Four Days in the Life of

Several things.

On Wednesday evening, I made it to the last half hour of the Rabbi's talk. He was an amazing speaker, thoughtful, quietly spoken, mesmerising and he was from a very progressive synagogue in Vancouver.

Although I walked in while he was discussing Isaiah, with regard to his prophecies about the Messiah, I have wondered before whether the actual Gospels that were chosen as the New Testament were chosen partly because they seemed to fulfill Isaiah's prophecies.

On Thursday, at the clinic, I had to fill in a form which I suppose gave them some assessment of my risk of having breast cancer. One question was about whether close women in my family had had it, mother, sister, daughter. How closely we are linked. If my sister had had cancer, I would be more at risk.
It's a strange thought. I know that if some close woman in my family had it, then I would be more likely to, and yet it's almost as though the risk itself gives us some extra link.

On Friday I went to the vicar's book group. No-one was sure what was supposed to happen at a book group.
It seemed that not many people had enjoyed the book and yet the discussion of it was interesting. I think that the process of going to the writers' group had allowed me to be able to read the book and get a lot out of it without having to like or dislike the characters. I was able to see that one character was skilfully drawn whereas others were simply sketched in. And I think I learnt some things about myself from the way I approached it.

Back at the ranch, I have been reading one of the books that Austen sent me, 'Balzac and the Little Seamstress'. It's such an interesting story and it's a superb translation, thus comes across as really well-written. The story is about two young lads in communist China who have been sent away from their intellectual and therefore subversive parents, to be re-educated. As young adults they come across a novel by Balzac, the first non-communist literature they had ever encountered. It was so powerful for that. The awakening this book produces in these young men makes us see how wonderful it is to have such easy, free access to books.

Today, we went to look at houses. It's always interesting to look at other people's houses, but we are looking at moving to something more suitable to our needs. The most expensive area in Canada to live is Vancouver. Richmond is not too far behind. So here, house sizes are more like British house sizes.
Scary and exciting at the same time.