Ro and Dora came over for dinner today. She and her sister are going to Thailand in a fortnight, to visit their brother and his other half, who are expecting a baby in the New Year. She confidently expects Ro to miss her horribly, and I'm sure he will, except for the weekend when he's visiting Zain in London. I promised to lend him my Oyster card and then we forgot. D'oh. I'll put it in the post, if we won't be meeting before then.
I had an unscheduled stint at the early service this morning. The person who was down to be sidesman has a frozen shoulder; he had to help shift a dead body the other day and was obliged to take the weight on his wrists as he couldn't use the strength of his upper arms and, yesterday, found that his hands swelled up. He and his wife were due to go on holiday tonight, so yesterday were trying to get a doctor's advice on whether it was okay to go. I hope so, the profession of undertaker is a demanding one and they need a break. Anyway, I was searching for my key at 7.30 this morning. I had last seen it, that I remembered, before I went away when I was sorting out my handbag. Having looked in all the likely places, I decided it might be in another bag, which I couldn't find. In the end, just as I thought I was going to have to give up and call on someone else with a key (who would be up, I'm not that inconsiderate), I found the bag and therefore the key. I also found £100 which I had squirrelled away and forgotten where. It wasn't lost, you understand, I just hadn't found it again yet.
I had another visit to church later of course, for the Remembrance Sunday service. I shall never not be struck by the recital of the names of 25 men from this little village who lost their lives in the Great War. It still shocks. And another of our three linked villages lost 4 from the same family.
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Oh, what's the problem? This is hardly Great Literature. I'd appreciate anything taken from here being acknowledged, and I might change my mind if I'm suddenly proclaimed as the Literary Queen of the Blogosphere - but I probably wouldn't. Do what you like, just as long as it doesn't extend to defamation of anyone, even me.
Actually, you want to pass off what I say as your own, I might even be flattered. Let's face it, who cares anyway?
8 comments:
I can't remember which cathedral or church it was when I visited England. What I do remember is seeing the vast rolls of names of servicemen and women lost in WWI and then WWII. Heartbreaking.
It is indeed heartbreaking.
What gets me is seeing these very proud veterans proffering their tins with the poppies.
They shouldn't have to.
I have nothing to add.
Even sadder is the list of local Marines we have lost in the last year and on it goes.
My sister is now living in Thailand with her son and family. She wants me to visit but of course I can't.
I was posting a few weeks ago about the very, very few UK villages - about 8 - which have no war memorial, because all their inhabitants who went away to war had the great fortune to come back.
I find I have mixed Remembrance feelings: a savage indignation about those killed in World War I (totally pointless and wasteful) and those in WW2, for whom I feel a great sense of debt and gratitude for a sacrifice not wasted.
Savage indignation too, I'm afraid, over those lost in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They are proud, Roses, they are doing it for others and feel they are doing their bit, not only in raising money but remembering and reminding.
What I find quite startling is that I know several young men who have chosen to join up in the last few years. Even if I didn't share your feelings, Chris, which I do, I'd find that mystifying.
Of course you can't, Pat. You need to be right where you are now. I think of you daily, and send cheering thoughts. Glad it's going well now xx
On a very practical note regarding your Oyster card. Have you registered it and used the system whereby it is automatically topped up from your bank account.
DD does this and never has to worry about having enough credit. We live on the outskirts of London and she uses her Oyster card on SW Trains as well but SW Trains do not have top up facilities at their stations so one has to search for a nearby shop.
Another benefit of this is that you can check where the card was used and we were able to use this in evidence in an insurance scam to prove that DD was not driving car at time scam claimers said it was being used. Hope this makes sense.
We keep a spare Oyster card for out of town visitors.
Madeleine
Astoundingly enough (or not so on further re-thinking) WWI does not play a significant role in the public German rememberance rituals - sadly the people simply have no idea about it. I visit small curches on the countryside and on cemeteries and see the memorials, reading the names can be pretty disturbing when a family name shows up again and again. The first war left another impression in the societies of the Allies, different from the impact on the Entende's. This last century, the "short twentieth", was such a damn thing what an amount of godforsaken stupidity, brutality and meanness, thank God it's over.
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