Forward

 

Ang always has her word for the year, and I'm never really on top of life enough to choose one, but this word seems to have chosen me this week: it's been pushing its way through all my readings and all my thoughts this week. So, forward, dearest blog friends. Thank you for always being just right here when I need comfort or inspiration or wisdom. Please keep doing what you do!

And a very Happy New Year from our house to yours. May there be bright light over every path you walk this next year x

First Sunday in Advent 2021

Friends, bloggies, countrywomen, I am curled up on the green sofa here feeling deeply deeply grateful for the grace of our year that turns and turns again time after time, bringing us back to the same gentle points of pause. The places where, no matter what that year has brought or wrought or wrangled, you can start again. Happy First Sunday in Advent.

I love November. I say this every year! I love November. It has no agenda for us in our house - no birthdays, no big events, no demands. It has become my time to marvel at the big, bare, bleak skies and just breathe. However - this year I have noticed with awe the colour of it all.

We have had spectacular sunrises and sunsets in this northern part of our northern Ireland. Mind you, maybe we always did and I didn't notice because I wasn't spending as much time down on the shore and beyond. So, here is my rather fanciful idea for the start of my Advent...

I wonder if the vibrant, glowing, sky-illuminating colours of this November's skies could paint all the emotions of the last year - all the joys and all the pain and all the hope and all the persecution. It could all be written on the clouds, laid out, inspected, recognised, declared. And even if some of the beauty was a terrible beauty, too much of a beauty to take in, it was still beautiful.

And haven't the skies been recognised as declarations for so many generations of thinkers? A young man who achieved great things after years tormented and chased and abused could still say, " The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands." (Psalm 19)

The week after Jolly was here I spent a lot of time wondering why I had used the word "command" when I was describing our dusk walk down at the shore. At the time I hesitated over it and couldn't explain to myself why it was nonetheless the only word that I knew I needed to choose. I decided eventually that the closest I could get came from a passage that our assistant minister had talked about earlier in the Autumn. "But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. "

I think that the command for me recently has come from my November skies and I'm taking it as my Advent word this year. I'm going to try to let all those colours of the year settle as I make some attempt to take stock. I'm going to heed the instruction to take "a long thoughtful look" at what is over my head, and in it. I'll declare all those emotions as the skies declare their Creator God, and we'll finish another year together, He and I.

Happy First Sunday in Advent x

(Apologies for my generally depressed and depressing thoughts! It's been a tough old time here, and I do know that I really need to get over it all! And you know that the Bible bits are from Psalm 19 and the Message version of the first chapter of the letter that Paul wrote to early Christians in Rome. And I'm also still sorry for the rubbish pictures from my phone which is still all cracked and still held together with sticky tape!!)

A last Jolly

We went swimming this morning. We have been living above, walking along the Lough all week, so Jolly decided he'd get into the Lough with my swimming friends and me this morning. It was more stormy than cold, so lots of hard swimming without getting very far at all! Jolly has a cosy new scarf to help him warm up, but tea always helps too. I've been keeping a tight hold of Jolly today for fear that he would get carried away by wind or excitement.

Since the area around St Anne's Cathedral in the city has been developped into a bustling restaurant district - the Cathedral Quarter, would you believe - someone must have decided that we needed three other quarters to be mathematically correct. I don't even know what the fourth one is. Jolly has seen the Titanic Quarter, so we decided to have a stroll round the University Quarter on our way to the airport. This is the beautiful Lanyon building of Queen's University. I studied French and English here, in the little street to the left of the Quad, and after this gap year Mattman will be studying Chemical Engineering just up the hill past the Ulster Museum. We didn't get to the Seamus Heaney Library round the back, but it is very lovely too.

The Museum sits at the top end of our Botanic Gardens, which are all bedecked and ready for this year's nocturnal festive delight, Botanic Bright Lights. During the day you can just dander through for free and enjoy the vibrant colours and gorgeous displays. This year you follow the journey of Bobo the garden gnome as he takes off on a whirlwind world tour on his way to a new job at the North Pole. Jolly could relate.

