Journey mercies

I'm the de facto landlady with the Korean family back in Korea for a holiday, and I can't say I like it. I'm cleaning more often and more regularly than I ever have, because it is the church flat, and there's added sense of responsibility in more ways than one.

I've also had to manage some rather unpleasant business with the temporary boarders, which is never nice when it's people business. But thankfully, it was not as ugly as it could have potentially been.

The irony is that the troublesome boarders were the ones I agreed with KC in allowing to stay in the flat temporarily, and I was largely disagreeable on another boarder, but eventually gave in due to certain circumstances, and this boarder, Ook, turned out to be incredibly sweet.

The sweetest, most obliging young lad of 24, who is such an agreeable character that I am so glad I agreed to let him stay. And I was singing so much praises of him that a few of the older ladies who I had dinner with on Saturday night gave me a surprisingly coy look and asked if I had taken fancy with him.

All I have to say is that this is the first time when I've felt a strong big sisterly feeling towards a younger guy. I wouldn't allow him to help clean, and I nagged him constantly about eating too much instant noodles, gave him some of the food I cooked and when there were leftovers from the women's dinner on Saturday night, I packed the leftovers with him on my mind.

I even arranged for him to go out with the guys on Saturday night, because I knew he had no plans and that he was keen on making friends. I couldn't bring him to the women's dinner, so sent him off with the lads instead.

And this morning, he followed me to church, and I was glad after service he quickly went to the guys I introduced him last night to chat. A bunch of them eventually went out to the field across church to play football together. And because the weather was so nice, we decided to have a water fight with the neighbourhood kids. It was good fun throwing water balloons at each other and tackling one another to the ground and pour buckets of water at each other.

After the water fight, we had lunch at 52, finished in time for evening service. By the time evening service ended, Ook, who expressed his gratitude and happiness in me introducing him to so many new people and doing things he had never done in the last 5 months he had been in UK, said he needed to rest. He understood what I meant by weekdays being more relaxing for me than my weekends!