Do you ever wonder where the angels sit? When people come to visit with their angels. The door banging twice. Girl. Angel. Because, really, there is only so much room in my little house. Angels take up as much room as a person though a lot less air. Even though an angel can change the atmosphere in the air in the wink of a wimple. And they must come in, they do not like to be left out in the weather. Have you ever seen an angel who has been left out in the rain – it is a terrible sight. Crumpled like tissue paper, poor things – it takes an age for them to dry out and puff back up. And for obvious reasons it is very important not to let your angel get too close to the fire to dry out. So you can’t just leave them outside when they visit. They must come in.
I mean, when they travel with you they can sit in the back seat very happily – with their legs crossed, their hands in their laps and wings folded neatly. Sometimes they read a book. Angels are great readers. How often have you lost the book your are currently reading! Often, right?! They nick them when you are busy. So they can keep up. Angels hate to be left out. They want to know every last thing you are thinking. Nosy buggers. Anyway when you are driving they like to sit quietly in the back seat and look out of the window. They never get huffy when you get lost because they will always be able to find you. Though try to get them out to see the sights with you and they will turn surly. Best to leave them sitting quietly I have always found.
My guardian angel’s name is Alphonsus and he spent last night in the barn because when he came in after chores he found another angel sitting in his seat. A STRANGE angel just sitting there watching, watching Fede cook, arms folded, wings neatly stowed. The look on that angels face – you would have laughed! Alphonsus went and laid on the bed for a while, spent time in the shower, sat glumly in the glass house then gave up and stomped out to sleep in the barn.
But where is an angel to sit? 
Some people have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to their guardian angels. They don’t realise that there is a huge white feathery presence walking beside them (or behind them in the back seat of the car) moving potholes, hissing at cats and giving the bad people the tiniest of nudges. Or poking a cow just to see what happens, sleeping in the straw with the calves and perching with the chickens. (They call that Slumming It.)
Sometimes an angel can make you invisible – have you ever noticed that? This happens to me all the time. I go into a store or (God help me) a bar and no-one sees that I am there. My mother used to tell me to get the money out of my purse and wave it about -(this has been happening to me all my life) ” that will get their attention.” she said. But really it is just my angel, standing right in front of me so I am just a vacant space. I have never quite worked out why Alphonsus does that, there must be a reason – but as you probably know angels don’t like to explain themselves either. You know how to tell when a person is in tune with her angel? She will be wearing sunglasses a lot. It is the glare you know. All those white feathers. And angels are always so clean. I am always deeply suspicious of such cleanliness.
Anyway, I have beds and chairs enough for all my visitors but am still having trouble accommodating all their angels. You would think they could double up. I have known angels who share seats with their people. These are lovely angels. They will very kindly sit in your chair to warm it up for you on cold days (though they draw the line at warming up the toilet seat so don’t even go there – my angel will widen his eyes and pinch his nose haughtily at the very thought) and sometimes once you sit down they arrange their wings so you can sit more comfortably. Do you know that feeling when you sit into a seat with a big sigh, and you feel warm and you make that descending aaahhh sound? And immediately your feet feel better. Yeah? That is when your angel has made sure that your seat is comfy. And is probably sharing it with you. Alphonsus shares.
Of course not all angels are good like that. Most of them prefer a seat or perch of their own and if there are not plenty of high perches they can get a bit antsy, and then they will sit on the floor and arrange for tripping. Tripping is a favourite trick of Alphonsus’s. The other night I turned the lights out to look at the eggs, and then jogged sideways to get a pencil and Alphonsus swiftly shifted a box right into my path. I tripped and heard the snort. Angels snort – did I tell you that? I don’t think they mean to be mean but sometimes they get bored. I mean angels live a long time – I inherited mine from my Grandmother Dorothy. She died just before I was born so I guess he waited around. He is good at waiting. He is a waiter. He holds grudges too. You already know that Alphonsus spends a lot of time tinkering with electrical things, like our dishwasher – on the blink, the washing machine – not spinning, the fridge – drips through the floor onto the washing machine – he runs the batteries in my vehicles down (sometimes all at the same time) and stands watch at the door when the shower is running in case he feels like turning down the heat.
