Pinning hopes on Z

The priest came up the aisle.  “Anyone got a safety pin?” he asked hopefully.  Everyone shook their head.  I hastily turned off Angry Birds and said what a pity I’d changed my handbag (from the one capacious enough to take my iPad, which I didn’t think I’d want today).  Then I thought again and looked in my little red purse (coin purse, that is).  It has two zipped compartments and I keep my phone earpieces in the small one so they don’t get tangled up.  I also keep two pink Migraleve, but I gave them to Mike yesterday and they’re my last so I must restock.  And … yes, a safety pin.  I followed the priest into the kitchen and proffered it.  “It’s not for me,” he said and took me back down the aisle and outside to where a smartly-dressed small pageboy was holding up his trousers.  His mother was very grateful.

It was a delightful wedding – the full Monty, mind you, a whole Mass as well as the marriage service.  I enjoyed it so much that I even sang the hymns out loud.  I have little confidence in my voice and generally sing very quietly so that it’s not noticeable when I leave out the high notes.  I don’t have much range either, especially since a throat operation in 1985.   Claire and Gerrit looked so happy and full of love.  And the Bob Dylan CD played during the signing of the register was a pleasure too.  There was a general hum of conversation in the church during that time, but I didn’t say a word.  I can’t help listening to music if I like it.

The reception was good fun too and everyone was very willing to chat.  I met a pianist-turned-conductor who is coming to Lowestoft next year for a concert commemorating Britten’s 100th anniversary – of his birthday, that is.  He was very pleased to have stayed previously in young Ben’s family home, now a guesthouse.  I have heard that it’s a very good one.  I told him (the conductor, that is, whose name is Nick) that my father was a patient of BB’s dentist father.

Brilliant run back, took less than 3 hours.  We arrived at exactly the time predicted by the satnav when we started off.

6 comments on “Pinning hopes on Z

  1. Mike and Ann

    I’m glad to hear that you’re keeping up the tradition of being able to produce ANYTHING from your handbag. A few years ago we were on an airport with two of our grandchildren and their parents, when Lucy asked her Granny if she might have an orange, and, as it happened Ann din’t have one in her handbag that day. Our son in law (who has great faith in his ma in law’s abilities to produce anything on demand) showed how dissapointed he was. It turned out that he told his children bedtime stories of how Granny could produce ANYTHING from her handbag; and the fact that she now couldn’t produce such a simple little thing as an orange………….

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  2. Z

    I think that expecting fresh fruit is pushing things somewhat! All I had taken with me in a tiny bag was a purse, my debit card, a hanky, lipstick and my phone, (and I had the correct change for the Dartford crossing both ways of course) so it was quite good going.

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  3. Blue Witch

    A safety pin is always useful. I too usually have one somewhere about my person.

    I’m not religious, but even *I* wouldn’t play Angry Birds in church (or at all, come to that ;)). It doesn’t seem quite ‘proper’ somehow. I’d probably even ask someone near to me doing it while waiting for a wedding to stop. But, presumably, as you do it, being both a proper and a religious person, it is now considered OK? Where doe sit end though? Listening to an iPod with earphones during a sermon?

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  4. Z

    We arrived really early and there was no one else in the pew but the Sage and me. I remember an occasion about ten years ago when the vicar’s son played on his games console throughout a service, sitting next to me, so I think you can rest assured that pretty well everything goes everywhere now.

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