Duw. Cariad yw.

Three simple words trs. God is Love .

I spotted this in the vestry of Penuel Chapel, made by the children there in Clwb y Plant.

It reminded me of the mini - me , aged only three being pushed up by mam into the Sêt Fawr with the bigger children, (bigger in size I mean, unlike the little dwt that I always was)  ......to say my Verse out loud . 

But the thing was, I knew no verse so heard mam whisper, and watched intently as she mimed it out to me from the congregation. ...... along with many other miming mams . In fact the cacophony  of whispering and miming  mams made for a terrifying sight and sound to mini-me, aged only three .....

Anyhow, I said it. Job done.... by mini-me, aged only three 

Job done? Oh no, it was the beginning of a great love affair, although the term ‘love affair’ could in this day and age be misconstrued. Like most lovers we had many tiffs and quarrels all along the way, but one thing I was always certain of is that I’d be forgiven because don’t Love and Forgiveness go hand in hand? 

Although I’d better add that it’s not a Carte Blanche to go and Sin for the Sake of it !  ....

.

A bird's eye view

I was sat watching this buzzard, albeit a captive one, soaring on the thermals the other day at The British Birds of Prey Centre

and was reminded of the following  lines from the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

“The trick was for Jonathan to stop seeing himself inside a limited body that had a 42” wingspan and performance which can be plotted on a chart…. 

The trick was to know that his true nature lived as perfect as an unwritten number, everywhere at once, across space and time.” 

….” Your whole body from wingtip to wingtip is nothing more than your thought itself in a form you see…..break the chains of your thought and you will break the chains of your body too.”

I got to thinking,  if there was just the one person with MS ( Multiple Sclerosis) that I could help change the mindset of into one like this ( which is how I see things myself ) then I’d be one happy bunny.

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The only disability in life is a bad attitude ~ Anon 

The Polyglot

(an excerpt from my book, Stumbling Along - a Journey with the Master of Surprises (c) 2006)

Wasn’t ‘dropsy’ a name for TB or consumption in the last century?  One particular week in the autumn of 2004 saw me declaring it a new name for an all too common MS symptom, so I entered it into the “E.R.  Domestic Dictionary for PwMS” (People with MS) 

I’m not quite decided as to just how much of my cognition problems are down to age, my MS or just purely being dumb.🙄     For example, Steffan had a girlfriend once who became almost a permanent fixture in our house but d’you think I could ever remember her name?  What is more, to make matters even more embarrassing, I’m talking of a long-term relationship here, not a casual two-minute fling.  I ended up calling her “wotsherface” every time I mentioned her - in her absence I hasten to add.  It’s a good way of alienating your son, I can assure you!

I have my own vocabulary these days which only Huw understands; it consists not just of verbal utterances but also of much gesticulating, muttering and pacing up and down, waving my arms in Manuel of Fawlty Towers mode.

The most catholic of entries in the "ER Domestic Dictionary for PwMS’"is ‘thingy’.  I find myself losing a word in mid-sentence and ‘thingy’ is one which is used quite extensively and is usually accompanied by a finger or nodding head even, pointing in the direction of wherever the object is. 

It’s also one which slithers off the tongue quite comfortably, unlike words containing the letter “R”.  I worked in the Land Registry for seven years where we dealt with work in Shropshire.  It’s a standing joke that I can’t roll my rrrrrr’s in true Welsh Tradition, but stick an ess-aitch (sh) in front of an “arrr” and my soft palate becomes Loctited™ to my hard palate. Phoning Local Authorities proved to be ‘interesting’…. 🤦‍♀️

This reminds me of the following joke…

“Doctor, Doctor, I can’t pronounce my F’s, T’s and H’s.”

“Well you can’t say, Fairer Than That, Then.”

So this is what caused me to enter ‘dropsy’ into the “ER, Domestic Dictionary for PwMS”………………

The whole of family life revolves around the kitchen in many homes, but ours is too small in which to sit around the table, so it’s not exactly the hub of the  universe here.  Despite this, it’s a source of many a tale of despair and laughter.

