About this blog

This is a window into the weird world of Anglicanism, as experienced on a Cathedral Close. Has anything much happened since Trollope's Barchester Chronicles? You will still see the 'canon in residence' hurrying across to choral Evensong, robes flapping, as the late bell chimes. But look carefully and you will notice he is checking the football score on his iPhone as he runs. This is also a writer's blog. It charts the agony and ecstasy of the novelist's life. And it's a fighter's blog. It charts the agony and ecstasy of the judo mat. Well, the agony, anyway.

Friday 7 September 2012

FIFTY SHADES OF PURPLE -- Chapter 4

Ee, criminy hecky parkin to the power of 5! I think in italics when I am finally safe back home in my modest one bedroomed flat at the top of Ilkley-under-Wallop rectory.

No man has ever affected me the way Pagan Purple has, and I cannot fathom why.  Is it his indescribable good looks?  His immense wealth?  His phenomenal cosmic power throughout the entire northern hemisphere?  I simply cannot understand my irrational attraction to this handsome powerful young multi-millionaire.  

And he is so arrogant!  Such a control freak.  An involuntary shiver runs down my spine.  I think back cringingly to the interview.  I remember all my silly blurting, my clumsiness, my blue eyes which are too big for my face.  But pushing all this from my mind I type up my notes and file my copy for the Church of England Times.  I do this rapidly so as not to bog the reader down in reality, and because frankly I cannot be arsed to describe it.

Next I go off to work at my part time job in a local DIY store, where I know I will be safe from Pagan Purple and his long forefingers and penetrating mauve gaze.  My guts fizzle like ice and fire involuntarily at the thought.

What is it about that man which affects me like this?

When I arrive, Mrs Laird, the store owner, greets me.  She is a bit of a slapper, but I always feel relaxed in her company.  I know she doesn't judge me for my big blue eyes and clumsiness.  She sends me to aisle 7, and soon I'm happy as Larry stocking shelves.  I quickly hide behind a tarpaulin when the Poet Priest in Residence wanders past.  The Rev Ian Duhig is a bit of a weirdo, always opening his cassock to show the ladies his limericks. I know he means no harm, but he makes me a bit uncomfortable.  

Then I pause and eat a sandwich, wondering who else to libel in this episode.  I glance at the garden ornaments aisle and spot a metal vicar.  That'll never catch on, I think.  That'll rust in the rain, that will.  

Mrs Laird appears and asks me to serve on the till.  I obey, tripping over a few items as I go just to keep my clumsiness skills honed in case I meet another handsome multi-millionaire archbishop.  Sometimes I think there's something wrong with me.  I must be missing the boyfriend gene.  I've never felt physically attracted to anyone.  I spend all my time reading Victorian novels and the complete works of Tom Wright.  Nobody has ever made me feel weak at the knees, heart in my mouth, butterflies in my stomach-y.

Until very recently, whispers the small unwelcome voice of my conscience.  Well, at least I won't run into him in the Ilkley-under-Wallop branch of Laird's DIY, I console myself.

Then I look up... and find myself locked in the bold lilac-tinged gaze of Pagan Purple himself, who's standing at the counter staring at me with his bold lilac-tinged eyes.

Heart failure.

'Miss Boron.  What a pleasant surprise.'

TO BE CONTINUED...




2 comments:

  1. Been meaning to read your blog for some while. Not sure what you normally write, as I've not looked yet, but after reading four consecutive chapters of 'Fifty shades of Purple' I am now going to lie down in a darkened room to fantasise even more about why I am fatally attracted to the colour purple.

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  2. Have a tube of parma violets. That should sort you out.

    ReplyDelete