the Carol service in our little chapel...
It had been described on the posters as multi lingual......we thought it should be Ok...after all a carol is a carol.
The only English spoken all night was "WElcome, welcome to our English visitors!" My husband muttered in his pew.  We only lived 10 yards away!
The carols were in Welsh and we were coached about how to say "Silent Night" for the one that wasn't   but it was a lovely evening....miles away from the Welsh Baptist chapel of my youth but a solid expression
of both village life and Christianity.
The village pulled together wonderfully well during the hard winters. When my husband went to work in London, leaving me and the children on our own  during a particularly hard winter the neighbours always checked if we were OK. The school sent Land rovers to get my daughter out  and I got help at digging out the car whenever I needed it. One man even brought his step ladders on the day I locked myself out and got in through our bedroom window...
I loved my time there , I joined choirs, was on the pub quiz team, I thoroughly embraced village life and was sorry to leave.   Essex was not quite the same!

Christian outreach. Or iblog.

Christian blogging is a well established phenomena in todays strange world....I was amazed by how many people did it, and the forms it takes....all different, some chatty, some sad, all full of the joy that being a Christian brings into our lives....even when things are going badly wrong there is always the knowledge that not only is God there but so are other Christians to help and support. And they do.
I recently had the pleasure of being told by a senior member of the church that my blog was amazing!  That he found time to tell me that was the amazing bit. He then went on to use words which have stayed with me.
"It is Christian outreach of a very high order."
I've thought abut those words.....its not the reason I blog to be honest....I blog because I have to...its as much part of me as my faith....but it is also a reaching out, to people I don't know and will never meet.
Its read by people who would never go to church for all sorts of reasons...and although God often really does not have a speaking part here, nevertheless He is always present...
I have been in ministry for about 8 years now. Because I am an old woman I will never get a parish. But I am still a very happy woman...I do my work as a parish priest with a heart full of joy and gratitude that I am able to do it ..I thank God every day of my life for all the good things He has given me and I write my blog in the hope that others will catch just a little of the great joy that being a Christian brings!  Alleluia!

Village life 2

Leaving out the housing estate that was definitely not a village and my college which did have some similarities to village life,  I lived for a little while in a small village on the borders between Lancashire and Cheshire. I taught at the large  secondary school and in my first year of teaching was married to the head of History.
Some how who ever did the time table for that year had confused me with a History teacher, and my first lessons were actually History lessons. In vain I protested that I was an English teacher....it was set in stone for the year. My husband taught me what I was to teach the children the next day.
We had a large Victorian house divided into flats. Two other teachers from the school also lived there. it was quite a community .
It was a pretty village and I rode my bicycle everywhere, to school, to the shops, to the Church of England  church but only occasionally. I had married a lapsed catholic and it seemed very unkind to be able to go off to church and leave him to it.
Cycling everywhere brings you into contact with people you would otherwise not meet. I used to stop and chat with people I only vaguely recognised and I soon got to know most of them.
My school was a boys school. I had done a teaching practice there and they had kept me on....
I will never forget the day I was cycling home to find everyone outside their homes talking . I had no idea what had happened so I slowed down.
They were boys I taught so I stopped and asked them what had happened. It was the Manchester United crash...they were all Man united fans to the last one of them.
Tears flowed freely as the news came in...all those dead!
It was one of the first times I assumed pastoral care not just for the boys but for their parents and siblings as well....in the days before we were all under suspicion for touching the children in our care, I hugged all those who needed it, wiped away tears and returned home wondering what on earth it was going to be like in school.
It was bad..it affected everyone...all the teachers as well as the children. In that huge school I used up more hankies in a day than ever seemed possible.
It taught me a lot. Listening is a vital part of grief counselling and I learned it all in that small village where everyone helped as much as they were able. There I saw the best bits of village life.

Village life.

