“How are things with the new baby?” said a friend, giving me a carrier bag with a wrapped parcel in it: a present for Pugsley. “Fine, thanks, very well,” I replied cheerfully. “So, what’s with the bags under your eyes then?” he enquired.

I’m off to church in a few minutes. I’ve spent two hours there already this morning. Another 2 hours or so to go. And then I’m jolly well going to the pub.

I arrived home to find, in an email, the saga of the coffee is still going on. A couple of weeks ago, the person (a lovely girl, she’d had a bad week) making coffee was upset because, there being lots of visitors and families to the Harvest service, she was asked to make coffee after the service as well as before. When I tried to comfort her and help, she shook me off angrily.

I’ve come up with a solution and a back-up solution in case anyone objects to the first idea. But everyone wants to have their say. Don’t we all have more important things in our lives? I am so tempted to just say I’ll make the sodding coffee myself, but I mustn’t; for one thing it’s easier to take on that job than give it up, and for another I will be saying I’m *better* than the ones who are complaining, and I neither think that nor want anyone to feel dismissed as unappreciated.

But it’s hard for me to understand the problem. On that occasion, I’d worked, on the Saturday, for 16 hours to decorate the church, cook the Harvest supper, serve it and wash up afterwards. I’d spent another 4 in the church on Sunday, clearing up, getting ready for the service, playing the clarinet, preaching the sermon and being friendly afterwards. It wasn’t a problem. I’m normally busy for 2 -3 hours on a Sunday on church matters. And I don’t consider myself a churchy person at all. I’m not even very religious. I described myself to a friend recently as, not so much a pillar of the church as a flying buttress – though I did acknowledge that this is not my bon mot, I stole it from, I think, Winston Churchill.

I am not, though it looks as if I am, boasting about the time it takes me. Just that (except here and now) I don’t go on about it. And I keep smiling, even if afterwards I go home and moan to my ever-loving Sage (who is just grateful not to be in the wrong himself, so listens kindly which enables me to get over it and regain my good humour). So if you offer to do a job, do it willingly and wholeheartedly, offer to do a bit more than you’re asked to do, smile – and it will be a pleasure. If you do it begrudgingly and barely adequately – it will be a chore.

But I can’t say that, as it will sound far too critical and, furthermore, I’ll lose my miffed volunteers for the coffee rota.

Oh well. If you have been, thanks for listening.

Update, post pub, 2.15 pm Lovely bloke on the rota today quietly, without comment, made coffee cheerfully both before and after the service. I understood what he was saying, and it didn’t need words.

– but that isn’t important.

Today I went to work in the shop. Al and Jean arrived at 8.30 and the Sage gave me a lift in a few minutes later (I couldn’t find my book and I worry if I am without a book. Hoho, what irony).

At 9 o’clock, the Sage called to us “they are unpacking boxfuls of books under the Buttercross*, you’d better go and have a look.”

I smilingly served a customer (more like baring my teeth really, I wanted to look at those books) and then scuttled out. Indeed, there were about ten boxfuls of books, some hardly read. The local second-hand bookshop proprietor was going through the books, picking out what he wanted, from right to left. I started at the left-hand box.

A few minutes later, ten books in my arm, I waved to the Sage “Can you bring my bag and I’ll pay”. “No, that’s all right, I’ll pay.” I went back to the shop, abashed to find there were five customers and Jean was alone. However, a happy face and effusive apologies have got me through life so far and everyone was understanding.

Not too long afterwards, the shop was empty again and the Sage came back. “They have unpacked four more boxes”…….

This time, Jean and I both went and the Sage stood guard in the shop. Nine books later, I spied a customer and returned happily to my duties, leaving my well-gotten gains with the chap in charge for the Sage to carry out negotiations. And he did well.