Poor Alphonsus. He is going to hold a grudge now about the number of angels in the house.
My angel is very shy and seldom mingles with other angels but he is good about showing them to a perch and offering them a drink, things like that, just good manners really but after that he puts his pajamas over his fluffy Pan legs and goes out and sits in the car and stares in the other direction until they leave. He is not a very social angel. And he absolutely does not like to share my chair with anyone.
I have a pile of very chatty angels in the house right at the moment. They like to sit high and tend to dangle their feet over the edge of the loft floor, brushing your head with their feet just for fun. They catch text messages in the hands and toss them to each other for a while and they muck around with the time so it goes too fast, and the clocks show all different times. They hide kitchen utensils, which if you ask me is a bit cheeky since they are visitors and all and every pudding bowl in the house has gone missing. Boo has taken to answering back when given a command, a short bark just a little too often for comfort so I am fairly sure that one of these visiting angels is egging him on, probably making faces or something. Most dogs can see angels, though Ton does not like them as a rule – not the visiting angels anyway and often goes and sits in the car with Alphonsus and sometimes Godot. He likes Alphonsus. They both like sitting in the car. Godot sits on top.
But what about the visiting angels, where are they to sit, all these angels?
I am going to have to think on it.
Love your friend on the farm
celi
PS. Good morning. At lunch yesterday I asked a question. “You are leaving. I am not sure where you are going but you will be gone for a long time and you are probably never coming back. You have two suitcases and ten million dollars. What would you put in the suitcases? We had great fun with this.” (Naturally Alphonsus has to carry his own suitcase.) John looked at us like we were all quite mad and said he would put the Ten Million in his suitcase. Of course.
I wonder what you would put in your suitcases.
c
The Kitchen's Garden 
73 responses to “But where will the Angels Sit?”
That was beautiful. I think sometimes when they need a little rest, they sit on the pik sunset clouds and just look down and smile. Mostly mine sits on my shoulder 🙂 She’s called Luciana and my godmother gave her to me….
They are the best ones – inherited from good people.. c
My angel doesn’t take up much room – she is only small: Tinkerbell size. Your house sounds a tad crowded! I would put books in my case.
It’s a lovely day today- the perfect temperature for this temperate zone blogger.
love,
ViV xox
AAH a miniature angel.. just right.. c
I think there’s an angel cooking pastries in your kitchen 😉
Not wrong there and then he cooked gnocchi! for dinner! Divine.. c
You’ll have an Angel at your Table too 🙂
Thank you for the reminding me that my angel is here. Though I don’t know his/her name. It has always been a mystery to me who it is. Same with Evie’s. I think it must be her angel who keeps spilling things.
Maybe you can ask Alphonsus if he knows.
I will consult.. in fact we better be careful not to let him at the keyboard! c
That could lead to mischief, who knows what secrets they’d tell!!
Photographs would go in my suitcases. Ten million dollars can never replace the photographs of my children, especially the photos of my son who has passed on.
I agree.
and that is a timely reminder for us to PRINT our photographs.. I am always forgetting.. c
Mine doesn’t have a name, but he’s a him, and I think he watches over me when I fall asleep in inappropriate places (it’s the pain medication…), which happens quite a lot.
My suitcase would contain a sewing kit, my best kitchen knife, my camera, my chiming clock, my silver Russian ikon, my laptop, and (because I am now very rich and it’s a very, very big suitcase) the Husband, without whom no adventure would be either complete or enjoyable. I reckon that’s a pretty good adventure kit.
We talked about the people and pets thing and decided that they would be coming along wherever we went anyway, but then we realised that they would have suitcases too and then there would be sharing and then – oh dear! c
I would put flash drives in my suitcase – dozens and hundreds of them. The drives would contain every family photo ever taken, and e-book files for my e-reader and computer which would also be in there, of course. An mp3 player is also a necessity, with its requisite SD cards full of music. And there would probably be a chameleon and a few tortoises tucked in there, too. And maybe my life-sized cut-out of Severus Snape. He folds up rather small in a pinch.