Life in a small village most be much the same where ever that village maybe....I recently took stock of the several villages I have lived in. and a thumb nail sketch of some of them fills in a rounded picture of both the villages and the places of worship I've attended at various times of my life.
The first one was when as a very small girl my grandparents took me to South Wales when my father was in the army and my mother worked in munitions.
The village was on the Gower and it was beautiful. One of my earliest memories was being taken to look at the sea. It was rolling in and the sand looked wonderful but there was barbed wire rolled right along the beech.  I could not  reach it.  After a few years I  found a way through and played happily on the beach on my own until my Aunty found me, nearly had hysterics and dragged me home crying. How was I to know about land mines?
We went to the Welsh baptist chapel in the village and it was terrifying. The minister, a tall man in a long winged collar preached hell fire and damnation every Sunday. I can still hear his Welsh voice denouncing the young girls as he called them out. I resolved  that it should never ever be me because I was never going to be naughty!
My grandmother was a herbalist and I've never quite understood the relationship with the chapel but she taught me early what plants to gather and what ailments they were good for. My pinny had many pockets always full of dried roots and flowers....
One day in the village there was no water. something had caused a blockage. Someone was sent down the well to find out  what it was. A man subsequently came up the rope ladder holding a massive rat!  No one drank the water without boiling it for quite a while after that.
They spoke Welsh and I  am told that I spoke it too but I can't remember.  My mother came to get me towards the end of the war.
We were catching a train from Swansea back to Lancashire and the night we were going for the train there was an air raid. Swansea was burning. The local American airforce base sent us a jeep to get us to the station. I sat on the knee of a huge black man whilst we drove through Swansea alight. Great flames licked up the walls and there was a strange noise of  air being pushed through buildings at force.
When we got on the train to take us back to what my mother referred to as home I left my first village for ever...I have been back once as an adult.....it was not  as I remembered it.

Embarrassing deafness.

Despite the doctors best efforts I am still deaf in one ear!  Most of the things that were wrong with me last week have got better...I can speak, operate in most spheres without any problems at all.....but this one ear is still  wonky!
It's not wax before you all jump in to give me Grandma's best remedies....wax I can deal with!
The doctors view on peering down into the offending ear was that it was a viral infection.  Although he did go on to prescribe anti biotics that do seem to have worked, the only thing still affected is the ear.
Somehow its managing to distort the sounds I can hear. Everyone on the TV seems to be squeaking. So does David.  When I can hear,  its through a curtain of  other distorted  sound....which can be very confusing for everybody I meet.
The other two in the house are already deaf....The dog now hears nothing at all unless I shout in a high pitched screech to get his attention. My husband can hear but finds a hearing aid a great comfort except when its something he doesn't want to know, when he just turns it off!
I've now had this problem for about a week and it has given me some  insights into other peoples problems....
To say "Pardon" too often is embarrassing so its best to say it straight out.
"Sorry I really can't hear you!" is working for me. The problem then is that people start to shout at you!
My husband has a blessedly quiet voice most of the time and so now he is forced to raise his voice  in order to reach me!
The whole thing is liveable with . I can see the advantages and of course I still have one ear that's in perfect working order...
Its the embarrassment thats the real problem....I find my self,  pretending I've heard something which actually I haven't....and this could get me into all sorts of trouble.
Lets hope the viral infection clears up fast on its own.....I can live with this problem  knowing its only short term....but I would be much more anxious if it wasn't!
My prayers are with all those who really can't hear....not to hear music, birds singing, the dog barking.....the glorious sounds of a church organ.....that would be a dreadful deprivation.
An old vicar of mine who was very deaf used to sit with his hand on the record player, humming to the vibrations.     I'm not yet ready for that!

Story. The feast that flew away.

One summer a young girl was visiting her aunt who lived on a farm close to the sea. Much like St Mawes! As she approached the front door a great honking followed her. She had to run to escape the great goose bearing down on her with it's neck outstretched, honking.
Safe Inside she asked her aunt why on earth she kept the aggressive bird still, it must be very old now.
The old lady was still for awhile and told her niece the story of the goose.
Many years earlier one of the local sailors had found some big eggs and had brought them back to eat. The old lady had put hers under the hens and several beautiful geese were hatched. She now had a flock of them but the oldest was one of the originals.
A few summers after they had hatched her son told her he was taking a job on a fishing boat. His money would help to pay their taxes.
She cried...she didn't want him to go and he would miss the harvest supper.
He had a good idea...he would take a goose on the boat with him. At harvest time they would kill it for their own feast on board.
His mother relented and off he went with the goose on a rope.
The little girl gazed at her aunt.
"What happened?" she asked..
"That harvest supper we were sitting down to eat when we heard a great honking and flapping of wings . It was the goose but he was alone."
The old lady wiped away a tear. Her son had never come home.
She could never kill the goose even though it had become noisy and aggressive because it was the only thing that knew what had happened to her son and the boat.
He was the thanksgiving feast that few away.


