They say that if you stand in one place long enough the whole world will pass you by. If you have an impossibly long life, perhaps... And wouldn't it be a bit boring after a while anyway? But maybe it is true.
Staring out of my study window this afternoon in search of inspiration for Sunday's sermon - featuring Edmund, King of the East Angles and Martyr, 870 (because he is one of our patron saints and it is his day next week) - I wondered if I was still in the deep Fens, miles from any recognised centre of civilisation. (And many miles from any coffee bar chain, more to the point. I have to go to Kings Lynn or Ely to get a Starbucks or Costa expresso fix. And to Cambridge for Cafe Nero.)
Why? Because past the end of the drive came a German police car, like a less racy version of car in the image. I know that we have many people living and working around here from ex-Iron Curtain countries like Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as from Portugal. The Polish language mass at the local Roman Catholic church is always packed out. Local information leaflets are in any language except English - but perhaps we Brits know how the system works anyway. And I know that the county's police resources are stretched to the limit and beyond. But is it so bad that the County Council has contracted in the services of the German Polizei...?
Or, more frightening thought, perhaps we are a centre for international crime? Which, worryingly, wouldn't really surprise me...
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