Opening the door and asking whether she was alright was greeted with a few expletives, a grimace, and something along the lines that, "I shouldn't have been there!" My offer of helping her up was robustly refused and the woman from the car behind, having got out, told the woman that she'd been a bit silly walking across the road whilst texting and having headphones in. Having raised herself from the floor, the cabaret drawing to a close. Our non-reclining woman, still wearing her headphones and grasping her mobile communicating device, turned to my companion and uttered the words, "Eff off," followed by a torrent of abuse which would have made even the most hardened of sailors blush as she continued her perambulations across the road away from us.
I smiled at my fellow driver (thankfully the traffic was light and so there were no massive queues or honk-hitting comrade at the wheel) and smiled, uttering those immoral words, "Silly Cow!"
How glad I was that I didn't have my dog collar on as I am sure that the story the bottom-bouncing, earphone-wearing, text-sending beauty would have been of homicidally intentioned cleric looking to drum up business!
Continuing my perambulations, and sitting at another set of traffic lights, I was waved at by someone which, being politeness itself at all times, caused me to wind down thew window and greet them only to be told that someone had died yesterday. Commiserations given, they waved and I continued my journey. I have to say that I'm not quite sure who it was that spoke to me or exactly who the deceased person is - so that's a call to the undertakers when they open - the perils of being a gobby type whom everyone (for good or ill) seems to know!
Arriving back at the Vicarage, one of the local residents who is wheeling his bicycle past me, stops me and asks what I think about Sinead O'Connor giving up the priesthood to become a Muslim. I have to respond that I didn't know anything about it and didn't even know she was a priest. "Oh yeah," he says, "She was a priest in a breakaway Catholic revolutionary church and she found something in the Bible which said become a Muslim."
Images of a woman wearing a dogcollar and military fatigues sprung to mind and, perhaps a little wickedly, I said she must have been reading the little known writings of the Old Testament prophet Ataxicus (750 BC). My companion seemed happy at that and smily, departed.
At last, the curtain descended upon the circus's early performance and tea beckoned to ease my trouble mind.
Thank goodness it's Friday!
1 comment:
Perhaps that will demonstrate that no single day is the same in the life of a Vicar.
I find it ludicrous that someone chooses to walk across a road, deep in mobile devices and earphones without looking. But my spouse who drives to work daily tells me many tales of school children and adults, doing similar walking straight out into the road, while distracted by their mobile devices. Several near misses later, she altered her route to work to avoid the Station and town centre as it was to risky.
As for the conversations I recall being told that a Vicar out and about, meeting people was mission in action. As was going to the pub. I suspect that you might well agree with that.
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