the people we meet

"It's been quite a boring BYM, you know and you can put that in your blog," said a Friend. We had met moments earlier, when Neville, a Friend from Westminster Monthly Meeting had introduced us.

When I met Neville, he was sitting in the corridor, south of the courtyard at Friends House. He was eating pineapple and cream from a recycled jar. "At least I know what's in it," he said. Neville is concerned about some of the ingredients that manufacturers (caterers?) put in food. He is allergic to mustard and so makes his own sandwiches. He's not a fan of mayonnaise, telling me that they put it in far too many sandwiches these days.

One of the benefits of Britain Yearly Meeting is that I gets many opportunities to meet knew people. There is one guy, Richard, who I met on Friday, I think. I saw him again today in the bookshop, so I went over and said hello.

There are far too many instances where I have seen people early on and we (or I) have said, "Let's meet later on" and before you know it, later on has gone past too and we're into 'even later on'.

Then, you're back home and can't even remember who it was that you were hoping to meet. So, today, I have been making the effort to stop and talk to people, when I see them.

Richard, like many Quakers, is on a committee. In his case it is CIR, or Christian Interfaith Relations to which he then added, 'comma, Quaker committee for'. That was a nice touch.

We were sitting with another friend, whose first name I forgot already. She had written her first name on her badge and then put her home Quaker Meeting on underneath. I think that it was Worcester. She explained that this might not have been a wise idea, since people were saying that they had not realised that this was her last name...

Anyway, in my blog posts, I have a habit of going off on tangents. I also have a disturbing trait, from six months working at the Morning Star, of putting more commas into my work than I ever have in the past. At the 'Star, there was a tendency to put commas and 'that' in places that I had never seen before.

See, the paragraph above is yet another tangent.

Back to Neville. Neville goes to the same Friends Meeting House as me, but it is different, for he goes on Sundays and I go on Wednesdays. I've only been once this year, but I feel a strong affinity with it, so I'm already proclaiming to be worshipping there.

Neville goes on the second and fourth Sundays. When I asked why those two, he told me that Preparative Meeting is on the second Sunday, so he tends to try and make that.

Neville has led me neatly onto another subject, for which I will post separately...