Friday 13th

I think this can best be described as a 'non day', one in which all that happened was that I got wet and ate a lot.   It rained heavily all day, just like it does in Britain - heavy, steady downpour but which is rare here, where it normally comes down like stair rods and turns the streets into fast moving streams, at least in my area it does.

 

Nevertheless I ventured out to the hospital for my chaplaincy round.   I knew Bill was not going to be there, but I thought Kevin would be, and would have printed off the patient lists, but he wasn't and he didn't.    I looked long and hard at the computer and the printer, and thought that even if I figured it out on the computer, the printer was beyond me.    So, sadly, the patients were not visited today.  

 

I had breakfast there while waiting and hoping for Kevin to turn up.  And when I was leaving I bumped into an old friend who had been a member at Emmanuel, but left to become a priest and now runs two small churches nearby (or as 'nearby' as you get here) so that was very nice.  She was visiting a parishioner.

 

I'd intended visiting Fr Clark's church on Sunday, but am on the rota to read at Emmanuel.   I e-mailed him and mentioned that this Sunday, which is the 4th in Lent, is Mother's Day in England.  Mother's Day here is sometime in May, and has nothing to do with the church calendar.  

 

I explained how Mother's Day for us originated in Victorian times, it was the day when servants went home to visit their mothers (presumably because they would be too busy at Easter)  and their employers graciously gave them presents to take home (among them a Simnel cake which is why our supermarkets are stacked up with them).    I also told him that in the churches - at least those I went to - the ladies in the parish made up posies of flowers which the children gave their mothers during the service.   He thought it was all very interesting and is going to tell his congregation about it.

 

I don't know if it is the weather but I think I have eaten more today than I can ever remember eating in one day.   Wandering round the supermarket on an empty stomach I stopped at the hot cabinet where they have boxes of ribs and roast chickens, and I picked up a big slab of ribs, and some Italian bread to mop up the juices.  Then I looked for a box of pancakes in the freezer section, because I was fancying them as well (I tell you, I don't know what came over me).   Had the ribs as soon as I got home while they were still hot, and have been eating the pancakes with lemon and sugar throughout the evening.

 

I don't think I need to eat now until Easter.