We're off!

Well, it seems OK. Yesterday morning Ed visited the doctor again, who gave him the all-clear for the flight to Portugal. Since we leave at 7.10am from Stansted, and therefore have to be there at the ungodly hour of 5.10am (yes, there is such a time), we're driving down to Stansted after lunch today and putting up at a B&B (well, a B anyway. Not sure we'll feel much like the other B at 4.30am) and leaving the car there. They'll transport us to the airport and pick us up on the way back.

So here we are - all set. I'm taking a little netbook with me, there's free wi-fi, so as long as the tiny netbook doesn't drive me demented, I'll try and blog a bit while we're there. Otherwise, see you all in a fortnight.

Oh, BTW, there are ghastly storms in Portugal at the moment! C'est la vie!

Ed's excitement

Late Monday evening, Ed felt a bit woozy - like you do sometimes if you get up from a chair too quickly. So we toddled off to bed, expecting everything to be all right by the morning.

But it wasn't. He still felt dizzy, and had a bit of discomfort in his chest. Since we're due to fly off to Portugal on Saturday (yes, wonderful timing, isn't it?) we decided he had to see the doctor. We got an appointment yesterday morning and off we drove.

The doctor was wonderful. Checked Ed all over, pronounced "acute atrial fibrillation", gave us a letter and sent us straight to hospital.

By the time we'd traipsed long corridors finding the right department, poor Ed was feeling grisly. Then we sat and waited while the nurse was busy with another patient with chest pain.

When she got to Ed and stood him up, his legs buckled. With that, about six people materialised from nowhere, got him into a side ward, stuck monitors onto his chest, thrust an oxygen mask over face, and sent me out. It was terrifying.

I sat outside in tears, whereupon somebody bustled up with comforting words and a cup of tea.

Anyway, they were all marvellous. Put Ed on a drip with some stuff to stabilise his heart followed by morphine for the pain, did endless tests, took a chest X-ray and ECG.

I had no phone or money with me, so when Ed was stable and much better, I came home and rang the family. Al came straight over and we drove up to the hospital again with an overnight bag for Ed.

During the time I was absent he'd be seen by three consultants, and when we got there, a cardiologist arrived. He was very reassuring. Said Ed's heart had stabilised with the medication and everything else was fine. He put him on Warfarin because apparently the biggest risk with AF is stroke, and sent us home with packets of medication and a letter for our doctor. He said the Warfarin would need to be monitored, but that could be done in Portugal and as long as Ed is feeling all right by Friday, we can fly.

And all this for free. I LOVE the NHS!

He seems fine this morning. We have rung Portugal, who say there is no problem about getting Ed to a clinic, and they're giving us a ground floor room. So hopefully, all will be okay.

Could do without this sort of excitement, though.

A funeral - at last!

Ed and I went back to the old parish to a funeral on Friday.

Remember the lady who was knocked down by a hit-and-run driver on Christmas Eve? The family had to take the agonising decision on Christmas Day, to turn off life support.

Then they had to wait for the inquest, and although the driver turned himself in, since then he's been disputing the accident, so things are dragging on and on.

It was the funeral on Friday, and I've never seen the church so packed. It's the biggest church of the six in the benefice, seating 350, but they were standing six deep at the back. Ed and I arrived half-an-hour before the service was due to begin, and managed to snag the last two seats.

It was a good service, led by Nigel the Curate and Meg, the local (retired) priest from that parish. But it was really sad meeting people again under such circumstances. There were many tears at the funeral, for she was one of those quiet, unsung saints. She was born in the village and had lived there all her life, so everybody knew her and loved her.

Yesterday we cheered up with a visit from the family. It's Ed's birthday on Tuesday week, but we're off to Portugal next weekend, so they came to see him before we go.

Can't wait to get into the sunshine! More sleet and snow today, and church was so cold I thought I might quietly die.

We stayed to a Lent hunger lunch after the service - home-made soup with French bread, followed by rice pudding or bread and butter pudding (all the guys chose that, all the women chose rice!)

Then we went home and filled up on toast and marmalade.

Not sure that's quite the point of a hunger lunch, but you have to keep the cold at bay somehow.

That's my excuse, anyway.

Nigel the curate

Had Nigel the curate and his wife, Rilla, over to supper last night.

"Come at six thirty," I blithely said, "so that we can eat at seven."

But this was Nigel, so at twenty-past six we got a call.

"What time did you say? Oh! Well, it may be nearer to seven than six-thirty."

So there we sat. The clock crept round to seven, ten-past, twenty-past. At twenty-five-past, we got another call.

