The Malta Independent on Sunday
A family wedding
can wear a lined dress at last as the heat is abating and I’m beginning to feel human again. I even woke up in the middle of the night to collect a light blanket as I was feeling chilly. What bliss! I love the word chilly.
A short stay in London for a family wedding also brought some light relief. We had beautiful weather and so were able to walk about without carrying half a dozen umbrellas and raincoats. Young Theo too, sat contentedly in his pram looking around curiously.
I must here put in a word for an efficient Air Malta employee who was most helpful. I foolishly used, as a bag to travel in, one with a magnet instead of a zip. Once we arrived at Heathrow and were queuing up at passport control I discovered that my passport which was encased in a bright red leather cover – a Christmas present from my 1975 baby and darling husband who thought it would go well with my left wing beliefs – was not in my bag. A niece who was ahead of us all, although in dizzy high heels, was passed on the bad news and I learnt later that she immediately called this good Air Malta employee who had helped her before and he set the ball rolling. My passport had fallen out and was found under my seat without my noticing and would be delivered soon. And it was. I was mortified that I was keeping the rest of the family waiting but all was forgiven. I wish to thank this gentleman publicity for his quick intervention. I wish I had done it there and then but there was no time. What a nightmare to carelessly lose my passport on a short visit and when so many others are inconvenienced at the same time. I have to put in a word of thanks to St Anthony too as I did silently pray to him and told him I would be very offended if the passport was not
Ifound AND SOON. My heart is thumping – not for St Anthony – but at the thought of a lost passport. At this lovely and happy wedding most guests were Dutch, British and Maltese Catholics – mostly practicing and devout ones. A friend of the bridegroom, my nephew, asked me after the church ceremony, why I had not gone to Holy Communion. I said because God had offended me to such an extent that I really do not wish to have much more to do with him. That question has appeared in at least one of Evelyn Waugh’s novels: the Catholic community watching one another to see who is going to receive Holy Communion and who is not – and if not they would be hastily judged: was so and so having an affair then? This lovely young man’s question was not asked in malice. I later learned that his young wife was having cancer treatment but unlike me, he was not offended by God. But back to Evelyn Waugh’s characters. It is of course a great deal of nonsense. One can have a dozen affairs and still receive Holy Communion – every day if one wished. All one has to do is ‘live in sin’, go to confession, make a ‘firm purpose of amendment’ as we were taught when we were young – a phrase from the Prayer of Saint Benedict of Nursia (480-547), return to your sin and then go again to confession and so on. I have never tried this myself but it would surprise me if there weren’t more than a few who conducted their lives in this way all for the sake of what society would say. But who are we to judge? I consider myself a collapsed Catholic and like Humpty Dumpty I doubt I shall ever put myself together again.
One thing we have not learned yet here is making witty wedding speeches. I am speaking general- ly as there is little doubt that there are witty speeches at weddings too. I must say that at this particular wedding the speeches were exceptional, particularly that of the father of the bride. I have the feeling he must have learnt it off by heart. It was perfectly delivered in impeccable English and he is of Dutch origin. But then the Dutch are excellent linguists. They have had to be.
For all the Catholics present at dinner I sat next to a Protestant pastor on my left. Priests and nuns and pastors – all these good people are really social workers in uniform. And now in most cases even the uniform has gone. But where would the world be without them? In an even more rotten state than it is.
Apart from the wedding I had visitors from Mauritius I had not seen for over 22 years so there was a great deal of reminiscing and catching up about mutual friends. My 1980 baby came straight from London to Malta with her darling Theo who looks like his paternal grandfather. The latter is delighted that this boy will carry on with the family surname. The other grandchild in the family is a girl and his daughter has three sons who carry their father’s surname and not their grandfather’s of course. So Theo was given a special family medal as he is the first who will be carrying on the surname. Very touching. Thank goodness I like all my daughters’ in-laws. What happens if you don’t?