The Real North/South Divide

I want to move back North – I have been bleating on about this for such a long time, but I now can tell you why!

It is not only because the scenery is out of this world, it is, it is not only because the people are fab – they are – it because the social nuances that separate the rich from poor, educated from uneducated, and the north from the south.

Someone lent me a book and in Yorkshire that means that I can keep that book for a couple of years, it is traditional, it is almost like giving the book to me. I can keep it, forever, I cannot sell it, I cannot give it away, and I cannot lend it to someone one, but they have lent it to me. Even if that seems extreme, it means I get to keep it for more a few minutes, well a couple of weeks being badgered every few days. Ok I have read it, but still the principle remains, it’s a northern thing.

The strongest cultural indicators, as in many cultures is how we break bread together.

Breakfast starts the process which consists of cereals (not muesli), toast – cut like doorsteps and dripping in butter (not ‘low fat spread’) – beans, sausage, and things you really do not want to delve too deeply into, but things that make your cholesterol rise with expectation – in other words a good fry up!

Dinner occurs around midday, now this is a movable feast, Sunday dinner can start around 2pm, normally after the traditional closing times of the pubs / Working Mens Club, but cannot be any later, though on High Days and Holy Days – such as Christmas – it can be extended to 3pm, though Tea starts at around 4 or 5pm, so you run the risk of the two merging into one; but being ‘northern’ I know theses things, such things were observed and learnt.

Yorkshire Puddings the size of a Dinner Plates are the entrée of choice served with Onion Gravy – Aunt Bessy obviously came from Lancashire ‘cos her puds are way too small! Main meal is something you can get your laughing tackle around, but will contain Meat, Mash, and vegatables (Vegetarians are, like in France, are an obscure species that are an object of curiosity and pity; by the time ‘Pudding’ is served you will be stuffed – but dutifully, manfully, stoically, you are expected drown the offering in custard (try calling it ‘Cremè Anglais’ and, my friend, you will be outcast!).

After a ‘decent interval’ Tea will be served around 5pm which is only marginally less in both calories and mass.

Supper is served at around 1030pm, as someone said ‘it is perfectly acceptable to find your guests in Pyjama’s if you have invited them around for supper,

Entertaining, being invited around for any meal, especially on a Sunday, means ‘for the duration’ when living in Southampton I soon learned it was ‘turn up, eat food, leave – I actually gave someone the food I had prepared for them to cook at their house because they expected to turn up, eat, and leave! On the other hand, in Yorkshire, if you are the host you can leave your guests the key and go to bed, perfectly acceptable !

Bumping into God

Most peoples encounters with God revolve around the church, but I have ‘bumped into him’ on a Train, a Car Park whilst putting clothes in the clothing bank and also on the steps of a church in London at 5am in the morning – he keeps popping up, never know when the next time he is going to poke his head round the corner. This time it was on Twitter, which is an excellent metaphor for God being omnipresent and omni diverse.

The main stumbling point I have with God is the ‘gay thing’ and having mulled it around it for quite some years being celibate, ‘out and proud’ and ‘recovering’ – it seems that that I have been quietly asking for some kind of framework and looking for an appropriate response to God.

My musical tastes this year have been Lady GaGa, The Communards, and lately the Scissor Sisters – with a shameful dalliance with Michael Buble which both worries me and fill me with shame and would rather not talk about it at length. Listening to the Communards I have can not only connect to my distant youth, but I can also tie into the my internal political and social beliefs, which corresponds vaguely to the Old Testament and old Labour, with cries for social justice and equality – which seem to be a reoccurring theme in the New Testament.

Reading an article in The Guardian of the ex-Communard, now Reverend, Richard Coles I find that there is a place for gay people in the church, my natural home is the Church of England has always been a ‘broad church’ I was first ‘churched’ in a Pentecostal church which gave me great theology but a lot, not so much guilt but more just screwed me up!

I think now that I am in Civil Partnership I am coming round to the view that I can be Gay and call myself a Christian, and perhaps start believing that ‘there is nothing I can do that can make God love me less, or anything I can do to make God love me more’

Listening to people on Twitter I have seen an honesty and a sincerity that I miss when I go to church, I have seen Aunt Gladys get stressed over the job and drool over John Barrowman, I have seen Changing Worship talk about his music with passion and I have seen Graham Richards talk about his family with pride; in effect I have seen snippets of faith

Voila, Montgolfier !

Just walking across to ASDA this evening and saw a Hot Air Balloon floating in the distance, it immediately sent me back about six years when I was on a train going to Potiers. It was hot and balmy and I was relaxing on the TGV hurlting through the never ending French countryside, and across the aisle was a woman of a ‘certain age’ with her mother, the daughter obviously had learning difficulties, and looking out at the clear blue horizons was a flight of Hot Air Balloons, and she suddenly remarked ‘regardez la Montgolfier’, with an innocence and wonder that I used to have, it was an innocence and simplicity that we all had, and when our lives get complicated I like to think of the simplicity of life, how it should be, how it could be if we really wanted it to be.

The memory is a shard in my brain, sometimes events, the unconscious event, against it, awakening my moral compass, something we all need, something I need to take notice of more and more.