Sunday 16 June 2002

Today we went to Chloe's christening. Chloe is Don and Leigh's baby girl, who is exceptionally cute for a baby. Oh okay, she's absolutely gorgeous and adorable and doesn't shriek when I pick her up and no no no I am not in the slightest bit clucky shut up shut up. How come admiring someone's baby automatically puts you in "clucky" category. Grrrr.

Anyway, back on track ... we were very honoured to be invited, as it was a small gathering and mostly family.  The ceremony took forever, quite different from the quick "dip and lube" (okay that was unnecessarily crude, even for me) affairs I've been to in the past, but hey. I was beaming telepathic messages at Chloe during the whole thing to "scream girl, let 'em have it" but she didn't oblige. Damn. In fact she was very quiet and half-sleepy, saving her yells for later.

Later was back at Don and Leigh's house (Sam and I cadged a lift there with Leigh's sister, as we'd got a lift to the church and were otherwise stuck) and involved lots of food and drink, as one has come to expect from them! At least this time I didn't get falling down drunk ... hmmm enough about that episode, I think.

Anyway we had a great time, and there were balloons, and goodie bags, and lots of drink and food, as I mentioned, and I met some really nice, interesting people of our generation (hee), mostly Don and Leigh's siblings. I was much taken with one of Leigh's brothers -  when I was appraising the platters of yummy food on the table I said to no-one in particular, "ooh yummy, lots of things I can eat!". Leigh's brother grinned and asked if I was one of those vegans. No, I said, a Coeliac. Without missing a beat this very cute guy picked up a tray and offered it to me: "Sandwich?" he said. I just cracked up, such beautiful timing and so understated, and very very clever, my kind of humour.

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It was most strange, however, to be in a church after so long, and particularly in this country where matters of church and state cause so much trouble and conflict and, well, idiotic fucked-upedness. I sat there, listening to the priest waffle endlessly on, and tried to remember when exactly was the last time I'd been in church. Definitely since Henry and Louise's wedding, and not counting singing gigs ... Must have been Poppa's funeral then. 1998? Wow ... long time.

Mum had made the decision, supported by all her family, that if Poppa was to die while she was away, she wouldn't come home for the funeral etc. Maybe this sounds way harsh to a lot of you, but she'd put off previous trips because of Mumma and Poppa, and definitely if one or the other parent had been living she would have been home like a shot. But Mumma had died the year before, and Isabel figured that if Poppa went, she could do her grieving in St Mark's Square as well as anywhere, and she didn't need to be at the funeral. Again, everyone supported her decision. I certainly lobbied hard, as did her brother, for her to go.

So Poppa did die, just quietly and within a few days, just gently slipping away ... He'd made all the funeral arrangements, my uncle had written a touching, clever and funny eulogy and I had the job of arranging what music was to be played (I made a tape of Kiri te Kanawa singing Mozart's Laudate Dominum; a recording of Isabel singing Panis Angelicus; and Rachmaninov's Ave Maria for the crematorium). It was a very sad, hard day, and I really did miss my parents, as I kinda had to be the "strong one" with my big brothers, and not cry myself, and hand out tissues (I didn't cry until the crematorium, and then only a little bit).

What I remember most about that day though, is rather revolting. Being somewhat overwhelmed by emotion etc, and not thinking straight, I  followed everyone else, sheep-like, up to Communion. To eat a flat circle of bread. Bread, people. A Coeliac eating bread. And no, they don't make communion bread out of gluten free sliced white these days. I didn't realise what I'd done until I got back to my seat (nor had anyone else of course) so had to sit tight until the end of service. Then I leapt into action; broke into the presbytery, stole some salt and a mug, went out the back to the dingy outhouse and mixed a disgusting horrible concoction of salt and water, and spent most of the Wake deliberately and forcefully retching my guts out again and again ... yes, ew.

And that was my last visit to church.  This time, I still thought all the priest's burble was a load of hypocritical meaningless divisive insulting crap, but at least I didn't have to make myself puke afterwards.

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