I rose at 8.45 as promised, and was going to take Sebi with me anyway, but found that hockey had been cancelled due to ice, and so as Stu was going to the gym it was going to be three of us going to church. I had less resistance to the idea than I expected; the boys are rather devoted to their Granny. They bounced into church and she was completely delighted and surprised to see them. Lovely. Now just an hour's service to get through.
I explained to Sebi that the vicar read the words in normal type and we read everything in bold. Thus when we stood up as the service started, the vicar started speaking and Sebi joined in with:
"Introduction and Opening Hymn."
"Not that bold writing Darling", I hissed in his ear, "that's a title, you don't read that bit".
"But you said..."
My fault. Entirely. I accept it. The rest of the service passed without incident, (apart from the 50 times that Zak dropped his hymn book and service sheet on the floor), until we reached the Peace. Whilst Zak was quite happy to shake hands all around the church, Sebi was questioning me as to how he knew if he was going to want peace to be with people if he didn't know them. He could not like them and then he wouldn't care if they had peace or not, or maybe even would prefer that they didn't. We compromised on a handshake for everyone without him saying anything. He eyeballed me whilst shaking all of these hands making it perfectly clear to me that he was not wishing peace upon anyone. Hopefully the congregation thought he was a mute.
They didn't want to come up for Communion as they thought it was unfair that we got bread and wine whilst they just got a pat on the head. I see their point I suppose. The last hurdle was when Sebi read ahead to the last page and told me that he didn't want to say that he would give his body and soul as a living sacrifice to Jesus Christ as he would rather keep his body and soul to himself. Rather than getting into a theological debate I just told him that he could stay quiet during that bit, which he did with great vigour.
At the end of the service Granny thanked her Grandsons for their fantastic behaviour and said that it had made her birthday them being there.
"At least we only have to do it for one week", quipped Zak, "it's so boring I feel sorry for you having to go every week". I don't think the vicar heard. When he said goodbye to me at the door and said it was lovely to meet me whilst I was visiting my Mother, I didn't correct him. He doesn't have to know we live down the road and I don't think he'll be seeing us again any time soon. Happy Birthday Mother! :-)
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