flashback

(Friday 16th August 2019)

Eternity feels close.

It seems God is blessing me with a sense of his immediacy.

Two doves on a phone wire as I exited the house this morning.

One began to coo, making little bowing motions.

The other just sat there.

Later in the Tearman Cafe, when I told M, she asked did I think the doves were Uncle Bernard and Paul Oughten.

I said: "No, the doves are not them. But by God's grace they might have been allowed to send the doves."

It's been a great people day. First the time with M, then greetings and fine good fooling with Holly, Emer, Kevin and Alan in the cafe. Also some fun during the day with variously Patricia, Uncle Jim, Aunty Mary, her sister Helen, Cousin Helen, Kathleen, and Spanish Mary.

Topped off with a walk by the river and a few moments with the eight piglets in the barn belonging to the Camphill community. I sang a hymn to them and to Granny Pig and Mrs Pig.

Back home me and the doggies weeded the garden and cut the hedge ish.

It was a rich day.

Gracious, sweet, joyful.

A vintage moment in the Tearman after M left.

Four women of mature years entered in a gaggle, looked around flailingly for somewhere to sit, and descended upon my table.

I gassed away with them but instantly had reservations about one of their number, a certain Kay Scanlon.

No prior acquaintance.

Just an uneasy feeling that she placed no worth on anyone but herself.

And she was looking at me fixedly the whole time as though I should move.

The sensation scene came when she ordered me to pass her a jug of water.

"The water," she said.

"Yes, that's water," I said.

"Will you pass it to me?" she said.

"No," I said.

"I thought you were a gentleman," she said.

"You were wrong," I said.

Later I asked my maiden aunt did she know her.

"Yes," mused the aunt, "she's nice enough if she thinks you're important enough to be nice to."

I thought the aunt's words were a very fine summation of character.

"Oh," added the aunt struck by a sudden afterthought, "she's also related to the Sunday Independent writer Brendan O'Connor. She's his Mother In Law."

As she imparted this nugget, the soundtrack to The Good The Bad And The Ugly went: "Aiiiiiieeeeaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh,"

Well, well, well, bold readers.

Bankrupt Sunday Independent Irish Times RTE atheistic abortionist euthanasist contrareceiving divorcenik bigoted anti Catholic types...

Apparently I can still smell them out at a hundred paces.