St Withburga's Well, Dereham

*Warning ... Overlong blip write up
I hope freespiral might issue a special holy dispensation for a late well entry as I was driving south yesterday!

My eyes had been fixed on a safe point on the floor at my feet but as I cautiously looked up she looked so kindly at me from across the low coffee table where the tissues lay pulled ready for action like a frozen fountain, fixed, mid frame at the point where they last showed such courage in the face of a previously unspoken last horror witnessed in this deceptively mild oasis of magnolia.

As the tears began to well up, from somewhere deeply beyond me, drawing up through my feet in contact with the earth and the layer upon layer of time and place and all the bodies of souls that make up the very essence of our being, I couldn't help but see the irony. I had become a living manifestation.

As I sat in a slug trail slime of shame that oozed into the room I noticed her crossing her legs as if for comfort, but I knew. I knew she couldn't sit easily with her thinly veiled disgust. She knew this was a bad case and I could sense her girding and holding on to herself, to try and keep herself separate and save herself from being sucked into this vortex unfolding before her.

'It started so innocently', I pleaded in my defence.
'It was only going to be a month ...', said with some desperation.
'I thought I could handle it ...' My voice faded away in the face of the reality that stared starkly at us under a suddenly over bright strip light.
There was to be no hiding place now.
The calendar filled the wall. A monster that said .... MARCH.
I knew I was a welloholic.
I knew it was a long road that lay ahead.

After what seemed like a universe of silence I was curled in on myself, exhausted with the effort. The endless searching, the disappearances down Google wormholes, the pretence of doing one thing as a cover for what had now become all too clear. The truth was out. Here in this room. I wasn't sure where we went from here and looked up nervously for some kind of sign, not at all sure that there would be any hope.

Eventually, after what felt like eternity in slow motion, she got up. She had seen it all before. She got up and went to a cupboard that I hadn't noticed. As the door opened I saw it. It was the vision that had been waiting for me. Of course, I realised then. It all became so clear. It was the Hoover of Repentence. I knew what I had to do.

I set to and vacuumed my shame. I got into all the tricky corners and even moved the furniture. I felt as though I could at last hold my head high and move on. Once done I beamed. I had done my bit. As she took the Hoover from me and returned it to the dark place, i couldn't help but feel empty. I had hoped I would feel better than this. As the encroaching uncertainty crept into my soul, I felt a pervasive fear sweep through me. The room went so cold. I shivered.

As I looked pathetically for guidance, she went across to a door that I hadn't seen before, it must have been there all the time but in my shame I could not have seen it. Now it was revealed but I had no idea what might be on the other side. She gestured for me to open it.

I realised there was light on the other side and overtaken by curiosity, as I turned the handle, the room was flooded with warm welcome of .... St Withburga.

I stepped into the light. I knew what I had to do.

In the afterglow of her presence there remained ... A well ... The wifi well hot spot that had never before been known to exist in this remote corner of Norfolk. It will henceforth be known as St Withburga's wifi.

I can't do links but it's worth reading up on St Withburga. She's an East Anglian Saint, a princess, daughter of the confusingly named king, Anna. After building a nunnery she died, failed to decompose, became the focus for pilgrimmage and put Dereham on the map, led to jealousy over in Ely, the Ely mob nicked her remains, the Dereham lot gave chase with clods of earth. That worked. In the meantime a well sprung up at the burial site and the pilgrims kept coming anyway. And they all lived happily, etc.
When I took a few bags of dad's clothes to the hospice shop on my way to see mum, the locals knew nothing about the lovely St W. Another well lost to the modern world!
Mum wasn't sure who I was and there was afternoon entertainment, a clown doing things with balloons. It was fairly unbearable. I went to sit for a while in Norwich Cathedral and listened to organ practice before heading back.