Stop!

I picked up a hitch hiker today on my way home. He started out with his thumb raised, but as I made to drive past him he fell to his knees and put up joined hands in supplication. I stopped. I know, I know, but you have to use your judgement in these situations, however fleeting the opportunity to make a rational assessment. To be honest at first I thought I recognised him, and so I didn't really stop to think. He had been walking from the station at Saxmundham, already a mile, and the road he was on is without houses of any sort for a good two and a half miles. It was freezing, a sharp wind biting into tough outer clothes. As he got in he told me he had lost his car keys in London, and had made a journey home to Bungay for a spare set, and thence in a very roundabout way to where I found him. Public transport in Suffolk is very poor. His car was at Bruisyard Church, only a mile or two from my house, but he didn't expect me to take him there: anywhere on the road to Fram would be fine. He spoke very quickly and so I didn't really follow his story, but he is a regular concert-goer at Snape, and told me that he used to travel on the train from Sax to London with Peter Pears. So I knew I was safe. He was good company, and when I dropped him at the church he was apologetic and grateful in equal measures of profusion. He didn't kill me. Or worse.

It's not the first time I've picked up someone on that road. The last time the weather was the complete opposite of today's, so hot and humid you could barely move. I was driving to Sax to collect Olivia from the station for the weekend when I spotted a very attractive woman in a tight-fitting red dress, carrying a jacket and a heavy looking handbag. I did a double take when I saw her, astonished because of the heat and the complete absence of dwellings. Where could she be going? As I returned with Olivia she was still walking, and so I stopped and offered her a lift. She had been living in Australia for several years before moving back to Suffolk and  had completely misjudged the debilitating conditions. And as she said, once you've set off to walk you can't change your mind. There's nowhere to go, no taxi within miles. She was grateful too, and relieved to be in the air-conditioned car. She wanted to be dropped at Rendham Church which was on my way.

Funny that. Both passengers wanted to go to a church. Call me whimsical, disbeliever that I am, but they do say that the Lord moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to behold. Just saying.