This Week

Hello, how was your week?

Mine has been a nice mix of work and other stuff.

It started with the Men’s Annual Croquet Cup, which is held every year in our garden. Husband is very keen on croquet, and I absolutely refuse to ever play, because it’s a horrid nasty game involving hand-eye co-ordination (which I don’t posses) and an evil temperament (which I do posses, but try to keep under control). When, in the past, I did play, it was always my ball that Husband sent spinning off into the bushes. So now he has to organise a church event, and get lots of blokes round to play. I think it went okay, I just had to provide drinks and snacks and keep out the way. The prize is a big ugly rubber-glove mould, which Husband found in a shop in NY. No-one wants to win it, so it is a game of skill, as they all try to be good enough to reach the last post, but then fluff those final shots so someone else has to take home the ugly prize.

I’ve also spent lots of time cooking fruit. Harvest is an extravagant season, and I feel uncomfortable leaving plums and apples to rot on the trees, but they do all ripen at the same time. So it takes hours of picking, and sorting, and preparing fruit, ready for the freezer. My fingers are now stained brown, and I don’t want to see another plum.

I’ve also had a few tomatoes, but my tomato plants haven’t done very well this year, because the cats like to sleep on them. (No idea why.)

I didn’t have my Chinese lesson this week, because we can’t find our teacher. Perhaps she’s done a runner to escape our terrible accents.

On Thursday I was invited to speak at the Cameo Club (an afternoon group run by one of the local churches for the over-sixties.) I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. It was held in their church, and I had assumed everyone would sit round in a circle (which is usually what I find when I speak to small groups or book-groups). But I arrived to find them in rows, facing a lectern and microphone. A bit scary.

I also wasn’t quite sure what to talk about (I have three talks really, one about books, one about the slums of India, and one about me having a brain tumour and becoming an author.) I chose the me/brain/author one, as I thought it shows that God can use us, however much our body has gone to pot, which might be appropriate for an older audience.

I never manage to actually say what I’ve planned to say when I do these talks. I pray beforehand, asking God for a ‘message’ to say. Then I plan a talk, and write a few notes (which I usually can’t find when I arrive). Today, I did manage to arrive, on time, with notes, but then at the end, I glanced at them and I hadn’t said anything I had planned to say. I think this shows I’m not very good at listening to God. The day I manage to actually give the talk I feel he wants me to say, I will know I have got better at listening. However, I do think, because I try to listen, he might use me anyway. Perhaps (hopefully) someone there heard something helpful. I did have some nice chats afterwards, anyway.

I did have bit of a ‘spooky’ God experience this week (which shows he listens to me, even if I am a bad listener – because on the way to Lunch Club I had been thinking that sometimes, it’s hard to believe in God when life is just ticking away nicely) Anyway, when I arrived in the kitchen, the oven had been set to ‘automatic’, which means it won’t heat up. (Not sure if this was due to a power-cut earlier in the day, due to said oven being cleaned during summer break, or if some annoying individual had fiddled with it.) No one could remember how to ‘unset’ the automatic setting. I fiddled with various buttons for about 10 minutes. Then DP- who can usually mend anything tried. Then I tried again. Then we gave up, and decided dinner would have to fit into the other two cookers. We always have a prayer time, so when the team had arrived, we left the kitchen, and prayed – during which I mentioned unhelpful cooker (not expecting anything to change). We went straight from prayer back to kitchen, I pressed the same buttons on the oven I’d already pressed and – tada – oven came on! I have no idea if it had warmed up and dried out, so now worked, or if it has an intermittent fault which corrected itself, or if we witnessed a miracle. The cooker worked. And given the timing, the me saying I was feeling a bit like I never ‘saw’ God anymore, for me it is a miracle anyway.

The rest of my week, has been spent rewriting Clara. I left it for a few months after writing the first draft, and now am rereading it, and deciding what I need to change. When I’ve done that I will send it off to my editor (who usually makes me rewrite even more). So far, it’s going well. I think it’s the best book I’ve written so far – certainly it’s the most powerful. But it’s hard to judge your own work, so we’ll see. You can tell me next year, when it’s finally published.

So, a nice ordinary week for me. Hope your week went well too.

Take care,
Anne x

PS. I found another sunflower growing in the sweetcorn field.

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anneethompson.com

xxx

Bees, Builders and Babies……

Posted by anneethompson

Hi, how was your week?
Now, could you let these babies die? I decided that I could. The mother duck had nested in a particularly hard place to get to, she is not an especially pretty duck, and I have 3 other nests being sat on – I don’t need more ducks. I decided I would, absolutely, let them take their chances. If the mother couldn’t protect them, I would not interfere. Definitely. Except, of course, when I found 3 abandoned ducklings left in the nest, and 2 more frantic on the pond looking for their mother, and another 2 desperately trying to keep up with her as she climbed over tree stumps while the crows circled and the cats moved closer…..well, it was hard to not get involved…. After crawling through hedges and brambles and wading through muddy water, I need a cup of tea. Fraught mother is safely in a cage with 7 ugly ducklings. The mother is completely ungrateful, and makes a sort of hissing noise through her nose whenever I go near. But she is looking after them now, which is a relief as I don’t have to bother with heat lamps.

The bees have decided to nest in the cavity wall, right next to a door. They are surprisingly scary when you want to use the door. They go and in and out of an air-brick, which leads to a grill into the larder (keeps the food cold). My understanding is that we are not meant to kill bees (despite their scariness) and so we are trying to persuade them to move house. I have been playing music to them, via the grill in the larder (Radio Kent, at full full volume – it would make me want to move out). Dog unimpressed. Bees refusing to move.

Not sure if you can see fuzzy bees waiting outside for queen to emerge.

As I write this, we also have builders here. Can life get more fun? They arrived at 7:50 this morning, van loads of them. They’re building some shelves, replacing a shower screen and tiles, and putting in an extractor fan – I was expecting one bloke (husband organised this, not me – I was completely happy with a slightly dangerous shower door and having to open a window afterwards.) They are now everywhere, they emerge from unexpected places. And leave doors open. All of them. Why is it necessary for the front door to be wide open at all times, even while they’re in the loft, and the bathroom, and bringing mugs back to the kitchen, and eating sandwiches in the garden. The only one who seems to be enjoying them is the dog (so I suspect she may have shared the sandwiches). To be fair, they are doing their best. It is not, I suppose, possible to drill and saw quietly. They also put down dust sheets to protect the carpet when they arrived (though I have a sneaky suspicion that when they leave I will have all the dust from the previous jobs on my carpets – they do not look like they get put in the washing machine overly often.) I do hope they finish soon and aren’t here for days on end. Otherwise I too might start hissing through my nose….

