I wasn't exactly feeling too great about things yesterday. Not anything about the work in particular, more a combination of several things making life a bit annoying - not having hot water (possibly it now seems because we didn't know how to set it right on the system), trying to make the money in and the money out match up a bit better, that sort of thing. This on a day when I had written "Retreat and Reflect" in the diary as an opportunity to take some time out to reflect on what has happened so far and recharge my batteries! With the weather also conspiring against my original plan of going for a walk in the Peak District, I set off in a somewhat distracted way for my Plan B - Dunham Massey.
I'd been to Dunham once before, but a while ago; and these days, going round a house like this is often so stressful (due to the way toddlers tend to want to grab and sit on priceless artifacts) that it tends to be something we avoid. It was fairly quiet - one school party, and then what seemed to be just a handful of us wandering around the house.
It was quite fascinating to talk to some of the Room Stewards, who were happy to tell you about what you were looking at and volunteer information. I hadn't realised for example that the family were actually that of Lady Jane Grey - often known as the Nine Days Queen - and that the eldest daughter of each generation of the family was also named Jane. Then there was the connection with the Civil War, with a facsimilie of Charles I's Death Warrant. I spent a bit of time examining this, as I looked for names from a book called "A Conspiracy of Violence" by Susanna Gregory - a Historical Mystery set at the time of the Restoration, in which the names of several of the signatories are mentioned. Sure enough, the names of Challoner, Ingotsby and Barkstead are inscribed upon it.
A couple of hours later I was feeling a bit more chilled out, and I set out for home with some music playing from the iPod, a random selection. About ten minutes away from home, the song "Once in a Lifetime" by Talking Heads started playing, and I found myself going back to the start to listen to the lyrics again....
You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
You may find yourself in another part of the world
You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
You may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
You may ask yourself; Well...How did I get here?
Croxteth may not be a Shotgun Shack, but we're in a different part of the world; I was driving my car; the Manse is certainly a big step up, and of course I think the description of my wife fits... Well - how DID I get here?
By the time the song had finished playing, life seemed back on the level again and whatever problems we face didn't seem so big. A moment of grace?
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