..."That'll be 95 pence Rector." Only it wasn't. Having carefully counted out the required coinage for the purchase, it would appear that one had only handed over a mere 80p, being the 15p light of the full amount. Could have been deuced awkward had suspicion arisen as to any attempt to defraud the place. Not, fortunately, with dear Mavis - purveyor of bread, milk and other light groceries to the parish - who has a delightfully old-fashioned regard for and trust in the clergy.
Imagine though the frightful embarrassment had one been in some foreign place - any local town standing for the purpose - unknown and untested. Might not the cry have gone up: 'Oi, Derek. Over here smartish. We've got some scoundrel pretending he's holy and all with even that fake dog-collar malarkey. Trying to slip out a good three shillings short. You hold the door, I'll be phoning Sergeant Hawkins this very minute. You stand still you cove!' (That last to me of course. The sort of sad exchange that does no doubt occur throughout the working day of any a crime-ridden town.)
But though spared any difficult explanation of culpability in failing to make, in effect, two and two a round, wholesome four; though not in that sense any guilt obtaining, wasn't it horrid, at a cognitive if not criminal level, to discover - and not for the first time recently, which is telling - that such a simple arithmetical calculation appeared to have been a non-starter?
Could it be the river air, you ask? Or you might if you had insight into the calm and soothing torpor that riverside life engenders. Slow up and slow down runs the tide, life passing by thence back again. No mind or spirit should or could resist this easeful rhythm, nor does mine indeed. A goodly thing no doubt, restorative and reviving in its way, but yet not entirely fitting for the active parson about the place.
The more contemplative cove – a decent hairy Camoldolese hermit say – could very reasonably aver it more vocational than recreational and not be challenged. But then he does not have parochial accounts to complete before Wednesday next, or the impending emotional meltdown of a neighbouring family double-whammied by severe illness on top of a redundancy all in the same week; or further a mid-Lenten homily to bash out (theme – ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’) with half an eye on the possibility that the Archdeacon might just happen to drop in for Holy Communion Sunday coming.
Been doing a lot of ‘just dropping in’ has Derek of late. Rumours abounding as to why, the most charitable of which being that he’s rather keen, at present, to show to Bish Tom how useful and ‘cost effective’ he is to the diocese in these economically straightened times of ours. (A reasonable personal goal one must admit, not least for someone who can be called – not by me of course – a ‘waste of a good cassock’. Pity though he cannot find a less intrusive way of making the same point.)
Anyway, these are not the sorts of burdens with which our aforementioned hairy and heaven-bound hermit must wrestle. Sharp minds are necessary to pull off - with what success one might - the more variant and vibrant mix of the active life, having far more of an eye on the present godly earth than the eternal paradise. Metaphorically speaking, one could say the difference between crossing a busy road and an open field. Other than the occasional cowpat, there is little in the latter that need detain the gaze downward, freeing mind and spirit to soar as the bird. Try that on the A127 and you’re hamburger pronto.
Keeping then calm and carrying indeed on are never going to be sufficient admonishment for the priest of any parish, howsoever rurally remote and relaxed it might – as ours is – be. Getting a grip and bucking up, along with daily doses of cracking on, are quite more the thing. Hence a certain deep concern that, whatsoever the cause of the current synaptic siesta, not being up to the job of counting to ninety-five in coin of the realm is not a happy sign or portent.
If, though, it had been but that one moment of mental dereliction I should not be so bothered or baffled. One accidental lapse permitted, but there is sadly more – or rather perhaps less.
The inner circle will know me to be fond of the occasional game of cards. (Bish Tom probably has a file on the matter courtesy of Derek’s nosing about, but if he does he also has the decency to keep QT on the matter.) Not so frequent a frequenter of the green baize has one been of latter years. H does not approve – nor why should she? – of a habit that has the more depleted the family holdings than added to its assets over the years, it has to be admitted.
Even H, however, was not displeased when the other month I was able happily to inform her that I had – for old times’ sake really – been gifted a free seat at a stonking great tournament with a cash prize pool of not a dime short of 1 million dollars! Even the most severe cost-benefit analysis could find nothing to disapprove of those racing odds: nothing to pay for and everything to play for. Hot stuff indeed and duly marked down in the diary.
Only it wasn’t. The game was real enough all right – one is ever careful as one must be of online scams – just, sad to report, my recollection of the timing of the thing turned out to be utterly duff. Had it clearly pencilled in for next Sunday night following - with Curate Charlie striped down for Evensong, leaving the way to the table entirely free of any liturgical obstacle. A smart enough move, but based on an entirely false premise – the game was last night not a week hence.
Discovered this through utter accident, logging casually on thence noting to one’s absolute horror that one was three hours late in arriving – not seven days early – one’s opening pile of chips had been blinded to next to zero and not a hope in heaven – or the other place – of making any a decent fist of it. Four or five desultory hands, then busted out with K-10 suited against K-3 off - and a 3 duly turning up on the turn to add final insult to self-inflicted injury.
Now this is no little cheese we have here. It is not the missed opportunity to earn sufficient for a longish sabbatical that rankles, it is the unfathomable lapse of memory and mind that somehow saw one making a mess of even being there on time. Think of the song: ‘I’m getting married in the morning, ding dong etc…’ Wretched piece we’ll admit, quite teeth on edge putting all round, but let it stand as a comparator. Imagine that came the response ‘No, actually you were supposed to have been in Church getting hitched last weekend. You appear to have gotten the dates muddled.’
