Glimpsesofcolour

On my way by bus to a book launch today I spotted a pub at Highbury Corner called The Famous Cock. Coming back by the same route I noticed a ‘Caribbean Takeaway and Jerk Centre’. You just couldn’t make it up.

The book launch, by the way, was for a book on surviving as a gay Christian, for which I’d written a cover quote. They put me on the front cover! That’s what you get for being really nice about the book. But it really is a good book: Living it Out by Sarah and Rachel Hagger-Holt (including a contribution by one of our very own wibloggers).

As part of my campaign to build more personal contact into my life, I went for a long coffee this morning with my Yiddishe Momma and my friend and her Yiddishe Momma. The two mommas, both from Vienna, had a lot to talk about.

Walking down the Broadway (that leadeth to distraction) afterwards on my way to Sainsbury’s to buy fruit, I noticed a little girl of three or four hurtling towards me in a bid to escape her parent. Automatically put out my hands to stop her, then looked up and saw the parent was John Simm. Woo hoo! Thus endeth my third Simm sighting in one year.

Yesterday on the way back from swimming, I discovered a whole new secret compartment in my rucksack, which I had never noticed in the three or four years I’ve had it. It will be just right for putting my jewellery in while I swim. Of such small things is happiness made.

More importantly (and equally rewardingly) I have left the Terribly Tenacious Therapist, and I feel good about it. It felt like leaving school. Right now I’m not in a hurry to find another one. Suffice it to say that it won’t be a Cognitive Behavioural therapist.

And finally, I have ordered almost all my Christmas presents by mail (charity catalogues). I feel smug.

This afternoon after what will in all likelihood be my last appointment with the Terribly Tenacious Therapist (since I think she is actually making things worse), I took myself off to Brent Cross Shopping Centre to look for a handbag and have some lunch. In the Italian café I chose, I queued up to pay for my food and after telling me the cost, the girl serving me apparently said ‘Are you really tired?’. Somewhat touched by her concern, I answered ‘Well, yes I am actually’, hoping I wouldn’t have to explain that actually I was not just tired but depressed. ‘That’ll be £X, then’, she said, naming a smaller sum. It was only at this point I realized that what she had actually said was ‘Are you retired?’. Apparently there was a reduction for pensioners. Now I don’t generally tell people that I will be eligible for my pension in four years, but people generally tell me that I look much younger (when I was 40 and expecting my son, a neighbour said she thought I was 28), so if the girl in the Italian café thought I was retired, I must have been looking particularly rough. Not so nice as when I innocently thought she was expressing a concern for my welfare.

In other news, I have just read that Pleasant Oaks Mennonite Church and First Mennonite Church of Middlebury, Indiana, are reuniting, having split in 1923 (over women’s clothing, would you believe?). It’s taken 86 years, but hey, reconciliation can take a while. The proposed name for the reunited congregation is First Pleasant Mennonite Church. They don’t seem to have noticed that this implies that all Mennonite churches heretofore have been unpleasant. Sigh…

The other day I went to a workshop on helping our autistic spectrum kids with relaxation. Arriving particularly early to claim one of the very limited parking spaces, I decided to wander around the gardens of the mini-stately home we were meeting in. The gardens were fabulous, but I was disconcerted to see a policewoman apparently mounting guard over a table filled with pumpkins. Could she be the pumpkin police? During the workshop I could also see out of the window a policeman walking to and fro (or possibly two policemen changing places). I never did find out what necessitated their presence (apart from the pumpkins, of course).