Religious highs and religious lows

I heard on BBC radio news that the Pope has been to Palestine, visited the graffitied wall, and invited both Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas to Rome.  (I would of thought that Lazio versus Roma gave him enough grief.)   Which rather neatly ties in with this, long overdue, latest instalment.

Two weeks ago I was honoured to attend the first communion of the younger son of a very good friend, doubly honoured, in fact, as I had been to his baptism, in France several years ago.  It is a while since I have been to a Catholic church service and was surprised that it is not quite as high as I remember – the angelus bell was still rung but no thurible!  Ting-a-lings but no smokey handbags – and shaking hands with those around, all very happy-clappy; still, it was high enough without oxygen.  On the low church side, I have just returned from a weekend in deepest, darkest Cornwall where I went to  attend a friend’s marriage.  The ceremony was held in a Methodist chapel, which was about as low as some of the tin mines in the area.   Colour was provided by the dress code – charity shop chic (no-one to spend more than £20) and a hat was de rigeur.  Fortunately, on the frequent attempts that I have made to get to Chile, only to find myself in myriad other countries, I have been given hats as a’ thank you but go away’  present, so several to choose from. The winner was a jaunty little number from Dharamsala.  Not having kept totally abreast of changes within the various Christian sects I was surprised to see that High is not as high and Low is not as low – but I don’t see myself taking up that sort of belief again (?).

Since the last communique I have been rather boring.  Lots of Samaritan shifts, a bit of White Van Manning and a presentation at the festival branch training weekend.  That was a first.  Despite still quite enjoying practicing the old skills they had never been called upon in this setting – and there is a long and torturous reason for it coming about, as explained previously.  Following on from the urgent need to enhance the Naughty Boys team I had contacted the director of festival branch to act upon the clever suggestion of my friend Mo.  Here are c.100 people, of whom perhaps 80% will have to be discounted  (not entered into the equation rather than sold off cheaply) by reason of living too far away, but the other 20% could possibly be enticed out of their winter hibernation…..  And lo, success!  The presentation made and immediately eight people volunteered to be volunteers (again); huzzah.  Those of local knowledge and a quick eye may spot a deliberate mistake – but sod the accuracy, it gives a flavour of Naughty Boys.

What with travelling to near Truro for the wedding and back, fitting in shifts for both this week and next, needing to catch a ferry from Liverpool on Tuesday afternoon for the annual is it work or is it play time at the Isle of Man TT, time is of the essence (plus fitting in an urgent appointment at the dhobikhana),  stand by for more and better (as if that would be too difficult) with a background of leather, sweat and high octane fuel.  And the much needed full stop at the end of a long and convoluted sentence – but not of the sort being served at Naughty Boys.

Cast ne’er a clout til may is out

One of the nicer aspects of semi-hibernation is emerging in the springtime.  Warm, gentle breezes, longer evenings (which is one of those wonderfully inane statements, the evenings are the same length, they just have more daylight) and sunshine all give a feel better motivation to the world as encapsulated in south east England.   However, having been kidnapped as a baby and raised by bats, my liking for being awake at night means that I miss most of the above.

Since the eerily silent return ferry last week I have White Van Manned (once) and Samaritaned (several times).  Naughty Boys has been graced with my presence, also on more than one occasion.  During the Great Winter Adventure the team (of 2 1/2 people) was severely depleted; I was absent (which is stating the bleedin’ obvious), Sue, the other ‘1’ went playing Captain Cook and toured the Pacific area with her recently retired husband and the 1/2 had a heart attack, thus ensuring that our shoestring team made its impracticality obvious.  Hence the need for drastic action.

It had been decided on high that, as our team was not getting sufficient support from the one branch that it needed a wider hinterland.  To facilitate this Sue and I held a meeting for the hordes clamouring to join us – and three people attended.  Then we arranged a familiarisation trip, for a maximum of twelve people, and had fifteen almost immediate applications.  Twelve lucky winners had their details submitted to security for access – and eight of those twelve attended.  That was yesterday morning and two of the eight have already expressed a further interest.  As the whole security clearance and training can take up to six months (with a fair wind) the team should be bursting its britches by the autumn, or not….

