The day dawned yesterday and it seemed dull and gloomy to boot. According to the weather forecasts, the day should be quite bright and sunny but we have not got off to a very auspicious start. We had a flurry of last minute preparations to ensure that we had some ‘bidding prayers’ which are also known as prayers of intercession or universal prayers, are a form of prayer where a leader or minister invites the congregation to pray for specific needs and intentions. They are often used in liturgical services, such as the Catholic Mass, and engage the community in a shared prayer experience. I need not have panicked, though, because these had already been written and are to be passed onto a friend of a friend who often reads the bidding prayers at church in our normal Saturday service. In any event, I discovered the ’10 most used bidding prayers used in Catholic funerals’so I have downloaded these as a backup in case anything goes awry tomorrow and adapted them accordingly by inserting Meg’s name. This is all ‘belt and braces’ stuff but it will make me feel a little more reassured against things going wrong. Our domestic help is due to call around today and she is very kindly making sure that I have a freshly laundered and ironed shirt and the appropriate black tie. Incidentally, I have no strong feelings about people wearing black for a funeral and if some want to turn up in their every day clothes, this is fine by me. Our domestic help is going to wear Meg’s favourite colour as a mark of respect and this gesture is of course appreciated. Our domestic help called around yesterday one earlier than usual as Wednesday will be taken up with the funeral rites. After an extended chat with her and with my son who had called round, my son gave me a lift down into town and there I want to visit Wetherspoons. Rather unusually, none of my usual Tuesday companions were there although last Saturday they did indicate that they might have other commitments this week. As I made my way up the hill, having collected my newspaper, I received a most welcome phone call from my Irish friend inviting in for coffee. I was delighted to see my friend because after the operation he had last week, he had experienced two really rough nights of discomfort which were so severe they phoned the hospital where the operation had been performed for advice. But I was delighted to receive the news that after this setback, my friend seemed set to be set for recovery. I took pleasure in showing them the website where I had posted the ‘classic images’ I had discovered of Meg taken when she was in her early 30’s and before afflictions started to strike her- one photograph in particular is so good I may have it blown up and made into a more permanent display. I stayed with our friends for about half an hour after which I came home, changed into my Pilates jogging trousers and my son ran me down the hill for my Pilates class. This was full of laughter and good humour as it often is after which my son very kindly collected me to bring me home. I would normally have used the car but, of course, it has been taken back by Motability so I am having to get used to a car-less experience for a few weeks. After I got home, I lunched on some mackerel which I had on a slice of rye bread enhanced by some beetroot and tomato and this was certainly filling enough for a main midday meal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After lunch, the weather had brightened up a fair deal so I took the opportunity to cut the grass at the front of the house. This used to be quite difficult when I had do one half of a cut and then rush inside to see that Meg was OK but now I cut it one way, reward myself with a chocolate ice-cream and then cut the grass in a transverse direction. Whilst I still had the car, I had taken the opportunity during the last few years to get a gallon of premium petrol to which I add some fuel stabiliser to counteract the effect of the water absorbing properties of ethanol which is added to the normal i.e. non-premium petrol these days. Then I permitted myself a quick tea of some ice-cream and then settled down to watch the England-Senegal football game, about which more later. At some time during the first half, the doorbell rang and it was my wonderful Welsh neighbour who came round with a bottle of amontillado sherry to perform a celebratory toast for Meg. Now my neighbour is a really good neighbour and is always ‘watching out for me’ and occasionally brings me food from the garden centre establishment where she works. Well, my neighbour and I have a lot to chat over with each other but have not had much opportunity since I have been so preoccupied with looking after Meg. But now, I suspect that we are going to see a lot more of each other which bodes very well for the immediate future, particularly as we both intend to stay here for several years. My neighbour has seen me caring for Meg over the years and gradually getting more and more worn down in the process but is not unhappy that Meg died peacefully at home and that my own health has not been irrevocably ruined whilst caring for her. Our neighbour is insistent that she wants to come to the crematorium with us tomorrow and I am sure will be a massive support of support and comfort to me in the few months and years ahead. Now to return to the football match, which I started watching but abandoned when my neighbour called round. After she had left, I looked at the TV and Senegal had beaten England 3-1 which is the first time that the England team have been beaten by an African team. England had previously struggled with to a 1-0 win over the lowly Andorra and so the performance of the English team over the last two games is adjudged to be absolutely dire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The day dawned yesterday and it seemed dull and gloomy to boot. According to the weather forecasts, the day should be quite bright and sunny but we have not got off to a very auspicious start. We had a flurry of last minute preparations to ensure that we had some ‘bidding prayers’ which are also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7446,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7445\/revisions\/7446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}