The plan was for the Palm Sunday Service at Christ Church Cathedral but for some reason it didn't come up on YouTube sadly. I enjoy the Church online because I feel as if I am sharing the service with Edward who is buried in the Columbarium. But it was not to be so I switched over to the Palm Sunday Service at St John the Baptist in Lincoln, England. It was a lovely service again reminiscent of the services of my childhood. The Anglican Church of Canada mostly does follow the same service as her partner the Church of England but with small ancient differences I guess. Because I spent most of my life in the Anglican Church I have a long history of the services (17 years at Edward's United Church but I used to attend early service at the Anglican Church neaby for a number of years on my own in this same time period). I just missed my Church that was all but as I returned to the work force on site my time became more limited and gradual changes in our life meant that Edward chose to go to Dominion Chalmers where the lovely minister was so kind to him. He was an older man, a scholar who taught at St Paul University and very knowledgeable on Old Testament Studies. His sermons were magnificent. I can only say that; I enjoyed every one of them and he painted such an astounding picture of times that one was completely drawn in to the story. However, after three years there he retired and the new younger minister was more of a folksy type person with popular music and although my husband loved such music he preferred to move on to make up for my going to his Church all those years and off we went to Christ Church Cathedral every week mostly from the late 1990s until he took ill around 2011 although we still went just not every week. It was on a more "how he felt" basis that we went.
I also am still pondering for whom I will vote. We have two excellent leading candidates - both bringing to the job a wealth of experience (the one completely in the government his entire career and the other with both government and private experience and much longer as he is older). How to choose. Normally I would just have gone with the Conservative candidate in my younger days being a fiscal Conservative that was pretty straightforward. However, I now look at it slightly differently and finding the winner in my mind has been a challenge this time - more than at any time actually. I am still not sure and I hope the two debates will help me with that. One looks at the young Conservative candidate and thinks this is an opportunity for him to shine but is that sufficient; he has never been in a crisis situation whether or not he was the main adjudicator or not he just hasn't been there. We are, in this world, in a crisis at the moment and we perhaps need someone who has been on the world stage in, this case, both here and in Europe. Determining whether youth and new ideas or experience and willingness to put his own background to the test is really the question. The answer will be forthcoming by the time I walk up to the Roman Catholic High School to vote on Saturday. That is nice to have the advance polling so close at hand - it is just a nice walk there and back although I always my bus pass in case.
Worked on the matches yesterday (good accomplishment and I am up to the G's) and found my mind wandering back to my brothers Doug and John. John perhaps more at the moment and I was remembering the summer after my youngest sister was born. The bookmobile came every Saturday and my mother used to take John to the bookmobile but she had an infant to look after and she asked me to take him. Knowing full well that when I went I crossed Wellington Road (a very busy street) it was at the curve - looking both ways she was sure and then running. So she told me I had to cross at Emery and Wellington Road (crossing lights!) and she wanted me to take John with me to the Bookmobile. This was an honour for a child just eight years of age but she knew I would do precisely what she said (I always did as I was quite terrified of my mother at that age). John was her favourite; she hid it well all those years but he was her favourite. My Dad always said he was named after his grandfather and great grandfather (John Blake and Edward Blake) but in reality to my mother he was named after her father who had died when she was just eight years of age (John Routledge Pincombe just no Routledge in the name but John was there). The interesting thing in all of this was my uncle (my mother's brother) would come home from the store when I brought John to visit our grandmother to see John. He never did that for anyone else so he too saw John as the namesake of his father (mind you my uncle was always very kind to me but then I used to fold his flyers and help deliver them and always stayed with and helped my grandma with the store when he and my aunt were away). I did tell John all of that in emails/messenger and many other things - sometimes email and sometimes messenger. Depended on my mood of the moment. I liked to keep him up to date on the DNA that he had been part of along with Doug. Actually my mother had suggested the DNA probably in the late 1990s - not sure where she heard about the use of DNA for family research but probably in her forays at the Family History Library. She reminded me that I was so interested in DNA in the 1950s (that was true) and she also talked to Doug about doing DNA and as I have mentioned Doug and I got back together into our nice sibling moments after she died. It was very pleasant to spend time with my brother and I wanted John to be part of that too but it didn't work out. John didn't have any children (Doug didn't either) but I think it meant more to John not having any children. Anyway they are still along for the ride as I work away on the DNA (since the yDNA terminates for the Edward Blake line with my brothers these two take it down into time amazing really and I used to say that too!). As I work away on the DNA I can feel them close to me and that is very pleasant. I spent most of my time as a child with my brothers as my older sister is six years older and I was pretty weird as a child for sure. Some would say I still am and perhaps I do allow that to be the case. I have a lot of work to do and need all the time I can find in a day to do that. I have done enough volunteering to last me a lifetime for sure.
Another busy week ahead, today is cleaning today and it is the basement this morning and then the main floor this afternoon. That works best for me and I shall begin shortly. I am early with breakfast today.
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