Sin and Blasphemy

Sunday took me back in time. Funny how soon I have forgotten how much I have, surrounded as I am in the church where I usually worship, by like-minded women and the odd troll. No, seriously, there are a couple of odd trolls there. But the time machine took me back to a church where God is an Englishman.
He, him, his, king, Lord, father.
Bollocks.
A book I am reading by Brian Wren, describes such language as blasphemous and sinful - speaking of God as male, not the bollocks bit.

Today, blasphemy and general bad language could well have abounded, were it not for the well-known Dunkirk spirit.
I had organised, no, to be fair, Alex had organised to see her Godfather, a long-time friend of mine. We were to catch a train from the local station to Chichester, there to swan around, meet Julian, dine in the Café Rouge and return at our leisure.
Oh fickle and cruel fate. Well, British Rail really.
We were given a lift to the station at midday.
So far so good.
But wait, what is this gaggle of disaffected youths hanging around looking seriously pissed off? Yes, yes, I know that is tautology. Disaffected youths always look seriously pissed off.
We waited for the ticket window, or guichet in French.
I know, I don't know, just...I must be missing French labelling.
'We want to go to Chichester,' said Alex.
The man leant forward and said in an ohmygod-I-feel-so-sorry-for-you kind of way,
'I wouldn't travel today if I were you.'
'Oh,'
'There haven't been any trains yet today,'
'Ah,'
We phoned the Godfather, who consulted the interwebs.
'There's one at 13.50 that ISN'T cancelled.'
We went for coffee.
We came back nearer to 13.50. The train still wasn't cancelled, but the ticket window was, it was closed.
We bought tickets from the machine and went across to the platform.
A lady in red came out and hailed us across the rails,
'Where are you ladies hoping to travel to?'
'Chichester,'
'I can't guarantee that train'll run,'
'Oh.'
And it didn't, but by the time we knew it wasn't coming, there it was, the Dunkirk spirit breaking out all over the platform.

And the time we had had our tickets refunded and rung Austen for a lift, we were drizzled into submission. We found a pub and watched as the rain became torrential, then turned to sleet, then to snow and then became blizzard-like.
Such fun. And we were very pleased to get back in the warm.