I’ve always loved cooking and eating (just call me Nigella, but never call me Delia)

However, culinary activities are getting more and more tricky as the journey continues due to hands which are as rebellious as a testosterone-riddled teenager; they simply refuse to listen when I tell them to do something.  I’m sure that many a mum and MSer reading this are now nodding their heads in agreement like the nodding dog in a certain car insurance advert.

Picture an all too familiar scene; you’ve grabbed hold of a pan full of hot food straight off the cooker and when you try to put it down you find your hand still wrapped around it and you can’t let go.

So you’re screeching for your ever-patient husband, who is usually out of hearing distance, or in our case, he’s totally engrossed in the footie on telly, to come and slide the handle gently out of your hand - heaven  forbid that he may try to straighten your hand because it jolly well HURTS! 

The opposite to that scenario is when you just drop everything you try to grasp and even worse again are moments when you could swear that something has jumped off the surface without you ever getting as far as touching it.

I can remember one particular revolt on the part of my hands quite clearly; I can close my eyes and see the picture unfold as if in slow motion.  There it was, a shallow glass dish which has a plastic lid which you can put in the freezer, microwave, dishwasher etc.  In fact, you can put it anywhere except in your rebellious and revolting hands.

One minute I was looking at it, the next minute there it was – smashed into smithereens on the floor!  At times like these I’ve never been too sure whether to ring Poltergeists Anonymous or Ghostbusters because I swear this must be a paranormal experience of the MS kind, though I doubt whether incidents like this have ever been documented. After all these years I no longer shout “Hu-uw!” I shout “Broken glass alert!!!!!  Shut the dog in the lounge!!  Kick the cats out!!  Glass - broken!!  Smashed Glass!!!  Glass everywhere!!” 

Would you think that anyone who does not have MS would suspect I have a histrionic personality ?  Because when I realised I couldn’t be heard, the profanities started to emanate from my ever-so-tender, gentle and delicate female lips. 👼

I was swearing so much that I wasn’t concerned about the whole of the street hearing but I was living in fear of the late Mary Whitehouse appearing and declaring me to be unfit to be a minister’s wife let alone teacher of Sunday School children as was one of my many pleasurable duties at that time.

H: (finally) “I heard.  Stop shouting.  Right – you get out of the way and I’ll clean it up.  I can see better than you can and when you cut yourself you always almost bleed to death.”  It’s true - I could write a tale or twenty about ‘bleeding’ experiences.

Two evenings later Huw was in a rush to get out to a meeting so he dished up his food whilst I was doing something else.  I told him not to worry about mine because I could dish it up myself.  Could I?  Pffff! 

I put my rice on my plate and how this happened I really don’t know, but the serving spoon jumped clean out of the saucepan along with half its contents. There was Prawnthingumywotsit  everywhere; on the floor, all over myself, all over the kitchen, in fact the whole kitchen looked redder than my face.  It was fortunate that Dog was in the other room or he would have ended up looking like a bloodied bandage!

I don’t have a stock phrase for such an event so it a was zillion decibel-ed, “Aaarrgghhhhh!” (Not bad, I thought, considering I’d lost my voice because of a cold.)

H:        Came running, “Do you have to screech?”

E:         Croaking …..   “I’m only doing a bit of self-

            expression.”

H:        “Well you should have given up self-expression

            at your age.  You should have got it all out of

            your system years ago.”

E:         ????????????????????   (speechless for once)

Needless to say, Huw cleaned up after me once again and was late for his meeting.

The Gift of Friendship

A little ditty that I came up with a few years ago ...

                                                 Precious!

                                      The gift of friendship.  

                                      Delicate and fragile;

                                      The porcelain figure

                                      Precariously held in my hands.

                                       Timeless!

                                       The gift of friendship.

                                       Gracious and God-given;

                                       The cloud’s silver lining

                                       And the twinkle in my eye.

                                       Treasured!

                                       The gift of friendship.

                                       Diamond-studded, glittering;

                                       The brooch on my lapel

                                       And the heart on my sleeve.

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A friend is one who overlooks your broken fence and admires the flowers in your garden😎 

Home Comforts

When you’re practically living out of a suitcase or overnight bag, the simple things such as having your own cuppa sat by your own desk have a certain appeal......

Even better is the joy of sleeping in your own bed but before that, relaxing in it and drifting off listening to Classic FM Radio .

