Friends, are you "local", and, do you know about art, and but just "don't know what you like" haha (!) ? And by "local", I'm talking about rural West Worcestershire, as you know full well if you've ever read this blog before (!).
[That's enough exclamation marks in brackets (!) - Ed]
But if, on the other hand, you're local and an art-lover, you've probably visited the collection of local Upton Snodsbury art collector Walter Vaifale a lot, maybe, like, a billion times, unless I'm very much mistaken! Am I right? Or am I right (!).
And if so, you probably also read that story about old Walter in today's local Onion News - it's a bit of a "humdinger", isn't it, to put it mildly, as well as being more than a little shocking (!).
But I feel strangely "un-outraged" - is that a word? [No! - Ed], however, when looking at the peanut-butter stain on Van Gogh's "The Red Vineyard", which staff have ham-fistedly tried to "tippex out", because I almost feel that the stain enhances the effect Vincent was aiming for, although perhaps not quite perfectly. However I somehow sense that Vincent is smiling down on it from up in heaven, and celebrating the fact that National Gallery staff's somewhat naive and drunken "rough-housing" has somehow "squared the circle" on this one.
And I hope that our late Queen, Elizabeth, is still smiling down on her own portrait in Ashworth Village Hall just outside Tewkesbury - a portrait still not replaced by one of Charles (parish council please note!). No Koolaid or peanut-butter stains on that one, I'm happy to report (!).
If you look carefully at the above photo, you'll see the somewhat blurry outline of the late Queen's portrait on the wall just above church member David's right shoulder.
Poor Lois !!!! But what a woman I married !!!!! And on the finance duties, the meeting is going to be replacing her with an actual fully-qualified accountant, which speaks volumes, doesn't it.
I wonder...... !
Your views-on-postcards, or on postcards-with-views (!), welcome, as always!
My medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I always "check out" the portrait, when we arrive at the hall ready to brave the hall's (almost!) sub-zero temperatures, on Sundays. for one of Lois's church's Sunday Morning Meetings.
me this morning, just arrived in the Village Hall
for one of Lois's church's Sunday Morning Meetings,
coat buttoned up, hiding a scarf and two sweaters
- it's only 60F (15C) inside the hall - brrrrr !!!!!
This morning, the church's members want to take a picture of Lois and me, because it's our last time here on a Sunday. On Thursday we've moving to a house we're buying 130 miles away, in Liphook, Hampshire.
I make the somewhat cheeky request to camera-buff and Chief Elder Andy to "please get the Queen in the shot if you can!", and he laughs and says he's happy to oblige. At press-time the picture has not yet been made available, but watch this space! [I can hardly contain myself waiting for that one! - Ed]
flashback to earlier meetings: (left) Chief Elder Andy sitting at the desk, setting
up the zoom software with its simultaneous Farsi translation, while trying to pacify
a church member's toddler sitting on his lap (!), and (right) Andy's wife Angie talking to
one of the many Iranian Christian refugees who've attended on Sundays
Afterwards, when we're driving home today, I tell Lois how much her fellow-members love her, but she scoffs, characteristically (!). Of course it's their duty as Christians to love her, and particularly seeing as how she's their "sister in Christ", but I stress to Lois that it's more than that. They love her just in the ordinary heart-felt sense of the word, i.e. because she's lovable. See!
flashback to October: Lois and me sitting at the back of the hall in our coats,
next to a radiator, with [inset] my phone screen showing a balmy 67.2F (19.6C)
- unusually warm for a Sunday morning in the hall, may I say!
For at least 10 years, maybe as many as 20, without shouting about it, she's been quietly doing for the meeting two jobs that nobody else wanted to do: (1) trying to book visiting preachers for future Sunday Morning Meetings, and (2), looking after the bank account and finances needed to support all the Iranian Christian refugees who've been flooding into, and then out of, the area over the last decade or two.
It's a thankless task in particular, trying to book visiting preachers, who often, probably just absent-mindedly, forget to answer her emails and texts asking them if they've got any free Sundays next year to come and preach here again.
"A lot of them are just so vague, bless them!" is all she says.
a typical vague young preacher, looking at his mobile phone
- we'll call him Brother Taylor (not his real name haha!)
Poor Lois (again) !!!!!
Lois will miss the Tewkesbury "crowd" too - so friendly and warm-hearted. And one of the refreshing things about them is their informality and lack of "stuffiness", dressing casually, bringing their young children along and their pet dogs, enjoying a joke with each other, wandering about the hall etc. And I know the Iranians like this too.
flashback to December 2022: some of the church's Iranian
Christian refugees (right) join in the church's Christmas lunch
at the 16th century Gupshill Manor, Tewkesbury
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
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