Rules Is Rules...

...Did I mention that Maurice and Mildred are married? H thinks not and that that is a failing to be rectified at once.

Cannot entirely recall whether it did slip my mind to mention the matter, or indeed whether the matter was indeed mentioned and that it is the very mentioning itself that is passed recalling. (Neither is a pleasing comment on one's mental faculties in truth.)

Too busy to be my own archivist, I must allow H's best guess to be the right one and to inform - or re-inform as the case may be - the wider world of the fine event.

There had been it seems - though as so often in such matters myself the last to know - some deep concern about whether the parson - oneself - would take kindly to marrying a pair of trouts one of whom had a living ex-spouse somewhere in the middle distance. A fair consideration, not least as this parson's soul had not previously been required to wrestle with this deep matter of clerical conscience.

I do in these matters - as in so many - quite envy my fellow catholics, those of the Roman Catholic persuasion that is. They have a rule book and in that rule book it lays out what is allowed and what is forbidden. A simple binary system thoroughly befitting a rule book in my mind.

That local discretion in so many forbidden matters is claimed, is both thoroughly humane and not at all a contradiction of the very purpose and function of the book of rules. I do rather cherish the story of the troubled Catholic priest who visited his local monastery to pour out his troubled Catholic soul about having fallen terribly in love with a wonderful woman and she with him. "What should I do, please tell me Father?" he cried. "Why for God's sake sleep with her, she clearly needs you. You have no right to deny her your love," urged the monk. Wrong by rule but so right by God!

We Anglos sadly lack such clarity to interpret as we choose. (I love too the traditional Catholic legend that a thing is forbidden until the day it becomes compulsory.) We must rather ho and hum in a prayerful sort of way and then deliver some tortuous and complex judgement that is far too often merely a wretched muddled mix of so many meandering messages that is as unwieldy as it is unfathomable.

Which is why in the end - or rather right at the beginning - when H broached the delicate as she saw it subject on their behalf I at once replied - knowing them and their case so well - "Go for it." I was not for getting in their way, bless the funny odd pair of them. And if it were to be a way of ending once for all the curse of The Feud [see so many previous] then that too was not a gift horse in need of dental inspection.

So to it they went with some gusto. Details are in the Parish Mag. for May should you wish them. H as Matron of Honour, George and Patrick both giving away the bride - all natural family now gone - and a pretty rockin' homily on my part regarding the beauty of long-held yet unspoken passion on my part.

References to the early works of Bob Dylan being mixed so well I thought with musings drawn from Confucius, with just a touch of Baudelaire on the wonderful carnality of older love. (E did cringe at that last I noted, but then that is what teenagers are for - to believe that one somehow expires as a sentient person on reaching thirty let alone fifty.)

Reception at the Dragon naturally, with no speeches just a whimsical cabaret act from G & P as - for one night only - 'One Poof and a Sofa' - which did cause poor Sally to pass out from the vapours, but then Chapel is so prone to such fits no one terribly minded.

Honeymoon was in Vegas, which was simply ripping and had E's eyes out on stalks when she heard their destination. Good for them and all the best on the Strip. They came back cleaned out as every tourist always does but utterly thrilled to have been there just the once. Mildred even claimed she sat down with the legendary Doyle 'Texas Dolly' Brunson himself at a poker table, and when he let her bluff him for $100 with an Ace high had then the added charm to compliment her on her awesome might as a player.

Did I never mention that? How odd if not.

Next you'll be asking me for gen on Father Bill and his dreaded parish inspection. That has naturally not been far from my thoughts these past days, though it cannot be near the nib of my pen as I would wish for I am, I fear, under the strictest of all bans from discussing the matter in public until the inspection is over and the report submitted.

Well, that's what they say is in their rule books and who am I to argue with that?