Hope you have a good week.
Take care,
Anne x

xxxx

If we can’t see you, you don’t exist.

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There seem to be sunflowers growing in the corn field…..!

xxx

You can’t always trust what you read…….which is scary.

Posted by anneethompson

Several months ago, a friend recommended a book: Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth Bailey. It sounded interesting, so I bought it, read it, loved it (many thanks Rev Hatfield). I have since devoured all Kenneth E Bailey’s other books, and was disappointed to learn he has died recently, so won’t be writing any more.

The books are interesting because Mr Bailey is a clever man. He has a knowledge of both middle Eastern culture, and also the languages the Bible was written in. He takes a passage, one that anyone who reads the Bible knows well, and puts in into context. He shows how people of Bible times would have responded to the things said and done, what the language is likely to mean, why things have been translated as they have.

So, take for example, the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, who Jesus asks for a drink. I already knew that Jews and Samaritans were enemies, and that a man speaking to an unknown woman was unusual, but the book explains so much more. It points out the flirtatious nature of the woman’s initial words to Jesus, how she was assuming he wanted something more than water! It also shows how she tried to misdirect the conversation, to move it away from a personal discussion about her own faith. All very interesting.

My Bailey also spends a lot of time showing how words have been translated. He very often challenges why particular words have been used in the English translation, why passages have been broken up into certain chapters. He points out that sometimes whole meanings have changed because the end of one chapter has been placed at the beginning of the next one, which makes the reader assume it is part of something else. I’m not sure if I’m explaining this properly – but unless I copy vast chunks of his text (which will make this very long) I need to just give you an overview. Really, you need to read some of his books for yourself.

Now, the thing that has caused me a problem, is when Kenneth Bailey looks at particular translations. Why Luke would have used a certain word, and whether the translation is reliable. It is fascinating, especially if you speak another language, so have a feel for how direct translations are rarely possible between languages with different roots. (If you are someone who believes you can put a phrase into the Biblical language equivalent of ‘Google Translate’ and come up with a phrase you can trust, this article is not aimed at you!) However, it has left me with a slight insecurity. The whole church practice of taking a text – one verse that explains an ethos – seems very flawed when you realise how unreliable our translations are. How much can we trust what we read in the Bible?

There is great danger in thinking along these lines. Although the Bible never claims to be infallible – Christians do NOT claim that it was dictated word for word (which some other religions claim about their holy books) – it is what we rely on to learn about God. The Bible claims to be the word of God, to point the way to God, to explain something of the character of God. It should not therefore be dismissed as unreliable. Except, our translations ARE unreliable. As you read what Bailey writes, you realise that to take individual verses literally is actually a bit dodgy. It can give a very skewed idea about what Jesus taught, about how we should view God, about how the church should be functioning.

What then is the solution? I do believe the Bible is an important way that God teaches us. I do believe we can learn the character of God within the pages of the Bible, that it guides and shapes us. I am just not sure any more that we should take snippets and be confident that “This says such and such, therefore, we must behave in this way.” I’m sure there are people who will label me as ‘liberal’, who will dismiss what I am saying as ‘diluted Christianity’. But actually, I am simply one person who is trying to discover who God is. I now believe, that to take individual verses as ‘proof’ of something is dangerous. We might be heading off in the wrong direction. I believe that the only reliable way to use the Bible is to read LOTS of it. To look at individual passages in the light of all the others. That the whole Bible will give us a taste of the essence of God, and that will lead us into the right choices. But to base any action on a single verse is foolish. We should not be ignoring certain parts of the Bible, even the difficult boring bits, they were put there for a reason. They all work together to give us an overview, an understanding, of God.

Take for example the story of Jesus allowing the children to approach him, when he took them onto his knee and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”
I have heard many sermons use this as a text. We are urged to come to God trustingly, openly, simply. Which might be right. But do read what else has been written guys, don’t just take that snippet. Children have lots of attributes: They are very selfish. They don’t plan ahead (“I need the toilet NOW”). They will eat sweets until they are sick. They believe in everything that looks true, including monsters and talking teddies. Are we meant to approach God like this? With no forward planning? No questioning? No regard for others beyond our own immediate comfort? I don’t think so. To know what was meant, you need an understanding of the whole.

Or look at the passage where women are told to “not speak” during church services because it is “shameful”. Yet according to scholars, “speak” is better translated as “chatter” and the “shame” is like, “a shame if I don’t do that”, a sort of “not quite proper” rather than a strong condemnation. Yet many English churches have used this passage to stop women preaching, ignoring the places where Paul refers to women prophets and female leaders in the early church.

When I discussed this at home, it was pointed out that some people like to keep things simple. They like to take things at face value, they would feel I was over complicating things. The trouble is, it is because people have taken things at face value, have used snippets of the Bible to set their direction, that Christians have done some terrible things. Wars, murder, oppression, all done with the backing of a few verses from the Bible, all justified as “God’s Will” because of things written in the Bible. If we study the whole Bible, learn the character of God, and use that as our guide, then I feel this is much more reliable. We are working with a translation people, written thousands of years ago and transcribed millions of times. YES it points the way to God. NO, each and every word cannot and should not, be relied upon. The whole “God won’t let us misinterpret his will” argument is rubbish too – try living in Henry VIII times. Which is a bit scary because it means that to understand God requires effort. To live as God intends us to live, whatever our age, means we have to work hard. We cannot simply clutch at a few random verses and announce we’ve “got it”.

Knowing God takes time. Perhaps a whole life time. Perhaps that is the point.

xxx

Thank you for reading.

anneethompson.com

xxx

One of those days…..

Posted by anneethompson

The alarm screamed in her ear and she reached out a tired hand to bang the top. Silence. One eye opened. 7:30am. Eye shut. Two minutes of pure warm comfort, then heave back the covers, legs swung out, slippers on, day started.

Jayne didn’t like mornings. Nor did she like people who spoke during them. She wasn’t quite sure how she had managed to be married to someone who woke up cheerful and noisy. Sometimes, she wondered if she wanted to remain married, and how long the prison sentence would be for murder with intent. Steve was already getting dressed, having leaped from the bed with enthusiasm.

“Morning, my sleepy-headed vision of desire. How was your night?”

Jayne did not see the need to discuss the night. Nights were all the same. At least, they were now the children were old enough to realise she was scarier than any monster that might have crawled under their beds. Nights were for sleeping. And they were too short. They did not need discussing first thing every morning. She grunted.

“That good huh?” said Steve, undeterred. “So, what do you have planned for today?”

