Perfect fallibility

Wake around seven thirty, get up and make breakfast, including an extra sausage, egg and a slice of black pudding for Norman. By now he is usually sniffing around my ankles as I make breakfast, but he remains in his bed. When I check on him, his nose is warm but he soon stretches lazily and then trots after me back to the kitchen, sniffs his breakfast and then goes back to bed. Clearly he is under the weather. Taking my coffee into the Garden Room, I watch as Norman, having roused himself, toddles off onto the lawn and toilets before coming back inside. When I wash up, I see that he has eaten his breakfast with some relief. He can't be all that sick! After showering and dressing for church, I make sure the dog has fresh water and that the Garden Room door is open, before driving to St John's for nine o'clock mass. Monseigneur Coughlin is conducting the service today whilst Father Roy continues on holiday, he loses his place reciting the Gloria and like sheep, we meander about before finding our collective place in the text. The whole service is disrupted by the old boy's failing memory, but rather than feeling annoyed, I find it enlightening, because it stirs me from the comforting rut of ritual, forcing me to be really present to the act of worship. Which, in itself, is the act of genuine presence before God. Human fallibility is an inescapable and divine truth. After communion I intend to call in and see Sarah and Louis, but her new Peugeot, which was there before mass, is now gone. Instead I drive to Molescroft and collect my friend Leslie, a little earlier than usual, before taking us both to Caffe Nero. Once again there are an abundance of "pain au raisin" and once again, I order one for Leslie and abstain myself. Leslie has brought me a clipping from the "Economist", regarding the human biome project. It states that the ten trillion cells of our body carry one hundred trillion bacterial cells and that the harmonious balance of these exotic cells with our own, are essential to our well being. We are, in effect, a walking ecosystem. This resonates with my recent understanding, following my experience of an imbalance of candida albicans. I suspect, that within a few years, western medicine will rediscover the Taoist principles of Chinese medicine, namely that of balance and harmony with our environment are essential to good health and well being. After our usual stimulating discussion, I take the old boy back home, before calling at the supermarket for some odds and ends and then making my way back to Tickton. Norman greets me with a wag at the door and after unpacking my shopping, I take him for a walk down the Lane. His nose is still dry and warm and the temperature at midday is uncomfortably hot, so we dawdle in the shade of the large willows down Carr Lane and then head for home. Once inside, I boil an egg and a potato in the microwave and then open a couple of small tins of tuna to make a salad Nicoise. One tin is for Norman, and I mash half the potato with his fish and slice the rest with the egg into my salad. Within ten minutes lunch is ready and we eat in the garden, or rather I do, Norman is unimpressed with his lunch, and whinges and begs for mine, but when he discovers I am eating tuna as well, retires indoors. The sky has clouded over, but it is still pleasantly warm and so I remain outside and drink coffee and do a couple of puzzles, before it starts to rain. Retiring indoors, I take Normy's bowl of tuna into the kitchen, he may eat it later when he feels a little better. We both rest for an hour, listening to the gentle sound of the rain as it falls on the garden, before drifting off into sleep. When we awaken, the rain has stopped, I make some tea and seeing that Norman isn't going to eat the tuna, relent and give him some dog meat. This he quickly eats and feeling his nose, I find it cold and moist, the old chap is on the mend! After eating his dinner, I take him for a walk down the lane, as far as the little bridge, The air is a little fresher after the rain, but it is still pleasantly warm. When we get back, I do some weeding in the garden and then vacuum through the house, before settling down with my book, as darkness falls. Gradually the colour drains from the day and soon I am confronting my own image and that of my reading lamp, which is reflected back to me from the patio window, as it becomes black outside. Norman puts himself to bed around nine and I take a break for cheese and oatmeal biscuits about half past. Without the constant exhortation and expectation of happiness that is imposed on us by modern media, I actually find myself contented in the simple, mundane, processes of life. That which the Buddha called "suchness".