Honey

Judges 14:1-19
Psalm 105:1-22
Acts 6:15-7:16
John 4:27-42


Judges 14:1-19

Uncle Geoff was my mother's cousin. He married her best friend who I always called Auntie Margaret. They spoke with a gentle north midland accent- similar that that of Robin Hood and his merry men for they lived very near to Sherwood Forest. They took me to see Major Oak, the tree reputed to have been Robin's pantry and it certainly looks like it, as you can see from the photograph. I was very unimpressed the first time I saw it.
Uncle Geoff kept bees. He had a vary large garden. In fact he had two very large gardens. The one which adjoined the house had a beautiful bowling green type of lawn edged with herbaceous borders and a tennis court in the lower part. The other was the vegetable garden which was across the cinder back lane and through a little gate. Mr Atkins the gardener had a potting shed here. This was where I spent much of my time when I was staying with Auntie Margaret and Uncle Geoff. Mr Atkins grew all sorts of vegetables, my favorite was yellow tomatoes. The bee hives of course were in the vegetable garden.
We often went to stay with Auntie Margaret and Uncle Geoff in the summer holidays. This was the time when Uncle Geoff took the honey out of the hives. He took over the game room. There was a billiard table in the game room. Uncle Geoff used this for his honey separator. I large drum with a handle. He used to put the frames that hold the honeycombs in the drum, turn the handle really fast and the honey would spin out, drip down the sides to the bottom and be collected in a jar. Delicious sweet smelling honey, golden in a special honey jar with a slim layer of wax on the surface.
Uncle Geoff and Auntie Margaret are some of the special people in my life. When my father died they were really good friends to my mother, having us to stay and clothing me in their daughter's idyllic dresses which Auntie Margaret had made. Auntie Margaret also inspired my mother who was raised to be a lady of leisure, to go to sewing lessons so that she could make clothes for herself.
Once when we were staying there Margaret, their daughter and I decided to hide from our mothers. We opened the wardrobe door and quietly sneaked in to jump out and give our mothers a surprise. Problem. The wardrobe fell and we were trapped inside. Our mothers were not only surprised they were distraught. Uncle Geoff was a colliery manager which why he lived in such a palatial house courtesy of the National Coal Board. He was called from the pit and brought two or three miners, complete with lamps on their helmets to rescue us. Actually we were quite safe as the wardrobe had landed on a bed. It was scary at the time.

To whom am I showing God's love?