He always asked this. Much as Jayne hated waking up, she hated planning even more. Every morning, without fail, he asked what she planned to do. She didn’t want to think about what she planned to do. She wanted to drink tea and wake up slowly and then, when her body had adjusted to being awake, then she might let her mind think about what had to be done. She might look in the diary. She might, a little, plan. But not now. Never now. So why did he ask? She scowled at him and locked the bathroom door. On the other side, she could hear him whistling. The radio was turned on, and there were sounds of a child arriving. Happy conversation drifted through the door, until she blocked them out with the shower.

8am. Jayne emerged from the bathroom in time to kiss Steve goodbye. He was warm and smelt of toothpaste and deodorant. She smiled at him. She loved him more when he was leaving. She checked both children were dressing, and went downstairs to let Max into the garden and to pull boxes of cereal onto the table.

8.10am. Christopher arrived in the kitchen.
“You can’t wear red socks to school,” she told him.
“Can I have cocoa pops?” he said.
“Did you hear me?” said Jayne, pouring cereal. “You can’t wear red socks to school.”
Abigail arrived and slid next to Christopher. She reached for the cocoa pops and poured the last dregs into her bowl.
“Did you know the cat’s been sick?” she said.
Jayne didn’t know. Nor did she especially want to know. Now that she did know, she needed to do something about it. She left the table and found a cloth and spray and went to clean up the mess, just as the phone rang. She stood for two seconds, hoping it would stop ringing. It didn’t, so she put the cloth and spray on the floor and went to answer the telephone. It was Steve.
“Hello, Love of my life.”
“I’m late. What’s the matter?”
“Could you do me a huge favour? Sorry to be a pain.”
“If you tell me quickly. The cat’s been sick and we’re going to be late for school.”
“Right, sorry about that. Well, I left the passport application on the hall table, and it needs to be posted today or they might not be back in time for the holiday, what with the Christmas break and everything. Could you post them after you’ve done the school run? I’d like them to catch the first post if possible.”
Jayne glanced at the clock. 8.25 already. She wasn’t sure they would catch the first post anyway, but she agreed to try, and rang off. Christopher had spilt milk all over his jumper. Abigail had disappeared.
“Abigail, five minutes, then in the car,” she shouted towards the doorway. No answer, of course, though that did not mean Abigail hadn’t heard. Twelve year old girls took their power where they could get it.

She grabbed a cloth and began to wipe Christopher’s jumper. He wriggled, knocked her arm, which caught the box of Shreddies and sent them cascading across the floor towards where the abandoned cat sick cleaning equipment was waiting.
“Chris! I do not have time for this,” said Jayne, tension rising.
Christopher wriggled free and made for the stairs while she rummaged under the sink for the dustpan and brush. She was on her hands and knees when Abigail came back into the kitchen.
“I thought you said five minutes?” said Abigail, “And the cat sick is still there.”
“Yes, thanks for that,” said Jayne. “Perhaps you could start to get your brother into the car?”

8.35am. The cat sick had been cleaned up, the Shreddies swept into the bin, the children were belted in the car. Jayne grabbed her handbag, checked for her house keys and – stopped. Her house keys were missing. She glanced at the clock, 8.36. A slow tide of despair started to wash over her. They were never going to make it on time to school. Which meant she would for sure miss the post with the passports. And her whole day would be messed up.

She began to try to remember where her keys could be. They were always in her bag, she never moved them. Her brow creased as she tried to remember. Yesterday, what had she done yesterday? They had come home from school, she had opened the front door, put her keys back in her bag. In the evening, she had popped next door with a wrongly delivered letter for Mrs Cartwright. Had she taken her keys? Perhaps she had. She had worn her blue jacket.

Racing up the stairs, two at a time, she rushed to her room, flung open the wardrobe, rummaged through the clothes. Some fell from their hangers in protest but she left them where they lay, grabbed the blue jacket. One pocket was empty, the second one was heavy. Her keys. She pulled them out, nearly tripped on the clothes that now littered the floor, charged out the room, down the stairs, scooped up her bag and the passport letter, slammed the door shut behind her. It was very cold, and her breath came in smokey puffs as she hurried to the car. Both children were huddled in the back, their cheeks pink in the cold.

She caught a glimpse of red socks in the back as she got into the car. Too late now. Jayne put the key in the ignition, started the engine, then thumped the steering wheel. A van was reversing into the drive, the bright slogan of Parcelforce cheerfully emblazoned on the side. It was reversing very slowly. This happened sometimes, when Steve needed some papers delivered from work. Usually he warned her, but sometimes he forgot. Jayne sighed. They would need signing for. There was no way she could drive past the van in the driveway, and a conversation explaining she was late would probably take longer than just signing.
The driver was sorting through the paperwork as Jayne approached. He looked up and smiled through his window.

“Hello, do you have a delivery for me?” she asked, knowing the answer was obvious.
“Yes. I’m just finding the paperwork….”
“I’m in bit of a hurry, if I could just sign quickly?”
“Sure, no problem.” He oozed his belly passed the steering wheel and slid from his cab at the speed of a sloth. He walked to the back of the cab as if someone had pressed the slow motion button on a film recording. Jayne found she was tapping. Soon she would start to twitch.
“Ooops, need the keys,” he said with a smile.
Jayne didn’t slap him.
The driver sauntered back to the cab, reached inside, removed his keys from the ignition, returned to the back.
Jayne unclenched her teeth.
There was then a thorough sort through the contents of the back of the van. Parcels were moved, over-sized letters carefully placed back in crates, boxes pushed from one side to the other. At last he straightened, white package in hand.
“Here’s the one,” he said with a grin. He picked up his scanner and zapped the barcode. He tapped in some details, then asked Jayne her name. She signed an unrecognisable squiggle on the handheld device, and moved back towards her car.
Throwing the package on the seat next to her, Jayne started the engine once more.
“What was it?” asked Abigail.
“I don’t know, something for your father,” said Jayne. “Is this man going to move now? What’s he doing? Oh, I don’t believe it, he’s sorting out his delivery for the next place. Come on man, hurry up.”

She decided using the horn was too rude, and watched in agony as he closed the rear doors. Checked them. Adjusted his trousers over his belly. Walked, slowly, back to his cab. Used both hands to heave his bulk into the driver’s seat. Closed the door, but not properly. Opened the door, and closed it with a slam. Fiddled with the keys. Started the engine. At last, with a sigh of despair, the van began to inch down the driveway with Jayne close on its tail. She felt close to screaming.

They turned out of the driveway and drove at speed towards the junction. The road was white with frost, so she adjusted her speed, just in case. She didn’t want to skid.

Christopher was telling her about their class assembly. He was a frog and needed to wear a green jumper. Did he own a green jumper? Could they buy one? He began to sing the songs, slightly out of tune and with substituted words when he couldn’t remember the correct ones. Abigail sighed loudly and looked out the window. Jayne avoided the old lady crossing at the junction and drove as fast as she dared towards the roundabout. They were so late. Not that this meant the traffic had eased at all, they were now meeting all the cars leaving the schools.

