Kurt Vonnegut and Nick Hornby were right - we all need backup

Going to a ceilidh is a lot like going trampolining.  It's difficult not to smile while doing it.

However, as I found out when I got up at 5 this morning to get a drink of milk, I am physically not well equipped for either.

I've got a stiff neck and a painful lower back and my feet are sore.  I already had the neck problem, and it wasn't helped by putting a suitcase full of baubles back into the loft yesterday, along with a large Christmas Tree and a TV.  The loft hatch isn't very big, so my usual method is to balance stuff on my own head and then push it through the gap, which isn't the most helpful thing you can do if you've got a bad neck to start with.  And my feet are all mis-shapen anyway so lurching around a church hall for a few hours isn't the ideal thing.  I could barely walk on the way home.  Also, some of the coming togethers were a bit too aggressive, somewhat like competing for a drop ball in football, and I think my bunyons got a bit of a kicking.

Unlike the last ceilidh I went to, there were lots more children there.  This is lovely, because children aren't old enough to worry about making a fool of themselves, but it can go badly wrong, especially when you end up holding the hand of a small Walters at the end of the first dance.  She kept looking at me, and then looking at her mum who was on the other side of the room, and I was thinking, oh please don't cry, and then she did cry but thankfully when the circle started movng again, I was able to usher her off the edge of it back to Rebecca.  I soon managed to find another partner, who wasn't crying.  At least not at first.

I sometimes feel a bit nervous turning up to church events by myself, even at my age, but this soon passes  when you start getting bossed around by women.  As usual my preparations weren't ideal.  About 5 minutes after I should have left for the church I was still lying on the floor using the long thin hoover attachment to try and  find the back of the DVD remote control that I lost over Christmas, so I got dressed in a hurry, I didn't look in a mirror and I didn't have anyone to give me a second opinion.  But it was okay because Claire sorted my untidy shirt collar out within about 10 seconds of seeing me.  And I didn't have to worry about not knowing how to do the dances, because Rebecca and Frances are quite firm and instructive in these matters.  In these situations I find it's best to smile and do what you're told, although I still never got the hang of when to be an arch and when to go under an arch though.  All the bending, some necessary and some not, triggered off some lower back pain, but this did give me a chance to run to the sidelines and get Philip to come on as a sub.

I usually find it inadvisable to eat a large meal before exercising, but at the half way point of the evening, there was food, and it wasn't the sort of food to take it easy with.  It's not every day you get (according to the signs) Coqau Vin and Beef Borgingon followed by fruit salad and chocolate cake courtesy of Sarah Moran, so I was prepared to take my chances with a spot of overeating.  And there was proper mashed potato too, not like the wallpaper paste we had on Christmas Eve.

The event was organised for Nigel's 70th birthday and he gave a very nice speech.  He said he felt lucky because he grew up in a loving family, and he wished that for us too.  He also said in Africa they have a saying, which is that it takes a whole village to raise a child.  My favourite author is Kurt Vonnegut, and a lot of his stories are about how we don't have extended families anymore, and if he could wish anything for you, it's that you had one.  He thinks that when couples argue, no matter what they think they're arguing about, what they're really saying is 'You're not enough people!'  We all need backup.

My own family is pretty fractured, and when I was younger it was rare that I ever got together with aunties and uncles and cousins and grandparents.  Mostly it was just my brother, my mum and me.  My family situation now is not all that it could be.  Some family members I'm not close to, and some of them live far away, Sometimes that makes me feel sad, and although it's wrong to compare, I sometimes look around at the families of the people I know at St Francis, and I think their families are better than mine.  But it's okay, because I get to be part of their families sometimes and they in turn get to take the place of the family that I don't have.

And events like last night remind me of the fact, that it's not just children that need a whole village to raise them and take care of them.  I do too.