Goodness and Mercy

Monday 7th would normally have found us at gym, but this time there was a Chris Lloyd What On Earth workshop to attend instead, which was just as good as anticipated – I think we’ve now seen all but two of his presentations 🙂 L had Guides in the evening and the rest of the day was mostly spent catching up on some Arts Award work ready for Tuesday’s session.

I’d been looking forward to Wednesday, when the children and I were going together to a school to run a book fair. Unfortunately when we got there it was to discover that we’d been put in a tiny space miles from anywhere, the children were not allowed to visit during the day to look at the books and nobody seemed to know we were there at all. In fact, despite it being a large school, only two families stopped by at all, one of those by accident because they were looking for some lost property. Not the way to run a successful book fair, people!

Thursday was a day of great excitement 🙂 Bob and the children left at sparrowfart to drive to a service station some distance away and meet the dog rescue centre representative who was bringing our puppy (and several others) over from Ireland to start new lives with loving family over here. All went smoothly, apart from a slight weather-induced delay to the ferry, and soon little Shirley was home 🙂
Why Shirley, you ask? Well, there’s a story my grandfather used to tell about a little boy who once asked his Sunday school teacher whether David, as a shepherd, had any dogs to help him. The teacher, of course, had no idea, so did what teachers are wont to do and suggested the lad find out for himself and report back. The following week, much to the teacher’s surprise, he announced that he had done exactly that and the answer was yes, David did have dogs. Three of them, in fact. Oh, and the boy knew their names, because they were mentioned in the Bible: Goodness, Mercy and Shirley – and they followed him all his life 😀

Junior band had a concert that evening, so that was Shirley’s first big outing – wandering the outside stalls with one of us while the other watched the children play Christmas tunes and then we switched partway through. Her second big outing was, of course, to choir the next day, where she met the church administrator’s dog and was made much of by all the choristers 🙂

Saturday 12th December was rather a special morning for K and L and especially for me. They had heard about a Messiah workshop with a period instrument group and asked to go and then when I took them I found myself singing too. It was lovely; I don’t think I’d realised how much I miss proper singing, and I was surprised by how well I was able to join in, given that I was singing (and sightreading) the alto part when I’ve only ever sung the soprano one. Something I should perhaps do more often 🙂

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