Do we count our blessings?

St Bridget of Sweden.  Thursday 23rd July, 2020

I emailed a friend last night in Wiltshire. I knew her family had visited over the week end and I wanted to know how they were. She is German but has lived in England for over 50 years. Of late she has been having problems with her house. The boiler, the plumbing, the roof and now the windows have all needed attention. It has been so hard to get workmen and companies to come. Her large and beautiful garden has been her delight but arthritis and other ailments have meant she has needed help but of late none has been available. She has felt somewhat overwhelmed and isolated. She has been unable to go to the gym or aqua club and see friends and chat over coffee and exercise. No walks either as she has felt unwell. So very hard and worrying times.

In her reply to my email she told me it was her feast day. In the part of Germany where she was born the feast day is as important as the birth day of a person. So she has planned for the day a tea party in the garden. The weather is superb and she has made scones, has bought cream, has her own home made jams and she has baked two cakes and one with her own strawberries. The sandwiches have her cucumbers and tomatoes in them and eggs from her neighbour's free range hens and Guinea fowl. A veritable feast with tiered cake stand and lovely family bone china cups and plates. She has also chilled two bottles of champagne. She is celebrating her patron saint, her friends and the wonder of seeing people, laughing, talking and eating together. It sounds idyllic, like a past age of elegance and simplicity.

Then an email from another friend also in Wiltshire. Her health is precarious and she has been shielded and isolated for ages. She said she will be permitted to go out on 1st August. She tells me she is frightened and does not know what she will do except go very early to her local Waitrose and see, feel, smell and pick her own food and vegetables and bread. That, she says, is a rare and wonderful opportunity. As to going out to eat or whatever she is too fearful and anxious. She did not realise the luxury and freedom of her pre pandemic life.

So much has changed indeed. My 'outings' to the hospitals for my assessment and my actual operation seem to have been a sort of holiday. The change was as good as one, anyway. I do long for the sun, a tea party, a sponge cake, a meeting of friends, a chat and laugh and a shared breaking of bread. Local strawberries would be a joy. These are things I took for granted but now I realise are at last being appreciated. I hang on to the minute or two of sunshine, to the smell of my slow growing courgettes, to the busy bees and birds and to the Tay all of which have been so steady during his time.

What is the rock on which we build our lives, the foundation? Have we lost sight of the basics, of our priorities? Have we lost the simple pleasures?

An old monk friend of mine who had been in a prisoner of war camp for over three years once told me that all he ever craved for was food and friends and, of course, the freedom to appreciate them. My own Father was in Malta during the war. He said he once walked eight miles to get a 4 ounce tin of supposed steak and kidney pudding. His stomach had so shrunk that he could not eat it all but shared it with a friend. Do we count our blessings?