Behind the times for Easter Sunday

I wake at two thirty with bowel contractions, and make it to the toilet in the nick of time, something I have eaten has disagreed with me. Most probably the rehashed chilli. The experience is repeated at four, but this time I retrieve some Imodium from the medicine cupboard and dose myself, after changing pyjamas, my sprint speed not being what it used to be. At seven O'clock Norman stirs and wants to be let out into the garden, whilst I luxuriate in my duvet and long to sleep for another hour. A thought crosses my mind, "what if he has the squits too?" The potential consequences of this are enough to rouse me from my warm bed and to open the Garden Room door to let him out. It is another glorious morning, an ice blue sky, with Jaques Trainier, mouton clouds, drifting from east to west, and a dusting of frost highlighting the lawn and hedge. Before I can slink back into bed, Norman has sprinted back indoors, with a speed and power that defy his age. He wriggles on his back by the kitchen door, alternately barking and giving low whimpers, dog language that tells me breakfast is overdue. The last meal of our Lenten fast is planned to be kippers, I have two fillets left in the refrigerator, but dare I chance them on a dodgy stomach. Norman's persistence wins out, and I fry the fish in a little butter and olive oil, before serving it with rye toast and a mug of Italian coffee for me. There are no immediate after effects, so we relocate to the Garden Room, where I drink my second mug of coffee, whilst reading the Independant online, with radio four in the background. Sam texts to say that she had forgotten that Laura was visiting a friend at ten thirty, so we arrange my visit for tomorrow instead. As it approaches nine o'clock, I start to think about getting showered and dressed, before taking Norman for a quick walk and then driving to Beverley for Easter Sunday Mass at ten thirty. Suddenly, unexplainably, the Archer's theme tune starts up on the radio, the Archers Omnibus usually starts at ten and I wonder why it is an hour early. Then the realisation dawns, the clocks went forward last night and I have twenty eight minutes to wash, shave, dress and drive to Saint John's for the Easter Sunday service. A shower is now out of the question, but somehow I manage to leave the house at eighteen minutes past ten and drive to Beverley, where I park on the corner of Norwood, before walking the last few hundred yards to the church. There will be no chance of parking down North Bar, as every Catholic in Beverley will be fulfilling their Easter obligation. The church is packed when I arrive, and they have run out of prayer books, but I manage to squeeze into my usual aisle, amongst the Sunday regulars, who laugh when I explain my clock problem. For Christians, Easter is what it is all about, Christ's sacrifice and resurrection, being the bedrock upon which the faith is based. The human condition, of knowing the inevitability of death, but not its hour, can lead to existential anxiety, and a morbid fear of death that can poison and permeate life. How much of modern life is a frenetic, neurotic, avoidance of this truth. Fear of death is the modern cancer of the soul, and far more deadly than any tumour which might reside within the body. And yet all things that are born must die, it is as natural a process as breathing in or out. Faith means one takes a positive outlook on the mystery of what lies beyond, and live a full, generous and compassionate life in the meantime. Doubt often leads to its opposite, narcissistic obsessions, and existential paralysis. In the end it is an exercise of free will, a creative interpretation of the brute facts of life, a positive or negative, personal artwork, constructed around a belief or disbelief of an unknowable truth. This truth I call God, as it is almost inconceivable for me to believe that I, as a human being, stand at the pinnacle of knowledge and intelligence in the universe. Such a belief would constitute, for me at least, unbridled arrogance. In these matters, I trust my feelings, which have ever been a more reliable guide to life's important decisions, than my limited intellect. After church, I drive home, change into walking gear and then take Normy for a walk round the fields. We follow our usual route through Green Lane and onto the path that leads past the stables and down to the little bridge over the dyke. The buds on the trees are still closed, the daffodils have not yet bloomed, and the grass along the way has that dry, grey, winter look to it still. Across the brown, tobacco coloured, fields, green sprouts of winter barley are scarcely two inches high. As we make our way through "Almost straight Wood", we pass a den, made of fallen saplings and stray branches, that the local children must have constructed in their holidays, the schools broke up last week for the Easter. When we emerge from the woods and onto the path again, the sun is shining brightly from a powder blue sky with fluffy white clouds, gently floating from southeast to northwest like the fluffy cotton wool. We turn east, on the path that runs parallel with "almost straight wood", and two row deer emerge from the field to our west and then run along the path and into the woods that we have just vacated. To our North the wind farm turbines at Esk are slowly turning, and to my eyes at least, they have a hypnotic beauty. The two deer emerge from the plantation at a canter and then run to the corner of the field which we are now approaching, here they begin to graze on the fragile shoots of the winter barley, grazing in the lee of a long Lelandii hedge. I slow my walking down as I come near to them, and freeze each time they raise their heads, managing to get within twenty feet or so of them, as we are downwind, before they finally spot me and take off at high speed, their white tails bobbing, as they make a twenty foot leap over the ditch and drain and then bound away to our south. As we approach the bridge, a family of three, Mum, Dad and a little boy, accompanied by two dogs, cross and head into the woods, the dogs, are a golden retriever and a Bassett Hound puppy, who runs up to say hello. It is Bowie, the dog with the odd coloured eyes, who receives a pat from me, before loping back to his owners. We return home for two, I give Norman some Bakers and then begin to make lunch. We are going to have pork schnitzel, chips and salad, accompanied by a bottle of Gewürztraminer Riesling, that I bought from the village shop on my way back from church, along with a copy of the Observer. My first problem is the almost empty tub of golden breadcrumbs, when I pull it from the cupboard, but this problem is soon surmounted by toasting some white bread from the freezer, cutting off the rinds and then blitzing them in the food processor. While I have the processor out, I use the opportunity to mix a batch of sultana oaties and then put these in the oven, while I beat out the pork steaks, before dipping them in beaten egg and my home made breadcrumbs. Next a tossed salad is constructed and, as soon as the oaties are baked golden, I put in some oven chips, before frying the schnitzels. Everything is ready for four o'clock, Norman has his schnitzel and chips chopped into bite size pieces in his bowl, and I pour myself a glass of wine and then tuck into mine. It is the first meat and alcohol I have had since Lent began and it makes a pleasant change from fish. There is a schnitzel left over, so I wrap it in kitchen paper and store it in the fridge, as they are just as nice cold as hot. Around six thirty we recover the bedding, which has dried, from the line and then I read the Observer until bedtime.