Perking Up...

H here with greetings for the new year.

Apologies for not being around much recently, but as PP seemed to have his teeth into the travails of the land whilst I was more than knee deep in goose fat, sausage meat and other festal trimmings I thought I'd best leave him to it.

Poor fellow does rather carry the world's woes from time to time. Befitting a parson no doubt, though it might be more productive if a certain joyful countenance seasoned the dish.

Sharing though as I do his tirades against the verminous T Blair, my own heart is the more lighter in relishing the forthcoming nuptials of M and M. Quite how PP pulled that one off I cannot fathom. Details were light and probing ineffective. Nonetheless the deed is all but done and Mildred is delighted, which is pleasing all round.

After her run in with Albert, who ran out on her with that floozy from the bookshop, I doubted Mildred would ever care to share hearth and home with another male - and not least with a man infamous for his multiple liaisons. (I admit I was not sure whether to be pleased or not - and on the whole not - when Maurice stolidly informed me early on that, as the vicar's wife, I was off-limits and therefore safe! Being off-limits is one thing - and essentially so - but being called 'safe' is not a fate for any sensitive female soul. One may not be a femme fatale in any literal sense, but one would like to be considered at least vaguely dangerous!)

M and I have rather tip-toed round the whole subject and if that is her desire that I must not intrude. A 'boys will be boys' remark is all I've heard from her of any tangential relevance, though as Maurice is quite in his late-thirties juvenility is hardly an excuse!

M wishes me to be matron of honour and I have agreed. There will be no hen-party trips to Prague I have insisted, also I shall first have to square this with PP himself. Not that he shall mind my making mild whoopee with the gals for a while, though he may miss my presence about the place when out on numerous, lengthy shopping trips or deep in organisational paper-work.

There is though the matter of a church wedding for a divorcee. A few years back the whole thing would have been simple - utterly out of the question and therefore the question never asked. Nowadays there is far more discretion in the matter and to be honest I've simply no idea how discreet PP will prove as we've not encountered this one before. PP's never been terribly strict on baptising the infants of even the most distant of believers, so I'm not expecting trouble with this. Fingers crossed - a suitable half-sacred, half-secular device - and we shall see.