I usually listen to it via my Roberts Radio next to my desk but seen here on a casual table shortly after I opened it – a welcome birthday present from Huw a few years ago. 

However our home has recently been infiltrated by  a virtual Amazonian goddess known as  ALEXA

 ‘It’  ( for  I refuse to sex it being an inanimate  object ) is only as good as your Wi Fi coverage.

So to bed ........and breathe...

accompanied by the soothing sounds of “it” playing Taverner's Lamb..

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“Come to me, all  you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ...”

For as ye sow, shall ye reap

Subtitled: the Worm that Turned.

The worm in question is this boi bach.....

He was nicknamed that by Huw, not only because he was constantly on the move as a toddler and still is, I might add, but he wriggled and wriggled and jiggled inside me for 6 ½ months...... plus.

None of this “Oohh, ouch  I felt my baby kick” that I’d hear friends groan and grumble about, but relentlessly, wiggling and jiggling inside my ever increasing tummy. A joyful feeling albeit slightly worrying.

Worm will turn 35 tomorrow, or you could say today seeing as it’s Harvest Sunday ( well not quite because this year the elders  changed the date of Cwrdd Diolchgarwch in Penuel)

All said and done, the first Sunday in October will always be the day I say Thank You to the Almighty for the gift of life He bestowed on us.

‘Course there has been the odd occasion when I haven’t attended a Harvest Service due to illness, often named Sabbath-itis by my very lovely dad in law (R.G. as he was known in ministerial circles, but Dick 😳 by my mum in law .) I never knew whether or not it was a tease by him or what.

Today, was no exception and off I went to Penuel  with rose tinted spectacled memories of being in the Labour Ward at Morriston Hospital, huffing and puffing and doing my breathing, or trying to at least.

All of a sudden there came a familiar noise from the corridor. It was The Salvation Army Band booming out “We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land …..”

Fast forward to many long laborious hours later, I found myself surrounded by medics of all sorts, and as I was being wheeled off for an emergency C – Section, a nurse shouted over the heads of everyone else, “Mr. Robertssssss! Your mother is on the phone asking how long you’ll be. Your dinner is in the oven!” To which my usually patient and polite Huw irreverently snapped back, “Tell her that we’ve got an over cooked bun in our oven!”

 *cringe..🙈....

Today’s Morning Service was conducted in a more civil and reverend manner by Y Bugail, HG Roberts but I daren’t ever catch his eye during Holy Communion because we remember that day..... fondly

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Busy counting blessings -----umm, not enough fingers though 😉

In the middle of the maelstrom

Today’s Photo a Day for Flickr was this Passion Flower given a twirl effect on in Photoshop.

The reason for this is because whilst I was busy doing what I do online, my thoughts were solely on this old Blog Entry…AFTER THE BALL WAS OVER...

Well, it’s not quite over because this fat lady is yet to sing, but as always we live in hope – the hope that Huw’s 6^th and final CT scan would result in an all clear.

And so we wait…..

Another month or so ….

And so.............

Notes for an Organist

The background to this is that when Huw was minister of Calfaria Chapel Skewen one of the Organists there happened to celebrate a significant birthday. We as members were invited to go along to a party in the vestry and asked if we could give a song, present a short piece about her etc. The little ditty that follows was my contribution.

Note: I'd add that the reader should imagine this being performed  at an accelerando pace; accompanied by steel drums and ending with an abrupt stop. 

Crotchets, quavers, semibreves and minims.

Put them all together in a melting pot.

Altos, tenors, basses and sopranos;

Lump them all together and see what you’ve got.

Choirs of angels, singing “Glory Hallelujah”,

Congregations giving all they’ve got.

Add some swell and really hit the big notes

And pray that the bellows don’t get too hot.

And there’s our Eurfron dancing on the pedals,

Side-step, quick-step, and then a foxtrot;

Calf muscles bulging, temples a-throbbing,

This is all part of an organist’s lot.

So, Eurfron , carry on playing hymns and arias,

Keep them fingers nimble as can be.

Keep them toes a-tapping on the pedals,

And, Eurfron, don’t ever throw away the key!

