Glimpsesofcolour

…before opening mouth. The Boat Race is a difficult call at the best of times in our household, having one Oxford graduate and one Cambridge graduate, which means offspring has to choose which parent to go with. It was not helped this year when I found myself saying ‘I can’t see the Cambridge side’s cox’. Ahem…

OK, here’s the plus side:

1. No one was hurt.
2. My car only has a pitta bread-sized dent.
3. A policeman who had just come on duty witnessed the entire thing and said it was definitely the other driver’s fault.
4. The other driver, who turned out to live in the next street to me, was really kind and broke the rules to ring me up and ask how I was.
5. I still got to my ’special needs mums’ lunch’.
6. The other driver’s insurance have offered to cover the lot.
7. Did I mention no one was hurt?

From all of which you can gather that I had a minor car smash today. It didn’t feel minor while I was having it though, as the car leapt up in the air and then came down before I did, resulting in rattling of spine as well as emotional shakenness. And, being that sort of person, I still think it was really my fault because I didn’t make my intentions clear and my momentary braking gave the other driver the impression I was letting her in.

But thank God everyone is all right and neither car is badly damaged.

What a joy it is to get an email with good news in it. I heard today from a single friend and former colleague who for many years has been teaching deaf children in Jordan. I knew that she had fallen in love some time ago with a Jordanian man but that they were kept apart by the fact that she is a committed Christian and he is a Muslim. Now she tells me that after seven years of carrying a torch for each other, they have finally got married (she is 52). I’m so pleased (even though I was going to introduce her to a lovely man I know who sometimes visits Jordan – I’ll have to find someone else for him now!).

Other good news: I just got out a fourth game of Accordion, the new Patience game I’ve been playing. Of such small victories is daily life made up…

In the last three or four days I have discovered a new and fiendishly difficult Patience (Solitaire) game on my computer. (Incidentally, when did Solitaire stop being the name for a game that starts with a cross arrangement of pegs in holes with the middle peg missing, with the aim of ending up with just one peg in the middle, and start to be the official name for what I have always called Patience? I blame the Americans..) Anyway, the game’s programmer encouragingly notes in his rules and tips that it took him 25 years to get his first game of this variety out. With the help of his solitary tip, I managed to get my first game out in two days. And I have since got a second game out. I am inordinately proud.

I’m also proud of the fact that in the last few days I have braved the uncharted territories of Facebook, and by dint of raiding the friends list of a friend from church, have built up a respectable network of 18 or so friends. I even took a reasonable photo of myself with the built in camera in my new iMac, and managed to upload it to my profile. (And yes, I do remember that I promised to post photos here of my cat in an intray – I will get round to that soon, honest guv…

Led astray by the thought of my son’s sexual performance being graded, what I omitted to tell you on Thursday, dear reader, is that on my way out to the school meeting the previous night I had a mishap. Fingerless mittens are very useful when wanting to get out money and still have warm hands, but I have discovered that they can get caught on things – in this case, on the bit of brass below our doorlock that juts out and enables one to shut the door (there must be a name for this but The Grouch who tends to know these things is out swimming with Genius Brat).

So anyway, I caught my glove on this protuberance and someone managed to overbalance myself in such a way that I went flying headlong onto our front path, falling heavily on one knee which is now bruised, also wrenching my shoulder (though I have no idea how) and spiking my ring finger on a rose thorn – causing me to have gloomy thoughts about whether my tetanus jab was up to date, which I’m sure it isn’t. My keys which I had been holding must have flown out of my hand and disappeared without trace amongst the shrubbery, as they were no longer in my possession.

I thereupon resolved to drive rather than walk to the meeting, (because my knee hurt too much to walk), and instructed hubby to hunt for keys while I took another set to drive with. When I returned, and having had my confusing conversation with the neighbour, I discovered that The Grouch had searched in vain for half an hour. He finally gave up and kicked a rose bush (as you do) whereupon the bush tinkled, and he very soon found the keys hanging from it. Which was to the great relief of all, as I had visions of having to change the lock because keys to it were hidden in the front border (though how a burglar who didn’t even know they were there, would have found them, I have no idea. Unless he were a rose-kicking burglar).

Consequent to all this, I have been going round for the last three days unable to move my arm behind my back or over my shoulder, which makes everyday tasks such as getting dressed or going to the toilet exquisitely painful. In spite of this I managed to be interviewed on Premier Christian Radio on Thursday afternoon (well I didn’t really need my arm for that), and organize a Passover seder for my church in the evening. This, my first time running it all, went very well and was a delightful time. With high doses of Ibuprofen, my arm has improved considerably and I even managed to wash my hair today. Which was a good excuse not to go swimming, and which means that I won’t have manky hair when I preach at the Easter service tomorrow.