Now, the Sage doesn’t read for the pleasure of reading in itself. He is not obsessed with books. He does read quite a lot, but usually for information. He doesn’t really understand the great joy of seizing a book just because it catches the eye, because a randomly-read paragraph appeals, because it’s on a subject I know nothing about so maybe it’s about time I did, because it is, simply, a bookful of wonderful words**.

But he encouraged me nonetheless, although he thinks I am, frankly, daft to have as many books as I have already. And as a result I’ve smiled all day. Mm, maybe that has something to do with it.

*The Buttercross is the ancient marketplace. On Thursdays there are market stalls there. On Saturdays, for a small fee, a charity can set up a stall there (one has to book months in advance) to sell bric-a-brac, cakes, second-hand books, whatever, for its good cause).

**’The Pencil’ – a history of design and circumstance. Now, there’s a title. It has never occurred to me to wonder who, and how, and why, and when, invented the pencil.
‘Hand to Mouth’ – a Paul Auster I’ve not read. I’ve never quite made up my mind about Paul Auster, but somehow I read him.
Two books by Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette). I’ve read ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’ but that’s all.
‘Zorba the Greek’ – one of those books you assume you must have read, but haven’t.
A book called ‘Zoë’. What, because I’m worth it?
A biography of Maria Montessori.
And others. Quickly chosen, there will be hits and misses. And the misses can go back to the next charity booksale, to find a better home.

There is always, with each of your children, an outstanding feature which strikes you at once. Not literally, not unless you have given birth to Cyrano de Bergerac, but something that is, at once, noticeable.

With El, it was her pretty little mouth. It took us several days to name her and, until she was named, she was called ‘Rosebud’. Yes, very Citizen Kane, but that was not in our minds.

With Al, it was his left ear. This turns over more than the average at the top. I was, until then, totally unaware that mine does too.

With Ro, it was the shape of his head. A very shapely head, had Ro. The word ‘Mekon’ came to mind, just a little.

When I first saw Pugsley, I said (oh, and am I a bad grandmother) “Blimey, what a bum chin!” His parents did look just a little startled. But there is a definite, if tiny, cleft to the chin.

But when I tested them, so had both his parents. And so does Ro. Not visibly, just in test conditions. Which are, of course, taking a firm grasp of the chin – sideways, not top to bottom – with thumb and forefinger (you can test yourself or someone else this way) and seeing whether the middle goes in (bum) or out (cherry).

Ro maintained that everyone is, at bottom, a bum. Until I proved otherwise. Then he said that his father must be a bum, for the tendency to have been passed down.

It must be a recessive gene. Like baldness, it can skip a generation.

The Sage and I are both cherries.

I went to the kitchen to check on the dinner (which is ready), greeted the returning Sage with a telephone message and went back to the computer to finish my email, as he went to the phone. I lurched to the right. I pretended that I’d slipped on a cookery book that I’d carelessly left on the floor.

Maybe that third glass of wine on an empty stomach (except for a chocolate digestive, but that was just to lessen the liquid impact of a mug of Lapsang Souchong) was not the best idea.

But it’s Friday night and I’ve worked very hard today. Being a shop assistant in a greengrocery is very demanding physically. Entirely enjoyable, but it makes a woman ache. Mainly in the pelvic region.

I wrote myself a letter. That is, I started one to a colleague on Hotmail and then, because I was going to send several attachments, decided to send it on Gmail. So I sent it to myself, intending to readdress it, add the photos and send it on.

Half an hour later, still waiting, I rewrote it instead.

An hour later, it arrived.

Dirty little stop-out.

I have just ordered an Oyster card. This is, my daughter assures me, the most useful innovation to London Transport since the demise of the hansom cab. I am going to visit her and her best beloved in a week or so, and it will save buying tickets at the station and let me forget the appalling price of a Tube ride nowadays. Also, if you use it enough in a day, it kindly lets you go free, though I didn’t quite gather exactly how many trips you need to use it for first. Furthermore (yes, it gets better and better), it will automatically top itself up, using my credit card details, so I don’t have to worry about running out of credit.