At 9.20, both children were safely in school and Jayne was driving towards town. The car park nearest the post office filled up quickly in the mornings, but if she was quick, she might be lucky. She wasn’t, of course, it was that sort of day. As she drove along the High Street a lorry reversed from a turning, blocking the road. Its lights flashed and an automatic voice droned a warning while Jayne watched in frustration. There was no room to pass and she sat there, in an ever-growing queue of traffic, while the lorry manoeuvred onto the main street, turned, and chugged up the road.

She arrived at the car park just behind a white Ford Fiesta. Jayne could see curly grey hair behind the wheel, and knew this was going to be slow. She followed the car around the car park. It braked heavily at every corner, before indicating first one way, then the other, when it spotted a vacant space. The driver reversed slightly, turned towards the space, stopped, reversed again, made another approach. Jayne considered offering to help. Eventually it was safely in the space and she could continue to circle the now full car park. By the time she had driven to park in a side road, Jayne knew there was no way she was going to make the first post. She walked to the post office and stood in line, waiting to buy a stamp.

While she was waiting, Jayne pulled out her phone and scrolled through her diary. Tuesday, 9.30am, Me = dentist. She stared. How could she have forgotten? She checked the date on the calendar on the post office wall. Yep, today, half an hour ago. No way she would make that now. She found their number and phoned to apologise. Which meant she was still talking on the phone when she reached the front of the queue. Which meant she was juggling phone and bag and letter and purse as she bought the stamp. Which meant she didn’t notice the £20 that floated from her purse and into a corner of her bag.

As Jayne left the post office, she caught sight of Nicola. She hadn’t seen her for ages. She wasn’t feeling particularly sociable, but Nicola was already raising her arm and hurrying over.
“Hello Jayne, how are you? Haven’t seen you in ages!”

They stood for a moment and smiled, gave brief snippets of news, asked how the other was feeling. They didn’t really exchange any meaningful information, but they were friendly and cheerful and agreed to meet ‘another day’ for coffee. It was unlikely they ever would, which both women were aware of, but that’s what people said to each other. That was what was expected.

As soon as Jayne felt she could look at her watch without being rude, she exclaimed at the time and said she had “better be getting on.” The two women smiled, said their goodbyes and separated. As she hurried towards the supermarket, pulling out her shopping list, Jayne failed to notice the twenty pound note, which drifted from her bag and blew into a corner, underneath the bench next to the bus-stop.

The rest of Jayne’s day was taken up with shopping, cleaning, walking the dog. She collected the children from school and fed them solid fish fingers and baked beans, then bathed Christopher and helped Abigail with her homework.

By the time Steve came home, she was tired. He pushed his dinner around his plate and drank beer and told her about his day. Then they sat, side by side on the sofa. Steve put his arm around her, and she could feel the warmth of him through her sweater. She leant in close, glad her day was over, happy to have someone to tell. She told him her day had been awful, everything had gone wrong. Now she came to tell him about it, actually, only a few things in the morning had not gone to plan. But it had put the whole day off kilter. She felt as if the whole day had been a disaster. And she was tired. She didn’t mention the lost £20. He didn’t need to know about that, and she didn’t need the lecture.

After watching a boring documentary about animals, with Steve saying, “Wow, look at that Jayne,” every few minutes so she didn’t feel she could suggest they could turn to a different channel, Jayne decided she had had enough of the day.

She leant over and kissed his cheek, rough now with new stubble, and said she was having a bath and an early night.
As she poured pink liquid into the running water, watching bubbles foam beneath the tap, Jayne thought some more about her day. It hadn’t been too bad, she decided, peeling off her clothes and balancing them on the stool next to the heater. She slid under the water, her muscles relaxing as the hot water lapped over her. No, after the morning, it hadn’t been too bad. Mainly just boring, with too many jobs.

She rubbed herself with the towel. The morning had been tough though, all those things going wrong, one after the other. It was weird how some days were like that. She pulled on her pyjamas and went to bed. She could, she decided, understand how some people believed in their horoscopes, could understand why it seemed that life was fated, predestined by the position of the planets or something.

Jayne didn’t believe that. She believed in God, and that life was controlled by him, but she could, after a morning like today, definitely see other people’s point of view.

She leant back on the pillows and reached for her Bible. She read her Bible every night, a pre-going-to-sleep ritual left over from her childhood. She wasn’t sure what it achieved really, but it was what she did. She prayed too, and she wasn’t entirely sure, if she was honest, what that achieved either. But she liked to do it. She liked thinking that she was part of something bigger than herself, that perhaps in some way, God might decide to use her, that her life counted for more than just cat sick cleaning and school runs.
She thought about her day as she prayed, about all the things that had gone wrong during the morning.

“I’m not sure what all that was about God,” she said, “perhaps tomorrow could be a bit better please.”
Then she prayed. She told God all about the things she was worried about, asked him to keep her family safe and well, asked him to show her how she should be living, asked for a bit more leisure time with Steve. Then she finished, as she always did, “But not my will, but yours. Amen.” Because that was what she had been taught to pray. And because, if she thought about it (which she never did) she really did want God to be in charge. She really did believe he knew best. Even if this morning had been one disaster after the other…

Jayne turned off the light and snuggled into the pillows. She knew she had about half an hour before Steve came crashing into the room, rattling the change in his pocket, stomping across the carpet and asking if she was awake. Men were noisy. She closed her eyes and drifted to sleep.

Nicola was going to sleep too. She had enjoyed seeing Jayne, it had cheered her up. Nicola was struggling a bit at the moment, her life seemed a bit bleak and pointless. She thought back over their brief conversation, about how nice it had been, being with someone her own age for a moment. She had first met Jayne at church, but Nicola hadn’t attended the Sunday service for months now. The weeks just seemed too busy. Perhaps she should give it another try, she thought. Perhaps it was time to get sorted out, and hearing about God might help with that. It would give her something other than the family to think about anyway. For the first time in weeks, she was smiling when she went to sleep.

A woman called Lisa was not asleep however. She was on a bus, heading home. Lisa lived alone. One day, she would be a care worker and help to ease the last moments for many old people. But she didn’t know that yet. At the moment, she worked in a pub. She had left work late, only to find her purse had been stolen. She had no way to get home, there was no one to phone and ask for a lift, no way to pay for a taxi. She had started to walk home, back to her bedsit on the other side of town.