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Sods law!

This is a follow up to the previous post about phones. Having now got four in the house I thought long and hard before putting one in the bedroom. I do get calls at odd hours and I thought it was probably a good idea!
Often it's a call out to people needing help and sometimes from someone trying to sell us something I don't want.
Anyone after much debate the phone was placed on the little chest of drawers by my side of the bed.
It was dark when it rang this morning. It's not a ringtone I'm used to so it sounded like an alien intrusion. Sitting up I took the phone into my hand and stared at it stupidly. It could have bitten me...sleep had claimed all normal rational reactions. Finally I answered.
My colleague was sick. Could I do the eight o'clock?
Several moments later I was on the move...
I used the anti septic gel several times during the eight o'clock communion. I am still a little deaf and on the third day of anti biotics. I wouldn't have heard if anyone had said anything much....
But as an example of sods law this morning would be hard to beat on the first night ever I had a phone by the bed.....it rang!



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Dress codes.

Tomorrows gospel about the incorrectly dressed wedding guest has always been a puzzle for most of us I suspect. The King seemed unduly harsh in his treatment of the guest and not a good role model to follow in this day and age when dress codes do still exist and people do still try to invoke them.
Every year at Henley I see ladies with short skirts and dangerous necklines  being turned away. Gentleman are only rarely allowed to remove their jackets!
Cruising has much the same perils especially on the Cunard liners where standards are maintained rigidly.
We are used to it now but on our first transatlantic crossing we sat with a very diverse group of people. Of the six at table there was only one couple, me and David, the rest were singles.
On the first night we found the girls worked in local government and the two men could not have been more different, one American, the other Welsh. Oddly they had been visiting each others country both looking for old cars to transport back home.
On the first night we all got on well and looked forward to the rest of the cruise.
The second night five of us were ready  at table when the sixth appeared with out his dinner jacket. He apologised and said he hadn't come prepared...would we excuse him, he didn't want to embarrass us.
We were not embarrassed and told him so.
He sat down with us and when the waiters approached we asked them to please allow the man to stay.
They did and we had a lovely six nights of dining where the man got noticeably smarter every night.
At the end we realised that he was by the richest of us all...
It would have spoiled our pleasure to think that he was banished and he went out of his way to look after us all in fine style......we went to the theatre every night at his request, though we drew the straw at the night clubbing!  This was the only occasion when David came to watch the Rocky horror show with me!
Dress codes are I think mostly an anachronism today....so its going to be even harder to persuade  the congregation tomorrow that alls well in the Gospel reading!
But I shall give it my best shot!

Phone systems?

Our old phone system was made up of two different manufacturers designs. My husbands, before I arrived was a Bang and Olufsen set which was very stylish indeed. ( I told you on a previous post that he had expensive taste )
I had added to this a BT system which played a different tune for each caller. Not stylish but often useful.
They have worked together mostly compatibly but of late they have fallen out. Neither system was ringing properly and if you were upstairs it was impossible to hear the phone ring downstairs and then a message would appear as if by magic.
So I sent for a new one to replace both old ones. It has four handsets!
This is not as indulgent as it sounds as we have a rambling old house in which the sitting room is upstairs. We have in the last years spent a great deal of time going up and down the stairs explaining why it was taking so long.
Naturally since installing this yesterday it has only rung once and this was an international call which was a recorded message starting "Hello sir".
I have left the B and O recording machine in place on the wall. We shall see if it works or not but it will leave a nasty blemish if I take it down.
Now that I've registered all four handsets it remains to be seen if it actually will do the job!
With my luck it's probably back to the drawing board! Upstairs or downstairs?


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The fruit of silence.

Last evening and still this morning a new affliction has visited me. I have now got hearing problems!
I am by no means deaf but all sound is being filtered through a large goldfish bowl placed over my head!
Everything familiar sounds high pitched....watching the TV last night was like watching badly manipulated mannequins squeaking at each other!
My husband who  really is  deaf   complains I have the sound too high on everything! I've told him to turn his hearing aid down! I am not quite sure what is happening but I do have a slight worry that in curing the eczema that was driving me crazy with itching I have now stopped scratching only to develop another allergic reaction!
In the middle of all this confusion there suddenly appeared on my desk a new prayer card.  Nothing mystical, the post came.
The fruit of Silence is Prayer
The fruit of Prayer is Faith
The fruit of Faith is Love and
The fruit of Love is Service.     Found in the front of a Hymn book in St Petersburg.

