It's spring time, it's sunshine time, it's Vicar's birthday time ... and life is beautiful in Bunbury. 'Till a bank statement arrives this morning and is quickly sploshed with jam and toast as breakfast and converse something along the lines of 'It wasn't me, it was you!!! And 'So what do you want for your birthday ... THEN?'
In any case, what do you get for the man who has everything? A wonderful wife who agrees with everything he says ... two adorable step-children who constantly admire him for his wit and his wisdom ... three grown up children of his own who always pay back their debts ... four dogs who sit and beg to their master's voice ... a polite congregation who thinks he looks like Richard Gere ... (Oh, please - he's been impossible to live with ever since)
Still, it's beautiful in Bunbury.
Apart from ... I seem to be getting fatter and fatter. I wake up every morning with new curves in places I didn't know were possible to curve. It must be the laid back holiday atmosphere not to mention lunch invites and afternoon tea invites (please don't stop) and chocolate cakes and lemon drizzle cakes being given to us (please don't stop) My husband thinks he's got a new woman - I tell him I need a new wardrobe THEN! My tights still fit me for now though!
I do watch the 'Runners' run by though and all my energy gets used in the 'Intention' of joining tomorrow!!
I have volunteered to help them with the refreshments for their 24 hour run - they've asked me not to bake a cake!! I thought if I did a late night shift we could have a midnight feast and reminisce of our teenage years - I still feel naughty being up and out late - don't you? Or perhaps you didn't have my Mother.
And I've done my first stint on the coffee-rota at Church - I think I suitably impressed everyone by my ability to boil a kettle.
I'm sure I did 'cause she's put me on again next month.
It is beautiful here.
And spring time in Bunbury has brought birth. Babies born in love and hope with birthdays to celebrate near Easter time. Yet I remember the death of my nephew, this month two years ago and I think of my sister, his Mother, who weeps and lives and laughs in life without him... And I wonder at this complex life, in it's simplicity, in it's beauty and its hideousness. In our birth and our death. The desperate pain of both. And I wonder about the Christ and the pain in which he died and the pain in which we watched ... still watch, still live with ... and I wonder will he still love me if I'm fat? If I am wrong? Do I have to kill him again to make him prove it?
And I look outside and see my washing blowing on the line in the sunshine and the breeze and this life looks beautiful out there...
When will I learn to feel beautiful 'in here'...
Lin Gates