Boring

Hello all. I hope you are ok. We are all dealing fairly well with the slight that Plymouth has had to deal with this week. This was the front page of the Times. Well, pardon me for not being from London and therefore being as dull as ditchwater. I would just like to say that I am proud to live in the "not going out" capital of Britain. Give me a small glass of whisky, some ill-fitting pyjamas and an episode of Shardlake on a Saturday night ANYTIME. According to the article - which was front page news because there is nothing else going on in the world - Plymouth has few claims to fame. Indeed. 

At this point, I could go off on one and let you know all the fascinating facts about Charles Darwin, Captain Cook, Scott of the Antarctic, Mary Astor and Conan Doyle  - all of whom called Plymouth home at one time or another or how there is a monument to the Beatles' Bottoms on Plymouth Hoe. (It's an imprint of somewhere they sat and it's not pink or fleshy or anything). Then there is the Spanish Armada and the bowls and all that - which a colleague of mine once described as being "gold-plated b*****ks to a rather crestfallen Australian tourist). Then there is the Mayflower Steps where lots of visiting Americans have their photo taken to commemorate religious dissenters sailing for and founding America (after wiping out entire indigenous communities first). And, if the actual Mayflower Steps lie buried beneath the Ladies' Toilets on The Barbican, I wouldn't have thought it made THAT much difference. It's not like they are the Pyramids or anything. Ha! Not so boring now eh? Well, not much anyway. 

I think everyone has different ideas of what they find exciting and I possibly find myself at the duller end of the spectrum. FOR INSTANCE - last week I mentioned that I had been reading Marjory Allingham's Campion novels and someone mentioned that the BBC had produced a set of DVDs. What? Seriously? Off to Amazon for me and I am looking forward to this very much. HOH, who feels that he has suffered enough through the various incarnations of Midsomer Murders, is raising one eyebrow and hoping it is over quickly. I doubt it - there are eight DVDs! Hurrah!

Speaking of excitement, I was filling in "on the door" this morning. A bit cold but otherwise uneventful. I was trying to force a small brochure about Gift Aid into people's hands and you would have thought I was handing over a grenade with the pin out. I don't think I am a natural welcoming type of person, to be honest. As I say, I do tend towards the dull side and can't engage strangers with sparkling bon-mots. Most people frighten me and I spend too much time wondering what people are thinking of me. I keep seeing middle-aged women on social media who say that they are now of an age where they don't give a monkeys what people think about them. Apparently, this wisdom and self-acceptance come with age. I can't say I have noticed. Maybe it's like Aged Parent used to say about spiders - "They are more afraid of you than you are of them". I'll be honest with you - I have never really been too sure that spiders are scared of us. Why do they run towards us like maniacs if they are not trying to kill us, that's what I say. And who taught them how to jump? I can't really think of anything benign that jumps like that. (HOH is now listing - rabbits, kittens, puppies, budgies. Actually, my nana had a budgie that had a really nasty edge but he probably has proved his point).

The truth, I suppose is that (a) most people are not thinking about me at all - most of us have problems of our own and (b) any sort of Christian understands security comes from God and what he feels and plans about us. When I was younger, our church old biddys (of which I am now a proud member) used to sing 

Because he lives - I can face tomorrow

Because he lives - all fear is gone

Because I knoooooooooow who holds the future

And life is worth the living - just because he lives.

Join in at the back! It's good for you. Have a good week.