A new experience

Since I'm still convalescing - despite last week's good news, I'm continuing to take things slowly - I now have time to contemplate things I wouldn't even have noticed before my diagnosis. I find I really enjoy watching my garden bird table in the morning, counting the number of species of bird that visit. I've even bought myself a bird chart, so that instead of going, "Green thing, green thing, brown thing, big brown thing, black thing, green thing, huge black thing" and so on, I can look at the pictures and compare them to the actual birds - greenfinches, house and hedge sparrows, thrushes, blackbirds (male and female), crows... And so the time passes.

My voluntary work at the local abbey and in the heritage library continues. Today, I got to play a new role. There was a wedding in the abbey, and the elderly gentleman who gets everything ready for such events asked me to help him; he wasn't able to climb the steps to the altar, so it fell to me to take the candle snuffer and taper to light the candles. If you'd asked me last year what I saw myself doing now, the last thing I would have thought of was being an altar boy! I don't suppose I'm quite what the bridal couple had in mind when they fondly imagined the scene in the abbey before their wedding...

However, it was interesting to find out how difficult it is to light church candles, particularly when they're in large candlesticks, high up on an altar. And even better, I now have time to reflect on these experiences - and on how my life has changed. Perhaps it was simply time to slow down and to realise that this life is the only one we get - it isn't a dress rehearsal.