Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

In Which Zoe Says Her Favourite Place in the Whole World is Her Own Home

By

Zoe and I go to conversation classes at the Alliance Francaise once a week. We were asked to describe our favourite place in the world. Everyone else said places like Switzerland, New Zealand, Venice, Costa Rica.

Zoe said, “Mon Maison. I love my house. I love my new conservatory. I love my garden. I love my rabbits. I love my dog. I love the ponds. I love the walks in our paddock.”

The entire class was charmed, even our brilliant and intellectual teacher, who even forget to scold her for using simple, rather complex or compound sentences.

In which Roy cruelly nixes my lavender kitchen

By

I now have a freshly painted kitchen, painted by Roy.
I so wanted to paint it lavender, like the kitchens I saw in Provence (yellow, bright blue…) but Roy said if it was lavender, I would have to do all the cooking as he wouldn’t step into it.
“Haven’t you heard of feminism?” I asked him. “I want a lavender kitchen”
“And you are going to Ireland in July, and will then want a green kitchen,” he growled.
He won! I have a dazzling white kitchen!

In Which Irene Analysed British Political Speech

By

I no longer repent that I bought Irene her Ipod touch on impulse. She listened to all three leader’s debates on her Ipod this morning, and was hugely amused at the Oxford Union style of debating. Nick Clegg interrupting to ask, “Yes or no, yes or no?” Come on, Nick, life isn’t that simple.

Her other observation: “They may have said umm, umm, but they did not say, “Ya” even once.” We are trying to rid her of her new speech tic of punctuating phrases with an enthusiastic “Ya,” as it’s infecting the rest of the family.

And we’re succeeding, ya; we really are, ya. Isn’t that great, ya?

In which Zoe gives Irene a shirt declaring “I am always right,” and Irene almost believes it

By

Irene uses her beloved Ipod touch to email people, listen to countless books on tape, play scrabble and boggle, and get a word a day sent to her, which she memorizes.

She announced today that she is now officially cleverer than me because I didn’t know 5 of these obscure words! And because her birthday present from Zoe was a T-shirt which said, “I am always right.”

I am, alas, too old to make that claim.

In which I discover that if you hire your spouse, you cannot so easily fire them.

By

Hot tip to all small business owners.

DO NOT hire your spouse.

Roy just made a really stupid, and somewhat costly, mistake, and when I told him off in no uncertain terms, just stood there, grinning happily from ear to ear, as if he had done the greatest thing in the world.

” Well then, fire me,” he said.

And double my workload?

No way! I fumed, and growled; he had won that round.

In Which Zoe Defines a Visionary

By

A friend called me “a visionary.”
I was rather pleased.
Zoe, “But Jesus wasn’t a visionary.”

Me, “He was all that is good.”
Zoe, “No, he wasn’t a visionary. He just figured out what God wanted and did it. He let God be the visionary.”
And stormed off to bed before I could come up with a come-back.
Okay, so a revised definition of a visionary: someone who can figure out God’s visions for one’s life and projects and family and …. (which are guaranteed to be larger than ours)