Lucy Lastic

I found the missing pieces in the continuing adventures of Lucy Lastic on Planet Admin, strangely enough (see later) in a file called Planet Admin.

What I thought I looked like as a church administrator

The IT Class 

It was five to ten. The computer class was due to start at ten and the computers hadn’t turned up. To make things worse, neither had the tutor. So it was just the students and me. And for some reason they all seemed to be waiting for me to ‘do something’.

‘It’s nothing really to do with me,’ I stuttered. ‘I just hire out the building to the college.’

Fifteen irate students didn’t seem to be listening. 

‘Perhaps you’d like to make yourselves a cup of something while you’re waiting?’ I suggested tentatively. ‘A nice cup of tea always does the trick for me.’ I smiled. The grumbling grew louder.

In these sort of situations it’s helpful, I find, to remember the words printed in large letters on the front of the Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Universe: DON’T PANIC. Helpful but not always achievable. 

I disappeared upstairs to my cubby-hole, or office, as it’s sometimes known, took a deep breath and thought WWJD or What Would Jenny Do?

Jenny was the administrator before me. She’s now the Finance Officer or Treasurer, depending on whom I’m addressing: big Trusts and official bodies like to think we have a Finance Officer; local groups are more comfortable with a Treasurer. Whatever, Jenny is the Richard Branson of the church, the enthusiastic make-it-happen whizz-kid. Needing less sleep than Margaret Thatcher, she does twice as much as everyone else in half the time. There was a rumour going round a while ago that she had been cloned — two of the leadership team claimed to have met with her at exactly the same time in different places — and that there were, in fact, several Jennys in existence It seems quite plausible to me.

Anyway I’m going off the point. What Would Jenny Do with fifteen students, and no-one to teach them? She would make a phone-call, that’s what she’d do. 

And so it all worked out okay in the end. The tutor did turn up but, alas, in spite of all the badgering, the computers failed to materialise, so the class was postponed to a later date. The students left, I locked up and did the one thing that I probably do better than Jenny: made myself a pot of tea.

The Tea Cosy

When Jesus said, ‘seek and you will find,’ he obviously wasn’t talking about teacosies. I’d searched everywhere and mine was nowhere to be found. 

It usually sits on the work surface, in the church kitchen, next to the two teapots that Sue bought for me after she came into the kitchen one day when I was drinking coffee.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, hurrying over to put her hand on my arm.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Why?’

‘You’re making the most dreadful face, as if you were in pain.’

‘That’s because I don’t like coffee.’ 

‘Why are you drinking it then?’ 

‘Because I don’t like tea made in a mug.’

Sue, lovely lady that she is, took pity on me, and hence the baby teapot for when it’s just me, and a big-sister teapot for other times. I brought in an old teacosy from home and I was a happy clappy again. Until my teacosy disappeared.

I searched in the cupboards, in the drawers, and in the fridge. I even looked in the bin because I’d rescued it from there once before, when it had obviously been knocked in by mistake, but no success.

I gave up — my tea was already cold — and shuffled, grumbling, back up to the office.

The following Sunday I asked around. ‘Have you seen a teacosy?’ Most people just smiled and remembered they had to speak to someone urgently, until I came to Mair. ‘Oh, um, a teacosy, you say?’

‘Yes, it’s disappeared from the kitchen.’

‘Um, well, um, it might, er.’

‘What she’s trying not to say is that I threw it away.’ The voice coming from behind Mair was that of Helga.

I did my impression of a cartoon character who’s just been told that he’s not going to be drawn any more: my jaw dropped and my eyebrows rose. I was about to grab Helga by the throat and scream at her when I remembered that a) we were in church, b) I was now the administrator and, as such, should try to maintain some sense of decorum, and c) she’s much more athletic than me.  So I said quietly, ‘Why?’

‘It was a harbour for germs,’ she said in her teutonic brogue. ‘I tried to throw it away before but it escaped.’

What could I say? I ground my teeth together. ‘Thank you, Helga. I suppose it was quite scruffy.’ 

I had a cup of tea, calmed down and wondered when I would learn that, whether it’s Jesus we’re seeking or an answer to a problem, just patiently looking is far better for the soul, and the body, than getting stressed out. 

At least, the new teacosy matches the kitchen better.

Filing's not the problem

I love filing. It must be in my genes: my mother was a secretary. 

And, no matter what anyone says, my filing system makes perfect sense. 

