11th September 2009

A Chaplain’s Diary

 

Piles of washing

 

We are at that stage in our life when our children are a bit like the tide – they just constantly come and go.  One minute the house is like a morgue with very little sign of life, the next it’s bedlam.  Piles and piles of washing, chaos everywhere with the front door slamming to and security bolts banging to anytime after four o’clock in the morning, when the kids get back from their night out.  Stupidly we always ask them to pop their heads around our bedroom door to let us know they are back in safely, but then being geriatric insomniacs we can never get back to sleep, so our day starts around 4.30 am.  We have four weeks to go before freedom and tranquillity return.  When they are not here we don’t worry about them – they can be out all hours and up to no good but we don’t care because we don’t know.  Ignorance is bliss.  Where have the years gone?  No  more nappies, or pasta pictures; no more birthday parties or the endless reading of Peep O; no more face painting, head lice or tantrums to deal with.  Hooray!  All we need to worry about now is illicit sex and drug taking, and come October, when the children have gone, we shall be able to have plenty of both.

 

Mature adults throwing tantrums

 

Some of the family may still be here but things are certainly quietening down on the beaches of Majorca.  Sleep is returning after the heat of the summer and patience has made its first appearance since June.  Gone are the long hot, humid days when impatience comes so naturally.  Supposedly mature adults can be seen throwing tantrums all over the island during July and August; restaurant bills being argued over, car doors slammed in a strop, husbands storming off, almighty gesticulation at the car hire desk, sand kicked in disgust and children acting as human shields between glowering parents.  And do you know where it all started?  It all began when the holiday brochures were opened.   Mum does not look like the young lovely by the pool at the hotel, the room is half the size of the one in the promotional photo and the buffet pictures bear no resemblance to the desolation in the restaurant when four thousand holiday makers have trawled through it and dribbled and sneezed over it.

 

Luck is indeed smiling on you if you can get to the airport without a domestic or through security without an argument with the check in girl because your luggage is double the weight it should be and the expensive perfume you had hoped to pour over yourself to attract the attention of Pedro, the waiter, has been confiscated from your handbag.

 

Then there are the complimentary tea-bags in your room – yes, I know what they look like – but they’re still tea-bags, they taste perfectly alright but you do have to drape the string over the side of your cup otherwise you are likely to choke to death if you swallow one of them.  Incidentally the blood bath on the white bedroom walls are squashed mosquitoes – the result of many hours of fun. The kids may complain of being bored but it won’t last long and certainly not after Wayne from the Gorbals shows them how to play poo sticks with the effluent coming out of the end of the large black pipe on the beach – so no worries there then. No the waiters don’t speak English in the bar and shouting slowly and louder does not help, just as it wouldn’t in Tesco’s if you asked for “dos kilos de merluza y una tortilla”.

 

Holidays, they’re great, as long as you don’t let them get you down and certainly don’t even think of taking the in-laws because all they will do is sit around all day, moaning that it’s too hot, and that they cannot understand a word these foreigners say.  It’s all to do with expectations but at least most of them have now gone home.

 

 

Gift wrapped and bottled shape

 

On a more uplifting note I want to tell you about Henderson’s Relish.  You probably know Lea & Perrins – that tarry coloured stuff that’s quite expensive over here but gives a real piquancy and lift to shepherd’s pie and other culinary delights.  Henderson’s is in a different league.  It’s made in a tiny house factory in the middle of Sheffield.  It’s very much a local delicacy.  Most grocery shops in Sheffield sell it, but the minute you get as far away as the surrounding towns of Doncaster, Bakewell or even Barnsley, forget it!  You would probably need an export licence to ship it out of the area.  Ask any Sheffielder about Henderson’s and they will wax lyrical, but anyone else would look at you amazed and wonder if it was a case of sunstroke.  It does have a bit of a cult following, if you’re from Sheffield you’ll know what I mean – even my daughter was given a bottle by one of our guests on her wedding day! 

 

The plain orange label describes it as “the spicy Yorkshire sauce made in Sheffield for over 100 years”.  Yet, despite its antiquity, I notice that it’s a very politically correct product because it now says that its “vegetarian society approved”.  You may now be wondering what’s in this unique elixir?  According to the ingredients its vinegar, sugar, caramel, cayenne pepper, cloves, garlic oil and tragacanth.

 

Now you may ask, “Why am I going on about this?”  Last week Paul and Laura from Sheffield were married in Fornalutx.  The local Catholic priest was a little bit late opening up the church for us to get in.  We stood around talking, trying to make polite conversation but secretly wondering what we do if the key never arrived, when suddenly I was presented with a gift wrapped, bottle shaped, package.  At first I presumed it might have been gin – my favourite tipple - but as I tore it open I realised it was a bottle of Henderson’s, no doubt covertly smuggled out from Yorkshire.  It was a small present but one that brought tears of joy to my eyes – that’s what Henderson’s does to someone from Sheffield….. and the wedding was wonderful!

 

Exhibition of Jewish culture

 

You wouldn’t have wanted to be a Jew at the time of the Spanish Inquisition.  Spain was a very unhealthy place to be if you belonged to the Jewish Community.  From then on Jewish religious services were banned until the 20^th Century.  There was no religious freedom. Five hundred years after the Inquisition had banned such things, the first Jewish service was held in Majorca in the Anglican Church.  If you have ever looked at the stained glass windows, then the second from the left at the back of church commemorates St. Matthias and incorporated into the design is a Jewish Menorah, commemorating the event when we were able to offer hospitality to the Jewish Community.  Last Sunday the synagogue on Calle Monseňor Palmer, just north of Cappuccino and the Paseo Maritimo, held an open day with an exhibition of Jewish Culture.  After our church service, a group of us from the Anglican Church walked down to visit them and see the exhibition.  We Christians tend to forget that Jesus was a Jew and his Jewish upbringing and background was the basis of much of his teaching, and its in Judaism that our roots lie.

 

 

 

 

Robert Ellis is the Anglican Chaplain of Majorca

St Philip and St James Church

Nunez de Balboa, 6

Son Armadans

Palma 07014

e-mail:  anglicanpalma@terra.es

www.anglican-mallorca.org