Povey Prattle

My brother Martyn and my nephew Sam arrived last night from London. Amazingly their London - Atlanta flight arrived 50 minutes early and their Atlanta to Sarasota flight arrived 20 minutes early. Already we've been to the lovely Siesta Key beach, and we swam in  positively balmy Gulf of Mexico waters. Martyn and Sam will be here for a week, so my blog offerings will perhaps be sparse this week.

I am never shy about telling people when it is my birthday.  I try to celebrate it to the max.  Today I’ve been blessed to preside at St. Boniface’s 10:00 a.m. and to have lunch with my Cambridge friend Mary Caulfield who is visiting her parents in nearby North Redington Beach, FL.  This evening I went out for dinner with some of my Sarasota friends.  I ate a wonderfully juicy burger (without a bun)  and delicious sweet potato fries. Thank you so much for many Facebook greetings, e-cards and snail-mail cards.  Terrific! My Pittsfield friend Betsy is extremely creative with her photo-shopped greeting cards.  She sent me this one today -  a composite of Ada, Adelaide and Penne on the couch, and a 20 year old John Michael Povey – who then had lots of very red hair  (Lord alone knows where Betsy got that particular photo’).  Betsy also included a bit of a picture she had taken of a Hong Kong Orchid Tree blossom, which she had taken on one of her visits to SRQ. What a neat and creative c

Calendar for July 2011 July Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 This year, July has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. This happens   once   every 823 years'' How  excruciatingly important (lol)  . 

When I was in Grammar School 1955 – 1960 in Bristol U.K. (High School in American terminology) I was asked (required) to read many books.   I was never impressed with the novels of Charles Dickens or Jane Austen which were “required reading”. I enjoyed Jerome K Jerome’s “Three Men in a Boat”, and I well remember a book entitled “Sweet Thames Run Softly” - (I have forgotten the author). One of my schoolboy favourites was “Kipps” by H.G.Wells.   (It is the book which engendered the song “half a sixpence”). I suspect that I enjoyed “Kipps” because of the skill and wisdom of the school teacher who “led us through the book”. To my surprise I discovered today that I own a copy of “Kipps”.   It’s been sleeping in my modest library. So I have begun to read the book again (some 52 years on).   I have once again been enchanted by “Kipps”.   It’s a good tale. 

As I was reading this afternoon I began to giggle.  Not because of the reading matter, but because Penne, Ada and Adelaide were each sitting near my feet, looking up at me with expectant gazes. I think that they wanted me to read aloud to them, but since my book is a biography of Tom Paine I feared that such reading would incite them to demand some rights, or lapse into deism. Please send me your suggestions for “reading aloud to animals”. (no not “Animal Farm” for goodness sake!

Back in about 1978 my dear Ruth Card used the word “normalcy”.   I spluttered and said “there is no such word”.   Ruth opened up her Webster’s Dictionary and showed me the entry for “normalcy”.   I was only half convinced, for my British heritage assured me that the correct usage is “normality”. Usage aside, I experienced normality at St. Boniface Church on Siesta Key FL today. Most of the congregation experienced normalcy! We did not expect this. For it was the first Sunday since the retirement of the beloved and long serving Rector at St. B’s, the Revd. Ted Copland.   Many of us expected a lower than low attendance on this first Sunday “sans Ted”, but we were delightfully proven wrong.  It was a Sunday of normality/normalcy with a splendid attendance.   I was privileged to preside at the 10:00 a.m. Eucharist.  St. B’s trusty assistant minister, my dear sister Andrea Taylor preached a cracker-jack and challenging sermon on forgiveness.   Andi and I love working together, never