A Restless Weekend
The quest for sufficient sleep is one
goal that defines my weekends; the pall of nocturnal insomnia hangs over my
weekday nights and threatens my efficiency and productivity at work.
Just as I was considering a lie-in on
Sunday, I had a date in mind a week hence, when I was scheduled to read the
second lesson in church. Just to be sure, I checked the rota, and it was for
today.
I have gained more confidence to read
publicly, with my voice regaining some timbre for short periods of time.
A Fright by Email
However, it was another email that
gave me the fright. We were being invited to a "Celebration of
Gratitude", which read rather like a "Celebration of Life", a
confusion between a demise and a departure; we were seeing off a lady who had a
long-standing relationship with the church, as she moved to a home in Cumbria.
The sender, an Englishman, should have
known better, having received a note from someone who speaks English as a
foreign language, and obviously, once we read the content of the email, we were
better informed.
After I had read the lesson, with a
slight hiccup where I corrected myself, saying "through" instead of
"though", the service progressed to the serving of communion.
The Uninvited Guest
Then a creepy-crawly came down the
aisle, its body about a centimetre square and its legs at least seven
centimetres each; a spider unlike any you see at home.
People attending church for the fear
of God were soon gripped by arachnophobia.
A man of the cloth boldly lifted his
feet off the floor and onto the seats, obviously not to harm the spider, or
perhaps he was one of the ilk of Little Miss Muffet, who is famed for the
eponymous nursery rhyme.
Calm Restored
Then a lady of the sterner kind, with
the cojones that men pretend they possess, picked up the spider with a piece of
tissue paper, dropped it, but scooped it up again and relocated it outside to
the church gardens.
Calm and peace settled on that side of
the congregation, as we deigned not to point fingers at the affrighted.
The celebration after the service was
a generous buffet, with applause from us all, bidding her godspeed and new
friendships at the home by the sea.
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