We have a problem here

So we have a problem here. The keen reader will remember the post about the cockapoos (can’t remember when, sometime in the summer, look it up). Well, following that glance back into the world of dog-owning, Mrs Demon laid down the following conditions before any dog-owning could even be considered:
- The dog must be female (more than enough men about the place)
- A cross between a border terrier and a working cocker spaniel sounds like an interesting combination.

So here’s the problem. The curate’s border terrier has just given birth to five puppies; three male, two female. They are border terrier and working cocker cross. They are cute, and I mean, cute. Mrs Demon knows that they have arrived, and will be back from work (cos she works away) in a couple of days. The noises she was making over the phone when I told her suggested to me that dog-ownership was a distinct possibility in the not-too-distant future.

I have found myself driving about today imagining how the day would have run with a dog in the back of the jeep. Okay, was the general conclusion. Any dog has to be good with boats and water, and borders are good boat dogs. But what about all the other stuff that goes with having a dog; the restrictions on travel, going away for a few days, etc?

Well, I think I know what is going to happen, but in the end you, the reader, must decide. The decision is yours, unless we don’t like it. If you think that we should get a dog, and it’ll mean I get out more, and do all that exercise that I should be doing, then vote YES. If you think it’s a crazy idea, and these days dog owners end up walking around with carrier bags full of poo, then vote NO. The number to ring is 0999 123 45678. Lines are open until midnight. Remember to ask the person who pays the bill before you dial. The cost of calls is astronomical, and we’ll make sure you can’t get through the first couple of times. I’ll pocket all the money and invest it in a couple of business opportunities I’ve heard about on the island of Sark. Or start my own hedge fund scam. Can’t decide which. Lines are open now.

Emergency! Which service do you require?

The call we must all prepare for but hope never comes came on Sunday afternoon. The snooker was just getting interesting, and the log fire was well banked up. I had a nice cup of tea and a piece of Battenberg cake beside me. Suddenly, the red phone on the coffee table began to ring and flash on and off. “Emergency!” I said, “Which service do you require?”

“Evensong!” said an anxious voice. “Now!” It was the curate. “Eh?” I said, “It’s six o’clock already, and it’s your turn!”

“No can do!” she panted, “The dog’s having her puppies!” she gasped, “Gotta get her to the vet! She needs a caesarean!”

“Leave it with me!” I said, and sprinted to the study where a cassock and surplice hang ready for just this eventuality. I grabbed a prayer book, stuck the flashing light on top of the car (the purple one, for Advent), and drove at top speed four miles through the freezing night. The noise of my pounding feet rang on the stones as I dashed up the church path, and reached the door.

“Let me through, I’m a vicar!” I said, to no-one in particular, but I’d always wanted to say it. The congregation of eight looked around, rather startled.

I arrived just in time. “You’ve arrived just in time!” said the churchwarden, “I’ve announced the first hymn!”

“Keep calm, everyone,” I said in my reassuring, measured tones, “Everything’s going to be OK.”

Four Yorkshire clergy respond

“Forty six miles? You were lucky! Every day I had to get up and drive five hundred miles to celebrate holy communion in the middle of the night, and then drive back and take ten funerals, followed by a couple of church council meetings, a mothers union festival and then get to the cathedral for a diocesan meeting. We worked eight days a week, fifty-three weeks a year. Every forty years we had ten minutes off!”

“Dreamland! When I were a vicar, every five minutes the Archdeacon were round the parishes for a visitation, and if everything weren’t up to scratch, he’d kill us stone dead!”

“Luxury! Huh! When I were a parish priest, we lived in a vicarage with no roof, and our children froze to death every night before they went to school, and when they got home they froze to death again before they went to bed. Our stipend was a ha-porth of gravel every year, and we had to meet our own expenses out of that!”

“Gravel? Gravel? We dreamt of gravel! Bah! Yuh don’t know you were born! I were ordained when I were three, given a parish of fifteen thousand homicidal maniacs in Rotherham and made to stay there until I’d visited ‘em all twice, then sent to Outer Mongolia on a mission with one donkey and a nylon sheet to sleep under. When I got back twenty years later the bishop demanded to know what I’d been doing, and refused to pay me expenses!”

Hmmm. And if you tell young people that today, they don’t believe you.

Thinly spread resources

My trip counter showed forty-six miles. Nothing unusual about that, except that it was my mileage for one day, and nothing unusual in that either, except that it was all within our group of parishes. A funeral at one end of the group, followed by an early carol service at the other end, and a craft fair in the middle. In addition, my colleague was conducting a wedding during the afternoon. Add several other visits, and you have forty six miles. This is the reality of stretched ministerial resources in this part of the world.

Tis the season to be jolly

God sent his only-begotten Son into the world so that we could all rush around frantically from one service or party or event, in terrible weather, on dangerous roads, suffering from various winter ailments that would put any normal person in bed for a week. Tis the season to be jolly difficult, as bell-ringers refuse to give way on their practice night so that a concert can rehearse in the church, and people get proprietorial about flower arrangements. Silent night? Dream on! It’s minus a hundred outside and has been all weekend. I’ve decided to try whisky and Stones ginger wine as my evening tipple of choice in winter months. Must learn not to swig it like the Big Brewer’s bitter. Night all!

Burn After Reading

He’s a good boy that lad of ours, getting the aged parents in to see a movie every now and again. Coen brothers “Burn After Reading” this time; another good movie. We both enjoyed it- mind you, I’ll watch John Malkovitch reading from the telephone directory. Daft plot which became dafter, but we felt better coming out than when we went in, and that’s what counts. We always stay right through the credits, by the way. It is frustrating for the staff who want to clearup the cartons, but how else would we hear the final track on the music soundtrack, and know that it was the Fugs. For the movie anoraks, you can find out more about the Fugs here.

While we were away took the opportunity to watch “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” again on DVD. You don’t need to know Homer to enjoy it, and all the cast clearly had a great time, plus another fantastic soundtrack of really good American music.

Back to Basics

No-one can say we don’t teach the scriptures to our kids. Back to basics, and the Lord’s Prayer as Our Lord taught it, which was not in seventeenth century English, as some would have you believe, but in Aramaic. Yes, folks, out on the playground at the primary school 28 kids doing body prayer movements to my Aramaic voiceover. How powerful is that, to hear those sounds and syllables out loud! They loved it, and responded really well, so we’ll put it into the end of term service; threefold; Aramaic, Book of Common Prayer, and a modern translation.