It’s not going to happen is it? These sorts of errors cannot occur can they? There are some things just so important in life that one could not possibly mistake the very timing of them. Well they can and they have. My losing streak just went critical. Steps will have to be taken, ever so soon as I can recall where I last saw them.
Imagine though the frightful embarrassment had one been in some foreign place - any local town standing for the purpose - unknown and untested. Might not the cry have gone up: 'Oi, Derek. Over here smartish. We've got some scoundrel pretending he's holy and all with even that fake dog-collar malarkey. Trying to slip out a good three shillings short. You hold the door, I'll be phoning Sergeant Hawkins this very minute. You stand still you cove!' (That last to me of course. The sort of sad exchange that does no doubt occur throughout the working day of any a crime-ridden town.)
But though spared any difficult explanation of culpability in failing to make, in effect, two and two a round, wholesome four; though not in that sense any guilt obtaining, wasn't it horrid, at a cognitive if not criminal level, to discover - and not for the first time recently, which is telling - that such a simple arithmetical calculation appeared to have been a non-starter?
Could it be the river air, you ask? Or you might if you had insight into the calm and soothing torpor that riverside life engenders. Slow up and slow down runs the tide, life passing by thence back again. No mind or spirit should or could resist this easeful rhythm, nor does mine indeed. A goodly thing no doubt, restorative and reviving in its way, but yet not entirely fitting for the active parson about the place.
The more contemplative cove – a decent hairy Camoldolese hermit say – could very reasonably aver it more vocational than recreational and not be challenged. But then he does not have parochial accounts to complete before Wednesday next, or the impending emotional meltdown of a neighbouring family double-whammied by severe illness on top of a redundancy all in the same week; or further a mid-Lenten homily to bash out (theme – ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’) with half an eye on the possibility that the Archdeacon might just happen to drop in for Holy Communion Sunday coming.
Been doing a lot of ‘just dropping in’ has Derek of late. Rumours abounding as to why, the most charitable of which being that he’s rather keen, at present, to show to Bish Tom how useful and ‘cost effective’ he is to the diocese in these economically straightened times of ours. (A reasonable personal goal one must admit, not least for someone who can be called – not by me of course – a ‘waste of a good cassock’. Pity though he cannot find a less intrusive way of making the same point.)
Anyway, these are not the sorts of burdens with which our aforementioned hairy and heaven-bound hermit must wrestle. Sharp minds are necessary to pull off - with what success one might - the more variant and vibrant mix of the active life, having far more of an eye on the present godly earth than the eternal paradise. Metaphorically speaking, one could say the difference between crossing a busy road and an open field. Other than the occasional cowpat, there is little in the latter that need detain the gaze downward, freeing mind and spirit to soar as the bird. Try that on the A127 and you’re hamburger pronto.
Keeping then calm and carrying indeed on are never going to be sufficient admonishment for the priest of any parish, howsoever rurally remote and relaxed it might – as ours is – be. Getting a grip and bucking up, along with daily doses of cracking on, are quite more the thing. Hence a certain deep concern that, whatsoever the cause of the current synaptic siesta, not being up to the job of counting to ninety-five in coin of the realm is not a happy sign or portent.
If, though, it had been but that one moment of mental dereliction I should not be so bothered or baffled. One accidental lapse permitted, but there is sadly more – or rather perhaps less.
The inner circle will know me to be fond of the occasional game of cards. (Bish Tom probably has a file on the matter courtesy of Derek’s nosing about, but if he does he also has the decency to keep QT on the matter.) Not so frequent a frequenter of the green baize has one been of latter years. H does not approve – nor why should she? – of a habit that has the more depleted the family holdings than added to its assets over the years, it has to be admitted.
Even H, however, was not displeased when the other month I was able happily to inform her that I had – for old times’ sake really – been gifted a free seat at a stonking great tournament with a cash prize pool of not a dime short of 1 million dollars! Even the most severe cost-benefit analysis could find nothing to disapprove of those racing odds: nothing to pay for and everything to play for. Hot stuff indeed and duly marked down in the diary.
Only it wasn’t. The game was real enough all right – one is ever careful as one must be of online scams – just, sad to report, my recollection of the timing of the thing turned out to be utterly duff. Had it clearly pencilled in for next Sunday night following - with Curate Charlie striped down for Evensong, leaving the way to the table entirely free of any liturgical obstacle. A smart enough move, but based on an entirely false premise – the game was last night not a week hence.
Discovered this through utter accident, logging casually on thence noting to one’s absolute horror that one was three hours late in arriving – not seven days early – one’s opening pile of chips had been blinded to next to zero and not a hope in heaven – or the other place – of making any a decent fist of it. Four or five desultory hands, then busted out with K-10 suited against K-3 off - and a 3 duly turning up on the turn to add final insult to self-inflicted injury.
Now this is no little cheese we have here. It is not the missed opportunity to earn sufficient for a longish sabbatical that rankles, it is the unfathomable lapse of memory and mind that somehow saw one making a mess of even being there on time. Think of the song: ‘I’m getting married in the morning, ding dong etc…’ Wretched piece we’ll admit, quite teeth on edge putting all round, but let it stand as a comparator. Imagine that came the response ‘No, actually you were supposed to have been in Church getting hitched last weekend. You appear to have gotten the dates muddled.’
It’s not going to happen is it? These sorts of errors cannot occur can they? There are some things just so important in life that one could not possibly mistake the very timing of them. Well they can and they have. My losing streak just went critical. Steps will have to be taken, ever so soon as I can recall where I last saw them.
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