I hope you have electricity where you are going.. I knew you woudl take a tortoise.. love it.. c
I really enjoyed reading that, but be honest….has the sun gone to your head? In my suitcase would be my angel….not mone
. An angel I need..money I can do without
You don’t believe in angels patrecia? bet you do.. c
Yes I do and it was a great bit of writing that you did, it was just so different from your normal subjects…I did not intend to be critical, I loved it…it made me smile and I shall read it again
Loved reading that. Need to be more in touch with my angel. I know he/she is here!
Often we do think of our guardian angels as He..hmm.. c
I wonder if it’s because all the Biblical angels are male? I can’t remember any female ones – offhand I can only think of Gabriel and Michael, there are probably others but I’m pretty sure no females.
Gracious, my main guardian angel has always been my grandfather, who died before I was born. But I have an awareness of another now that I am older, though we’ve not introduced ourselves. And of course, I have the house spirits, who have been so irritatingly mischievous lately that I’ve thought of smudging the place just to calm them down. In my suitcase? Passport, my favorite pareos, camera, books, and a sketchpad and colored pencils.
A the House spirits, yes I think there have been some living with this house for quite some time, and maybe Alphonsus has made friends with them.. c
I wondered about that. I thought I saw some interesting ‘reflections’ in the windows that have been in photos of the Farmy buildings/garden.
I’ve been feeling quite invisible lately. Guess it’s my angel protecting me from something. Although I’m getting a bit lonely…
You will always have US! But i do know that feeling – he will boot you out into the sunshine soon i am sure.. c
I thought I was the only one who knows Angels exist. Nice to know I’m not. You have made me more aware of mine again today. I have seen mine and heard it. I have never asked for a name????? Silly me, I was just glad to have the protection and care. Mine has smacked a treat from my hand when I was trying oh, so hard to lose some weight. But the real stories have only begun to be written. Your Angel has prompted you to write this to start one heck of a conversation. And to remind me to write the rest of the stories. In my suitcase would be loads of love and kindness to dole out everywhere I travel. I’d need nothing else. The money would go in the bank silly. So I could draw it from anywhere and give it to those that needed it. My first thought though, when I read the question was the same as Viv’s, Books. Mine could be digital for a trip. Not so heavy. The Angel I saw had no wings, only pure bright light. Truly amazing. I now have to go have a think. I know all the Angels in your house will always find a place to sit there. Ask them not to be so mischievous. Hugs to you and all your Angels.
Wonderful Miss Myself. I bet you have some great angel stories to tell.. c
BTW I forgot to say, yes they can make you invisible. It’s happened to me as well. 🙂
…. and to me, too. Very often. 😦
I often like being invisible. It’s a protective measure.
In my suitcase you would find a camera, notebook with pens, a couple of favorite books-All the Light We Cannot See! Also my computer which would contain my pictures, my millions would be on a debit card. What else is there? I suppose a different pair of shoes and a change of clothes. Dog on a leash and daughter in hand. Let’s go!
Love the challenge:)
LOVED that book – it is one of those books I keep buying and giving as a gift.. c
How enchanting! My angel thanks you for reminding me she’s here. I talk to my angel the most when I am shoveling the compost into our big bin. She finds it terribly amusing that I seem to need a good pile of manure to spark my reflective self. Ha! Celi, this is my favourite post of all time. Such a wonderful, magical glimmer of the invisible side of the farmy. In my suitcases I would put: my laptop, my camera, my sketchbook and pencils and pens, my donkey hoof tools (having that much money they will be travelling with me!), my two favourite ‘rereadable books’ (Our Mathematical Universe and The Joy of X), my reading journal, our wedding quilt, and clothes for every season – but just two of each.
Most excellent – two more books for my list! Thank you for that too and for this comment.. love, love Mouse. c