"I'm standing outside the pub. How do I get to you from here?"

So I gave directions and eventually they arrived, soaking wet as it had been raining all evening.

To be fair, it wasn't entirely their fault, as there were roadworks, they had been diverted and got lost. And naturally had neither a map nor satnav with them.

Anyway, all was forgiven the moment they arrived because they're such good company. The meal was good, the wine flowed freely, and Nigel kept us in stitches relating tales from his student days. He's a very good actor, and very funny.

So a good time was had by all, except that Ed didn't sleep well afterwards.

"We ate too late," he said.

Orange Sunday

Yesterday was orange Sunday in the Scott household.

Not that I knew it was going to be orange Sunday. I expected orange Friday, or at least Saturday, but no, it turned out to be Sunday. And I'm not talking mobile phones.

I've been looking out for weeks now for the Seville oranges, to make marmalade. They come at the end of January or beginning of February, but if you blink, you miss the season.

It turns out that Tesco's, where I shop, never stocks Seville oranges. A friend told me a week ago that she'd got hers from Sainsbury's, and made her marmalade. But somehow or other I never got round to Sainsbury's, so thought I'd had it for yet another year - and after bullying Ed to keep all those empty jam jars that stack up in the garage.

Anyway, on Friday he went down to the local farm shop for provisions, and rang me up to say they had Seville oranges. (Strange, since they sell local produce. I've not yet seen any oranges growing locally, let alone Sevilles). Unfortunately I was on the phone at the time, so he tried my mobile, which was switched off, so he drove all the way home to ask what I wanted, then all the way back to buy them. And they say romance is dead.

So there I stood on Friday afternoon, chopping up oranges, scooping all the pips into a clean handkerchief (don't have any muslin), and adding pints of water. But then I discovered that the recipe said, "leave to stand overnight". That was it for Friday.

On Saturday I started again, but discovered that you only boil up the mixture and cook the fruit for an hour and a half, then leave it to stand overnight again, which brought us to Sunday.

Ed sensible suggested that we went to the small church this week, since the service there is at nine thirty rather than eleven, and I'm glad we did, since it took me almost the whole of the rest of the day to boil up my marmalade to setting point (tested by forming a "good wrinkle" on a cold saucer!) and pot it. Then I discovered I hadn't enough jars, so had to empty out the coffee into a plastic container and use the coffee jar.

The end result? 18 pounds of really quite tasty marmalade (well, it is a recipe handed down from at least my grandmother, if not earlier!)

Mobile phone companies - aargh!

Just had a long tussle with my mobile phone company.

The signal was bad when we were at the rectory, but at least I could go upstairs to make a phone call.

About six months before we left the rectory, I foolishly allowed the company to persuade me into renewing my contract for another eighteen months, even though my head was telling me to Pay As You Go.

Here at the bungalow there's almost no signal. Most of the time my phone says "Emergency calls only", and if I want to send a text, it takes ages before there's enough signal for it to go.

So today I rang Orange to ask if might terminate my contract (due to end in July) without any penalty charges.

They tried all sorts of things. I had to take out the sim and replace it. Then another department tested the signal in the area and surprise, surprise! Found it was very weak and intermittent. After hours of listening to rubbishy music and being shunted from department to department, they reluctantly agreed to end my contract and cancel my direct debit (hope they've done that bit!)

So I asked for a PAC code, to transfer the number to a new network.

"That will cost you £80," they said.

I was outraged and I'm afraid I told them where to stick the number. Then they wanted another £20 to unlock the phone - same response from me.

I've now ordered a free PAYG sim from Virgin (according the map, their coverage is excellent - we wait to see) and am awaiting an unlock code from an internet site for £5.99.

But I'm still boiling. I've been an Orange customer for nearly three years. They've broken the contract by not providing me with services, and all the girl could keep saying was, "It's in the terms and conditions..."

That was the point when I slammed the phone down in disgust!

Friends visit

We had friends from our previo‭us parish to lunch yesterday. Gill is a Reader in the Church of England, and was one of my mainstays when I was rector there.

She brought one of the nicest gifts I have ever received - a wooden fridge magnet carved into the shape of a tulip, which she had made herself. She took up woodworking last summer, and this was one of her creations. I'm so thrilled with it.

We had such a good time with her and Mark - good food, good friends and good fun! Made me feel quite nostalgic for the old parish.

They're still waiting for a new rector, but hope to hear soon that someone has been appointed. They've been without anyone for six months now, which seems quite long enough!

Meanwhile, I'm off to a clergy Chapter meeting in this new deanery tomorrow.

