Etc..etc..

Sunday 18th April, 2021

The first morning for at least a week when I have woken without the sun shining. The forecast had suggested an eighty percent chance of rain after midday. First I streamed Mass at 7.30am from Port Elizabeth, South Africa. I have been there before and should not have returned. A pompous presiding priest and an irrelevant, uninspiring and over long sermon. God forgive me but I am unable to suppress my irritation instead of accepting what is with a gracious kindness.

After breakfast I decided to clear my desk drawers as I steadily try to bring my place to order and to preparation for leaving. I came across all sorts including marvellous letters. I read them but then tore them up as I do not want huge luggage bags when I move. I found tooth paste, painting equipment, empty note books, official letters and in a brown envelope £100 in £5 notes! I dressed at 11.15am and went down to my room in the basement. I wrote two quick notes for posting tomorrow before I forgot. Then I walked. It was warm so I left off my thermal vest and donned clean clothes after my bath of yesterday evening. On the walk with my grabber I collected two bags worth and twice was stopped by people to comment. I came across a fellow parishioner, a doctor, and we discussed the pandemic and its effect on his patients. Loneliness had added to the complications of health among the elderly. We talked of the cruelty and unnecessary fact of depriving the dying of loved ones. His family joined in with examples. As I walked on so a few spots of rain. I walked back to the lake where I had seen six ducklings yesterday and was thrilled to find the same number today.

Back home I looked to my emails. I found a friend had sent the eulogy given by her son at her husband's funeral yesterday. I have not read such a brilliant talk nor felt such an admiration for the dead man, a man who sought truth and was a giant of integrity. The son, a doctor and a poet, had written a poem for his Father....I wept.

Then another email from the brilliant artist who had painted my portrait which she had hung in the National Portrait Gallery. I have not heard from her for many months so I was delighted and am pondering a reply.

Then I tried to clean up the patio by removing the weeds which had grown between the paving stones. As I was so doing the landlady's daughter and son in law arrived with a crab apple tree. I helped plant it removing many stones from the ground which had been used as a builders rubble dump. A few more spots of rain fell but hardly any and the earth remains parched. I thought of the morning Mass when the people had prayed for an end to the drought they were suffering.

Now I smell curry cooking so my tummy rumbles and I think of my evening prayer schedule. I too shall pray for those suffering from lack of food ( Brazil has a horrifying poverty and hunger level at present ), hope, medicine, peace and a sense of justice. The reading this morning from St. John came to mind which was to bear witness to Christ. How?