He got talking to a Scot gnome. They were swapping kilt stories. I had to reach in and extricate him in case he missed his flight. It was very hard saying goodbye. We wished him good luck with the many deliveries ahead, a Merry Christmas, and good luck for his retirement. He took his now bulging diary as hand luggage to read on the plane. He said he wanted to look back on all his travels, and on all his new friends, and try to come to some sort of a decision about his future. We wish him every blessing.

Pom Pom, I really hope that he'll be with you by Christmas, if not by Thanksgiving. It's a wide old sea, and borders have always been problematic for us here, but if he was a character in A Midsummer's Dream (instead of a nearly Midwinter one) he'd be singing, "I go, I go; look how I go, swifter than arrow from the Tartare's bow."
 

We read to know we are not alone

 Did C. S. Lewis really say this? I think it's a line in Shadowlands, but you know how it is with all those quotes you read on social media. I'm never sure if they were in fact uttered by the folk to whom they are attributed! Well, Jolly and I are reading quietly tonight together. I didn't see much of him earlier because I was running many many errands after school. He did say that he caught the train into town at lunchtime. So here we are, lying around the house tonight, chatting about all our favourite winter reads.

I brought out this book for Jolly to see. He hasn't put it down! He spent ages poring over the pictures of the postman on his bike. Pom Pom reminded me of how much Jolly loves to cycle. Greta would be very pleased with him. I'm sorry that she's so disappointed with COP26. We all need to have some hope that we can be better stewards of our world and of each other. Jo also loves to cycle but has a flat tyre just now, otherwise he would have taken Jolly off along the cycle path.

The book is full of cards and letters and games and puzzles that you can take out of the envelopes and read or play with. We had fun timing ourselves at putting poor Humpty together again. Who needs all the king's men?

I thought Jolly was going to fall into the last beautiful scene. I think he is properly ready to go home now. He has just nipped upstairs to finish his packing. Although I'm sure I just heard him on the phone under the stairs.

So, tomorrow Jolly will be taking to the high, dark skies over that wide Atlantic Ocean. I'm glad that he's flying back in November. If he stays awake I'm sure he'll see a wonderful sunset and sunrise. Hopefully he might even be home in time for Thanksgiving, which is just not a thing here all - us not having any Pilgrim Fathers. (Because my phone is currently held together with Sellotape and hilarity, you'll not make out that the sign on the tree points 'Home' due to blurriness of the photos to which you are subjected this evening...)

We were in the Highlands of Scotland last week for half-term. Maybe I'll tell you about that next week after Jolly goes, since he has dragged me back into the blogosphere. We met a friend of the friends with whom we were staying who posts absolutely gorgeous sixty second sermons from his virtual platform. (Look for Fullarton Connexions on Farcebook.) A lot of the time he stops and chats from one of his many cycle rides through the Scottish hills. Jolly loves them. Ryan is also in this Tearfund Scotland video about COP26 which you might be able to see if you're a Farcebook user yourself!

Last day with Jolly tomorrow. I have to say, it's lovely being back with you all, reading to know I am not alone x

In which Jolly learns how to pronounce some Irish names

Jolly met Niamh (pronounced N-Eve) at The Lamppost Cafe in East Belfast yesterday morning. Sandra and I had brunch there a few years ago. It is a wonderfully magical place - themed around the Narnia works of C. S. Lewis it sits across the road from C. S. Lewis Square, another wonderfully magical place filled with sculptures of Narnian characters.

Jolly and Niamh sat in the tiny little conservatory at the back and had a lovely hour's chat over tea and caramel shortcake. Niamh told Jolly all about her travels, living and working in Finland and Japan and Iceland and the States, and about how she is making her living now as a writer of Celtic and Norse fairytales re-imagined in our modern times. 

She wanted to know if Jolly was familiar with A. S. Byatt's 'Little Black Book of Stories'. It is, apparently, Niamh's favourite read at this dark time of the year. Jolly didn't feel it sounded intellectual enough to admit that he likes nothing more than settling down with a beautifully illustrated children's book, so he made the right noises and listened on. Niamh spoke for quite some time, Jolly recounted, on the subliminal menopausal messages in 'A Stone Woman', and Jolly did wonder if this 30 year-old woman was reading perhaps too much into something she might not fully understand.