This is the most exciting thing that has happened to me in four days.

I was reminded, on reading Stegbeetle’s recent post, of my father’s funeral. Mr Stebbings the gardener came in, the next day, for coffee as usual. “Nearly a tragedy, yesterday, after Mr Malcolm’s funeral” he said. “Oh no, whatever happened?” asked my mother. “One of the gravediggers fell in. All sand and gravel it was, just caved in and, being double depth, they had a hell of a job to get him out before he was buried.” “Oh no, that’s dreadful,” said my mother, nearly in tears. It was only a week since her husband had died of a heart attack, aged 59, in front of her. “Thass true enough,” said Mr Stebbings. “Had it from a witness. Smith the virgin*. He told me so hisself.”

My mother made her excuses and went and cried with laughter instead in another room.

*Verger

The ‘sermon’ went all right, thank you for asking, Dandelion. It was Harvest Festival and the village schoolchildren came along – it is a Church of England school (although there is absolutely no admission selection on the basis of religion, nor is there indoctrination, we are totally against that). They brought their harvest offerings up to the altar early in the service and a bit later on, they came up again to sing a song. Because they were coming, I decided to base the talk on the three school rules, which are Be Polite, Be Kind and Work Hard. The children know them well, because they do talk about them in assemblies and think about how they apply to all aspects of school life.

So, I talked a bit about each one – Work Hard came first, and I talked about the work involved in growing food, whether in our gardens or on farms; what you get out of it, in terms of both the produce and the satisfaction, is related to what you put in; how vital the harvest is, although we aren’t too aware of it in this country because we have all we need.

Be Polite – from their earliest age, children are taught to be polite, to say please and thank you, because it really matters that we are considerate to each other. Some people don’t approve of Harvest Festival because they say it is not a truly Christian festival, it is pagan. This is true, it is not based on Christ as Easter and Christmas are, but that doesn’t make it unchristian, but a more all-embracing thing altogether, because it links us to our pre-christian past and to other faiths and other countries – I mentioned that the last time I visited India, my friends were going to visit their family village to celebrate the harvest with week-long celebrations with special foods and ceremonies (I felt self-conscious here as there was a Hindu family in the church, whose children go to the village school – I hadn’t known they would be there). So we should say ‘thank you’ to God for the food we have, and ‘please’, that people in other countries should have a successful harvest and enough food to live on.

And Be Kind. The harvest offerings are put in boxes afterwards and the children, with their teachers, visit old people in the village to give it to them. This is no longer a necessity, they all have enough to eat, but it is not the point – it is a symbolic gesture but appreciated as the people visited so enjoy it. It might feel embarrassing to knock on someone’s door and give a stranger a present, but the friendly gesture of giving a gift and thinking of others is what matters.

And thinking about others, looking outside yourself and caring about more than just your own immediate concerns, is what the school rules mean, and Jesus, similarly, summarised the ten Commandments into two – love God and love your neighbour as yourself. And the school rules, in their way, say the same thing.

Bless her, you’re thinking – a bit simplistic and it’s hardly based on the Bible, but she tried hard. Yup, true. And I won’t be doing it again. But I said what I had planned to, mostly in the right order, I didn’t dry up and I wasn’t overly hesitant, so at least I embarrassed myself only moderately. And the next time we have a Harvest Festival when we don’t have a vicar, I won’t be a churchwarden, so it won’t be my job.

I had done a slightly foolish thing just before the service, by introducing myself to the head of Music at the High School, as I’ve just become the Governor link with the music faculty. She and her husband are fine musicians, and I then had to play the hymns on the clarinet and I felt thoroughly self-conscious. At least it wasn’t the organ, more notes to go wrong there.

