I have not been idle during the long, Covid-laden break from blogging, and neither has Jenny Woolf whose posting today on her lovely blog has inspired me to reveal some of my own recent preoccupations and diversions.
For me, the paper-sorting seems endless. My husband died many years ago, and still I have boxes of his writing, collections of relevant cuttings, letters, souvenirs, photographs and other relics of a life lived with books and documents. Then, just when I thought I had seen almost all of his archive, a bundle of records of family life appeared from within a fat folder of theological papers: home-made cards, petitions, letters of thanks and requests, postcards and drawings by our sons from the age when they could first clutch a crayon. I must have seen most of them at some time, but I didn't know that he had kept them.
This is something I wrote and that he pinched and hid among the theology, probably thinking that I wouldn't bother to keep it among the confused welter that was my desk in those days of family chaos. This special bit of paper brought sunshine into my day this morning.
I recorded verbatim a bit of a Sunday morning in church with sons aged three and six. I never knew that he thought it was worth keeping. I hope we managed to have a laugh about it at the time.
In church.
*=repeated at least three times in crescendo.
E: (aged 3) There's Mrs. Evans. *Hello, Mrs.Evans.
H: (aged 6) Why doesn't Mr. Evans come to church?
Mother: (age not specified) I'll tell you later.
H: Why?
Mother: Because it's a long story.
H: Why?
M: Shhh.
E: Why? What you talking about? Eh? What you and you talking about?
Both parents: Shhhhh!
Both boys read books. E comments loudly throughout.
E:* Let's sing now!
M: Shhhhh. No! Not yet.
E: Yes! Let's have a sing now!. (Sings loudly.)
Both parents, unison: Shhhhhh.
People in pews behind and in front; "Shhhhhh!
H: Mummy. Mummy. I have to know something.
M: Just wait a bit. Please!
H: Just tell me if there are people buried under this floor.
E: Eh? What? Where people under the floor?
H: And I need to know why aren't there any gravy-stones outside this church?
M: Shhhh, just wait until we get outside.
H: It's important. It's in my head and I'm thinking about it now.
M: Probably because it hasn't been consecrated as burial ground. Wait and ask Father A. afterwards.
E:* What? What you talking about? What under the floor?
H: Well, where do people get buried then?
M: Ask Father A. afterwards. Try to listen now.
E slides to floor: What under floor? Nothing under floor?
H: slides to floor: Let's looks for gravy-stones, E!
Both parents, unison: GET UP!
Boys restored to pew after relevant scuffling, threats and protests.
H: Why doesn't Mr. Evans have to come to church?
E:* What?
