They're Back

Planet Arachnia is sending out missionaries again.

I suppose 'they' could have been lurking here in dark corners for a while but I suspect this is a new team sent to raise hair on necks.

A couple of days ago reaching for the hand towel in the kitchen I just managed in time to spot a large thick-legged member of the species squatting in all its ghastly leggy blackness waiting for my unsuspecting fingers, with an evil glint in its eye.

Opening the back door I shook the towel out into the garden and saw it scuttle off at speed.

The usual feeling of panic subsided slowly and I gradually lowered my guard and began to move around the house more naturally again.

Then last evening/night I was about to go to bed when I saw a suspicious movement against the skirting board of the office.

Reaching for the waste-paper bin I grabbed my long-handled feather duster and advanced on the enemy which suddenly shot behind the bookcase.  With a "damn you stay there" I poked at the edge of the bookcase, to no avail.

It appears to have vanished - but - I know better.    It is just waiting for me to drop my guard again and out it will come

What instinct is it that prompts these horrible creatures to choose the worst possible moment to 'drop' in?  How do they know we are just relaxing and ready for bed, or settling comfortably to read and how much does it amuse them to know the fear and agitation they  cause in cowardly hearts like mine?

This is only the beginning of the season.   HELP.

Time to take it easy

What a lovely idea.

The prospect of taking life at a slower pace is a very appealing one, but not the same in practice as in prospect.

For the past (almost) seven years I have been trying to fill my every  waking minute with activities.

The alternative seemed to be  to sit and examine my navel or stare at the walls and try to discover the meaning of life.  So, I sought activity, busyness, occupation to the extent that I now find myself longing for a day off.

This is a "normal" week.  Sunday  leave the house at 9.00 am for St Mary's,  Back home usually about 12.00 noon.  Monday Tuesday and Wednesday leave the house at 9.00 back about 1.30pm
Thursday shop or do household chores , Friday am same as Thursday but choir practice from 7 to 8.30 ish (out of the house at 6.30 back at 9.00pm
Saturday unless there are activities at St Mary's or in the Close household chores, paper-work etc.

But, wonder of wonders I now have a cleaner who does 2 hours every Monday, and from the 26th May I will have a gardener for a couple of hours,

The huge relief I feel at finally getting some help is perhaps a reflection of the build-up of stress I have been experiencing as my house became gradually grubbier and my garden turned into a weedy jungle.

Despite my bravado and apparent "I don't care what it looks like" attitude, I have been feeling slowly more and more aware that having someone in for coffee or a chat was beginning to feel embarrassing
as the general scruffiness of my surroundings grew daily worse.

Hopefully in a few weeks I will once again feel happy to have unexpected visitors and who knows may even be proud of the garden again.

First steps taken.

Quality or Quantity?

Yesterday, or rather evening, we at St. M's celebrated Ascension Day.

Services on a weekday evening are generally poorly attended, but I think it's the first one we've ever held in the Chancel.

On one side sat the congregation and the servers, and on the other the 'choir', or the seven of us who had turned up.

The organist sat at the keyboard and the Rector on the Altar steps.

fifteen of us in all.

While some of us were muttering sadly that it was hardly worth turning up, our lovely choir-mistress/musical director remarked quietly that it was not a concert but an act of worship.

Viewed in that light it was a lovely intimate and very personal little service and we all left at the end feeling lighter-hearted than we were on arrival.

The fact that the anthem was one I didn't like, and the fact that I had the 2nd reading had made me a bit nervous and uneasy, so the short but good sermon and the close atmosphere had a mood-changing affect which I very seldom experience.

Sometimes the 'message' gets lost in a big busy well attended service where quantity rules.

This time we had quality, and very good it was too.

Deo Gracias.