Back where we belong

I posted this photo on Flickr the other day  with the same title with  no other meaning than here we both were together in the great outdoors, in the fresh air, listening to the curlews courlee-ing, the staccato’d tuck-tuck-tuck of the turnstones in flight, notwithstanding the grating squawk-squawk- squawking of the black headed gulls…… after a short break in London, the City that never sleeps.

Then I started pondering where we really belong and a vision of Huw on the day he was inducted into the ministry at Penuel, Capel y Bedyddwyr, Casllwchwr sprang to mind....

Following on from that, last evening I attended the two-weekly meet of the Penuel Ladies Sisterhood and was captivated for a full hour by the actress and storyteller Debra John 

Then to cap it all a programme on TV with the ornithologist Iolo Williams

and a chance encounter with him....😍

Back where we belong.....

A LESSON LEARNED FROM A SPIDER

(An adaptation by me of something I once read in an email subscription )

I can't pretend to be too fond of spiders, especially those large ones that creep into our homes at this time of year, especially given that I  inadvertently trod on one in bare feet on my way to bed last night and squished it . Eeeeeew!  🤢 but I do believe in the sanctity of life which posed a bit of a dilemma..... and a matter of double standards being a pescatarian with the odd bit of meat thrown in 🤔

I digress.........

When we bought a new car a few summers ago, we found that a tiny spider had made a home somewhere inside the ‘doings’ of the driver’s wing mirror. Each day,Huw would meticulously clean the cobwebs off but the next morning and each morning after that, they would be back there.

That year we toured the winding uppy/ downy lanes of Dorset in the car for a whole week and the spider travelled with us, with Huw having to clean away a newly crafted web each morning. In one way, it was a shame to destroy such a work of art or a work of nature, but it made driving unsafe without the full clarity of the mirror. 

He......assuming the spider was an ‘Arthur’’ not a ‘Martha’ remained inside it. That is, until one very windy day, we were travelling full pelt along the M4 when Huw, noticed the spider being flung off into oblivion - or so it seemed.

We suspected that the wind had taken him. Ah! but not so, for the following day we discovered that he’d managed to hang on by the most delicate of threads, and had created another new silvery web overnight.

With hindsight, I suppose that puff of wind, which had seemingly blown him away, was a trial or challenge for the spider- and yet some kind of unseen windshield, as well as that delicate, almost unseen thread must have protected him.

We all get our emotional storms, winds, trials in our lives but likewise we also have our windshields. That may be our friends and loved ones, but most of all, as long as we wear the cloak or armour of God 

 When we hold on to this thought, we are secure. Should a puff of wind in the form of some kind of crisis come along and catch us unawares, whisking us off course for a while, we could be left floundering in hitherto uncharted waters. Yet if we hold on to, or allow ourselves to be held in the palms of God’s tender hands, we can face any trial hurtling our way no matter how big or small it may be.

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*sings, "When upon life's billows you are tempest tossed...".... ac yn y blaen..

Lle i enaid gael llonydd ?

Roughly trans:  a  place for the soul to find peace

Picture this: it’s a scene from Cardiff Bay. With Cardiff being the Capital City of Wales, you’d imagine it’s a hustle-bustle/skittle-scuttle-scramble kind of place, and it is.

It had also been that kind of a day, a very full day arriving lunchtime to meet with a friend, who allowed me to stroll at a leisurely pace in the warmth of the early autumn sunshine. A blissful and peaceful encounter. Happy.

As the day progressed however, I found myself amidst the throngs of people at an hotel where I’d booked in for the night.  Chitter- chatter, chitter – chatter. Idle chatter…….

After making my (polite, never rude) excuses, I scooted off to be alone with my thoughts. Just as I do. Often. Too often? I think not.

Much as I love life and fully embrace it despite its many limitations, I like my ‘quiet place’.

I found myself sat here on old Doris’s Bike, my blue ability scooter which with the Brexit palaver may get renamed   …. at peace in the City. How odd you may think, especially when you could start wondering why that yacht is sailing around in circles ………………

Oh no, not odd at all when that  still small voice speaks to you in the midst of it all.

You listen. You ALWAYS get your answer. Simples.

Peace in the City…Lle i enaid gael llonydd.

Who is Derek ?