Another thing that Lisa didn’t know was that approaching her from the other side of town was Tony. Tony was an addict, in dire need of a fix and had no way to pay for it. His eyes were bouncing erratically from shop to road to tree. He was looking for a person who might have some money, someone who might provide a means to stop his discomfort. In his pocket was a knife, and he was feeling desperate enough to use it. As Lisa walked towards the post office from one direction, Tony was approaching from the other. As yet, they were a distance apart, they couldn’t even see each other. But in ten minutes, they would meet. It was unlikely that Lisa would survive the encounter.

However, they didn’t meet. As Lisa passed the post office, she noticed something flapping under the bench next to the post office. It was a twenty pound note. She picked it up and looked around. No one was around, and there were no nearby houses. She decided it was now hers. As she stood there, deciding, the bus swung round the corner. The yellow lights shone through the night, and Lisa thought about how tired she was and how much she wanted to be home. She stuck out her hand, climbed aboard, and used the £20 to pay for her fare. By the time Tony arrived at the post office, Lisa was safely gone.

Someone else who was not asleep was Mike. Mike couldn’t sleep because his face hurt. He had slipped that morning on the ice, and fallen, smack, right on his face. It was a hard fall, and had bruised his nose and blackened one eye and knocked out his front teeth. His tongue was feeling those teeth now, sore in his swollen gums, but replaced. They had been replaced by the local dentist. Mike had been driven there by his Mum, and luckily, there had been a cancellation and Mike had been ushered straight in to see the dentist. The dentist had put his teeth back, told him that they might survive the knock, that Mike was very lucky. He didn’t feel lucky. He felt bruised and sore. But he did hope he could keep his teeth.

One person who was neither asleep nor awake was Judith. Judith had died at 11am that morning. It was very unexpected, she had hardly felt ill, just a trace of indigestion after breakfast, a bit off-colour. In fact, she had even gone out that morning, driving herself into town. She had left home later than she’d planned, which meant she had not managed to reach the town car park before all the mothers arrived after the school drop off. As she had turned her white Fiesta into the car park, she had been sure, in fact, that there would be no spaces left.

But she had been very fortunate, and had taken what might have been the last vacant spot that morning. This meant she only had a very short walk to the shops, and had bought her milk and returned to the car in less than ten minutes. She then drove home again, arriving in her driveway at soon after 10am.

At which point, just as she swivelled around to position her car outside her front door, she had a massive heart attack. The car shot back, crashing into her front door. A neighbour heard the noise and rushed over. They saw what had happened and phoned for an ambulance, which arrived in good time but too late for Judith. It was time for Judith to die.

However, had she not found that parking space, she would have been forced to park in the road and then walk to the shop. This would have tired her. Not enough to start the heart attack while she was shopping, but enough for it to happen while she was driving. With the delay due to street parking and walking, Judith would have been passing the infant school at 10am. Which is exactly the time that Miss Mott was leaving the school, to walk her class to the church to practise for the carol concert. Had Judith been passing at that time, the time when her poor heart caused massive pain and her arm to lock in agony, she would have mounted the path where the children were walking.

Tommy and Clara and Samantha were currently asleep in their beds at home. Had Judith not found that last parking space, they would be lying in the morgue, while six of their friends would be lying injured in the hospital. But they weren’t. They were safe.

Of course, Jayne, as she lay sleeping in her own bed, did not know this. Nor did she know that had her morning gone completely to plan, her own children would also be in hospital.

At 8.55 that morning, Miles Brown had driven down his steep driveway rather too quickly. As he arrived at the junction with the main road, his heavy 4×4 skidded on the ice, causing him to lurch into the road without looking. But no one was there, because Jayne was delayed by the fat delivery man. So no one was hurt, and when Jayne did pass that spot, exactly 7 minutes later, Miles Brown was well on his way to work. So she delivered her children to school and then waited behind the reversing lorry, which delayed the car immediately behind her, which meant that Judith found a vacant parking space.

However, no one knew anything about anyone else. Everyone lived their own lives.

The following morning, when Jayne woke to the alarm and hurried to the bathroom to avoid her cheerful husband, she sorely hoped her day would be better than yesterday. She also remembered her prayer. She didn’t know why she prayed every night really, though she liked to try to include God, just a little bit, in her daily life. And you never knew, did you? Perhaps one day she would be part of his plan, part of something bigger than herself. Even if, she thought, as she stepped into the shower, even if, it had never happened yet.

The End.

xxxx

anneethompson.com

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Another week….

Posted by anneethompson

Have you read anything good lately? I’ve just started reading The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, am hooked already. It took me a few pages before I started to like it, I wouldn’t have picked it up in a bookshop, read the beginning and then bought it; but after a couple of chapters it’s pretty addictive. I started reading it because daughter recommended it. So often, I buy books because someone has said they are good. (I am really really hoping that everyone who has enjoyed reading my book has told their friends and family…..authors depend on other people to stimulate sales.)

The Girl on the Train is mainly about Rachel, a girl whose life has fallen apart. As we learn more about her, about what led to her divorce and drinking and apathy with life, it seems as if the main catalyst was not being able to have children. That is so sad. I don’t know if the author has children, but she describes in detail how it feels to be unable to have them. I have no idea how accurate it is, but one thing she describes is feelings of jealousy towards people who conceive easily, and how she will avoid places where there are likely to be young families, even leaving supermarkets if there are too many mothers and babies shopping. So sad.

One strange thing about reading The Girl on the Train, is that the author has a very similar writing style to my own. Even the genre is the same as Joanna, so I felt like I was reading my own work – I found I was proofreading rather than just enjoying the story! She even makes some of the same mistakes (so that she has a tendency to use ‘that’ when it isn’t that necessary.) Very strange. At the end of her book she lists all the people who have helped her, including her agent. Given that her book is so similar to Joanna, I am considering sending the manuscript to them for consideration.

This caused me some stress. I found the agent’s website and looked at their submission policy. As with all these agents, it just seems so rude! It lists all the things they want posted (not emailed) such as cover letter, synopsis, first few chapters. They then tell you to check carefully and send everything they have asked for, or they will recycle it without looking at it. Then they say that after they have received your (hours of) work, if they don’t want to represent you, they won’t bother to reply. My inclination is to not send them my book. If they won’t even be polite, why should they have the opportunity to make money from my hard work? Husband tells me this is silly, this is how business works, I will increase my sales through a mainstream publisher. I like the control of self-publishing. Difficult decision. Perhaps I will do both. Self-publishing is good/excellent/fun until it comes to the selling and advertising – then it gets very difficult.

