Such a novelty to have a car to hand! We took advantage and went to the local shops where there was an outdoor market alongside a well stocked Coop so we arrived back on board with lots of fruit, vegetables and alcohol! The latter was in preparation for our first outdoor gathering later in the day.
Great excitement. At 3.30pm two of our oldest friends arrived at the boat armed with a box of wood for the fire, homemade cake, freshly laid eggs, homegrown rhubarb and fresh herbs. A cornucopia of delight! The day which had started out quite chilly began to warm up, as we set off on the same walk I had done yesterday with Ra and C. Safe in the knowledge that I shouldn’t have forgotten it less than a day later, we were able to chat nineteen to the dozen without having to concentrate too hard on the route! By the time we were back to Wind Rose we all needed hot cross buns and cherry cake to refuel. Just as we finished enjoying tea, our other local friends, O and S arrived for 6 o’clock drinks. We cracked open the bubbly, such a novelty and luxury it was to be able to have six of us together! It deserved celebrating. It was fun reuniting our two sets of friends as two of them had grown up near to one another and their parents had been friends. Not only that but the reason I know them is through our siblings. We each had/have a brother a decade older than ourselves and they were good friends and that’s how we three met half a century ago, Scottish dancing! The last time our friends had met each other, they thought, was probably at our wedding. We chatted until the chill got to us all and even the rugs over our legs, making us feel even more ancient, were not enough to stop the hands turning blue!
We wanted to watch a complete film, rather than a series so browsed Netflix’s offerings and happened on a 1990s film called Sleepers. If I had looked more closely at the synopsis we probably would have passed it by because it turned out to be a story, based on truth, revolving around child abuse in an American juvenile detention centre. Some of it I could not bear to watch so we fast forwarded, but the film itself was sobering and thought provoking. The child abuse was, to my mind, so horrific that it caused me to reflect on the blog I have just written on forgiveness. Would I be able to forgive someone who committed those acts on a child of mine? Conversely, if I didn’t forgive, how would that play out on me for the rest of my life? How would I deal with the feelings of anger and hatred – would they become all consuming. I think I came to the same conclusion as in my blog – that in order to heal and let go of the past, so that I could contemplate an hopeful future, I would have to find it in me to forgive. This would probably be impossible without using God’s strength to help me and also to recognise that true forgiveness may take a very long time, even a lifetime, to achieve.
As if that film were not enough for one night, we suddenly remembered we had not seen the final episode of ‘Unforgotten’, of which I cannot say much, as I do not want to spoil it for those of you who are a bit behind! Suffice to say, I eventually retired to bed emotionally exhausted!
NarrowboatTLC 