An excerpt from my book ‘Stumbling Along - Journey with the Master of  Surprises ‘

"Ah, the unique and unpredictable circadian rhythms of the MSer”

MS Fatigue is something I don’t think I’ll ever get a grip on and it seems to get worse as I get older.  You can take your Amantadine, your Modafinil [EDIT: no longer on the prescribing list, I believe ? ] your amphetamine sulphate even, but in my case, these make me twitchy and edgy.

‘Twitchy and edgy’ is what this old dear does very well without the added power of drugs. These days I take power-naps frequently during the day when I’m home. I read something about power-napping in the press recently  and it seems it’s beneficial to many people . 

However, there was a time when our Steff was younger, I used to take myself off to my sanctuary, my haven of peace and tranquillity which is my bedroom in the afternoons in order to gather some strength for the coming evening.

One day, a ten-year-old Steffan came home from school at 3.30pm and I was dead to the world on the bed, not in it.  I have to rely on him for the rest of the story… apparently, he knocked on the bedroom door and walked in (I have no recollection whatsoever of this) and I sat bolt upright and demanded "Where's Derek?”

It seems that I frightened the living daylights out of him because my eyes were on stalks but then I flopped back on the bed and he slunk out quietly and waited until I woke up.

When I eventually came to, he asked me if I had been dreaming.  I really didn’t know because it was such a deep slumber and I have no recollection of this whatsoever.  Oh, for total recall, eh?  He may have been winding me up but the look on his face later told me the reality of the situation.  I can’t begin to perceive how he must have felt to see his mum like that.  It’s something which I can hardly bear think about.

I'm still getting teased about it and we still don't know anyone named Derek.  Thank goodness Huw knows that I don't have the energy or the inclination to fool around; I could have lost myself a good husband there.

I also decided right there and then on that day that going to bed for a few hours was just not on - for me at least as I actually feel worse for it.  Daytime power naps - yes. Taking myself off to bed – no way José!

Eleven years [Edit : 24 years] after the event I still ask myself.....

    “Just WHO is Derek?”

I love the Moon, the Moon loves me....

“Speak roughly to your little boy

and beat him when he sneezes!

he only does it to annoy,

because he knows it teases!”

― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

There’s nothing I can emphasise more than to urge caution with your words to children. Take for example my very lovely and caring mam….

I was always a poor sleeper as a child and if there was a big bright moon shining into my bedroom window, it would keep me awake.

Why? You might ask. Was it too bright? Sadly no. As I’ve said, I was a poor sleeper- that’s all.

However she’d scare me witless with desperate threats of, “If you don’t go to sleep, then Mr. Moon will come and get you!” meaning well of course as mams did.... back in the 1950s.

When I grew old enough to read, I read countless books about The Moon and Planets , immersing myself in reading about Space. I was especially  engrossed when I was allowed to stay up late to watch on TV Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon on July 20th 1969. 

Cathartic? You betcha! And the reason why I’m so besotted with taking photos of it. Simples ! as long as you understand the principles of Catharsis. 

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In Sickness and in health

( an excerpt from my book Stumbling Along – A Journey with the Master of Surprises © 2006)

THE JOURNEY BEGINS

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

                                                          And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

 Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say. ~ JRR Tolkien

The journey with the Master of Surprises begins on July 30th 1977, though I suspect that he’d been my travelling companion for many years prior to that.

The year 1977 can be remembered for many things: the Silver Jubilee of the Queen (Her Majesty); the sudden and untimely passing of the King (Elvis); but most of all for the joining together in Holy Matrimony, or Marital Kombat, to use my favourite description, of a very thin, shy, Eiona *******  to Huw Roberts, both of Morriston, Swansea.

My father was a quiet and unassuming man but he had the most mischievous sense of humour, which on reflection, I believe I must have inherited from him.  His laughter and the wicked twinkle in his blue eyes were so infectious you’d almost be creased over if you just happened to catch his eye in particular situations where silence was required.

We spent many rib-tickling hours together watching simple things on TV such as Bob Monkhouse’s Mad Movies and all the other black and white movies which were shown way back in the Sixties.  Stan Sennet was a particular favourite of ours.