It stopped me complaining....I have always enjoyed silence.....some of my best moments come in silence and here was the endorsement.    I shall try to have a day of silence...punctuated by people squeaking at me!

Pies and broth do you good.

Cooking is easy.....it becomes difficult if you want it too....
When I was young I cooked chips with almost everything until I realised that there were other ways of getting your carbohydrate .  We didn't use pasta or rice or fancy things like that in the period after the war when things were still on ration. Anyone who had a bit of land grew vegetable or potatoes or kept chickens.... Handy people used to use either dogs or guns to bring back rabbits and my Gran's rabbit pie was the stuff of drooling day  dreams...together with her sheep's head broth!  Both of these delicacies took time and trouble to make but they were worth it!
Now we have food totally undreamed of back then , much of it is prepackaged, and I am still cooking. Nothing points out the difference in class than what we have grown used to in the last decade.
My first husband loved pies, steak and kidney and the wonderful Lancashire potato pie, not quite understood by southerners.  My second husband does not like pies, unless they have got mashed potato on top rather than pastry.
I do love to cook...and finding another man to cook for has been great! On my own I did not cook....I bought ready dinners and left most of them even though they have improved no end.
My neighbours tell me that there is always a good smell coming from the house....and my husband brought up in a middle class household has got used to some of my peasant cooking.
Today, even with flu I am cooking....sausage and mash with onion gravy, very easy.  At one stage this would have had eyebrows raised but today he'll be very glad of it.
Mind , I am not yet ready to try the sheep's head broth!  

Crispin on speed.

It's very strange how when you are feeling below par physically your brain doesn't function too well either. I am very sluggish today which puts me on a par with my elderly dog. Crispin is now 14. He is a big dog, a golden retriever who maintains his dignity and beauty with admirable grace.
This morning I took my solitary stroll around our garden, a field now a garden which is at least 100 yards long. Some mornings he opts out of walking. He just watches my progress as I amble along.
This morning I found the cat from next door asleep under the larch. She looked at me and chose to ignore me.
Then Crispin arrived like a slightly wonky tank. Stopping to cock his leg up he was a long way from the cat when she spotted him.
She took off, a young animal, running was no problem.
Crispin followed. I expected a sudden collapse of stout party but no, he chased her the entire length of the garden.
Adrenaline is a wonderful thing. Is it available for humans without having to chase a cat? Because I really could use some right now.


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The Plague pit.

Yesterdays post about the building works reminded me of a time about 10 years ago when I was a worship leader and also the church secretary. Our vicar was part time. He arrived on Friday and went home on Monday morning....in his absence the day to day running of the parish was left to me.

One Friday morning I got a phone call from the vicarage.

"You'd better come and see this.” the vicar said..so off I went.

At the time we were renovating the back of the church and having a loo installed. In order to gain access to the sewer the village street was closed  whilst new drains were laid. Just by the back door of the church the workmen had made a grisly discovery.

"Look! " said the vicar pointing downwards with  theatrical gestures . “Just look!”

There was a square hole in the ground, dug out of rock and soil. Along the side of the pit were four skeletons. One was lying down, the other three were sitting up their backs against the rough wall.

The vicar was ringing his hands in horror until I reminded him that he was more used to death than most...having been a doctor for the vast bulk of his working life.

The first worry was that we had discovered some sort of ghastly murder but the truth became obvious. It was a plague pit . During the Black death people had taken themselves out of their village to save their loved ones from catching it and these people looked as if they had climbed into the pit and then died.

We decided that they should have a Christian burial but the thing that was exercising the vicar was that on Sunday we had an open day, the entire village had been invited in to look at the church and its new building works. 

“What are we going to do with these bodies?” he asked. 

We found some black dustbin liners and he went down into the pit. Each body occupied one liner. He handed them up to me with horrid bone noises clinking. They would need investigation before they could be re buried so in the interim the problem was what to do with them.

In the end we put them in the robes cupboard in the vestry. 

On the open day I was put in charge of the vestry to repel boarders....

