Many Happy Returns

Over the weekend <3 and myself took a trip to Pembrokeshire, having been invited to an Arthurian banquet (with a middle-eastern theme bolted on) by an old friend. With some slight trepidation we made the drive across country on the Friday, which gave us most of Saturday in which to act as tourists before the banquet began.

Our tourism exploits basically involved a trip to St. David's, where a small town plays host to a mighty mediaeval cathedral and a partially ruined C14th bishop's palace. We also found an "Xmas Fayre", where fudge and alpaca wool scarves were sold and <3 was introduced to the charms of cawl (Welsh lamb and veg soup).

The banquet was 12 courses of awesome food from "Moorish Venison" to baklava, accompanied by a fantastically friendly welcome which wiped out any last traces of trepidation about our leap into the unknown.

Now there is talk of a Middle Earth banquet (spit roast hobbit, anyone?) in a few months' time. We're looking forward to it...

Fires and Faith

In a slightly surreal passage of our lives, <3 and I spent the evening of Hallowe'en at an Irish funeral. Tragically, the sister of a school friend of <3's died of cancer aged somewhere in her 30's, and as we were in the right country at the time, showing our support seemed the right thing to do.

The general form for Irish funerals is in two main parts: the funeral mass and burial and, generally the evening beforehand, the removal (which is what we attended). Both are usually public events and announced in the newspapers.

We arrived at the funeral home for the removal, which is basically the ritual of moving the body to the church in preparation for the burial. Before this takes place there is a recital of the Rosary (several times) and an opportunity for sympathisers to shake the hands of the bereaved family, which felt rather strange when only one member of the family had ever met me before.

From the funeral home was a procession behind the hearse for some 20 minutes, after which everyone got into cars in order to make faster progress to the church. This reinforced my view of the chimerical nature of Irish culture: devout prayer and Catholic observances, in the middle of which was a drive through the suburbs of a medium-sized town where every second street marked Hallowe'en/Samhain with raging pyres and illegal fireworks.

At the church was a short service to mark the end of this stage of the journey. One of my biggest beefs with high church in general, and Roman Catholicism in particular, is the fundamental obsession with sin and how we are all unworthy. It all seems too hung up on the bad things to realise how great life can be. Strangely, it was in this short service, marking as it was the sad and premature end of a life, that I saw more hope and optimism than I have seen in a long time. Sure, it all relies on the dogmatic "Believe in me and even though you die, you will live on", but for some reason it felt right.

Now if only people could learn to celebrate and treasure life while it is still there, perhaps we would live in a happier world.