Another stress point this week has been Milly. She was limping, and when I checked her paw, she had cut it badly. Now, I know about cuts (you learn lots of first aid when you have children.) I know that if you clean the wound, smear it with savlon, and cover it, it will heal – as long as you change the dressing every day. I figured the same would work with a cat. Cats however, are less helpful at staying still. Milly does this wriggling twisting manoeuvre whilst using her back legs to shred the skin from your arm. She got away from me and disappeared. Didn’t come near me for the next two days. When I finally caught her again the cut was worse, so I mortgaged the house and went to the vet. He examined her while she lay still and peaceful in my arms (think he must have hypnotised her.) He then dried the wound with a laser, gave her an antibiotic jab and told me to keep her inside for a few days. Sounds easy. But Milly is an outside cat, she lives in the workshop with her family. She does not want to be an inside cat.

I moved her into the utility room with Louise (the cranky old indoors cat – you can imagine how well that went.) I heaped heavy sacks of cat litter in front of the cat flap, and positioned a full watering can outside, with the spout against the flap so it couldn’t be pushed open. Escape proof – I thought. Milly and Louise were both unhappy, and Molly and Midge (other two outside cats) kept prowling around, trying to find Milly. (Mandy is also an outside cat, but not very clever – I don’t think she noticed.)

The following morning I went into the utility room. No cats. They had shredded the sacks of cat litter, so that was all over the floor. Someone had moved the watering can spout, so I think they had help from outside. Milly, Molly and Midge were all missing. Only Mandy was in the workshop, looking confused.

Eventually, I found the escapee, changed the method of catflap blocking and put her back inside. The paw was now filthy, so goodness knows if it will still heal properly. After a couple of days, she got used to the heat of the house and now seems quite contented. She curls up with the dog and sleeps on the sofa…..Am thinking I might have a problem moving her back outside….

Take care,
Anne x

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Thank you for reading.

Have you bought Hidden Faces yet? A good gift for someone who you want to make smile…

Hidden Faces, is available from bookshops and Amazon.

xxx

Being an Author and the Rest of Life

Posted by anneethompson

First of all, thank you for reading my writing each week. I now have over 100 followers, which is very exciting! Most are people who I don’t know, from several different countries. Every time I’m notified that I have a new follower, someone who is happy for all my blog posts to be emailed to them, it means something special. Thank you everyone. I will do my best for you.

Bit of a moan now. Why, when you buy a bowl of potpourri and place a candle artistically for the downstairs loo, do people think that is good place to fling empty toilet rolls? Why? I have been ‘discussing’ this with my family for over a year now.

Also, can anyone explain to me WHY some people are so against Pokemon? When I look at Facebook, I regularly see posts saying, “If you feel stupid, just remember there are people out there catching imaginary Pokemon”, or other even more caustic comments. Why do some people feel the need to be so scathing? Personally, I cannot see the attraction of walking round looking for little cartoon creatures. But if others want to, why not? Son will meet his cousin, they’ll pop in and say hello to my Mum, then walk round town for a while, looking for Pokemon and often seeing someone else doing the same thing, which leads to a brief chat. It seems like a harmless, fairly sociable activity. Not one that appeals to me, but certainly not one I feel the need to be nasty about. I like reading psychological thrillers. These are an arrangement of words describing people who have never existed in places that are imaginary. Some people like watching telly – this is usually adults being filmed pretending they are other people doing things that have never happened. Does it matter? Relaxing and having fun is part of being human. Seems sad to me that some people need to criticise those who do it differently.

I would, however, like to abuse the creators of Tamagotchis. Have you seen them? They are ‘virtual pets’. They are aimed at children, we bought one for daughter when she was young and we lived in the US, and she was desperate for a pet. The screen had an image of a kitten. She could use the little buttons to feed it, play with it, give it medicine, etc. Above the kitten was a score, it told her if the kitten was happy or playful, or healthy. Her kitten was never happy. Or playful. Or healthy. Its score was always low. So little daughter spent hours trying to improve it, pressing buttons, watching it constantly. The score continued to drop. Husband decided to intervene, confident that he could find the right combination to create a high score. He couldn’t. After a few days of plummeting score, the image changed to a kitten lying on its back with an angel floating above it. Daughter was distraught. To her, this was a real pet and she had failed it big time. We did our best to comfort her and put the toy in a cupboard. (We were meant to reset it and let her try again, but she was so upset, I wasn’t sure we could cope with a repeat performance!) Not the most successful gift we ever bought.

There is no Lunch Club during August but that makes a very long time without seeing people for some of the members, so we try to have at least one meeting during that time. This year there’s an afternoon tea. I have made forty large scones – hope it’s enough. Also hope my family don’t discover them before I get them to the church freezer.

It is very strange being “an author”. People come and talk to me. This is mostly nice, though sometimes is difficult if I’m in a rush. So many people have told me about someone they know who I ought to write a book about! It’s funny, it seems to be the main thing that people want to tell me. Although I’ve only written fiction, I am obviously seen as the person who can write the life story of their brother or neighbour or best friend. Maybe one day I will – lots of people have certainly lived amazing lives.

Have you read my book yet? Next week I’ll give you an update on what I have learned about how larger shops select books to sell. Why not buy a copy – it’s only £7:95! I bet you can’t read the first two pages and not smile….

Thank you for reading.

Publishing a Book – Part Five

Posted by anneethompson

So, rather momentous – my book arrived (cue small fanfare of trumpets…) Now, I needed to find some more places to sell it. I drove to Bluewater.

Bluewater is not my favourite place. It has way too many shops. I took son for moral support. He was keen to come due to the possibility of Pokemon being more available than in our country lane (hard not to be proud of them sometimes, isn’t it…) Anyway, there we were, standing outside WH Smiths, me wondering if it would be better to just have a coffee and go home, him concentrating on a Pikachu (no idea how you spell these things.)

I went into WH Smith first. I was told the person I needed to speak to was on holiday. But they were nice, no one shouted at me or told me I was an idiot. Feeling slightly braver, I went into Waterstones. I learned lots of information, the most important being that selling through big shops takes time and is expensive. I will cover what I discovered in future blogs.

I decided that I would first launch my book locally and online. The bookshop in the next town was happy to sell it. I would try to find another couple of small shops who would be willing to stock it, and also sell it on Amazon. This was not as easy as it sounds…

First, the maze that is Amazon. My overall feeling about Amazon is that the process is slow and confusing, like trying to join a secret society. It is also expensive – you pay for everything. We first (note the ‘we’, I decided fairly early that this was beyond me, so Husband rescued me. But I will pretend that I helped) explored the ‘fulfilled by Amazon’ option. This would mean our customers would pay less in postage, and I could go on holiday or be ill without worrying about posting book orders. However, it was far from easy. You could email and ask for help, and they would phone back and advise you. But each advisor only dealt with one area, so they could only answer specific questions.

We wanted to know where exactly we had to deliver the books – if it was Scotland, we might find a different option. This information is a secret. If I ever discover it, I will tell you. I even accosted a poor Amazon delivery man and asked him where the depot was that stored the goods. He told me, “Oh, we’re not allowed to give information like that, I would get into trouble.” The plot thickens.

