Instant karma’s gonna get you…

We’ve arrived at Friday afternoon and I’ve been thinking what to post about for days. It could be cat related and that would be a winner. Yes, we have a cat who could rival the cuteness and loyalty of that one in the movie. (I’ve been out all day and he’s come to sit beside me and hasn’t moved for an hour now that I’m home, curled up sleeping against my leg.)

I have become resigned to the topics on the radio and, frankly, have begun to turn it off more, so that my days no longer have the soundtrack. I am becoming conditioned. There are certain trigger words that initiate the reflex. I can hit the “Off” button faster than Obama can catch a fly. I am heartily sick of hearing about Brexit, how wonderful it’s going to be when the UK is on it’s own when, let’s face it, if you say it often enough you’ll believe it. The assertion has no substance. And if that wasn’t enough we now have an election. And we could debate the rights and wrongs of that (our Party leaders aren’t going to) until the Herefordshire cows come home.

My new radio station of choice is the Beeb’s World Service, where I heard about the wonderful “S-Town” podcast. I thoroughly enjoyed it. An ultimately sad tale but I thought the journalism and the projection of the people involved was excellent. Subsequently I’ve worked my way backwards through the Serial material (I had to get that in) and have become captivated by the stories and the professional and investigative way the stories are delivered. See, something good has come from Brexit after all. I have discovered new worlds.

Which brings me in a rather tenuous way to the notion of karma. I was recently sipping a glass with a friend, we had one each, in one of those quintessentially English pubs you find in this part of the world. There’s a fireplace full of ash, a punter’s lazy dog wanders about looking for a pat and stroke. Anyway, his wife has been seriously ill though she’s recovering now, thankfully. But it did mean that they had to cancel their holiday too late to receive a refund. He rang a neighbour, who hadn’t been away for years, and asked if he and his wife would like to go in their place.  Sure enough….

Our conversation turned to what I’d been up to. The usual stuff – Mrs. Monkey working hard, music practice and writing, dancing lessons just to get out of the winter house, and I told him about our fundraising for an exciting new project with Chaithanya in India where we hope to fund education programmes in rural schools.

“I’ll give you some, “ he said. I was surprised, to say the least. This wasn’t a fishing expedition, we were just chatting. “How much do you want?”

I flubbersted about the costs per class per school. “I’ll pay for a school,” he said.

I tried to back off. This was over and above the call of duty. He had already made a sizeable donation 18 months ago, so he knew what we were doing.

He insisted, and there comes a point where you can’t push back too much because you then run the risk of insulting the generosity.

I thanked him effusively, my forehead on the floor.

“I’m not much a believer in God,” he said, “whoever he or she is. But I believe in karma. What goes around comes around, right back at you. Give it out – you’ll get it back somewhere.”

His wife is home from hospital after a very scary turn. A neighbour gets their holiday. We get a huge donation. Instant karma. I get his point. Perhaps it’s my turn to pass it on this weekend.