ugly duckling

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I have taken some time off this week to ‘finish’ painting the house — most specifically, the Ugly Room that has always been dominated by bad light, lots of dirt, and a boiler the size of Rhode Island. The friend who has helped me paint almost every room in the house made yet another pilgrimage from Glasgow, and we worked well into the night on Tuesday. Yesterday was the inevitable trip to the shrine of IKEA, and today I have painted the tiles (cough, cough). It’s not quite done yet — I still need a grouting pen that is not Silver (oops), and some paint for the pipes, but here are a few photos to show St Ninia that her work has paid off:

 

ugly room

 

ugly room 3

 

uglly room 2

a curious path

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WordPress offers a list each day of what search terms people have used to find the blog.  It is usually fairly predictable: my name, the blog’s name, R. S. Thomas, eucharist, house blessing, and the like.  But today someone found their way here by searching for ‘cheese scented candle.’

I cannot think of any post that would be of help to them.  Indeed, while candles are a regular feature, I have no recolection of blogging about cheese.

What a strange world the internet is.

neologisms

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Well, I have now taught the bird to spell. But only after an unfortunate coincidence of bad typing, lack of avian spelling and a rare lapse in proofreading by our editor-in-chief led to a few creative images of God in the pew sheet.

First, in the collect: ‘O God, through your only betooten Son you have overcome death and opened the gate of life…’

Then, in the post communion prayer: ‘Eternal God, whose son Jesus Chrust is the way, the truth and the life…’

I think the latter will be a one off, but I’m quite taken by ‘betooten’. I suspect it will rank up there with my old favorite ‘One Cod, now and forever. Amen.’

p.s. — I have just run this post through the spell check. Betooten didn’t get underlined. It is clearly meant to stay.