On the gift of a skipping-rope

"Martha, tha's brought me thy wages like a good lass, an' I've got four places to put every penny, but I'm just goin' to take tuppence out of it to buy that child a skippin'-rope."

So says the warm-hearted Mrs Sowerby to her daughter in Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic The Secret Garden. And the gift of a skipping-rope begins a change in Mary Lennox, helping to transform her from a spoilt and sickly orphan to a strong and spirited young lady.

This quote was jiggling around my mind the other day, because life was hectic. "I've got three places to put every minute," I thought. If I wasn't doing this then I could be doing that, and if I wasn't doing that then I could be doing that other thing...

But sometimes, even in those kind of times, there is something that makes you say, "I'm just going to take two minutes out."

Money and time share some characteristics; a certain rigidity and a certain flexibility. They are rigid because there is, incontrovertibly, a fixed amount of each. If you have £100 you cannot spend £101. Even more so, you cannot add even a minute to your day. You can, if you wish, account precisely for every last penny, every last second.

And yet... when I moved into a student house with friends at university, we made a deliberate decision to be generous with this wonderful, characterful property we had found. I don't know how many cheese toasties were consumed that year, how many cups of tea were made, but somehow, the food money in the old jam jar always seemed to be enough.

And yet... when I think I don't have time to pray, but I take ten minutes to sit down and do it anyway, everything else still, somehow, shuffles around to fit into the remaining time.

We can't do everything. Maybe sometimes we don't have money or time for everything we need, never mind everything we want. But even then, just sometimes, we need to take tuppence out to buy someone a skipping-rope.

Comments

Dove Valley Walk: Going round the bend

Somewhere between Marchington and Uttoxeter, the wiggles of the River Dove stop wiggling west to east, and start wiggling north to south. If it went in straight lines, it would make a right-angled bend. As I'm following the river upstream, this was my last section walking west. After this it's north to the Peak District and Dovedale. here the Dove swings north The main walk of this section was all on the south side of the river. But I also did a separate, shorter walk, to explore the village of Doveridge, and the old Dove Bridge which is tantalisingly glimpsed from the A50. Walk 1: Marchington to Uttoxeter I liked Marchington even more as I arrived there for the second time. I parked opposite the village shop - noting the "ice cream" sign outside for later - and near the brick-built St Peter's Church, with a war memorial built in above the door. A few streets took me to the other side of the village, where I found a path alongside a stream, then across some hay m

Dove Valley Walk: Meeting the Limestone Way

At Uttoxeter my route along the Dove Valley met some official long-distance trails. First the Staffordshire Way north to Rocester, then the Limestone Way continuing up towards Dovedale. Graham joined me on today's walk, which included the Staffordshire Way section and the first part of the Limestone Way. Unusually, it was a one-way hike; we got the bus back. Uttoxeter to Ellastone Graham and I parked at Uttoxeter train station. It's very cheap for the day if you park after 10am, but I was worried about getting back in time for the school run, so we got there at 9:20 and paid the more expensive rate (still only £3). We started off across flat fields towards the A50 and Dove Bridge. A group of young cattle gave us hard stares as we walked past. I posted a photo of a wonky gate on the Gate Appreciation Society with the caption "Parallelogate" and it quickly accumulated 200 likes - many more than this post will get! Passing the old Dove Bridge again , we ploughed t

San Antonio

San Antonio is towards the south of Texas and feels very much more Mexican than American. The balmy evenings, the colourful Mexican market, the architecture of the buildings, and the number of people speaking Spanish around us all added to the impression. The city, in fact, grew out of a Spanish mission and presidio (fort), built in 1718 as part of Spain's attempt to colonize and secure what was then the northern frontier of the colony of Mexico. Texas was then a buffer zone between Mexico and the French-held Louisiana, and Spain was keen to cement her hold on the area by introducing settlers and converting the natives to Catholicism and loyalty to the Spanish government. The missions in general had no great effect, but the San Antonio area was the exception to the rule, growing into an important city with five missions strung out along the San Antonio river. The first of these, San Antonio de Valero, later became well-known as the Alamo, where 182 Texans died in 1836

Martha's Marvellous Munchies

Search This Blog