Yesterday, when I woke up in the morning, my back was giving me a twinge that I could have well done without. I could not think of anything that I had especially done except for the fact that I had stayed rather a long time in one position on the chair in my study whilst I had been writing an email and browsing the web. So took some Ibuprofin which I rarely take and had an early night in a bed well-warmed with the electric blanket and these little therapies seem to have done the trick. Nonetheless, I don’t want this to reoccur so I am hunting round inside the house for some cushions or back supports to try to ensure that this problem does not persist in the future. Getting the car washed yesterday was probably a little bit of therapeutic movement as well but I am noting that things like car washing activities and other outdoor jobs have to be done earlier and earlier as the nights are creeping in on us. I try and line up some interesting TV viewing between the hours of 7.00pm-9.00pm after which time I thinking about getting ready for bed. Last night, I saw a program on the origins of modern archaeology which was interesting enough and this was followed at 9.00pm on the successes of Margaret Thatcher in her early years. But the hagiography (which means an undue and uncritical biography) of Thatcher eventually overwhelmed me and I turned the TV off and drifted off to sleep to the strains of ClassicFM which was infinitely more relaxing. My Droitwich friend is due to return from holiday in South Africa next week after an extended holiday with family and relatives. We are exchanging texts and mutually wondering about how we can get through the dark days of autumn and winter until the days to start to lengthen again. The clocks go back in about ten days’ time when so called ‘Summer Time’ or ‘Daylight Saving Time’ comes to an end.
The peace process in Gaza is on a bit of a knife-edge. Hamas has handed over 9 of the promised 28 bodies but is saying that the remainder are buried under mountains of rubble and is asking for specialist equipment to attempt to ascertain the whereabouts of the bodies and then to retrieve them. Given that about 90% of the buildings in Gaza have been damaged if not completely flattened then hundreds and possible even thousands of bodies will be buried in the rubble. Then, of course, the Palestinians have to work out whether the body belonged to one of their own number or a Jewish hostage. There appears to about 19 more bodies to locate and I would be amazed if there was a successful search for half of this number – and the recovery attempts might take months to complete in any case. The Israelis are accusing Hamas of breaking the peace agreement and have responded by cutting the number of aid trucks coming to Gaza by about a half but then ceasefires during conflicts rarely go completely smoothly. I think the world is generally quite shocked about the scale of destruction in Gaza where the reconstruction costs may run into $70bn and will take years.
My son called around this morning and it is always good to touch base with him, as they say. I left for town fairly equally to attend my Tai Chi class where the nice and gentle class was taken by the daughter of our usual teacher. Then I had a quick coffee and piece of cake with my newly found ex-Bank manager friend before we both had to dash off for other engagements. In my case, it was to attend a funeral and ensured that I got there three quarters of an hour before the service started in order to secure a parking place for myself. The service was a traditional Catholic Mass and the church was practically full, as we expected that it would be. I personally found the service had several emotional moments in it as I was constantly and vividly reminded of Meg’s funeral which was about four months ago now. Then we repaired to a rather superior old mansion house which is now a restaurant centre but had plenty of space to to cater for weddings, funerals and other celebrations of the ‘rites de passage’ of life. I sat and ate my refreshments with several parishioners that I knew well by sight and our table was joined both by my Irish friends and also by the elder brother of our parishioner brother whose funeral it was. All in all, I had chats with people that I knew or to whom I was introduced by friendly fellow parishioners, nearly all of whom knew each other of course. There was a strong Irish contingent as part of the parish community and we exchanged stories of how ‘the Troubles’ as they are known in Ireland, both North and South, made its impact on the Irish community which was often the subject of intense surveillance on the part of the English security forces. Altogether, these activities took up much of the afternoon and the funeral party did not start to break away and drift away for home until 5.00am in the afternoon. Now, by an accident of timing, we are going to have a very similar social occasion in exactly one week’s time. We are going to have a formal parish induction of our new priest to be followed by a social event in a meeting room supplied by the local pub which is just across the way from the church. We had a similar function about four years ago on the occasion of the induction of our previous priest. But on this occasion, it will prove to a more satisfying event as I imagine that the age profile will so much younger than that encountered in a funeral setting. There other opportunities to meet with fellow parishioners and this is to attend the coffee morning event held after the services on a Sunday but I am a little reluctant to break up the pattern of attending on a Saturday evening which I have done over the years. Several years ago, I would never have anticipate that I would find myself part of a church community like this but in the months after Meg’s death, I have found the support of other members of the community both heartwarming and comforting.