Remember that old cider (?) advert where hedgehogs squashed cars - the opposite of usual experience.  I had one of those experiences this morning.

I went to do a funeral visit for someone who was 'a life-long Baptist' of whom none of my folk had heard.  It transpired that she had been part of our church, her daughter proudly showed me the Bible she'd been presented with by the Sunday School back in 1932, when she would have been 17.  It appears she was never baptised and stopped attendling long before she met and married a Roman Catholic in 1948.

It was a long visit - two hours - and I felt for the daughter who has many problems, and is now left without her 'rock.'  At the end of the visit I prayed with her, and then she prayed, thanking God for me.  Now that was a first.  Not even in church households have I encountered the family offering a prayer.  This lady doesn't attend church, and would be regarded with suspicion by many 'decent church folk,' but by gum, she showed me she has faith.

Just hope the funeral service does what she needs it to do.

I received this circular email this moring and it made me smile (then I added the PS)...

My thanks to all those who have sent me emails in 2007........

I must send my thanks to whoever sent me the one about rat s**t in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet towel with every envelope that needs sealing.

Also, I now have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown); who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the £15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.............

Or from the senior bank clerk in Nigeria who wants me to split £7 million with me for pretending to be a long lost relative of a customer who died intestate.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa's novena has granted my every wish.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot ay.

Thanks to you, I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca-Cola because it can remove toilet stains.

I can no longer buy petrol without taking a friend along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm filling up.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with an aftershave sample and rob me.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore, and Uzbekistan.

Thanks to you, I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my bum.

And thanks to your great advice, I can't even pick up the £10 I found dropped in the car park because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg.

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhoea will land on your head at 5:00pm this afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you  to grow a hairy hump.

I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbour's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beauticians relative once removed.

By the way....a South American scientist after a lengthy study has discovered that people with low IQ who have infrequent sexual activity always read their e-mails with their hand on the mouse.

Don't bother taking it off now, it's too late!

Have a great 2008!!!

PS, I have also gained the emails addresses of 12739 people I don't know because people don't remove this information when they forward emails