Between all these good works I have also managed to strip more paint off the upperworks of the London base and even cover some of the bare metal with rustproofing paint.  That, and the strawberry plants on the roof  bursting into flower, led me into buying some Virginia Creeper plants.  They were on sale in Sainsbury’s and that nice Mr. Sainsbury had sent me some money off coupons, so they were even more attractive.  Currently they grace the roof beside the strawberries, but will go to the French hidey-hole on the next safari.  For those not of a bucolic nature, the title does bot refer to the month of May but to the may blossom – keep those thermals to hand boys and girls.  The forecast for the weekend  weather has suggested a return to less springlike conditions; it was lovely whilst it lasted.

A ferry trip without a blog entry!

Wednesday night is a good time to travel to the wee hidey-hole.  The roads to the coats are often traffic free, the ferry not overloaded with screaming schoolchildren, and a gentle drive takes me to the cottage to open shutters and turn on services whilst still having time to go to a local street market.  Still the local, jovial baker is not there; I presume he will not be back – but the bar is, and so my post-shopping coffee is safe.  However, the ferry costs more at night, so this time I wandered over on the afternoon crossing.  By the time I arrived out side the cottage I was tired and cold so, the joys of driving a camper, I just crawled into a sleeping bag in the back and did all those annoying little jobs in the morning before going to market.

One of the random articles in the van was a washing machine, the old one having finally expired – when I acquired it, in excess of ten years ago, the Truffle-Major had rescued it from oblivion and resuscitated it, so it owed me little.  I swapped them over, took the old one to the council tip – and found that the newer one did not work.  Despite my best efforts it was not going to work – so it now resides back at the Truffle-Major’s awaiting his tender touch.

The week was beginning to develop as a major triumph for the Committee of  Pomposity Pricking and Re-Arranging Wayward Thoughts.  On Thursday afternoon I got half way to the tip before I remembered that it was shut on Thursday afternoon.  On Friday morning, when it was open, I successfully managed to send it on its way.  As I was out and about on Thursday afternoon (with a redundant washing machine in the back of the van), I went looking for some of the bits and pieces I would need for completing some of the outstanding jobs.  Stopping for a coffee at O’Shannon’s, the faux Irish bar owned by a rugby-mad chappie, I was greeted by him with his usual French salutation and the question, “is there football on this evening?”   It seems the low esteem in which I am held crosses international boundaries.

Friday was, fortunately as it turned out, a bright, warm, sunny day.  An ideal day for grass-cutting and, as luck would have it, I had bought a brand new, shiny sharp blade for the brush cutter.  Less fortunately, although I managed to get the old one loose I could not stop the whole assembly turning to totally release it.  I tried various bodged up ways and was getting nowhere, when Charles and Lucien arrived.  Lucien remarked that he had one the same and there is a small hole beside the nut which takes something to hold it all tight and Charles just said, “nail”.  A nail worked perfectly, the new blade replaced the blunt old one and the grass was cut – enough grass to completely fill the Dalek-like composter.  As I was putting everything away I looked in the bag of brush-cutter bits and found the little tommy-bar which fits in the hole to jam the thing up.  But Lucien had invited me (and Charles, who is currently on his own as Daff has a holiday in the UK) to dinner with him and Anita on Saturday night.

After a trip into the loft to examine the pipe-work for the water heater I took my enormous French-English-French dictionary and went to the plumbers’ merchants – to find out that they don’t sell the type of heater that I want to install.  That committee was in full swing – the toilet cistern decided to start leaking then, as I was fixing that, it decided to also not allow the water to fill up (which was not the way I wanted to stop it leaking).

From then it started to rain and didn’t stop until I was back in the UK.  I did manage to watch TMA on Monday night – it was a slightly turgid game but Arsenal won 3-0.  Again the van proved its worth; instead of sleeping for a couple of hours and then driving through the early morning I left at 12.30, cruised up to Ouistreham, and again crawled into the sleeping bag in the back.  As a friend and her partner should be the next people to sleep there it saved me getting up even earlier than usual to strip the bed; very definitely a good thing.

Not only the outrun without a blether on the blog, but also the journey back.  I can almost hear the sigh of relief.