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Canon
Bosco Clarke led
The Langley Special Needs Group
on their annual pilgrimage to Lourdes
on the 29th May
– 2nd
June, 2006.
Organised by original founder, Teresa Mynett, the group
stayed at the beautiful Hotel Mediterranee (pictured)
during their visit.
Bernardette Bates, one of the helpers, took some of these
photographs.
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Diary of a Lourdes
Organiser.
A tale of
mayham and magic. Teresa Mynett tells Holy Family about
their Lourdes visit.
Monday 29th. May, overslept, alarm clock didn't go off at
4 so slept until 4.20, needed to be at Holy Family for
5.am.
Put bag into car, locked car with keys inside. Looked for
spare key, Jacob (age 2) had hidden it.
Eventually found it at 5.20. Arrived at Holy Family,
coach was there and most of the pilgrims.
Finally at 5.40 all on coach - but hang on - only 41 of
us, one missing. Phoned and arranged for missing pilgrim
to be picked up.
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Arrived at Stansted at 7.30, latest check
in time 7.30. Eventually got everyone checked in and had
to go straight to departure lounge. Started boarding our
sick and disabled people when I noticed some were
missing. A small group of my pilgrims stuck in the lift
including Mary Mengham and Carmel O'Brien.
4 of the people were in wheelchairs and had to be carried
up the steps onto the plane. Wonderful ground staff
at Stansted.
Eventually took off, just one small continence accident,
although the first of many.
. . . Got my much longed for cup of tea.
Arrived at Tarbes with no problems, met by Dymphna
(Tangney Tours rep) she went a bit pale when she saw how
many disabled pilgrims we had. She told me later that she
nearly went home when she saw us.
Boarded the coach to the hotel, no problem. Arrived at
the hotel, they weren't expecting us for lunch, a moments
panic but within 10 minutes a wonderful lunch was ready
for us.
Our Spiritual Programme was wonderful.
We started with our first Mass at 4.00 in St Patrick’s
Chapel opposite the Grotto, then opened our Pilgrimage.
Advised everybody to relax in the evening - the bar was
very busy!!
Tuesday
morning saw some of us very busy from 6 o'clock,
- guess who was the mug with the alarm clock.
Canon Bosco was happy as we remembered his cornflakes.
Had out group photo after Mass see below - , what more
can I say.
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We all walked in both the
processions, we didn't go into the Underground Cathedral
at the end of the Blessed Sacrament Procession as it was
so hot, so we continued to the Grotto as a group instead.
We then had evening prayer. We walked in the Torchlight
Procession where all of our group sang loudly, a bit out
of tune and not the right words, but we tried.
One of our group had 6 Epileptic seizures over the course
of the day. Wednesday was free after Mass, some went off
to Gavarnie while others went shopping in Spain. I
thought I'd sleep for the afternoon but it wasn't to be,
more seizures.
6 in total for the day.Thursday woken up at 1.15 another
seizure 1st of 7 for that day. |
. We saw quite a large group of us doing the High
Stations, the rest of the group went to the low stations,
then we went off to the City of the Poor where we had
Mass in St. Bernardettes Chapel and anointing of the
sick.This is always quite an emotional service for us
all, plus as it was a hot day we all had to help pull the
wheelchairs up the hills.
A quiet evening followed with everyone doing their own
thing. Friday morning woken at 3am by Melanie. My two
year old grandson Jacob was ill, he was hallucinating and
red hot. Called out a doctor, cost 75 euros, he didn't
speak much English but checked Jacob from head to foot,
thought it was probably a virus and gave us a
prescription which Matthew Fernandes got for us straight
after breakfast, by this time Jacob was almost back to
his old self - Thank God. |
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The morning was quite chaotic as we
had to vacate our rooms by 9am. Although we were allowed
to keep 2 rooms until 12. The coach arrived for us at 4,
no problems, in fact Dymphna told us that the Hotel had
said that people commented on our group, saying that they
had never seen a group like ours where everyone pulled
together and helped each other. Then we arrived at the
airport, our flight was delayed by 1 hour. Eventually
nearly two hours late we started getting our disabled
people into the departure lounge, it was like an oven,
they then let everyone else through, we were like cattle
in a pen it was so hot. My lady with Epilepsy then
decided to have another seizure, this set the pattern for
the return flight which I spent kneeling on the front
seat leaning across holding her head as she was
unconscious.
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When we arrived back at Stansted I
stayed with the less able people while the able bodied
went off to get the luggage, when I joined them they told
me that a case was missing, then John (my husband)told me
that my car keys and our house keys were in that case
(not one of our cases) which was belonging to the man he
was caring for.
After about half an hour of searching someone realised
that one of our pilgrims was missing and remembered that
she had a trolley full of bags -
guess what - she had the missing case.
By this time it was midnight, we should have been back in
England at 9pm.
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We discovered
that our coach driver was out of hours and had had to
send for a replacement driver. At this point another
group leader produced his hip flask of 'holy water' and
suggested that I take a large swig. Nicest tasting holy
water that I've ever had, gave a warm comforting feeling.
Eventually arrived back in Langley at 2pm. We'd phoned
taxis on the way back so that went fairly well.
Guess what- we've provisionally booked for 2008.
It will be 150 years since the Apparitions, 20 years
since our groups first Lourdes Pilgrimage and Canon
Bosco's 40th Ordination Anniversary.
I can't thank Carmel, Mary and Annie
enough, their humour kept me going during the rougher
moments!!
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