On my Wedding Day, I should have expected him to tease me about something; I innocently presumed it would be during the Wedding Reception.  I was wrong.  He started before the Wedding Service even began.  He proudly walked me, his only daughter, three quarters of the way down that aisle then stopped, turned around, looked me straight in the eyes and with a twinkly look, said in a voice loud enough for everyone else to hear, “Chi mo’yn mynd nôl?” which roughly translates into English, “D’you want to turn back?”.

I could hear the “Oohs” and “Aahs” and bating of big breaths bouncing around the walls and pews of the large non-conformist chapel; you could have cut the atmosphere with a blunt butter-knife. Out of the corner of my right eye I caught my mother’s worried eyes which telepathically queried of me, “What on earth is he up to now?”  So I just turned him to stone with my left eye, like you do with your parents when you’re that age, and we proceeded….

Worse was to come and by that I don’t mean married life or manifestations by the Master of Surprises; what I’m talking about is that Huw’s Dad was the officiating minister.  Nothing wrong with that, you may think; he’d been doing this all his life; he would know the ceremony off by heart - or would he?  What we didn’t realise was that Dad would be more nervous for this particular wedding.  He was so nervous in fact, that he’d had to write our names down on a piece of paper in case he forgot them.

After the ceremony, we went out into the vestry to sign the register and to breathe a few sighs of relief that the worst was over.  As I sat and was about to have my photo taken signing the register, I placed my small posy of flowers on the table and out of the blue, a big black blob of indelible ink landed on my dress and on my flowers as the registrar passed me the pen - his fault not mine.  I still have my doubts as to whether we were legally married because we found many mistakes made by the Registrar on that green piece of paper.  We sent it back once to be rectified but it was returned with two errors still on it.  They are still there because the Registrar died soon after and we haven’t bothered to chase things up.  For all I know, that son of ours may well be a real “barsteward”.

The Wedding Reception was in the Caswell Bay hotel on the Gower Peninsula and it passed in a murky haze of Asti Spumante bubbles and Players Gold Leaf cigarette smoke.  We’d parked our car behind the hotel the previous evening as we were to drive away on our honeymoon from there straight after the Reception.

When I say ‘our car’ what I really mean is ‘Huw’s car’, but seeing as by then we were already locked in Mortal Combat, I’d adopted the ‘what’s his is mine’ way of logic.  We hadn’t been married long enough for that logic to stretch to ‘what’s mine is his’ and if I really have to be truthful, twenty-nine years down the line it still hasn’t stretched that far.  I haven’t got past that stage of the journey.  With a bit of luck I never shall, either.

Our car had been left in a place where it would not be seen or got at to be smeared in lipstick or have a kipper deposited in the ventilation system.  That was the intention anyway, but in the same way as the road to heaven is paved with good intentions so did our good intentions lead to hell because as soon as we walked into the Reception Suite, there it was for all to behold, in full view of the guests and behind the bride’s table; the shimmering shiny silver metalwork of ‘our’ Vauxhall Viva. Indeed it was shiny because to keep my mind off things I’d been given the task of washing and polishing it the previous afternoon.  That itself was a once-in-a-lifetime experience because I haven’t been so neuronless as to accept the offer again.

We left for our honeymoon in a car which was fully decorated with ribbons, posters, balloons, but luckily no smelly kipper in the ventilation system.  We got as far as the village of Mumbles, a mile away, to find ourselves stuck in the middle of the annual Mumbles Carnival procession.

I knew just what it’s like after that situation to be a celeb because dotty old women and drunken young men kept tapping the car windows asking us if we were part of the carnival and wishing us good luck for the future.  It became quite frightening because the car was being rocked in the crowd and we were stuck and unable to move for an hour.  When we eventually made it out to the other side of the village Huw pulled into the nearest petrol station to get the lipstick cleaned up because it can damage the bodywork - of the car, not me.  With hindsight, I’m lead to suspect that my bodywork was already being damaged insidiously inside me, so off we innocently set on our journey together.