It was taking ages, plus would only cover five countries in Europe, so we decided in the meantime we would become Amazon sellers and post the books ourselves. We then went online to add the book – only to discover it was already listed! There it was, Hidden Faces by Anne E. Thompson, published by The Cobweb Press, with the ISBN number and a price. It was also, strangely, listed as a ‘mystery/thriller’ (which it isn’t, it is contemporary fiction.) We had more phone calls, but no one at Amazon could explain who had listed my book. Eventually we learned that when you buy an ISBN number, it is automatically listed on certain websites. Some shops also list it (though they won’t sell it, because I do not yet have a trading agreement with a wholesaler.You can ‘buy’ it, and checkout, they will then check their suppliers and notify you that it’s unavailable. They will not deal directly with either authors or publishers. I know, I tried.)

We eventually managed to add a photo, price, and the correct description. Then, when it appeared on the Amazon website (after about an hour) it had deleted all the paragraph breaks. No idea why. Not easy to rectify this (you might notice other book descriptions with no paragraph breaks – there are many – do not blame the author.) I am trying to remedy this but not sure if it is possible. Please be understanding if you look at my book on Amazon….

Approaching local shops was also not without problems. I drove to East Grinstead, which is slightly beyond my comfort zone. The town was having some sort of fair, half the roads were shut and people were everywhere. I parked in a side road and walked to the bookshop. The owner was on holiday. I took his contact details and walked back through the fair – only to find my car was not in the side road I thought it was. It was hot, I was tired, coming had achieved nothing, and now I had lost the car. I thought about phoning home, but they tend to be unsympathetic when I lose the car. Bought an ice cream. Wandered around and eventually found car. Drove home, having not sold a single book.

My own town was also difficult. There is no bookshop – my town has mainly charity shops, supermarkets and hairdressers (everyone has nice hair in my town. And secondhand clothes.) I tried a few ‘gift’ type shops and some stationers. No luck. One stationers even told me that he wouldn’t take a couple of books on ‘sale or return’ because “it would just be another thing to think about”! Honestly! Here I was, a local author, with advertising in place, asking if they could take a couple of books. They would earn a few pounds on every book sold, and I would collect any unsold books. No wonder small businesses are failing. I felt rather cross with my town. Until I found a very nice man in the newsagents at the top of the High Street. The shop is one of those open all hours, family owned, tiny shops, selling mainly newspapers and alcohol. He was willing to help and said he would display five books and a poster. Nice man. I hope it brings him some extra business.

I also popped into my local Shell garage and the Waitrose in my town (you can’t say I wasn’t trying.) Both were surprisingly helpful, but said it needed to go through head office. This seems to be the story with all chains of shops – however willing the manager is, the final decision is with head office. I took contact details and will let you know what happens.

Book selling is dominating at the moment (my family are coping.) I am also managing to stop the big fox that prowls at night from eating anything, I am trying to teach two of the stupidest chickens in the world that they are NOT ducks, and I am remembering to feed and clean out all the animals (I probably include my sons in this description.)

The book saga will continue…

Thanks for reading. Take care.

Anne

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Hidden faces by Anne E. Thompson.

Available locally (!) and from Amazon:

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anneethompson.com

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Two Years…

Posted by anneethompson

Two years ago, July 2014, I had brain surgery. It was scary! It was also the end of lots of things. The end of a five year headache. The end of knowing I had a high chance of ‘sudden instant death’. The end of constant medical monitoring. The end of the brain tumour.

But not all good. It was also the end of being able to juggle several ideas all at once. The end of reliable memory. The end of any kind of mathematical ability. And, because the part dealing with anxiety was chopped through, the end of much of my confidence. The end, in fact, of me teaching.

I learned that, God still has a plan for us however broken we are. So yes, the end of teaching, but the beginning of writing. A blog grew into longer articles and finally, at last, a book. A real, solid, hope you enjoy it, book.

I hope you will read it, enjoy it, recommend it to a friend and buy one for your sister. Thank you. It means the world to me.

Hidden Faces is published by The Cobweb Press.

Available from Amazon:

One Little Life

Posted by anneethompson

We had rats. Anyone who has poultry and a pond has rats. If you also have several mild winters, you then have a rat problem. Mr Rat Catcher came with traps and poison, but we still had a rat problem. So, we decided to get cats.

We found some cats that had been born in a stable, not feral as they had been well cared for, but they were used to living outside. We bought two, Milly and Molly, brought them home, and put them in the garage. For three days, I didn’t see them, and wondered if they had escaped! Then I took the dog into the garage with me, and two tiny kittens tentatively appeared. They had been raised on a farm with German Shepherd dogs, and they recognised Kia as a friend. Gradually they learned to like us too. When they were bigger, they moved to their home in the workshop.

Two cats wasn’t really enough to cure the rat problem, so we didn’t spey Milly and Molly. After about eighteen months, both were pregnant. Between them, they gave birth to four live kittens. Both cats are tabbies. Their kittens were a mixture of silver tabby, smoke and black. They had clearly never read any of the parenting books about how to care for kittens, and regularly sat on window sills where the kittens couldn’t reach them. I had to check them frequently and reunite mothers and kittens so they could feed. They weren’t really keen on any of them. Apart from the black one.

Milly had given birth to the black kitten, but they both wanted him. So they would hide him. I would go into the garage and all the kittens would be mewing in a heap, the mothers would be sitting somewhere high, and the black kitten would be missing. I found him at the back of shelves, in empty boxes and behind gardening equipment. When I put him with the litter, Molly would try to steal him, ignoring her own kitten.

Eventually the kittens were weaned. I decided we had too many cats, so gave one kitten to a friend, put two kittens with the mothers to live in the workshop, and kept one kitten inside, as a house cat. I chose the black kitten (I wanted him too!) We called him Mungo.

Now, everyone thinks their pet is special, (and people without pets think they are slightly mad.) So I won’t bore you with details of how Mungo would ‘beg’, reaching up with his front paws when he wanted to be picked up. Or how he would chase a plastic egg for many hours. Or how he loved the dog and would dive bomb her paws when she was sleeping. Or how he regularly killed the kitchen towel. Or slept in a very ‘uncatlike’ manner, on his back, with all four legs outstretched, often in the dog’s bed. Or how he adopted Husband (“not a cat person”) and ran to meet him when he arrived home from work and sat on him all evening. But he was special to us, and we loved him.

Initially, the plan was to keep him inside, for him to be a house cat. Then one day he escaped. I found him outside, playing with his siblings. He looked so happy, it seemed cruel to keep him locked inside. But the traffic in the farm lane worried me. So we decided that at night, when there were very few cars (about 4 per hour) he could go outside. During the day, when the roads were busier, he would stay inside.

