Update from Alan & Gill Lawrie

This is the latest in a series of personal updates from members of St. James. Please send your story to Fr. Chris and he will post it to the website and/or send it out in the e-blast. We would all love to hear from you!

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We sure can be forgiven for thinking we’re living in a Stephen King novel. Gilly & I have become Covid-19 news junkies. Ontario, Canada, U.K. & U.S. Every day – and so many tragic stories.

But there are Up sides as well as the downs.

This morning (once more) I was outside stomping down our lawn where the skunk who lives under our deck had turned it over again. We have a deal – we don’t bother her, she doesn’t bother us (she is pretty). And that skunk is the only reason I’m glad we no longer have our lovely dog. But how lucky we are, we have a garden and it’s waking-up.

Thank goodness this pandemic happened now & not the start of winter. Gardening is our favourite pastime so being on “lockdown” for us isn’t all bad.

We can’t do what we normally would but we now have time to do other things. Gilly is knitting some of the classic patterns of her mum’s & I’ve become the family archivist.

In the 70’s & 80’s, rather than write home boring letters to our folks in England, Gilly & I would send cassette tapes – we just used to turn the recorder on & tell them about our everyday lives. Our folks would do the same. We have wonderful tapes of our daughters from tiny babies & growing-up and tapes of our parents & family members who are long gone. Some of the details (we’d long forgotten) are fascinating.

I’ve been meaning to copy them to digital files for years, before they deteriorate & are lost – so Gilly found me a simple cassette to mp3 tape convertor on Amazon & now I’m working through them. I probably wouldn’t have got to it if not for this lockdown.

Also, I’m writing down interesting & funny family history stories for our kids & for their kids & so on for the future – rather than (as with the parlour game) details getting distorted with every retelling.

We miss our church & our church family. Being retired, Sunday service was an “anchor” for our week – now we often forget which day of the week it is, Gilly & I are constantly asking “what day is it today”?

God willing, this pandemic will soon be over. Stay safe & best wishes to you all.

Alan & Gill Lawrie