les Davey de France

The ending could be better, but the sketch itself is nothing short of magisterial.

Because I'll be somewhat hither and yon for the next couple weeks I thought I had better go stock up on a ventolin, so I hied me away to my favourite pharmacy at the Alouette. The queue was short, there were about 6 or 7 pharmacists dispensing and my chum, whose name I do not know, waved a cheery greeting from the back of the shop. Lo and behold, when I got to the front of the queue his was the next free counter. "How are you?" He likes to practice his English. "Je vais très bien, mais je suis très déçu." "Déçu? Pourquoi? Ah, le rugby!" He went off to get the ventolin. It is, by the way, feminine. La Ventoline/La Vento. "Voilà." He scanned the sticker and scribbled over it. "I call you 'The Runner'", he said. "Ah bon?" "Ouais. Hé, je vous ai aperçu!" "Quand ça, et à quel endroit?" "C'était un samedi matin. "Ah ouais. Tiens, ça va doucement, non?" "Non,...

Our friend Peter came back from holidays all full of lovely energy so there was a mini mission of the Open Air Campaigners last week in Bordeaux. Pat and I went along as we could, which for me meant Tuesday and Wednesday and for Pat, Friday.  On Friday, Good Friday, a time of prayer was scheduled followed by open air preaching. I sat happily on the bus heading into town and wondered why I was aching in strange places after my morning run.  I mean, why my shoulders? Why my head? And why all the shaking? By the time I got to where the others were it was pretty clear I had the flu or something, so I was despatched straight back home to bed with ibuprofen, paracetamol and lots of coffee and water. And there I stayed until Sunday, basically. James was preaching on part of 1 Corinthians 15, Christ the first fruits. I got to the service, got home and got back to bed. Yesterday I stayed up all day! Yay! And a gang of folk came round to eat, play, hunt eggs in our tin...

My brother-in-law died quite suddenly and his funeral is planned for the 5 April, so I will be making a quick visit to South Wales.

On Wednesday I have to scuttle off in the big white bus to Lyon to the Colloqve Bibliqve Francophone, and I don't get back till Friday evening. I can't see me taking my running shoes with me so there'll be no hurtling round the streets of Lyon. I did wonder whether I could run Sunday morning, Tuesday and Saturday, but I've had this sudden swift flu thing, and though the agues, aches and shakes have gone, the feeling of being a wet rag remains, so I doubt if I'll feel up to charging along the vines tomorrow morning, though it is resurrection morning, so you never know! However I have planned out routes alongside the vines for 1K, 2K, 3K and by combining them you get 4K, 5K etc., so I am ready when the green light shows once more.

I think it was on Monday that I got an email asking me how we had left things with the Cenon church and whether we could "look back with thankfulness and say good things of the church". I was more than a little nonplussed. Only the previous evening I had given a new person directions to the church and said, "tell them Alan sent you". I frequently see Cenon folk and our relationships seem warm and friendly. I wasn't aware of any bad things I had said of the church and I would take that very seriously. I asked for clarification. What came back was that in a conversation one of the church leaders had expressed his incomprehension at why we are no longer working with the Cenon church. Now our decision to stop working with the Cenon and Blaye churches came when I suffered a breakdown including panic attacks and depression following a period of great conflict in the churches. This conflict didn't involve me directly except in trying to resolve things and cal...