I remember nothing of the first part of the journey because I’d fallen asleep and was as dead as John Cleese’s parrot until we stopped at the Easton in Gordano Services on the M5 heading for Cornwall.  The only thing which sticks in my mind was going to the loo in those services and as I pulled my knickers down, I deposited about a ton of rice on the floor around me.  It was embarrassing enough for me because the cubicle doors were a good foot above the floor so everyone must have seen and not just heard it, but even more embarrassing for Huw was that when he undid his zipper the same happened to him in a communal urinal!

Now here’s a bit of useless information I found on the World Wide Web about the tradition of throwing rice:

“The basis for the predominant theory as to why rice and other grains, such as wheat, have played a prominent role in marriage ceremonies for centuries, is that they are fraught with symbolism of fertility and of prosperity. By throwing rice at the bride and groom at a wedding, guests symbolically wish them a lifetime full of these blessings.”

All I can say is that fertility and prosperity were not things I was ever blessed with.  I may have been bestowed with all the female requirements regarding fertility but I think that someone forgot to chuck the Fison’s Fertiliser my way at the right time because I only managed to produce the one sprog, and as for prosperity - just how do we measure that?  In monetary terms? If so then I must have gone to the wrong cash dispenser; if measured in indefinable or ethereal terms, then I admit to having riches beyond my wildest dreams. Let me invite you to our honeymoon…

 Question: What is a honeymoon salad

Answer: Lettuce alone

 Read on and you’ll understand the relevance of the joke.  Huw was entirely in charge of the honeymoon arrangements. He’d consulted with one of his colleagues in school and she’d given him an Egon Ronay guide to the worst honeymoon destinations in the history of history itself.

What was really mind-boggling however, was that he’d booked a village Inn in North Cornwall without mentioning it to his colleague; when he returned the guide to her and she asked him if he’d found it useful it emerged that she too had booked in the very same place for the very same week with her husband and ten year old son.  The obvious disadvantage was that their room was next door to ours and we had very thin walls.

We made a pact with them: “You keep schtumm and we’ll keep schtumm!”, about the arrangements, that is – I mean how can you keep quiet on your honeymoon, eh?

 Our little secret had its benefits however because when we arrived there at 10 o’clock in the evening we found stiff celebratory drinks on the bar ready and waiting for us.

Hindsight is wonderful isn’t it?  I now know I must have had MS developing in the quiet, insidiously evil way it does, because I felt an overwhelming need to sleep every early-evening after a day’s sightseeing.

We’d get back to the Inn and I would crash out on the bed to sleep the sleep of the dead; it was indeed the sleep of the dead because I must surely have gone to hell on the Monday evening because I was woken very suddenly from my nap by (imagine Sandie Shaw) “I-I-I-I wonder if one day that you say that you care, If you say you love me madly, I’ll gladly be there. Like a puppet on a stttrrrrrriiiinnggg!”  It was the local brass band standing right under our bedroom window where they congregated every Monday night for band practice.

We only have to hear the opening chord of ‘Puppet on a String’ on the radio or telly now and we both just look at each other and laugh, myself in particular, remembering the reverberation of that brass band in my eardrums, right through to my semi-circular canals and into the now de-myelinated right ventricle of my brain.

 We developed a routine of spending the day sightseeing followed by me napping on the bed whilst Huw read a book.  Just how many honeymoon couples read a book, huh?  Refreshed from our rest we would join our friends and some of the locals in the bar for a toasted sarnie or chicken and chips ‘in the basket’.  Huw had teasingly ordered soup in the basket one evening only to be told it wasn’t on the menu that evening but that maybe it would appear later in the week.

We were totally bemused by the rural routine of that village such as the brass band; Postman Pat’s Cornish cousin, Postman Pastie, picking up the mail the same time everyday; the farm tractor going in one direction first thing in the morning then returning whence it came the same time every evening.  But hah! the best was yet to come on the Thursday evening because I was woken up from my evening nap by a very loud clanging coming from the church campanologists practising their cadenced carillons, directly opposite our bedroom.  It is yet another memory which exercises the chuckle muscles.

Within walking distance of our Inn of the First Happiness was the Lappa Valley Steam Railway, so like big kids we thought we’d give it a go. I was only twenty two years young, so I wasn’t far off being a kid anyway. As the steam train puffed in a forward direction, Thomas the Tank Engine-like, so did the black smoke travel in the opposite direction depositing soot on all us passengers in the open carriages.