No one went in but the day after when I opened the cupboard they all rolled out onto the floor......but we were the only ones to witness it.  Eventually they were given Christian burial with a special little plaque to commemorate them!  Their long wait was over.  

Our dungeon.

We are having great fun with the re ordering of our churches here in the spot where the Cornish saints set up their first cells. There are two churches in this parish. The church of St Just is a well known beauty spot much photographed and sought after by brides. The church of St Mawes is a Victorian edifice and is up a great hill. You have to really want to get there because parking space is very limited.
Both churches have been tirelessly fund raising. Both needed to be updated and both are getting it after a massive year of fund raising.
We are having a new roof on the ancient parish church and work is due to begin soon. This is bringing a certain amount of anxiety to all who know and love it well but ways and means of keeping it up and running are being found to minimize the roof coming off and the organ being put in moth balls. I am answering questions all the time about Christenings, Carol services etc and the best I can usually say is that we are in the hands of the Spirit and doubtless She will sort us all out as we go.
The town church is causing even more excitement. Word has got about that we've found a dungeon. This is not quite true but we have found a small room filled with rubbish that has not seen day light in anyone's living memory! The door was locked, the key lost so eventually a decision was taken to get in by force.
It took them a week of lorries going up and down the hill to clear the room. Excitement mounted. Silver hoard ? Coal store? A body or bodies? No, in the end it is a windowless square room built into rock. We have no idea what it was built for or what it housed but it's very very dark in there!
It's about to become useful though. It's just about adequate for toilet facilities. Though how to dig through the rock to accommodate pipes is not yet clear.
The Holy Spirit has another job here when she's finished at the other one!


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The story Of Chicken Licken

Clearly not everyone had a grandad like mine who was an ace story teller so here is the story referred to in the last post!
Chicken Lickin was walking through the woods one day when a nut fell onto his back and rolled him to the ground. He got up and he ran. Soon he met Ducky Wooky  and  said
"A nut fell on my back and all the world is falling. Quick..let us run." So they ran and then they met Goosey Woosy. They said   "A nut fell on my back and all the world is falling.  Quick let us run"...So they ran and then they met Turkey Lurkey.
They said  to him...............you get the message. They went on collecting everyone they met until a great crowd of them were running and gathering up everyone they met....They told them all that the world was falling and so it appeared until someone decided to stop running and I can't remember who or what happened next!
My grandad embellished this story with dramatic gestures and knees drumming when he said "All the world is fallen"  I loved it as a child... but didn't realise then that it was a warning not to get carried away by the crowd....   It ended by him saying   "And so they stopped"  when he would swing me up in the air and hug me!

The day the nut fell.

Long before I became a tweeter or a friend on Facebook I played games on the net. I started with Backgammon and gradually over years I have made friends...most of them are Americans. They are real friends in that they tell me their troubles and we exchange cards at key moments of our lives and though we have never met I do count them as friends.
One of them was going to come over here this year. I was going to do a renewal of their wedding vows in St Just. I had it in my diary for two years.  But it never happened...
The explanation used the phrase...the day the nut fell...
Two more of my American friends have used the same phrase recently. Its a reference to a children's story when Chicken Lickin was walking through the forest and a nut fell on his back.  He started to run and soon he met Ducky Wocky and said.
"Come let us run for all the world is falling."
My grand father used to tell me the this story about 60 years ago,  about all the birds and animals rushing though the forest gathering more of them to run with them  because all the world was falling.
I am amazed that this simple story still  exists  throughout the world but it has became a metaphor for whats happening today in the economic climate of fear that is blighting lives.
The friend who was planning a trip here had a house on the beach in California....he had a piece of desert that he owned, he was not in fact short of a bob or two....but he is now...along with millions of others.
They were desperately in need of a Messiah, someone who would rescue them  from the predicament that had engulfed them...and so they voted in Obama with great trust and hope for the future.
Of course the poor man is not superman . Unable to pull them from the forest he is now vilified instead of loved.
The situation is tragic and it seems to be worse in the USA because it was better there to start with..
Who knows when we can all stop running?    Who knows if the world really is falling?
We can only pray that some sort of economic solutions can be found to stabilise us all again...before the rest of the world joins in the mad rush of Chicken Licken!
A new way of doing things seems possible but it takes men and women  of goodwill and faith to establish it.