What have I got to blog about?

In common with a lot of people, I'm a bit of a displaced person. I spend half the year living in the beautiful hilltop town of Lectoure in SW France and the other half in a very different but equally stunning place, the city of Edinburgh, Scotland's capital. (Sorry Glaswegians, but it IS.) Wherever I am I write....novels, short stories, shopping lists and now blogs. It's a curse and a blessing, this compulsion to put everything into words. Here's to all you fellow writers out there who, like me, hope some of our words will find an audience!



Saturday 21 May 2011

What's in a name?

Ryanair deposited us back in Edinburgh last Saturday, so the past few days have included ticking off items on the Edinburgh 'to do' list. One of these was follow-up surgery on my precious laptop. Last time we were back in Scotland, my laptop died on me. I remember the moment vividly. It was all so sudden, just two days before I was due to leave to go back to Lectoure. One minute, I was opening up my email, the next the screen went dark. It felt like my best friend had just keeled over with a heart attack - well maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but I'm a writer, I'm allowed a bit of hyperbole.

Thankfully, a computer doctor lives five minutes away. An Italian who speaks English with a Scottish accent, he admitted my comatose computer on a Monday morning and by Tuesday evening it was chirping its little 'dada-dada-dadaa' ditty like a machine half its age. But the sobering news was that it had been on the critical list. The computer doc had cleaned out two potentially fatal viruses and at least half a dozen worms. Dosed with an updated virus check, my laptop was finally allowed home. Next day I whisked it off to the South of France to convalesce in the sun. It moved slowly, but at least it was moving. The next stage of surgery would involve increasing its ram, which sounded very painful to me but the Scots/Italian was sanguine about the procedure. 'Once we install it, it will be like day and night' Hmmm??

So last Thursday, I wrapped the patient up in its padded case (we're enjoying typically bracing Scottish Spring weather at present) and took it back to the computer hospital up the road. The Scots/Italian greeted us politely, but he didn't recognise us. I explained my laptop's case history and he still looked blank. Panic began to rise. How can you entrust a best friend to someone who has no recollection of nursing them through a life threatening illness? Then I added a detail that rang a bell with him and his face cleared. 'Ah yes, Jacqueline isn't it?' Confidence flooded back. It was going to be all right. I could trust him after all. He remembered my name.

'Fear not:for I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name; you are mine.' Isaiah 43:1

Most of us go through life feeling pretty anonymous. When someone remembers our name, it gives us a boost; when God remembers it, we find our identity.

Can you think of experiences where someone using your name made a difference? Do you think faith plays an important part in a sense of identity and self worth?

1 comment:

  1. Your computer problems sounds painfully familiar. Mine died a slow and agonising death over a period of weeks recently while I tried to get it fixed. This severely limited my writing, work, Internet surfing (probably a good thing, that) and everything else. I threw in the towel and have a new one now.

    I was in Edinburgh last week briefly on business and noted as I breasted a force 10 gale in Princes Street that everyone was saying how nice the weather was. Now I remember why I live here...

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