Nativity

If you’re not a member of the National Trust then there are a few locally known parking areas around the Lyme Park Estate where you can park up for free. One of which is around the back of the estate on the road side, just past the village of Poynton. The problem is that on a nice sunny day when a few folk have the same idea, there isn’t enough space for more than say, twelve cars. The next problem is that once you realise that there isn’t enough room, you have to continue making your way up the road until you find somewhere wide enough to turn and without a stream of traffic bearing down on you. We ended up following a small gravelly road off to the left which took us up towards a Church and further still, a farm with stables. The Church had a car park within its grounds, so we drove into the car park in order to turn around. The empty land was peppered with signs making it abundantly clear that strangers were far from welcome. Whilst Mary found reverse, an elderly lady approached my side of the car, the side nearest the Church. She could only be described as being on the rampage, I was quite astounded at her pace considering her age and build, her jowls thundering up and down, her face torn with anger right across its bridge and out to each ear. Three tiny dogs came yapping behind her. The woman was well dressed, too snooty looking to have been general dog’s body for the Parish, she was in-charge, she exuded her authority, worse still, she was a jobs worth. Somebody clearly unable to think outside of her own box, a stickler for the rules and a bureaucrat to the letter, a person without ease of access to the virtues of sense, patience, empathy and understanding. This lady was clearly void of compassion too; one only had to look at her stomping towards us in snarling distain, us being a quiet couple of whom she knew nothing, whom she had never met. She knew what we were instantly, we were exactly what she wanted us to be, and thus we were pigeon holed along with everybody else, she was as instantly judgmental as a guard dog’s instinct. As you will have gathered, was I. We would rule the day, but then so would she. ‘Okay Mary,’ I said, as if talking about the gentleness of the weather, ‘don’t look now, just pretend like this mad woman isn’t even there, find reverse and lets drive out of here without a care in the world, if you have to look in her direction, look right through her.’ We did just that, and observed the old lady’s winged arms flaying with rage in our rear view mirrors. We had left the ‘private property’ in less time than we would have done had she managed to stop us and tell us off. Clearly however, from her inflamed rage upon our exiting the empty ground, that was not what she had wanted. It would seem that the empty car park no longer belonged to God, there were others with fiercer claims, and just as those claimants pass through as tenants of their own lives, they pass over their lands, like a dog and her garden, the grounds remaining fundamentally unclaimed in longer terms. Having eventually been able to find some room further down the road, we had initially seen the funny side of the old lady’s behaviour, however, there was also some pity, and a little sorrow. Is there an excuse for the failure of a person to have grown in wisdom from a lengthy pilgrimage of experiences – abuse, loss of faculties and illness aside? Surely to do so is to have failed to take head of the lessons of a lifetime that allow us to evolve as human beings? That to me would be a waste, for there is a duty owed to thy neighbour, as well as thyself. Mary gave birth in the early hours of the next morning. *************************************************************