We recently had a new filing cabinet installed in the office. Well, not so much new as moved from another room. So with all this extra space, I revamped the system. Let me explain.

I have four main drawers labelled: Churchy-type Things; Useful Sort of Stuff; Sort of Useful Stuff; and Boring Stuff. Within these are folder after folder, (on the whole, neatly identified), containing papers relevant to the title. So, for example, a Horace Morello conference letter goes under Boring Stuff/H (no offence to Horace, I’m sure he is not at all boring, it’s just my system.)

So you see, I’m very good at filing. 

It’s the retrieving I have the problem with. 

Today for example, I had to file a letter about some books we’d ordered from CLC for local schools. I already had some correspondence on the subject so I tried to find it.

First I looked under CLC. Nothing there. Then I tried under ‘books’, and then ‘schools’. When that failed, I looked under Boring Stuff/C ... and /B and /S. In desperation, I tried under Useful Sort of Stuff/Letters.

Then, I folded up the letter I wanted to file and left it on the corner of the desk, in the hope that either a) it would get lost or b) by the time I next looked at it, it would be out of date and I could throw it away with a clear conscience.

My computer filing system is equally foolproof. All I can say in my defence is that the filename made perfect sense at the time. ‘Dogpoo’ speaks for itself, although you might wonder why, but ‘IAMNOTSU’ and ‘WONSGWYN’ need slightly more imagination. Of course, they relate from the dark days when filenames couldn’t have more than eight letters — now the alphabet is the limit. So filenames can be totally clear: ‘letter to John following unhappy incident with chocolate cake.’ 

I like to think that God’s filing system would be a bit like mine. He wouldn’t file us all in neat serried ranks depending on our age, colour or occupation. We’d each be there with our own unique filename and specification, and some of our associated files would make very unlikely connections. But whereas my system might be described as muddled, God’s fits perfectly into his plan for us.

The Pig

I’m not at my best at 9 o’clock on a Monday morning, but even so I didn’t expect to be quite as bemused when I answered the phone.

‘Good morning, Acacia Church.’

‘Good morning, this is Gareth. I’m sorry I’m a bit late but I can’t find you.’

‘Oh.’

‘Could you tell me where you are, please?’

‘In the office.’

‘Well,’ nervous laugh, ‘I guessed that. I was hoping you could you tell me how to get to Acacia Church.’

‘Why? Where are you?’

‘On Bogside Road.’

‘Oh, that’s easy then,’ I said with more confidence than sense.

I gave him directions (which, thinking about it afterwards,  I realised, would have taken him to the local chip shop), he seemed pleased and I was about to put down the phone when I thought I should ask, ‘Who did you say you were?’

‘Gareth, I’m coming to see you about the pig. I’ll be there in a few minutes.’

I wished I hadn’t asked. Pig. What pig? Did I know anything about a pig? A rapid scan of my memory banks failed to turn up anything with porcine connections, although it did remind me that I needed to shop for food for dinner and I hadn’t brought my purse with me. 

Minutes were ticking by and I had no idea what to have for dinner or what pigs had to do with anything. Perhaps it was part of our new greener image, although I couldn’t see a few teabags and some banana skins being enough to keep a pig perky for a week. 

When in doubt, I find there’s one easy answer to any question and Jenny will know it. Brr brr, brr brr, ‘Jen, it’s me. There’s a man coming to see me about a pig.’

‘Yes, I know.’

It was obviously a conspiracy that the whole world except me was in on.

‘I told you about it last week, remember?’ she said.

‘No.’ 

‘Yes, I did. Never mind, I’ll be down in a minute, keep him talking.’ She hung up.

Keep him talking! What on earth do pigmen talk about? The price of feed, manure, the relative qualities of Leicester Black Spot and Dorset Wide Bottom pigs. (Give me Wide Bottom every time.)

Briiiinnnggg. The harsh tones of the doorbell gave me my weakly heart shock. I peered out of the window. He, Gareth, I assumed, looked more like a salesman than a farmer, but I let him in, made him tea, waffled a bit and breathed a sigh of relief when Jenny arrived.

Needless to say, there was a simple explanation, and with Jen and me both unable to resist the charms of a little pink nose, and being quite taken with the pig as well, we agreed to have one of our own. 

Bacon butty anybody?

What it was really like

Reading the last piece about the pig, I should mention it wasn't an actual real life pig we agreed to. I don't recall what it was though. It was either something to do with the toilet flush or the telephone.