We stepped off the train looking like speckled hens, so a bath was in order when we got back to our Inn.  Any notions of sex and romance had flown out the window right at the start because of the circumstances of having a room next door to a work colleague, so just a plain, straightforward bath would have sufficed.  It wasn’t to be however, as the bathroom which served all six guestrooms had no running water.  It hadn’t all week and as far as I know it may well remain so today.

I’ll say it now and I’ll repeat it over and over so much that you’ll need Remegel® by the end of the book, that I am not a good sailor.  Whether this is MS related or not, no doctor has ever been able to tell me though one thing stands and that is the fact that I have vestibular damage; though ‘stands’ is hardly the right word in the following story.

 

I’m reminded of a particular jaunt during our honeymoon week to the sleepy seaside village of Padstow, not that you can describe it as ‘sleepy’ since Rick Stein moved in; it’s now a positive hive or should I say, a fish-tank of activity.

We decided to take a boat trip out to “Seal Island” where, as the name indicates, you can bob up and down seal-watching.  The estuary from where we set off consisted of paradise-like, fine pale yellow sands and deep aquamarine, clear, calm waters; in fact the word ‘aquamarine’ must surely have been named after that place.We sat on the top deck in the uppermost corner to get the best view but little did I know when we embarked that it could have been the worst possible place to sit regarding turbulence.  We glided down the estuary on a sea of serenity then aaaaarggghhh!  We suddenly hit the open Atlantic Ocean.

E:       “How long is this trip exactly?”

 H:       “About an hour and ten minutes.”

 E:       “You mean I have to suffer this for another 60 minutes??

H:       “Uh- huh”

E:  “What d‘you mean by just ‘Uh huh?’ I can’t tolerate this for that long!”I was feeling completely disorientated by the upwards, downwards, sideways, thisways, thatways motion as we hit the open sea but people around me were beginning to get seriously seasick.  People right next to me and all around me were violently throwing up over the edge or onto the deck below.

E:  “I really need to go to the loo for a wee,”.......because I wasn’t feeling nauseous but my bladder had the sudden urge (another pre-cursor to MS?) to empty itself.

H:   “Well if you must.”

E:  “I must. I’m going” as I staggered amongst the throngs of chuckers-up.

I weaved and bobbed my way to the lower deck only to find even more people puking as they queued for the toilet, the sight and sound of which suggested to my bladder that it didn’t really need emptying, so I made my way back unsteadily to a calm as ever looking Huw.

 The voyage was gut-churning and I was trying hard to hold on to some kind of fixed point on the horizon, just like ballet dancers after doing a long pirouette, to keep myself orientated.  I started muttering inside my head, “Our Father, which art in heaven….”...another big wave….”hallowed be thy name...” …another wave….”Thy Kingdom come…” …another gut churner… and so on… “Forever and ever … OKAY THEN take me Lord, I’m YOURS!”

 It felt that dire when suddenly we seemed to round Seal Island and calm reigned once more. We watched seals play nonchalantly in the calm, aquamarine waters for five minutes until we hit the open sea again and the gut churning re-introduced itself to my body.  However the ordeal was not over as the ship’s driver decided to stop in mid-ocean to hook up a stray sky-blue-pink buoy.

E:  (green-faced) “This is purgatory.”

H: “I must admit it’s a bit rough.”

E: “A bit??”

 After what seemed to be eternity we started gliding back up the calm waters of the estuary and as we dis-embarked, Huw asked the ‘driver’, “Is it normally as rough as this?”  “Arrr, no sir,” (imagine Cornish accent) “If I had known it would have turned out this bad, I would’ve cancelled the sailing.”

We sat on the quayside for half an hour to steady my legs, followed by a sherry in a hostelry to steady my nerves.The honeymoon tale ends with note about a fig leaf.  The church opposite the pub boasted a fig tree growing out of its walls.  Legend has it that anyone who dared touch it would be struck down dead within a short time of doing so.  There was a book inside the church which kept a record of people who had died shortly after coming into contact with it.  We dared each other and we hesitated; we double-dared each other and hesitated again, then thought at least that if we ‘go’ we’d ‘go’ together.  We’re still here twenty-nine years later.  I never was superstitious.