Helium or hot air?

Back again. No blogging since Thursday as I went into Martha mode, from which I have returned, exhausted. However, the photo here shows why I did it: two joyous friends celebrating the culmination of another Cursillo weekend. Not a weekend I was attending - I was one the wee legs thrashing away below the water, helping the weekend to surprise and delight, clearing up the considerable aftermath. And as a result, my pleasure was in seeing the results, and in the warmth of the reaction to our work.

And for the rest? Well, there's a great restaurant in Perth's South Street, where six of us had splendid fish and game before resuming our toil. There was the fun of camping in a friend's house (thanks for leaving the heating on, Hugh!) and the wonder of sharing real conversation without any inhibitions. The only casualty was the odd exploding balloon - rainbow-coloured rubber, not human. The actual business of the weekend was, in a way, paralleled among us who call ourselves The Fourth Day - living proof of the effect of Cursillo, when you get me - moi! - arranging wee pots of rainbow-coloured flowers.

And talking of rainbows: that amazing jacket in the photo was a spontaneous, wonderfully crazy gift. Like Cursillo, in fact.

Country roads ..

Well that was quite a day. It began for me at 5am, so it has already gone on for too long. However, the point of it, the Cursillo team meeting in Perth, was terrific - a great bunch of people, already turning into a family, bursting with enthusiasm and good humour. And when we left the venue at 3pm, it was with the usual injunctions to have a safe journey home.

For some of us, the journey home was merely trying. Torrential rain had caused subsidence in the northbound carriageway of the Glasgow - Perth road; we didn't find the cause until we had already been stuck in a traffic jam for over an hour. We watched the brown torrent rushing past us down the hard shoulder, we cursed the opportunists who snuck up the closing lane or the slip road and then muscled in ahead of us, we were harangued at intervals by the sat nav informing us that there were stationary vehicles ahead. We called it Camilla, by the way, in honour of its posh female voice. (I note with interest how it now pains me to refer to Camilla as "it". Strange.) And all the time the rain battered on the roof and the lightning did dramatic effects overhead.

But we got home in one piece. Father Kenny was not so fortunate. He ended up upside down in a field, having lost control on a treacherous bend after sudden rain. He is unhurt, I'm glad to say, but needs all the prayer support of his friends to get him through two masses tomorrow. His beloved motor is crumpled and squashed, but he is not. I expect he'll blog about it when he's over the immediate effects, but for now I'm doing it. And then I'm for bed. And then ...

A holiday.