When I'm busy...

...with the round of family and domestic duties...which this week has ranged from time spent in a hospital out-patient waiting-room to time on trains, queuing in a supermarket and at the Post Office...I currently invariably take books for my Maryvale studies ( exams looming in 2 weeks! AAAArgh!!)

Last night, on a late and packed train, filled with cheerful young people returning from the cricket (they got on at Vauxhall, having spent the day at the Oval and thence, very evidently, various pubs and parties...), some one asked me what I was reading. Two of them had already been discussing Christianity (at the tops of their voices, and rather earnestly!) so I took a deep breath, and held up my book to show the cover. Catechism of the Catholic Church. "Great!" said one young man, plumping himself down beside me at once "I'm a Catholic too." "And I like Pope John Paul" chorused a cheery girl alongside, picking up my bookmark, which had fallen out, and is a pic of JPII from Aid to the Church in Need... "I'm an Anglican" said a nice young man, sitting on the floor between seats. We got talking. By the time the outer suburbs were reached, in a mood of great goodwill, there was a warm and rather marvellous conversation going on...broken only by my having to get out at my station, and their united assistance with my bicycle...

Sometimes one is reminded that Britain can still be a lovely country in which to live.