...the coat

Been an odd sort of month.

There was the time I stayed in the Jury's Inn in Croydon and somehow the menu on the table at dinner caught fire?

Then there was the time this week when I tried to exit New Street Station with Teapot's rail pass and the revenue protection officer failed to notice the difference.

And last week I went to London three times and on the Thursday managed to leave my coat on the train into London.

Teapot was not impressed! Even moi began to think I had been doing a bit too much and perhaps the time was coming for another regeneration? I rang the lost property office at Euston, and the lost property office at New Street and left a message on the answer phone at Wolverhampton and felt more and more stupid. No coat.

But there came another little niggle in my mind. What would happen if I asked God for its return?

You see I have been surrounded by so many big things these last couple of years: life and death things - not just Freelance Nerd but others in our church and outside. I can name them all now and then there are others with their health still on the line.

So I rather think that God has lots better things to do than take time and trouble over my lost coat and more than that if he does take trouble over it why didn't he spend the time sorting out so and so's cancer and perhaps he ought to get his priorities sorted. And after all I can buy another coat and oh but the house key was in it but the chance of anyone finding it and making their way to carry out another burglary at the Tardis is as remote as lightning striking twice.

Yet the niggle persisted and I asked God for my coat.

And on Wednesday evening just as I got home the Wolverhampton railway station lost property office rang and was able to tell me they had my coat. And off I went on Thursday morning to recover it - house key, train pass and everything just as I left it. If it could speak it would tell me of its journey there and who handed it in along with all the other flotsam and jestam left on the trains. It was pleased to see me and I it.

But Lord, what are you saying to me in all this? I do find it hard to listen sometimes, and harder still to understand. A bit like the man crossing the Euston Road described so vividly by Doc Spoon last Sunday night.

May be it is just this. Don't ever think there is a single part of your life in which I am not interested or which is off limits to me. And as for all the big issues you rightly care about you remember to be faithful in things that are small and then we can talk about the other stuff.

To be or not to be...

..that is the question.

And while you are asking it is not I who am currently treading the boards in Stratford staring at Yoric every night.

So I am sorry about all those tickets that have been bought on ebay in the hope of seeing a real life Timelord when all you will see for your money is an actor!

Of course most of my friends understand the difference and who has ever seen me in a hat like that.

I did once play Prospero in a production of the Tempest when stopping over on Gallifray a few light years ago. The reviews went over board about my red cagoule which shone out like a beacon in all those dark storm laden scenes. I still have it in the bottom of the wardrobe of the Tardis and I am thinking it is time it came out again to grace a couple of family occasions in September and October.

Watch this space!