Tuesday/Wednesday

I'm not volunteering at the Mothers and Toddlers Group on Tuesdays after all.  When I read through the information pamphlet I was given on Sunday I realised I didn't have the qualifications and experience (I am not quite sure what these are, except that I don't think I've got them) Neither am I sure I have been here long enough for a police background check, which of course I appreciate is necessary, and when I mentioned these concerns to the leader she agreed.   But never mind, I've got a stack of bargain books (for about 1p each!!) from Amazon to read.  And with the weather getting chillier it is no hardship to stay indoors in my lovely warm flat, although today - Wednesday - we have had some late autumn sunshine.   I went into Summertown to have my hair cut, which will take some getting used to, it hasn't been cut since it turned white. 

Looking around for something to do, it was suggested to me that as I was a volunteer hospital chaplain in Shawnee, I might find a pastoral care role in the church, but I'm not sure - I don't have transport to visit the housebound elderly, which is what I used to do in Seaford before going out to the States.

I think too, we have different perceptions of pastoral care from those in the States.   Over there, where prayer is very much part and parcel of everyday life, at least  in the southern states,  patients generally expected and appreciated prayer, but that is not the case here.  

While I was in Summertown today I was browsing the charity, or consignment shops, and picked up a card from the Blue Cross Charity which cares for unwanted and homeless animals, and I am thinking of sponsoring a cat.    For a monthly donation I choose a pet (in my case a cat) and will receive a monthly e-mail update from my cat, and when it has been rehomed I get to choose a new pet to sponsor.

I miss dear Bubbles.  It occurred to me today that she couldn't have been very happy when another cat was introduced into the household (she used to get very frosty, and glared, when another cat took the liberty of sunbathing on her front porch) but she must have hung on hoping I'd come back, and I wondered if it was when she finally accepted I wasn't go to, that she decided to move on somewhere else up the road.  I might ring Dale, who was my neighbour across the road, and see if she has any news of her, I'd like to think she has settled happily with someone who will give her a lot of affection.