I think I’ve had a good week. I have been out visiting, been writing, helping a friend with her words for the Murder Mystery that we’re doing, done a spot of yoga, met up with two out of three sons and their families, chatted to other son via WhatsApp and, most amazing of all – I finished the jigsaw!!
Honestly, it was the hardest jigsaw I have ever done. Enjoyable in a challenging way and a real sense of satisfaction at having completed it, however. I did wonder, at one point, whether I might abandon it, but Pete encouraged me not to give up, so I persevered. Boom! Made it!!
On the visiting front this week, I went to see our former vicar, Father Peter, and his wife Sandra, on Saturday. A really lovely visit. So relaxed and very, very enjoyable – we chatted and chatted, ate and drank really well and had a lovely walk through the town of Evesham, where they have retired. “I’ll drive,” I’d suggested to the girl who came with me. “No, I’ll drive,” she replied, “I’m a nervous passenger.” Oh. Hmm – it turns out I’m a nervous passenger, too!! Eek! We made it there and back in one piece though!
I did an afternoon of ‘Writing for Wellbeing’ on Sunday, which was smashing. It’s never about whether you can write well or ill; it’s just about writing what you feel in response to some stimulus, such as a quote, a picture or a phrase, to provoke you into thinking of good things. Rebecca F. Kuang said: “Writing is the closest we have to real magic. Writing is creating something out of nothing, it’s opening doors to other lands. Writing gives you powers to shape your own world.” She’s not wrong. It was a couple of hours of losing myself in a different world altogether. Food for thought.
Not only do I seem to to have (nearly) broken my writing block, but also my reading block. I used to love reading but, for many years now, I’ve hardly been able to start a book, let alone finish one. However, one or two friends have lent or bought me books that they’ve thought I’d enjoy – and I have read them. Fabulous. I’ve even started reading about Van Gogh. Yippee!! There’s hope yet.
On a totally different note, we used to kneel for prayers in church. No longer. We sit, heads bowed, instead. The kneelers, so carefully and lovingly worked by members of the congregation in memory of loved ones, lay abandoned in a side room. For momentous events, like Paul and Harriet’s wedding and Paul’s confirmation, we searched high and low for the one I had made in memory of my Dad – because kneeling is required in those services – but to no avail.
But there’s good news! The kneelers are to be binned and have been shifted into the back of the church. “Have a look through,” announced the church warden to those gathered in church last Sunday, “to find yours to take home, if you like.” Well, yes perlease, I thought……. so I had a rummage and found it. Marvellous and fond memories of the love that went into that piece of tapestry, The Star of Bethlehem, because, as most of you know, I hate sewing.
Mind you, now I look at it in the photo, it looks like a couple of fried eggs on toast, doesn’t it? Hehe!! I bet you can’t un-see that now, can you? God bless.
