A pleasingly facile ant-proselytising tactic

 I used to work with Peter, a bloke who was a christian to the core. Peter and I would occasionally  travel together when working on the same project, and I could count on it that he would spend the travel time trying to convert me.  

For long periods of time we grappled with the question of how to explain reality without invoking god as the creator and manager. As in "Without the existence of god, how do you explain . . ?". What usually followed was me attempting to impart the basics of evolution, and Peter attempting to debunk. 

It took me a while to discover the best way to handle these arguments. I would reverse the question; I've been busting my brain to explain current scientific, evidence-based thinking on the nature of reality -- OK then, how does Peter explain the existence of a christian god? 

With this approach, I could actually enjoy the discussions, thinking up sillier and sillier questions to pose. Where did God come from? When did god first appear? What did he do before he created the world? How did he cope in the dark before there was light. Apart from the Mary and Jesus event, how often does god have sex? Does he have other love children scattered throughout the universe? If not, why did he stop at one? It was the very best way to reduce Peter to a sullen and sulky silence without the need to simply tell him to shut the fuck up.

Coronation day

Coronation day. Due to the forecast rain, the large television screen scheduled for the Castle Grounds was moved to the Centre 70 building, a much less salubrious setting. So we cancelled our picnic plans. I ended up watching the coronation at Bob and Angela's after helping Bob erect the marquee for the neighbourhood gathering scheduled for a 5PM start. 

The gathering was good. It drizzled on and off during the afternoon, but nothing too bad. Judy and I were talking to the northern Irish bloke who bought the house next door, where Australian friends used to live. He says he still loves it there, I stopped myself from reminding him that he had tried to sell it a few years ago, so I was glad things had improved since then. I asked him how things were going  since the UK/EU agreement on how to handle the Irish border. He was having none of Sunak's effusions that the deal gave Northern Ireland the best of both worlds, access to both the UK and the EU. He got excitable and said that he wanted the hard land border installed right away, He said that the DUP was on track to sweep back into power after the next elections -- not only are they supported unanimously by the protestant population, but also 20% of catholics support them too. It was strange -- I was the one asking the questions, but he addressed all of his answers mainly to Judy. 

I got chatting to some new arrivals to St John's Road, a couple who have just moved there after living 11 years in the south of France, in the Pyranees foothills. They moved here due to circumstance. The chap didn't look all that healthy and for some reason, maybe Brexit, they would get a better health service here. It turns out he was an old ex IT mainframer so we swapped tales of the old mainframe days, when large mainframes were the serious computing biggest game in town. He liked living in France and regrets having to relocate back to the UK. He said that there was a fairly large expat community in the area where he lived, but he tended to ignore them. They were too insular for him. He said a lot of them had moved either to Spain or back to the UK.  

Bluebells

 It being a slow Sunday, Judy and I decided to get the bus out to the spot near Huntercombe where she used to work, to view the bluebells in the forest out there. We walked down to Huntercombe, the old adolescent prison where Judy used to work, which is now a holding centre for illegal immigrants awaiting deportation. Judy struck up a conversation with a guard who was attaching leaflets to a notice board out the front. He said he's been working there for 20 years and remembered Judy. Since we had just missed the bus back to Wallingford, we went to that old pub on the Henley road near there. It's now a craft centre/coffee shop cafe and they're having a bit of a festival at the moment. There was a large open workshop and among many other crafts people, ther was a white haired old bloke was busy carving wooden spoons. He had a large pile of them heaped up around his workbench while he diligently whittled away and at the same time engaged about 4 or 5 people in conversation. Now I'm in the market for a carved wooden spoon since the one I had didn't cope at all well with the modern dishwasher experience. So I picked out a suitable replacement from the pile and in a gap in his conversations, asked him how much. He said that none of the spoons were for sale as he hadn't finished them yet.

St Mary's Street

 We moved into our flat at 10B St Mary's Street on 20 March. Since then, we've managed to gather the accoutrements required for a basic but comfortable life. The flat is above a shop pretty much in the centre of town. It consists of a bedroom, a good size but not huge, a living room, again big enough but not huge, a kitchen, adequate size but not ideal for two people at once, and a bathroom.

St Mary's street is a little pedestrian only street, just off the town square. It's still a novelty to step outside the building front door and be in the centre of Wallingford. The Waitrose supermarket is two minutes' walk away and there is a farmer's market in the town square every friday. The town square is home to the bus stops as well.  

We slept on an air mattress for the first couple of nights, which demonstrated for us the urgent requirement for a comfortable bed. Which we procured from Ikea with the help of our generous Wallingford friends.

We also managed to get a sofa bed from the local freecycle, which means we can host guests and watch the television with a degree of comfort. We also picked up an Ikea lounge chair which is comfortable and also slightly rocking chair ish.

So this place is beginning to feel like a home. It's small, ridiculously so after our house in Woodend, especially the kitchen. It has a few rough edges which we hope our landlord can sort out. He isn't nearly as generous, forthcoming or considerate a landlord as we are back in Australia, but he eventually seems to get things done.

It's working out, living in the middle of Wallingford. It's good to be so close to everything -- we often just pop across to the supermarket to pick up things as we need them, very useful facility given that we only have a micro-fridge. Also it's good being so close to the bus stops.