Last year a very kind reader of this blog (whom I have never met) arranged for mass to be said for the soul of Mrs Paine at an Abbey in Provence. She was a French teacher by profession and a lover of that country. Provence was where we most liked to holiday in later life, so it was very appropriate and I was very touched by such a generous gesture. Yesterday, Navigator and I visited the Abbey. It is a beautiful, peaceful, modern place, only founded about the time that Mrs Paine and I first met. Once again, in my atheism, I found myself envying the faithful.
