h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's Monday and therefore laundry day. I don't do it myself - I take it in and a nice lady does it for me. I take it in before 10 and it is ready by lunchtime - very good service and it only costs R25. Come the summer I shall be able to use my washing machine but I'm not having wet washing in my flat, the air is damp enough as it is. My towel never gets completely dry in winter, it's not very nice.

I phoned Rigby on Saturday night. Had a long conversation with him that cost me R100 on my cellphone. It was nice to chat to him. I may go and visit him - he lives on Clifton beach in Cape Town. I don't want to get too involved with him though... he has a bad effect on people. He saps people of their drive and ambition, something I have a problem with in any case. Rigby is an old hippy who is blind in one eye and very short sighted in the other one. He still has long hair and smokes dope. He doesn't work, he has never had a steady job; he lives according to the hippy code. He is a Christian, albeit of a strange kind. I was his disciple in the early nineties but I've been free of his influence for nearly 10 years now.

I'm expecting a phone call from Michael this evening. He wants to bring Sian down for a visit to Stellenbosch. He is hard at work representing a website called hellkom.co.za which is a site devoted to exposing the dreadful service that Telkom SA give. Telkom have taken Hellkom to court and Hellkom have fought back, engaging Michael's services. I remember when Michael was a law student at Oxford - he is now an advocate (barrister) in South Africa and an attorney in New York. He is going to New York, he says, in September on Hellkom business. He and his wife/gf are wildly eccentric. I have just started to laugh loudly remembering an episode which is just far too rude to mention here.

Michael and Sian were the two who brought me out to SA in the first place, back in 1990. I was depressed at Oxford, not working and spending all my time in the Union bar. I met Michael who said Why don't you come with us to Johannesburg. They were on the point of emigrating. I went out ahead of them in September 1990 and they came out a month later. I didn't stay with them for long, though, because they had the most appalling titanic rows. Physical violence and shouting. Not for me. So I moved out into Rigby's place in Berea. That was in the old days. I enjoyed those days. I used to go to the Cafe Three Sisters in Hillbrow for coffee and breakfast every morning. That was a longish walk from Berea (later Yeoville) to Hillbrow and back every day. I was fit in those days. Anyway I'm going back up to Joburg in September. Can't wait - I love Johannesburg.

I don't think I will be able to apply for that post as assistant to the minister - I am far too much of an outsider figure for that. I get heavily involved in a small corner of the church life - the prayer group which only has 2 or 3 people every week - but as for the public manifestations, I am not terribly into it. I found the sermon boring on Sunday... it wasn't Douglas preaching any more (he is good) but David, who is rather "religious". He puts on a special slow voice to pray to God. It is completely artificial, or, to use the Big Brother terminology, fake. God wants to be our friend, and you don't put on a funny voice to speak with your friend, do you? I don't. If I continue to find the sermons boring on Sunday, I'll just stop going, but I will continue to go to House Church and prayer group.

Hello Richard ~ first of all, I wonder what caused you to ring Rigby? Perhaps it would be better to consign him to "the past"?? Forgive me for "judging" ~ I know I shouldn't, but can't help it in this instance!

Eeeek! I'm sorry to hear about the preacher who puts on a "funny" voice to speak to God. But hope it won't deter you from at least having an informal chat with the Pastor of your church about the vacant assistant's post ~ as Jane was saying yesterday. It may take a while to find the "right" work for you, but in the meantime I hope that you can have an interesting & informative time exploring different avenues

I wonder what your weather is like today? Probably a bit like our current British "summer" weather ~ very dull & wet here in the soggy heart of England!

I do hope you'll think about getting a dehumidifier for your flat to help to combat the damp problem. We've got one at home, & it's surprising the amount of liquid it takes in, even when you don't think there's any dampness!

Must go & get something done now. I hope your day will be good!
'Bye for now, ~~Misty~~

Hello Misty

I will take seriously your point about consigning Rig to the past. The reason I phoned him was that it was saturday night and I was lonely. i wanted a chat with someone so I phoned Rigby. But I believe you are right when you say that I should consign him to the past. He has only had a bad effect on me although it took a while for me to recognise that.

I am in several minds about applying for the assistant pastor post. Past of me says go for it, you have nothing to lose; the other part of me says that it goes entirely against the things I believe in concerning church and so on. i dislike going to church and listening to a sermon you see; I find that I hear the word of God far more easily (and far more often) by going along to a house group meeting in someone's front room. Also by listening to church services on the radio. There was a lovely Anglican one on the radio last night where I heard the Word for me. I just like going along to house church and paryer group, that's why I think I will continue to attend this United Reformed church. If it gets too deadly on Sundays I can always not go - I just find myself switching off when it comes to the sermon, especially when that sermon is delivered in a funny voice (playing around with rhetoric, intonations etc.)! I believe my main contribution to church happens in the hidden dimension anyway, in prayer. i have never really enjoyed being in church - I find that a lot of Christians, especially young ones, judge me and "cast out my name as evil". (This is in-house Christian stuff, by the way!) Such people are still young in the faith and don't know about "not judging according to what the eyes see". They still think they can trust the evidence of their eyes, whereas the seasoned Christian knows that you cannot trust your sight, not even your "sixth sight", but you have to walk by faith alone. So I find my best contribution comes in prayer. I used to want to be a preacher and to preach the Word of God and prophesy etc., but now I just want to fade into the background and not be noticed. I believe that's progress!

Anyway as far as the assistant pastor job is concerned, I have decided this: if anyone mentions to me the possibility of my going for it, say on Thursday at house group or on Friday at prayers, then I will apply. If no-one mentions anything about it, then I will not apply.

It is raining now. Earlier it was quite nice but it started drizzling in the mid afternoon and now it's still wet out though it has stopped raining for a bit. I am wearing my rain hat - the one I ordered from the internet. It is a very, very good hat. Its brim is broad enough so that it keeps the rain off very well. But today's rain was drizzly, in the air, and it was slanting, so that I caught it despite the brim of my hat. When the rain is falling down straight, I am protected.

Hi Dagesh,

So pleased that the rain hat has come in useful. Particularly after all the truoble you went through with Parcelpost to get it.

I don't know what to say to you about the Assistant Pastor job as I can't make out from your posts whether you actually want it or not. I do, however, think that waiting to be asked is a dangerous tactic if it is what you want. Have a good think and then if it is what you want trust yourself and have a go. If it isn't - stop worrying about it and look for something else.

I got the message that the car is now fully insured. Hurrah. It was really no trouble being your memory. Pleased to be of service actually.

Take care, Polly