Christians

When I was about nineteen years old, I escorted my mother on one of her annual pilgrimages abroad. She has been making these trips for as long as I can remember, to places like "The Holy Land," San Giovani, Rome, Fatima, Knock and Medjugorje. I was fascinated by the reports in the press at the time, regarding this small Serbo-Croatian village. Apparently the Virgin Mary herself was appearing there in person every single day. The sun had been reported to "spin, dart about and even become flat like the Eucharist," in the sky as a sign for all to see!

I must admit that I have always been a cynical 'so and so' and to Brenda's shame - far from devout. She had been relating tales of miracles, apparitions, the stigmata and bleeding/crying statues for many years. I was keen to observe this particular sensation at first hand and so (together with the rest of our parish) we flew to Split, and were accommodated in the modest, simple homes of the folk who lived in the village as no hotels had as yet been built to accommodate the droves of visiting comparatively wealthy, devout Christian visitors.

What a memorable trip this turned out to be...

Mrs Jones (my mother's widowed best friend) spent most of the pilgrimage sunning herself in the front garden of our cottage wearing a banana yellow coloured toweling hot pant suit. The local men were mesmerised by the outrageous behaviour of this post menopausal chunky female. Remember this was a simple small rural village where a large proportion of the locals were actually devout Muslim and everyone dressed modestly, as indeed usually did Mrs Jones. Clearly the laws of common decency do not apply to the British when abroad. Mrs Jones was on holiday and so she wore her hot pants, would she have done this in her front garden at home in Beckenham? Definitely not. I have a photo here by my side as I type ... shall I scan it in? Her son is a lawyer, perhaps not.

The locals spoke no English, some had a little German and as I had an 'A Level' in the subject, Mrs Jones often asked me to translate for her but it all soon became rather tiresome.

Mrs Jones was much more Ivy Tilsley than Liz Taylor and her immodest flirtatious behaviour was simply outrageous. Eventually when she asked me to translate the words of the retired uncle of the house, I grasped the opportunity and lied (well I was still only a teenager!):

"He says that you appear to have very firm breasts for a woman of your obvious great age," (I thought the sentence was so funny I wanted to expire with laughter). The poor man had actually asked if Mrs Jones would move to the back garden to lie in the sun in a less exposed position. Mrs Jones however winked at him and opened her remaining cardigan button.

On another occasion I told Mrs Jones that he had said; "she was clearly a sexually experienced woman who knew how to pleasure men". To my horror and fascination she delighted in the remark ... this went on for several days until my mother eventually overheard my interpretation and immediately recognised my signature sense of humour. Brenda insisted that I confess and quelle suprise, Mrs Jones still hates me now.

On reflection, I think Mrs Jones deserved it, she turned the front garden of that small cottage into a spectacle for the entire village, a kind of Spearmint Rhino for the over 55's. This was supposed to be a religious pilgrimage after all.