Can't keep away, that's my trouble!

My laptop died - twice!

There I was, in the middle of composing some brilliant and amazing piece, when my laptop died. Normally, if I inadvertently pull out my power lead, the battery takes over and I carry on regardless. But this time, one minute I was writing, the next, everything went black.

Thinking I might have caught some weird hotkey or something with my sleeve, I pressed the power button again and hey presto! It sprang to life again. (When I say, "sprang to life", what I actually mean is that it laboriously began again the slow process of booting up.)

So I happily continued with my writing for half-an-hour or so, when to my horror the laptop died again. Totally black, no power.

Pressed the power button again, nothing. Nada. Zilch. This is the point where yet again I began to seriously regret failing to back up my files.

So I tried bargaining with God. "God, if you just let me boot up once more, I promise I'll back up everything for evermore. Honestly. I will. Really."

Ed, being a sensible sort of guy, said, "Don't panic. Perhaps it's a safety mechanism. Perhaps it just cuts out if it's in danger of overheating. Leave it for a couple of hours, then try again."

So I did, and guess what? It worked!

So you see, resurrection rules OK (so far, at any rate!)

The wrong button

Have you ever clicked on the wrong button (either physically or metaphorically) and found yourself in trouble?

Mind you, I should know by now how to do it properly.

Scrabble, that is.

There's an online Scrabble game on Facebook, whereby I can happily waste away hour upon idle hour. My youngest daughter started me on it, she got bored, I got hooked. So now I play with an old friend on the other side of the country, which is good, but it's more fun to have several games on the go at once.

So I decided to invite more friends, but not knowing properly what I was doing, clicked on the button which says, "Start new game", and suddenly discovered I've started a game with a perfect stranger!

Oh well. I'll just have to win!

And sorry guys, for some reason this particular app says, "excluding USA and Canada" otherwise I'd have invited you all.

So you see, you're saved from a fate worse than death...

The games we play

Well, golf, actually.

Being optimistic but also somewhat short-sighted and naive, I put my name down to play golf with the ladies today, assuming I would wake to cloudless blue skies and warm sunshine.

No.

Foggy, damp and dull. But unfortunately, I was committed (should have been too, by the men in white coats!) so off I drove.

The course is so wet that a new stream has appeared on the first fairway. Naturally our balls ended in it, so my partner and I didn't score brilliantly. Didn't score at all, actually.

After eight holes we'd had enough so went into the Bunker's Bar for coffee and warmth. That was much better.

Next week we're playing with the men's section, but I'm slightly worried. We have to carry our clubs at the moment, due to the state of the course, and I haven't managed to carry for all eighteen holes yet. In fact, I haven't managed more than nine...

Oh well. Perhaps next Thursday will be cloudless blue skies and warm sunshine.

Print proof

This has been an exciting day - I've received the print proof of my novel, 'Heaven Spent'. It's a hard-cover book, but I was expecting the proof to be just paper. It isn't, it's hard-back.

So naturally, I've spent the whole day reading it through, but have discovered only four small typos, so we're nearly ready to go.

The story (unsurprisingly) is about a young female curate who is sent to a very traditional parish with an elderly incumbent, and how things pan out between them.

And before you ask, no, definitely not autobiographical. Honestly.

It's being published by an American publishing company, but I hope will be available at least in English-speaking countries. All I have to worry about now is whether it will sell!

A great return

Ed and I are just back from a great visit to one of our previous parishes. returning to your previous parish is frowned upon by the Church of England - former incumbents are expected to stay well out of the way to give the new incumbent a chance to settle in with the people.

However, since there's no incumbent in place yet, we felt we could risk it. Anyway, this wasn't exactly a church event.

Some years ago, one of the smallest parishes set up a fund to commemorate a well-loved member of the community who had died a few years previously. Every year, the fund provides a Christmas lunch - free drinks, turkey and all the trimmings, wine, Christmas pudding, crackers (the sort you pull, not the sort you eat), a free raffle ticket and a house plant for all the over-sixties in the village. This was soon extended to all the over-sixties who had ever had any connection with the village, so has become a wonderful reunion as well as an excellent Christmas lunch (and it's lovely to sit down to Christmas dinner in February.)

We met loads of friends and there was much fun and laughter - and Ed won first prize in the raffle, a bottle of wine!

On the way home we called in on our former next-door neighbour and had a good peep through the hedge at the rectory garden, which has been cleared off a lot of brambles and brush, ready for the new incumbent.

She was delighted to see us, so all in all, an excellent way to spend Monday!