(Can’t even remember when I last worked this
physically hard! Feels good, though, and contrary to expectations I wasn’t sore
in my back, shoulders or hands after yesterday’s day of manual labor. That was
an unanticipated surprise, because that’s what I HAD expected to experience
when I woke up this morning. (I guess there’s something left in the old girl
yet!) Today exerted myself even harder than yesterday: steaming, then stretching
up high – and low – to scrape soggy old wallpaper off cement walls, gathering
soggy swathes of wallpaper into plastic bags on its way to the tip (refuse yard
– aka ‘the dump’ in America: you know, the place where you ‘dump’ out your garbage,
or ‘tip’ over your bin), helping move bits of ripped-up cabinetry to the front
yard (what there is of it!), and in the attic, divesting the low ceilings of their sheets of
polystyrene material. Can you say messy?! (All this stuff gets in your hair . .
. AND in your eyes, but at least none of it has been deemed hazardous to your
health.)
Today, we added Stewart to the mix. He’s a
handsome bloke who is a pretty amazing plasterer – as soon as we got the walls
of a room clean, he’d begin the next step. (In the banter going on in the van
on the way to the house, he ALSO mentioned that he’d spent some time in prison
at one point. It’s beginning to seem like for this class of persons that’s no
big deal – practically like it’s an everyday occurrence!) That made seven of us
- Loraine, Jez, Mikey, Debbie, Ricky, Tom, and now Stewart.
I also
spent some more time working and talking with Tom. He admits that up to this
point he hasn’t done much with his life – he’s 28 – frittered it away mostly.
However, the more I talked with him, the more impressed I became and the more I
could see his potential. Towards the beginning of our conversation, I had
brought up the fact that my youngest child and his wife were spending their Christmas
in France, when he told me that he’d been there multiple times himself. It
seems his single parent mom, though she made only a modest living, had the
inclination and the will to take him and his sister abroad on a regular basis.
(This many years down the road she is a psychiatric nurse who has moved up to
management and, not only that, her birthday is December 6th!) Tom
said his favorite of all the places he’d been in the world was Budapest, that
he’d visited there a number of times. At the present he’s working to get every
sort of training he can get in order to increase the number of trade skills he
has under his belt, with the idea of eventually renovating houses for a profit.
He sees himself outside London, from where he hails, running his own business.
I said to him that in my experience this type of work could be very lucrative.
From what I’ve heard and seen Tom seems to have a solid head on his shoulders –
I think there’s a very good chance this young man will make something admirable
of himself. The level of conversation I had with Tom was a step up the ladder
as compared to the one I had with Ricky the day before. Really nice blokes,
both – especially when you’ve got time together alone and everybody spills
their guts.
It’s dark, day is done: I’m good, I’m pooped – got
a lot done. I’m satisfied – I did well!
After being at home for an hour or so it was time
to go to the Weymouth branch’s carol concert (I kept calling it the choral
concert, while in reality it is the CAROL concert! It was the CAROL concert in
Birmingham, as well! I think it’s because the adjective I‘m most often used to
hearing proceed the word ‘concert’ is ‘choral.’) It is my impression that it
was held on a weeknight because the brethren decided to throw in some secular
bits with the expected religious observance. Once again dignitaries (mayors and
mayoresses, city councilmen and women) from across the county of Dorset, in
this instance, had been invited and were in attendance – including the stake
president and his wife, President and Sister Crew of my new Poole Stake. The
program consisted of Christmas stories interspersed with carols, plus a Primary
nativity segment. It’s my opinion that the program planners wanted to keep the
program a bit more universal in its appeal, to help our visitors feel more at
home.
(Some interesting
Christmas musical highlights: when we
sang ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ the tune was NOT the one in the hymn book,
rather a variation of a traditional carol I’m sure you’ve heard; in singing the
chorus to ‘The First Noel,’ it is Is.RAY.el rather than the Is.RYE.el we are
accustomed to; and then it’s Beth-LEE-hem, not Bethləhem, with a schwa-ed ‘a’ sound
like we say it.) One story in particular told about missionaries in Germany who
at Christmastime were Weihnachtsmann, ‘The Christmas Man,’ for
the children of a poor family (See about a world of different Santas on Day
144). The last to speak was the branch president, President Levi, who suggested
that we look for someone in need this Christmas and to do what we could to help
them. (I had a chance to speak with him following the presentation, and was pleased,
and surprised, to discover that he remembered me from the singles’ Fast and
Testimony meeting when I first came to Weymouth for the convention in
November.)
At one point one of the songs we sang was the
Twelve Days of Christmas. The brother in charge of this song said he needed
three volunteers – and then proceeded to call out the names of three specific
young men to come up and assist. (Everybody laughed, in on the joke.) He gave
each guy a large cube with individual numbers of either side. Each had a 5 on
one of its planes – and when we sang that line, it was ‘gold rings’ instead of
‘golden rings.’ (What are they thinking – totally doesn’t go with the beat!)
The idea was that they were supposed to present the appropriate numbered side
when we got to that part in the verse – AND al through the chorus, as well.
Very clever – and amusing! The pianist got to playing faster and faster as the
song progressed.
Of course, the best part of the entire evening was
the performance of the nativity; always represented by children, it is a tender
tradition held all over this country every year at Christmastime. Mary and
Joseph on this particular evening were two little Sunbeams – so cute! (A lovely,
twenty-something blonde ‘angel’ walked them up to the stage and sat by them
during this part – their teacher, she told me later. She was constantly, with
infinite patience, reconfiguring Joseph’s Middle Eastern headgear. Later the holy
family was joined on the opposite side by one of the older Primary girl holding
aloft the star of Bethlehem.) Cuter still was that Joseph had ADD. He had a
difficult challenge NOT kicking his feet, fidgeting, playing with his fingers,
fiddling with his clothes, scratching various parts of his body, and otherwise
maintaining a forward-facing position. I also came to discern that one of the
wise men was the brother of the boy dressed as Joseph – and, unsurprisingly, he
had the very same syndrome. At one point one of the leaders had to relieve him
of his ‘gift’ as he was performing death-defying feats with it.
After the program I went to introduce myself to
the Relief Society president, and before I could hardly get the words out of my
mouth to explain who I was, she surprised me by saying, ‘you’re Debbie.’ Seems
Loraine had told her I was coming. What an unexpected, affirming welcome!
Photos_
1- slave driver . . . AND worker girl, Loraine
2- steamy worker boys – l to r, Mikey, Ricky, and Tom
3- beach view – 46 Cromwell Road, (see it - that horizontal blue line, WAY over
there? That's it! – from south-facing upper-story window)
4- day laborer
5- Tom
