To yarn on

I think in Norfolk a yarn is a good chat. I don't knit. But I can yarn. And I'm very happy about having my heart knitted to Elaine's by a God who knows what he is about. He knew we would each need a friend on this journey, and lo He provided! A better, more generous, friend I could not have asked for! 

I'm Flik, I'm a no-longer-lapsed Catholic.  In the first version of this post I wrote that I was a 'revert'.  But upon reflection I think that is American English and also not technically accurate in my case. I never fully gave up on God. And He never gave up on me. But I think I gave up on myself. And on my ability to live a faithful life UNDER THESE CONDITIONS. One of those condtions was not having any catholic friends. Thanks be to God for Elaine for helping me live out my faith.

But I did enough exposure to the sacraments as a child and teen for me to realise, when I became a parent, that if I did not get myself back to the Church, my kids would be adrift, snatching at bits of wisdom and overwhelmed by unreality (much as I was at the time). And that my (now) husband and I would not be securely anchored against the storms of life either. At that time, when I was reflecting on my own childhood, my relationship with God and my time in church really stood out to me as something foundational that was true and good and beautiful. 

And now I'm itchy. We've just moved to France. For about a year it was an unbelievable dream that we only dared to look at out of the corner of one eye. Now I've been living here for two weeks and the reality is a lot itchier than I thought. First there's the psoriasis which I think is triggered by bread, but y'know, when in France... and then there's the mosquitoes. I mean a lot of mosquitoes. The baby has a bite on the sole of his foot and one on the crown of his head. And in between it looks like chicken pox. Mine are bigger... I'm a bit reactive. Then the heat wave is glazing us all in a sticky salty paste that must be washed off each evening if there is to be any hope of a good night's sleep. And Tony is insulating the roof (against the heat) using stuff that you're not supposed to touch with ungloved hands or look at with unscreened eyes. There's a whole room of it behind a door without a handle that I have to continuously shepherd small ones away from. Bales of it are piled up towards the ceiling looking very like an inviting woolly play-haybarn.

There are 6 of us. Four of us are under 8 at the time of writing.