Dogs Delight 16 Random

When we get home I lock Bailey outside and watch him wander over to the angel and cock his leg against the plinth.  Then I hunt for the Chronicle, the village freesheet, which I find at last in the bottom of a drawer between lurid rhododendron catalogues.  I take it across to the window seat: Peter Hopkirk is striding past in waders, a sack containing moving animals over one shoulder.  On the penultimate page is Reverend Newsome’s Lines from the Vicarage, but they are not as encouraging as I would like.  This month he is reflecting on bus shelters again. 

‘A chance encounter with a senior citizen,’ he writes, ‘set me thinking about the randomness of life.  But is life really random?  I feel that Mr X and I were meant to share that moment of communion, waiting for almost three quarters of an hour for the number 63.’

Possibly that is how he speaks from the pulpit.  I decide that his least elevated sermons will probably be for the Family Service, which is notorious for children running about enjoying themselves; so if I do go to church I must attend something less frantic.  I have long wanted to experience Evensong, which seems to be a service in which you can remain more detached.  I imagine the dark cool interior of Saint Agnes’ and the soaring organ music, the few reflective souls dotted about the pews enjoying moments of calm and space and eternity.  I will sit among them and perhaps I too will achieve some kind of revelation.  But then each shadowy figure becomes more defined and I see that every one is an Apostle.  A week passes by.

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