Of Saints, and a trinity of cats

Today was All Saints' Eve, Hallowe'en, All Hallows' Eve - all these things, only we celebrated the feast of All Saints this morning at church, and that of All Souls this afternoon, online. The month of remembering has begun, a day early. Two things stay with me from this morning: a woman in Nigeria who makes a living by drying and selling the tapioca she and her children cut up - all fine until you realise that she dries the tapioca on a tray propped up beside a gas flare, a by-product of oil retrieval. She wears her hair cropped close to her head because she's afraid of setting it alight. I didn't know till today that Nigeria depends hugely on oil, and is therefore a big contributor to the climate crisis. And the woman, who was in a video on the BBC site, knows this, deplores this. The other thing I was left with was the thought of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. How would it feel to be called back from eternity? And that's a question for anyone - so don't tell me it doesn't apply because you're not a whatever. You're a mortal human. 

Sorry for all that - I'm not feeling particularly hilarious today.  I'm glad to be able to say that I was able to sing the communion anthem today, though the hymn (For all the saints ...) defeated me as being too big for my traumatised voice. And I'm glad to be able to say I got out for a bit of a walk, though I was horrified at how tired I felt by the time I'd reached the end of our lane - I had to modify my planned route or I'd be sitting still in the West Bay shelter. I'm going to add an extra photo of something that made me smile: I passed a row of flats on my way to the West Bay, and in three consecutive ground floor windows, of completely different houses, there were three identical cats sitting watching me. I actually took photos of all three, hoping the people in the houses weren't watching this crazy wifie ...

I was also hugely amused to get a FaceTime call from Anna, in a black onesie with a glow-in-the-dark skeleton thereon, her face made up with black lippy and eyeliner, as well as some judiciously applied blood. She was full of beans and off to terrorise the neighbours. She looked about 20 ... My younger grandson was also doing his thing further into Edinburgh; I don't know how my grandchildren (and/or their parents) put so much into Hallowe'en when we were so lackadaisical about it when they were small.

 Maybe it's like the cats we never had ...

Main photo of the trees around the church car park as I went in this morning in the rain.