Emmaus South Lambeth

You may have thought we were heading for a quiet week between the excitement of Assembly and Christmas - but no… quiet is not known at this address.

For a start, of course, we have an endearingly  boisterous Community Leader.  One who LOVES Christmas, no less.   One for whom ‘Subtlety’ was on holiday when his Talents were being dealt out - though generosity and big-heartedness made up the lack in superabundance. And oh dear - he lurves his lights.  As does our electricity supplier, of course….  they’ve had to reinforce the wattage of output to the whole of Sarf Lun’un in order to keep up with the needs of our ‘front of house’ display :  One reindeer, one house-in-outline, one gift box, one snowflake and about 12,000 flashing varied colours in an assortment of sequences joining them together - not to mention the sets on BOTH Christmas Trees… Google Earth are even now exploring what this bright new constellation is that appears on their satellite pictures (er, guys,  we have a problem - y’all think we just plain gone and misplaced Bethlehem?)  You think I jest?  Jest come and see for yourself - but the Health and Safety Executive would advise you ensure you wear sunglasses within a 2-mile radius!

On Thursday, we had a star outshining even this display, however.  Antonio Carluccio paid us the honour of holding a Masterclass for three visiting Companions , our chef-Companion David and Yours Truly.  Yum!  The five of us were instructed in how to create Stuffed Eggs with tuna and capers, with some wonderful Italian Salami and Chorizo as antipasti, and the main course was big penne pasta with meatballs and tomato sauce with a wonderful cheese topping.  My favourite, however, was the ‘bread and butter pudding Italian style :  Pannatone and butter, spiced custard-and-cream sauce, and a breadcrumb topping- to die for, believe me.  Just in case we needed a little smackeral after that lot,Snr Carluccio generously provided some touronne covered in fabulous dark chocolate to go with the coffee.  I fear I will need to be on a lettuce leaf diet till Christmas - if I ever find room to eat a morsel at all over the next week!  He was immensely patient and helpful, and altogether charming, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his generosity of time, effort - and food.

I finally got up to the allotment in sufficiently decent weather to do some work this weekend - somewhat relieved to find it had not been washed away in my absence, I have to say.   Unfortunately, it is still too much of a quagmire to work, but it has given me two creative ideas for revenue;  The first is to box it up as mud-packs, retailing at £1 a pound,  However,  it is my second idea which has captured the imagination of my Companions (all males, I need remind you) more than somewhat:  to use the oblong of uncultivated land to hold Women’s mud-wrestling contests.  Believe me, it would be a howling success.

And so I guess that wraps it up, which is a fairly pointed reminder that I have some more wrapping of my own to do…

I wish you all :  A Jewel of a Yule, Season’s Greetings and a very Merry Christmas.  We’ll get to the New Year bit next week.

Elizabeth

Hello again, Well, what a lot I have to relate this week. The evening before we went to Assembly I attended a meeting of West Norwood residents known as the Norwood Forum, and learned that Lambeth Council is giving its Councillors (OUR Councillors) small amounts of money for capital projects labelled ‘Ward Purses’. Having dozed gently through the more erudite progress of a revised Constitution, I instantly did a passable impression of a meer-cat at the mention of ‘…sums for small capital projects’: at that very moment we were about 4′ deep in 2-weeks worth of rubbish, as the bin men had been unable to reach the bins to collect them last week. They actually were cleared the next day, but I am hoping we can appeal for a sum from the ‘Ward Purse’ for our bin area to be improved in due course. I will keep you posted…

So back home to sling items into bag and three of our 7-strong contingent set off mid-morning to St Albans, whose Community had kindly offered us a lift - the others remaining to be driven up by our Chair later in the day. We passed the train journey chomping sandwiches and crisps I’d made (the sandwiches, that is) and miraculously the St Albans minibus appeared at the station within 5 minutes of our arrival, and sped us to the heart of England, namely the Swanwick Conference Centre. It was quite an intense weekend : Terry Waite’s welcome speech was inspirational, and then there was a 2 minute round-up of events from each of the Communities and Groups. Mike veered off the usual route, of course – and sang our 2-minute summary to the tune of the Lambeth Walk after all of 5 minutes’ rehearsal with a very good pianist accompanying him – it went down a storm! As well as these we had two more addresses, three workshops and a Working Group discussion to fit in amongst the really important elements – 5-a-side football matches had taken place whilst we were still en route, but there were table tennis matches, billiards, table football and a quiz organised by Mike in his own inimitable style. Alas, I had acquired severe Brain Ache by this time and had to retire early, but the first half was a lot of fun – as was the sing-song in the (naturally dry) bar afterwards. By tradition we finished with an auction : Communities are encouraged to bring their most errm.. let’s be polite here, extraordinary item of bric-a-brac to sell (a carving of Churchill’s hand doing the Victory sign; a knitted Postman Pat; a rubber cushion with huge rubber spikes (said to be very remedial…?) for example, and since we’d failed to bring anything, chef David nobly put himself up for cooking for a day – and raised no less than £210 from Hampshire, a group who are opening their Community early next year! I met quite an astonishing number of folk who had read the blog, and it was a pleasure, if somewhat unnerving, to be greeted by those I had not met personally but of course know me rather (too?) well! All too soon we were piling back into the car and heading South again. Mike was the Curate’s Egg over the weekend – he behaved perfectly, no accidents, lovely singing – but sadly fell off the non-smoking wagon rather badly after a month’s abstinence, and even my threatening to ask the mini-bus driver to take a detour and leave him in Coventry didn’t make any difference. Oh, and he’s now Emmaus’s Chief Professor of Gaelic, having been asked to teach one of the UK team a few words to impress her Irish in-laws when she visits at Christmas. He was very patient, with constant repetition – but there’s still a dire risk she will cheerily call her mother a vulture! You will understand that with all that going on, the allotments had to fend alone this weekend, but I was pleased that a sub-division of one of the workshops, set the task of suggesting areas of diversification, suggested allotments - and even MARKET GARDENS… Ah, dream on, South Lambeth! Take care till next time, Elizabeth

After the terrible sadness of last week, five Companions and Mike are going to Derbyshire to attend the annual Emmaus Assembly.  I will write all about it on Tuesday.

Best wishes,
Elizabeth

This week’s blog is cancelled out of respect to Sean Parker, one of our recent Companions, who sadly died on Friday 5th December 2008.  R.I.P.