Light Under the Shadows

Looking back from here, it's been a good week ... in some ways a very good week.  Isn't it strange, though, how one bad experience can cover everything else with shadow?

It all began last Saturday when, fairly late in the evening after a busy day, I was catching up with my e-mails.  I found one that I felt deserved a lengthy response for which I didn't have time; I whizzed off a brief note that said little and was capable of misinterpretation.  In the light of later explanations, I now realise, it would have been better if I hadn't replied at all, because my desire to respond in the first place had been based on a wrong understanding of the circumstances.

It all culminated in a semi-public reprimand by the recipient of my mail, who began with that ominous phrase, "I was hurt ...".  My apology and attempted explanation were somewhat dimmed by - and certainly not accepted amidst - the succeeding onslaught!  The positive side of the overall experience came later, when I compared my own reaction to what it might have been some years ago.  Instead of walking off in a huff - which would have aggravated the situation - or worse, I sat still and quiet until the anger had subsided; I repeated my apology and we parted civilly.  I spent much of the ensuing evening going over and over the whole episode, questioning my reasoning and justification, and then moved on.

The rest of the week has been busy.  Sunday afternoon saw the licensing of a friend as a Reader (lay minister) in the church and I was pleased to be able to be present in the cathedral for the service.  In fact, I sat with his family but, not wishing to invade their ensuing celebrations, returned home promptly afterwards.

I picked up my Welsh learning again the other day, realising that, once more, some weeks had passed since last touching it.  Last summer, I bought a few books i'r iaeth Gymreig that I thought might prove interesting.  I had begun to read the smallest one and, very slowly, with extensive help from the dictionary and reference to the lessons, have made headway through the first pages.  This time, to my great delight, I managed a whole paragraph in the best part of a morning!

Another thing that has revived is the involvement in Health & Safety matters.  After lots of activity last year, things have been quite quiet for some months but a call from the churchwarden (my boss for this purpose) re-activated me and set me a new challenge which was, I confess, an exciting diversion.

Talking of diversions, choral music is one of my favourites.  After the delights of Easter, its absence was noticeable but now we have two new pieces to get our teeth (or rather voices) into and I was pleasantly contented with the progress made by the few of us who were able to make the first of a recently organised series of practices.

And, with the weather being so up and down just now, I was very lucky to find Thursday morning bright and sunny (although there was rain later in the day) because I had signed up for an historic walk on the outskirts of Barnet.  The start was at a modern shopping centre, built on the site of a former Methodist church, and we met by the church's foundation stone still embedded in the wall on the High Street.  After a couple of hours' stroll looking at a sequence of mostly Georgian houses, and the pleasant parkland that has replace a former manor house, we finished on the edge of a common that was once part of Enfield Chase, a medieval royal deer park that, when it was dispersed by Act of Parliament in 1777, covered nearly 8,500 acres.

The final - perhaps crowning - feature of the week was an e-mail link received this morning to a hitherto unknown second cousin, who learned of me through a website featuring a picture of our great-grandfather's grave.

Who knows what next week will bring?