When Mary came out of the ‘chiropody  clinic,  she walked round the corner to the new cafe where she ate a piece of cake and had a cup of tea .The cafe was almost empty  and the waitress seemed delighted to see her ;she sat gazing at the old Tudor wall across the road. The cake was delicious, indeed it was sinful to a normal person and deadly to a diabetic.

After drinking her tea she went into the Polish shop  to buy some of their wonderful bread. The only problem with their food was that all the labels were in Polish and Mary decided that she had enough to do without learning Polish

As she approached the till by the door, a young woman seemed to be having some trouble with her groceries. She looked in her purse, she looked at the assistant she seemed to be trying to remove some other groceries but could not make up her mind which to keep and which to leave behind ; she took a credit card out of her bag but it was not accepted

Mary realised that this young woman could not actually afford to buy  the  food that she needed and Mary’s arthritis was very bad. Selfishly, she asked the young lady if she could not pay for her food.
No I can’t ,said the lady anxiously
And do you have some children at home Mary asked her ?
Yes the lady said

Mary turn to the shop assistant and said “I will pay for this lady’s food and for my loaf. then she turned to the woman and said to her
“You can give this money to the poor at Christmas” thinking to herself that it would not seem so rude to pay the bills and assume that the young woman would do nothing in return

Isabelle, as this Polish lady liked to call herself, was amazed by this old English lady with excessively short hair standing on end  like the head  the toothbrush
What ,you are paying for my food ?
Definitely said Mary thinking to herself that she had just spent 5 pounds in the cafe when she didn’t really need a piece of chocolate cake

Suddenly Isabelle came to Mary and asked her her name ;she hugged her closely and whispered I will pray for you as she kissed Mary’s cheek

Thank you so much, said Mary. She gave the shopkeeper a note then she took the  bread and walked up the road past the shop selling baths and lavatories in amazing beautiful white china;there were lots of school boys  standing in groups chatting and laughing

I’m glad you’re all having a good time,  Mary said to them with a smile

I don’t think I’m going to tell Annie about this, she thought to herself ;she might think I’m stupid for paying somebody else’s bill but isn’t it nice to think that we can do these actions purely because we are suffering from arthritis and can’t stand  in a queue

So  it looks like illness  does have certain benefits like making us more generous  to other people

At the bus stop a crowd of wet and damp people were waiting and unfortunately it was quite dark as well

I wonder if I will be able to get on the bus,  thought Mary. she stood there in her light teal coloured woolen winter coat from Lands End in the sale last year with  a pink fleece hat meant to protect her from the rain and at the same time to completely ruin her hairstyle

On her face she was wearing a moisturiser which was also a sun screen and on her full lips she wore coral coloured lipstick from Reverend Makeup for ex Christians made with holy water  blessed by the Bishop Bath and Wells. in the West of England as it ran down the road

Her mascara was said to be waterproof but eating the chocolate cake in the cafe had made  her weep with joy so her mascara had run down her face making her look like a zebra in human form
Fortunately, Mary did not know about this and  she stood at the bus stop or rather sat at the bus stop on a horrible plastic seat. Imagine how bl she looked…… rather peculiar but then Mary always has looeds  peculiar even when she was a young woman with golden hair that ran down her back in ripples like waves breaking on the seashore except that they did not make any sound as they waved in the Breeze  and had no deep melancholy roar,as Mattthew Arnold might have written

It is quite true that  the sea of faith  seems to have disappeared  but maybe there is a pool of faith somewhere were some goldfish might be Baptised By the parish priest now that the number of people going to church  had declined dramatically.Sexual misbehaviour and even rape had destroyed a lot of young people who had trusted the priests and so never were able to enjoy a normal sex life with a chosen partner

No doubt many people do not have much love and sexual pleasure and they may be too shy to approach anyone .Why is life so hard? Some people have luck and others have terror and hunger,even torture
The bus drove up the road in the dark with a neon Street light flashing in a horrible manner; she did not like that colour and wondered if anyone might want to change it to something like silvery gold especially at Christmas time

When Mary got home she rang her old school friend Margaret.

Margaret, I am so selfish I paid a woman’s bill so I wouldn’t have to stand behind her waiting  to pay  or to come out of the shop without any bread at all

That’s a funny way of  looking at it said Margaret it was very nice that you suggested that she give the money to charity at Christ.mas because then it’s  being passed along from one person to another to the benefit of everybody

You are so clever, Margaret. I wonder what Annie  will think. I wonder what Emile will think also being a cat he is not very expert at dealing with money or shopping ;he thinks that we should go out and kill something that we found in somebody’s in back gardens and then we can eat it raw and so we won’t have any washing up. If ever there was something other than snails and worms in Mary’s back garden maybe she would have  taken the cat’s advice
What would I eat Mary thought.. a fox, a hedgehog,  a lion, a dog ? I’m afraid I could only eat the leaves off the forsythia  and maybe some holly berries since it’s Christmas I don’t think that will be easy to digest. not much protein in that. Maybe I’ll  eat Emile and then we’ll see what he thinks!

I think I might be getting dementia she thought to herself.
I’d  better go to McDonald’s and have a cheeseburger and a large portion of chips followed by a large tub of ice cream I’m sure that’s better than eating  things in the garden.
I wondered Annie would like to come to McDonald’s?  it will be a  change from the kind of food we normally eat like roast beef and Yorkshire puddings or lamb chops on a bed of onions and tomato. Topside with green peas or Lancashire Hotpot yum yum I wonder if they sell steak kidney pudding anywhere in  a restaurant?

When Mary hung up she was so tired she fell asleep on the sofa and when she woke up it was  late;  she had some Weetabix protein and went to bed where Emile was already lying trying to warm it up for her and to save her money from using the electric blanket too much

Emile is a very thoughtful cat ;perhaps he would like to go to McDonald’s as well in Mary’s handbag.
I shall ask him in the morning she thought and then she dreamt about the bottom of the ocean and all the beautiful fish that swim ; she saw Stan  trying to explain social statistics to a mermaid.
What a terrifying sight. So that’s where he is, she cried not in heaven with Jesus .l I think Jesus would understand that some old men still love women even after they have died and any women around might be mermaids who have been living in the sea of faith for 2000 years and will be living there much longer we all hope

And so say all of us

When the black cat hit the kitchen door
She was frightened I would be annoyed
I don't know where she comes from, what allures
A cat so rare she can't play with tomboys

I bought her catnip mice and jellied eels
She sniffed around the eels with her fine nose
She circled well, as if she were on wheels
I wish she'd stay all night and warm my toes

She seems afraid but  hard frost brought her in
We have a cat flap  where she comes and goes
She seems to feel existence is a sin
As if she has received too many blows

Be kind to all the cats that  live with you
For otherwise   they   brew tea in your shoe