10:30 Our daughter Sarah and her 9-year-old twin have just stayed a second night with Lois and me. However, we've emphasised to Sarah that Lois really wants to attend her church's Sunday morning meeting in person today at the hall they use just outside Tewkesbury. For the last few weeks Sarah and the twins have been spending weekends with us, so Lois has only been able to attend meetings online.
flashback to June: Lois taking part online
in one of her church's Sunday morning meetings
Sarah is very happy to accommodate her mum by taking herself and the twins back to their rental home in Alcester and to Sarah's husband, Francis, who's had a busy couple of days there. Francis has been doing more unpacking of the bulk of the family's belongings, which arrived by sea recently from Australia. Sarah and the twins are such a delight for Lois and me to entertain, but Sarah realises it wouldn't be fair to stop Lois going to meeting in person once in a while, so the three of them head off home about 10:30 am.
Sarah and the twins head off for the family's rental
home in Alcester
The network of churches that Lois's church belongs to has become a haven for many hundreds of Iranian Christian refugees seeking asylum in the UK. They're attracted to Lois's church and also to the Jehovah's Witnesses church, because unusually, both denominations reject the doctrine of the Trinity, which Iranian Christians have also rejected, I believe.
11:45 I drive Lois over to Tewkesbury, to the village hall outside the town, where the church's members meet every Sunday.
flashback to August 2021: we make our first visit to Ashchurch Village Hall
where the church's local services are held
the "Bible Hour" is still in progress, with, at the table, Richard
(this week's president), and Alf (this week's preacher) still in full flow
Be that as it may, you've got to admire the technical wizardry that enables the preacher Alf's words to be translated simultaneously into Farsi (see top of screen, and right hand side) for the benefit of the Iranian church members.
I always like to keep a tally of the ratio of Iranians to Brits - it's 11 of each today when we arrive. I think a lot of the Brits are away on holiday. Others have been delayed, because a few more Brits arrive during the lunch break, when Lois and I are eating the packed lunches we brought with us.
I also like to keep a tally of the number of dogs, which is also down a bit today. There are only two here today, but they can number up to 6 - they don't come on their own, but are always accompanied by their owners, needless to say. But they tend to make interesting random but difficult to decipher "comments" on the preacher's remarks during his addresses, using their trademark barks, a phenomenon which is always faintly amusing, I have to confess.
there are only 2 dogs in attendance today - the dog
belonging to Richard, who's this week's president, can be seen under the table
After the meetings are both over, Lois and I are introduced to a charming 14-year-old Iranian girl who arrived in the UK a few months ago with her father, and who has been sitting up front with her dad near the platform.
the young Iranian "Kay", sitting up front at the round table, with her dad
Her name is something like Kamand (spelling?) but everybody calls her Kay. She was introduced to me because she's currently teaching herself Japanese, and people here know I've got a degree in Japanese (1969 - that's a long time ago. Yikes!). We don't have much time to talk but I gather from Kay that she has been teaching herself various languages en route to the UK, so she and her dad must have been "on the run" for a few years, I'm guessing.
When in Turkey she picked up Turkish, then she learnt Greek in Greece, and also English, because she met an Australian girl her age in Greece. She says she wasn't attracted by the German language, so I'm guessing they must have spent some time in Germany too.
She learns languages either direct from native speakers or from her phone, with the Duolingo (?) app. She says she never studies from books. My goodness, what a crazy world we live in!
Kay and I also had a interesting chat about the slide being shown on the screen above, which includes the Greek word for "demon" in Greek lettering. Kay speaks modern Greek, not surprisingly, and I only know the Greek of Plato, Socrates etc, but that wasn't too much of an issue, luckily!
Fascinating stuff !!!!! [If you say so! - Ed]
14:00 I drive Lois home and we go upstairs to bed for an hour or so, and then come down and have a cup of tea and a jam sandwich - works for us haha!!!
20:00 We settle down on the sofa to watch a interesting programme about the Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi.
And who knew that his mother made a pact with God that if young Antonio didn't die, she would make sure he became a priest. And although Vivaldi kept his part of the bargain and got a job as a priest, he didn't actually do much in the way of priestly duties - he never said the mass, and he felt he had a green light to have affairs with much younger women - mainly with Anna Giraud, who was Vivaldi's nurse and travelling companion: she was 16 when they met, and he was 48. And he probably slept with Anna's sister Paolina too, it's believed.
He earned a lot of money from his compositions, but he also spent most of it - and died a pauper.
And that seems to be perhaps how you did it, if you took holy orders. And in terms of that, Antonio certainly "smashed it", let's face facts!
What a crazy world they lived in, though, those "musical priests" in those far-off days, in Italy!!!!
[That's enough madness for today! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
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