In spite of the pain, I have actually been enjoying Easter an exceptional amount this year. In my childhood it was something of an anti-climax compared to Christmas, until I started spending Easters at the Lutheran conference centre which was my second home in my late teens. Our annual seder at the Mennonites has made Easter more celebratory, but often it has taken place several days before Easter itself. Having it on Maundy Thursday this year, plus a well attended and moving service at the Mennonite Centre yesterday morning, and following The Passion on BBC TV, has meant a much greater sense of occasion; and breakfast together tomorrow before the Easter Sunday service will be the icing on the Danish pastry (I bought six of them as my breakfast contribution).

Tallking to my teacher neighbour yesterday about how well my 13 year old son is doing at school, and how he’s expected to get levels 7, 7 and 8 in his year 9 SATS, I was alarmed to hear my neighbour saying ‘Then he’ll get a grade for his sexual performance’. It was only when he repeated this using the initials EP that I worked out he’d said ‘exceptional performance’. Phew! what a relief. Well, he is from Northern Ireland (the neighbour I mean) so I could be forgiven for mishearing.

.. the kaleidoscope. And lo verily, the teacher said, our lives are like the pieces in a kaleidoscope. Broken, odd shapes, random colours, and seemingly no hint of a pattern. Yet shake the pieces up, focus the lens, and behold there emerges a beautiful design, symmetrical and perfect. For viewed through the prism which is the Holy Spirit, our lives have order, beauty and purpose. And each new pattern is unique.

And more, said the teacher, while we often view the pieces from the wrong end, and see no harmony, our Father God sees us always through the prism of Jesus’ love, and thus to God we are always full of beauty. But forget not, for the pattern to be visible, the pieces must often be shaken up. Therefore fear not when the foundations of your self are shaken, for God’s purpose is always to create a new picture.

Upon which conclusion, the teacher was silent.

For those who are interested and in the Greater London area, I am going to be interviewed on Premier Christian Radio at approximately 3.20 on Thursday 20th, about my new book (the one that’s getting all the publicity, ha ha). Not going to tell you any details here, you’ll have to listen!

Oh all right, it’s called Crying for the Light, it’s published by BRF, it’s about depression, and it came out on Feb 22 amid a blaze of apathy. For further information, listen to Premier (or use the link to BRF on the left).

OK guv, you got me bang to rights. Yes, I did return to my car fifteen minutes after my pay and display ticket had expired. But… but your evil controlled parking zone system only allows cars to park for a mere measly little hour, and obviously a Women’s World Day of Prayer service is going to take more than an hour, and I didn’t have time to park somewhere else and walk, and after all I was praying, which has to be a good thing to do, and why does God not reward me for my piety but instead lets me get landed with a £30 quid fine… it’s enough to make one an atheist. Except of course if I had been an atheist I wouldn’t have wanted to park there near the church in the first place.

And I know it really shouldn’t cheer me up that when I got home I found my husband had a parking ticket today as well, but in some perverse way it does. Especially as his, in a different borough, was £40.

Oh by the way, as you may have guessed, I got my car back from the garage yesterday. It is not, however, fixed. They seem to have just let it sit there for 24 hours before concluding that it needed a part which they can’t get till next Wednesday. It’s only a fuse that keeps blowing, but in order to fix that, they have to replace a whole unit. At least that’s what I think they said. I really ought to have sent my husband, who might possibly understand what they are talking about.

So I am going to be carless again for some of next week. After today’s experience, though, getting a bike seems rather more tempting..

No, not *carelessness*, although that could be a contributing factor.

For a week or so my hi-tech, nagging car, which starts binging at the driver for the least infraction, has been flashing a message telling me to check my glow plugs, whatever they are (should I ask Women Aglow?). I finally got round to taking it, in the fairly early morning, to the main dealership where I bought it, since it’s still under warranty.

It sounded like a simple matter to me: check and if necessary replace those glowing plugs. However when I rang in the late afternoon, they said they wanted to keep it for more tests and do a cold start in the morning. Sounded to me suspiciously like they hadn’t actually looked at it until the afternoon. However I accepted it, and they told me to ring at 10.00 today.

I duly rang at 10.00, only to be told that George (the mechanic who’s working on it) was away from his desk. That was exactly what I was told at first yesterday afternoon. Now I accept that George needs to be in the workshop if he’s fixing, or in charge of fixing, a car. But if I am told to ring at 10.00, I rather expect the person who asks me that, to make an effort to be near a phone at 10.00. Am I unrealistic?

My carlessness, and possibly the garage’s carelessness, has caused me to miss a meeting I really wanted to go to this morning. I could have gone by bus, or even walked, but then I would not have been available to pick up the car if it was ready. And now I have to wait for George to ring back, and can’t settle to doing anything useful because I expect to have to drop it at any moment and get the car. Grrrrr….

Yes I know, I need to be greener and less dependent on my car. I did take the bus to singing workshop last night, but there are times when I simply don’t have time to wait for a bus. I only passed my test at 38, and I do love the independence the car gives me. Sorry planet, I do try my best in other respects: low energy light bulbs, organic and fairtrade foods, recycling (talking of which, perhaps I should have a bike. But this area is *very* hilly, and I can’t quite see myself using it much). It’s not easy being green…