"It was almost 2 ½ hours later when Catherine pulled up in the minivan after calling the house, once again, and finally getting an answer. I split my time between pacing and huddling in a nook in the building, reading, to shield myself from the cold coastal wind. What a sad case I was: cold, hungry, abandoned in a foreign country…kidding, it wasn’t that bad. The day did end quite nicely; the general order of things when I got back was dinner, ice cream, curling up on the floor in front of the fire like a cat until Catherine brought me tea and a biscuit (cookie), relocating to the couch to watch "Twins", a glorious bath and finally, bed. I barely remember shutting the light off and climbing in. Catherine took me on a bit of a detour on the way home to show me my first stone circle: the Gorsedd Standing Stones, erected around 1100 AD, pre-dating the Saxons; David’s just given me a mini-lesson on Welsh language and history, God bless ‘im. If anyone’s interested (and I was), it was built by the Bards (poets) who used it as a place of worship. To finish off my story, though, here’s the kicker: there was someone home all along. David was cleaning the car and couldn’t hear the phone ringing over the vacuum and since I assumed they would check their messages upon returning home, I didn’t call as often as I could have. The rest of the clan arrived home a while before I got a hold of anyone, but were in and out with the boys and Catherine apparently answered the phone a couple times to find no one there. I guess it was destiny; a test of patience. Catherine and I are leaving the kids behind and going to a 12th century church a few minutes from the house for their morning service."*************************************************************
"We arrived back from Wales about an hour and a half ago; it’s nice to be home. So what can I say about a traditional Anglican mass besides being just that; rigidly so. The service followed a strict order complete with hymns, that horrible smelling smoke (they call it incense), the vicar singing the readings in a monotone chant-like manner, and plenty of congregational responses. It was the strangest thing: the vicar went through the whole service so straight-faced and methodical, then after the formal dismissal went to another pulpit, expressed a "good morning" to the congregation and proceeded to go through the notices with a completely different, laidback disposition; like the reins had been loosened. It made the whole thing seem a little…I don’t know…insincere; like, "Ok, now that we’ve got that over with…" I did, however, enjoy the experience and was even familiar with one of the hymns we sang: "Come to my heart Lord Jesus, there’s room in my heart for Thee." It’s not possible to say that God is not in a place where His word is being presented, but I have a hard time believing there is room for the Holy Spirit to move when every word that’s spoken is read and every action that’s taken is instructed; something to think about."
And that’s the end of my Wales experience (there are a few more pictures posted on the Flickr site).
I had a funny experience with Ann over the weekend. Catherine, Ann and I were all curled up on the couches on Saturday night with our tea watching TV and Catherine and I were having a conversation. Let me just remind you that she’s gone through a number of au pairs, a few of which didn’t have such a great grasp on the English language. During our conversation, Ann decided to pipe in with some additional information and began yelling at me as though there were a crowd gathered between us. Catherine burst out laughing and proceeded to explain: "She knows English, mom!" "Oh, right" she replied, sheepishly and amused, as we all had a good laugh.
Good news: we will not go bonkers during the car ride down to France. Tom put a couple coins in the CD player in the van a few weeks ago, which Jonathan and Catherine have tried a number of times to get out. I promised I’d give it a go over a week ago but hadn’t gotten to it until yesterday. Well I succeeded (persistence is key), which caused us both much excitement at the prospect of having more then just the radio to keep the kids quiet and entertained. She immediately called Jonathan to inform him; "Guess what Stacy did?" And to top it off, she rewarded me by letting me keep the cash: a 2 Pound coin and a 20 Euro cent coin…that’s worth about $4.27…score!
No comments:
Post a Comment