We soon had a routine going. Every evening, Midge, his brother, would loiter around the cat flap, waiting. When we went to bed, we would let Mungo into the utility room, so he could use the cat flap. Every morning, around 6am, when we let the dog out, Mungo would run in. His siblings often were with him, it was like they were saying ‘Bye’ to him when he came inside. He would then eat, drink, and follow us around, asking to be picked up. Then he would nap for most of the day.

Until the last day. Until the day when he didn’t come in when we let Kia into the garden. The day when a man knocked on the door at 7am, to ask if I had a black cat.

I rushed outside. Some landscapers had found him, on their way to work. They had parked their vans in the lane and were carrying him in a sling made from an old towel. There were about nine of them, young men in their green uniforms. It was so kind of them to bother. Sometimes people are nice.

We could see Mungo had, at least, a broken leg, so we rushed him to the vet. As we drove, he took my thumb into his mouth, like a child holding my hand. Then either pain or fear became intense, and he bit down, both sides, straight through my thumb. It hurt.

He spent all day at the vets. Apparently, the most dangerous thing for a cat is shock, so they kept him warm and sedated, planning to operate the following day. He died that evening.

It was a bizarre day. I ate four doughnuts and drank lots of coffee. Completely missed lunchtime, it was suddenly mid-afternoon. I had walked the dog and cleaned out the birds and was wishing we had something other than Mr Bump plasters in the house for my sore thumb. Felt weird, sometimes fine, sometimes contemplating losing all the other people and animals I care about. Everyone dies. It’s always horrible. There isn’t a way to protect yourself, not without being hard.

I wondered where God was in all this. The thing is, we aren’t protected from the rubbish in life. God helps us get through it, but we aren’t ‘owed’ by God, whatever our relationship with him. He isn’t a genie in a lamp, we cannot pray and ‘make’ God change things. Life is horrid sometimes. It hurts. It’s tough. We can only try to survive and recover from the hurt. But I do believe he cares. When we hurt, God hurts too. It doesn’t have to be lonely even if it is always hard. I did pray, but in a sort of wordless, lifting the sadness sort of way – a young child raising their arms to a parent sort of way.

In time, I will thank God that I had Mungo, even though a year was too short, his life was too little. But do I have the right to say that? Sometimes, when we are hurting, we feel the loss more than we ever felt the joy. Mungo was a cat. In a few days, life will be back on kilter. I will carry the loss of my father’s death for the rest of my life. However, I have no ‘rights’ here, I did not create any of the things that I have loved, I can feel pain, sadness, loss. But should I feel anger? Whilst it is a natural part of the grieving process, there comes a time when I should let that go. We have never been promised a pain free life, not here, not now.

If you have had a pet, I don’t need to explain the sorrow, the tears, the huge hole that he has left. My thumb was sore for days, but the pain was sort of helpful. It was something physical that recognised the pain I felt inside.

There is no happy ending here. Sometimes in real life there isn’t. I wish I had never let him outside at night. But then, I am glad that I did. He had such a happy little life. He climbed trees and played with his family and did everything that cats are designed to do. I know, eventually, I will think of him and smile. I will recognise that he gave us one year of lots of joy. But right now, I miss him. Thank you for reading.

xxxxx
You can follow my blog at : anneethompson.com

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If you are interested, you can read why I think prayer doesn’t work at:

Why I Think Prayer ‘Doesn’t Work’

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Letter to a Sister – Lunch Club

Posted by anneethompson

How was your week? I cooked at Lunch Club. Usually I make a syrup sponge, but I thought I’d try something different this week, so I used tinned pears instead of syrup and added some ginger to the sponge mixture. I was a bit worried about cooking tinned pears – they might have turned to mush in the oven. It was okay. I thought it was a bit lacking in taste, tinned pears are a bit bland, but it wasn’t horrible, which is the main thing. I might try marmalade next week.

I cannot tell you how much I dislike cooking dinners for large numbers of people. However, Lunch Club is something special, and I always come home happier than when I went, even though it’s also really hard work (as you know – I believe you told me that if you ever agree to help again I should shoot you!) This week the ‘kitchen team’ were mainly men, ranging in age from about 65 to almost 80. That says it all really!

Each week we produce a healthy meal for forty people, and they pay £3:50. Some weeks we are an efficient productive team. Other weeks I feel like I have wandered on to the set of a Dad’s Army film.

I am by far the most stressed member of the team. Maybe when you have lived through a war and survived, it seems less important if the potatoes don’t cook on time. I am also the bossiest. The kitchen is inspected regularly for hygiene, so we have check lists of things to do. I am always nagging people to wash their hands ( even if they have just washed them when they used the loo, they have to wash them again when they reenter the kitchen.) They now tell me whenever I see them, “Yes Anne, I washed my hands.”

Whoever is cooking buys the food, then arrives at the church early to start preparing. Gradually the rest of the team arrive, some by bus, some via ‘Dial-a-Ride’ and some walk or drive. Everyone is pleased to see each other, so it’s quite a social time. It’s also the time when we hear about ailments. The team are mostly not young, so it’s not coughs and colds – they will quite casually mention that they “had a minor stroke in the week” or “had bit of a heart attack so had to call an ambulance.” I am always amazed how they seem to take in their stride, to carry on with life as soon as they feel well enough.

They also laugh a lot. At some point, before the ‘oldies’ arrive (who are actually no older than the team some weeks) we have a quick prayer. This is always more enthusiastic when I am the cook (need all the help we can get!) When I got there this week, one of the team had rolled up his trousers to show some injury, which led to a general discussion of scars until I called them to order and suggested that we should get on with praying. Slightly worried as to where the conversation might lead. Like I said, I am the bossy one.

This week one of the church members popped in with his little boy. The oldies love to see children. They are, I have noticed, quite competitive with how many great-grandchildren they have. I can’t really chat to them when I’m cooking (too busy trying to not burn anything.) But when I’m not the actual cook, I love listening to them, they have so many tales about growing up during the war, living in a world that has changed so much.

I love how enthusiastic they still are, how they will arrive excited that dog-racing has started in the next town, or there’s a new club they can join, or even a new knitting pattern has arrived. Their obvious enjoyment of life makes me realise that growing old doesn’t have to be scary, there are still deep friendships and loud laughter. Especially laughter. Friday lunch times are always some of the happiest, and most exhausting, hours of my week.

Take care,
Love, Anne x

PS. Going on a trip to Poland. Never been there before.

Why not sign up to follow my blog? Then you won’t miss reading about my trip!

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Thank you for reading.

anneethompson.com

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