Anglican Church Mallorca

I’m never quite sure whether the correct title should be Mothers’ Day or Mothering Sunday. Perhaps in calling it Mothers’ Day something is lost. The focus has been moved from nurturing, love and care to a named individual. Mothering Sunday is always difficult because if you are a single dad then there has been some sort of catastrophe. It’s very hard for dads, and for children who just have dads to care for them – because they do mothering just like mums do.

Perhaps we need to recapture Mothering Sunday. The concept of mothering has been lost and has been replaced with the person of ‘Mum’. Actually we receive “mothering” from a range of sources: grandmas, aunties, friends, godparents and neighbours – as well as from dad. I think that is probably why I am so pleased to hear that there are special cards for grandparents, and why my secretary got a Mothering Sunday card from her god-daughter – it’s opening the whole thing up.

Wanted: mother. no experience necessary, no training given.

Hours: 24-hour shift during whole life of child.

Terms: salary not available, but small government grant per child. Holiday and sick leave negotiable, but not encouraged.

Knowledge/experience: the following would be a definite advantage: nursing, catering, religion, counselling, finance, dressmaking, computer skills, media Studies (including TV repairs), sport and taxi driving, and conflict management.

Product non-exchangeable and non-returnable.

Results – unpredictable.

Rewards – potentially high.

It’s a similar problem we have with what is traditionally known as our Mums and Toddlers Group, which meets every Tuesday morning. We pondered for ages what name to give it. We went through all the obvious ones – Mums & Toddlers, Parents & Toddlers, Carers & Toddlers – but we haven’t really come up with the right phrase because we know that there are some grandmas who take grandchildren and nannies who take their protégées. Ah well, we may not be politically correct but I think people get the general idea and given the amount of noise they make, somebody seems to be enjoying themselves somewhere. It’s 10.30 am to 12 noon every Tuesday in the Coleman Hall at the Anglican Church.

I see from today’s Daily Bulletin that all the reservoirs are full. Not that I’m surprised given the appalling weather we have had over the last few months. However, I still don’t intend to take down the sign for guests which hangs over the loo in the bathroom: “Water is a valuable commodity on Majorca so please don’t waste it unnecessarily. Don’t rush to flush.” The one I daren’t put up is “If its yellow let it mellow, if its brown flush it down”. Actually there is another reason I’m not taking it down, and that is that on Majorca, unlike most houses in the

U.K.

, the water is metered and you pay for what you use. They do say (I’m not quite sure who “they” are) that most people clean their teeth with the tap running – yup, I do as well – but it uses, or wastes four litres of water. Over the course of a year that certainly mounts up and you are paying for it. So if you want to save money turn the tap off.

There are great swathes of the stuff on our drive. Those of us who live here permanently know all about the yellow pollen which is everywhere at the moment. But I wonder if the visitors to the island know what it is? Its pollen from the pine trees and it gets everywhere. Today we had all the church windows cleaned and Robert, the window cleaner, said the windows were thick with the yellow pollen. On my way to do some shopping at Mercadona I noticed that lots of the cars are streaked with the stuff. And where the rainwater runs off the church roof there’s a great trough of the stuff. Should it not rain again, I don’t know how it’s going to disperse. Many people seem to be allergic to it, but I’m told by one doctor that it cannot possibly be the pollen to which they are allergic as it doesn’t have that effect of making your eyes run, sneeze and generally feel uncomfortable. It started coming down about three weeks ago and I thought that following the atrocious weather we would have seen the back of it, most of it would have been washed down. But it seems to have come back with a vengeance thicker than ever. My wife is constantly wiping down outside surfaces and the cloth is yellow with the stuff.

There are three things which as a clergyman I never get away from: having to smile at people I don’t like, moving chairs and being the butt of the “more tea Vicar?” joke. “More tea, Vicar?” they ask primly, then fall about laughing. You smile indulgently as if, goodness that was a new one, but inwardly you feel like screaming.

In this job you soon get used to tea and coffee until its coming out of your ears. It arrives in all sorts of shapes and sizes. From hot water over which a teabag has been waved, to coffee which can fetch the enamel off your teeth. I must admit my spirits always rally at the question, “would you like something a bit stronger?” only to find they mean a brew of Yorkshire Tea as opposed to the little pathetic sachets with little strength and lots of string and packaging all over the place. Of course if they do indeed mean “something a little stronger”, it’s a case of “Vicar beware!” particularly if I’m driving because generous churchgoers love to see the vicar getting slowly sloshed – its double points and “he is human after all”.

You read about it happening to other people, but you always think that you are immune from it yourself. My secretary had tried to use the church visa card over the phone to buy palm crosses for our Palm Sunday Service this coming weekend. We got an e-mail back to say that the card had been refused and would we pay by an alternative method. We thought no more about it and just put it down to being just one of those things. A week later I tried to fill up the chaplaincy car with diesel, once again using the chaplaincy Visa card. It wasn’t accepted, which began to set off warning bells in my head. It was time to go and find out what was happening at the bank. It seems that someone had fraudulently used our card for €350 in

Italy

. Oh how I wish it had been me. I rather fancy a week in Italy, but unfortunately I was stuck on Majorca that day. The bank manager said we had to go and make a denuncio at the police station before they could take the matter up. I thought we would immediately and automatically be re-imbursed but according to the bank manager this could take anything up to six months. How they have done it I have no idea. Whether I have let the card go out of my sight I can’t remember, or whether it’s possible to use it fraudulently via the internet I can only guess, but Dear Reader be warned!