Nation of grumblers...

Blessed Dominic Barberi.  Wednesday 26th August, 2020

It is so irritating to be irritated. I streamed Mass from Leigh on Sea, Norfolk at 9am. We were told that it was the feast day of Blessed Dominic, the man who received Henry Newman in to the Roman Catholic Church. The reading to the Thessalonians from St. Paul upset me. He said that a man who did not work should not be given food. I thought of the food banks and the unemployed in our Country at this time. I am probably misinterpreting St Paul who was writing at a specific period to a particular people and place and may have been writing of the indolent and the hangers on. Then the Gospel was of the 'whited sepulchres' the hypocrites who look good on the outside, do the right thing, mouth the correct words yet inside are corrupt. Mea Culpa, I muttered.

Then the wifi whirligig, as I call it, came on. The streaming died and I hamfistedly tried to get it sorted. No luck. Suddenly I felt irritated with everything. So I decided on coffee and toast and ate too much but felt calmed!

I looked to my garden. I received two letters. Storm Francis had been gentle up here, well not too harsh. The ground was sodden, the leaves of my rhubarb and courgettes flattened and various branches broken. The two letters I received were less happy over their storm, Ellen.

One letter, accompanied by photographs had the following: " today we have had Storm Ellen's gale force winds. It is enough to make you cry. It was going to be a wonderful year for William Bon Chretin pears but most are on the ground and too immature to ripen if kept, the same with the Conference pears and Spartan apples. The sunflowers lie broken, the walnut tree has lost many small branches and half its crop and the climbing runner beans and the French beans have been battered and may not recover for a second flowering"

The other letter about the same storm wrote: " Half the runner beans collapsed and even the roots lifted out of the ground. Produce all over the place and am collecting and hoping to save by pickling. Feel like pickling myself in gin to recover!"

I do not know what Storm Francis has done to my correspondents' gardens. Why I wonder is it Francis not Frances, male not female? How do the Met office chose the names? One letter contained a comment on that also. A nearby farmer is not happy with them. As the letter puts it: " the farmer was bemoaning about the uselessness of the weather forecasting system. He has lost a week and a half delaying cutting his hay because of the amber warnings of storms in our area. For a full week they have been predicting daily rain and thunder and lightening etc but in the event we had nothing. He gets very irritated with the forecasters who are covering their backsides for the holiday makers instead of admitting that they haven't a clue mare than twelve hours ahead".

Britain was often described as a 'Nation of shopkeepers'. The shops have gone. Perhaps we can now say we are a nation of irritated grumblers.