Ooh, I never expected to get this far. I didn’t know what would happen, or what I’d write but what has surprised me with pleasure is how lovely you are. Sorry to be sloppy, but it’s okay to be a girly as long as no one who actually knows what a hard-boiled, tough woman I really am reads this. And Ab and El (and Sh?) will just laugh at me whatever I say.

This evening, WI. Women’s Institute. Jam and Jerusalem; except we don’t do the Jerusalem bit. Once, we were coming up to a Big Meeting with outsiders, so we thought we’d better have a go at Jerusalem. I took along my clarinet for unmusical accompaniment, took a deep breath and some wag went ‘ One, two, a-one, two, three, four’ and I laughed so much that I hyperventilated and nearly fainted during the second verse.

I was doing Food. Now, as you might expect, the WI I belong to doesn’t go down the cup of tea and a Rich Tea biscuit road, but does nice food. It was a meeting to which we had invited Guests, so there were several of us doing food and I’d said I’d do savouries. Which I interpret as canapés. I think finger food is so much more tempting if it’s pretty as well as tasty*.

Anyway, it was nearing 10.30 when I arrived home, so I took a bottle of wine out of the fridge and started to read and write emails, and catch up on blogs. It’s going to take a day or two, there are loads of updates I haven’t read yet.

Which brings me back to the start (look, I have Delivered a Sermon, I can do neat endings). I do like hearing from you, and thanks for reading this and commenting, whether it’s regularly or occasionally. You make me happy.

* The food. Very simple, I didn’t have time to be inventive.

I often use slices of cucumber as a base, as it looks pretty and saves everyone from eating bread and pastry with every bite. The other base I usually use is bread croutes, which are buttered (or olive oiled) on one side and baked in the oven until golden – far easier than frying and they don’t absorb so much fat. They don’t go soggy quickly as biscuits do. If I have time, tiny choux pastry balls are good with a savoury filling, but I don’t bother with the sort of pastry that has to be rolled out, for individual bites. I also bear in mind food allergies and choices such as vegetarianism, so I try not to include hidden food ingredients such as walnut oil or non-visible shellfish.

1. Salmon, flaked with mayonnaise and a squeeze of lemon juice on cucumber.
2. Ripe brie on cucumber.
3. Chicken liver pate – v. simple, the liver cooked in butter with garlic, a drop of brandy added and a little cream, mashed with a fork – on croutes.
4. Mushroom pate – cook shallot in butter, add mushrooms, cook again, add white wine, cook until evaporated, add cream, cook until the liquid has gone – on croutes.
5. Garlic cream cheese on cucumber, topped with prawns
6. Chicken breast, cut into 1cm(ish) cubes, marinated in yoghurt flavoured with chilli powder, ground cumin, ground coriander, ground ginger, tomato puree and lemon juice. Soak cocktail sticks, put a cube on each stick, grill.
7. Tiny new potatoes, tossed in oil and then in a mixture of spices which I made up as I went along, then roasted, then put on cocktail sticks.

Each made about 25-30. Now I’ve written it down, it doesn’t look very impressive, but I did say it was simple.

– and it’s all because of Microsoft. Is anyone surprised? Windows *Live* Mail. More than Half-Dead mail if you ask me. I have had to email some photos. Because I *upgraded* – Hah – is it any wonder that I am reluctant to go on to Beta Bloggger until all you less cautious, more trusting individuals have complained bitterly about its shortcomings – to Windows Live Mail Beta, it no longer tells me when I am up to the pitifully small maximum size attachment I can send so, as I can’t be bothered to add up decimals (I’m still a pounds, shillings and pence girl at heart) I have to go under rather than over, which means loads of emails. Half of which it can’t be bothered to send so sends me a message to say that they *may* reply to a query.

This is quite sweetly frank actually. But I am so tense that I have turned to the ‘easy listening’ section of iTunes. I’m presently listening to Dean Martin. What does that do for my e-cred?

Okay, so I never had any. Fine, laugh.

That’s enough, you can stop now.

That means you.

And you.

Oi!