Sunday, November 16, 2008

The Secret of Pleasant Society

After we got back from church tonight we spent a few minutes by the fire with our herb tea and a bit of leftover butter tart reading together from E. Nesbit's "The Railway Children":


There is a nice old fashioned room at the 'Rose and Crown' where Bargees and their wives sit of an evening drinking their supper beer, and toasting their supper cheese at a glowing basketfull of coals that sticks out into the room under a great hooded chimney and is warmer and prettier and more comforting than any other fireplace I ever saw.

There was a pleasant party of barge people round the fire. You might not have thought it was pleasant, but they did; for they were all friends or acquaintances, and they liked the same sort of things, and talked the same sort of talk. This is the real secret of pleasant society.

Pleasant Society at the Elliot House

We took this photo the morning after Ajigasawa Chapel's Reformation Day Supper on October 31. Hans who stayed with us for a few months in 2005 had brought his wife Mirjam for a visit and Fiona (SA student) and Nick (missionary teacher at Seiai High School) came for the weekend.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, my dear relations . . . how I miss you. :) Friends are wonderful, but no one "talks the same talk" like family.

Laurie Elliot said...

Oh my dear Sarah Mae! I miss you, too!

I used up all my savings or I'd offer to bring you over for a month or two.

This year we didn't get any short term workers from OMF for the holiday season - we usually have 2! You can pray about that... your uncle is wondering how we'll manage.