He certainly found Niamh very interesting, very intense, and would undoubtedly have wanted to hear more about her campaign to re-introduce Hedge Schools to the Northern Irish education system, but he needed to get the bus back into town for his next rendez-vous. He thanked Niamh very much, accepted her friend request on Farcebook, and went to find the bus-stop, via the sculpture park.

Aoife (pronounced Eefa) works in Belfast's Central Library, a beautiful Victorian building that was one of Ireland's first major public library buildings when it opened in 1888. Aoife and Jolly had lunch in the cafe there, and shared a sausage roll stack with a delicious tomato salad. Jolly ate lots and lots, which would prove to be fortuitous. 

Aoife is 37 and absolutely loves her job, she told Jolly who then told me. She works on the top floor under the wide skylights that make the most of Belfast's sometimes rare sunlight. She looks after the specialist literature collections, which is obviously in and of itself extremely interesting. However, she shared with our chum, it is also quite exciting when the BBC is filming their 'Line of Duty' series in the city. Central Library is used as Police HQ, and Aoife has often passed Adrian Dunbar not coming up the Lagan in a bubble in the main foyer.

Jolly was very taken with Aoife. He thought that her cataloguing skills would come in very handy when sorting mail back at the Post Office, and he was sure that her gentle, friendly ways would go down very well in the village. She also always has a book with her, she had confessed, and Jolly thought that she would be resourceful enough to keep herself amused during his postman's long shifts. But would she want to leave her beloved library? They exchanged phone numbers and addresses, as Aoife said that she loves to write letters: old-fashioned, on paper, sealed with a loving kiss letters. Jolly approved very much.

With quite a few hours to fill before his last engagement, Jolly actually ended up spending the rest of the afternoon in the library. Aoife left him on the first floor in the newspaper archives and Jolly researched the history of Royal Mail in the city. Afterwards he wandered up the winding staircase to Aoife's floor where she showed him collections of letters from all sorts of Northern Irish writers. He waited around until closing time and, on their way out, Aoife showed Jolly a lovely little exhibition of children's books currently on display on the ground floor. The she walked him through the town to his next port of call. They both promised to stay in touch.

Jolly was nearly about to phone me to come and get him when Grainne (pronounced Gron-ya) finally appeared. She was, he conceded, extremely apologetic. Something had come up at work that she really needed to deal with there and then. Human Resources Manager for a large business in the city centre, Grainne, aged 35, is responsible for the well-being of the 200 staff under her care. Jolly was very glad that he only has to worry about one dispatch driver.

They headed into the shiny new Grand Central Hotel and Jolly gazed with awe at the view of the city appearing as the glass lift flew up to the twenty-third floor. Aoife had told Jolly that the hotel's penthouse bar was used in the BBC's filming of the crime series 'Bloodlands'. James Nesbitt had met his fictional daughter there in the opening scenes. This was when Jolly was very glad that he had eaten so well at lunchtime. Grainne, it seemed, didn't need any food because she had a gym session booked with her personal trainer at 10pm. They found two spectacular seats in the Observatory bar, high over the cityscape and ordered one bramble cocktail between them. Jolly said he felt a bit embarrassed confessing that he isn't much of a drinker. We have a question here that we often ask religious folk, 'Are you good-living?' and I am beginning to wonder if Jolly is good-living. I suppose it means that you don't drink or smoke or swear or kick your cat. People of faith get a bit frustrated because they know that a belief in and a love for God is about much more than these things. Although I'm sure that Jolly would not be at all impressed with anyone kicking anything. On the other hand he does struggle sometimes with a few very nasty dogs on his round.

Jolly said he realised that this was what he was thinking about as Grainne told him all about her joy at being back in her office after the Lockdowns, and her new car, and the trip to the Maldives that she had to cancel because of Covid, and the skiing trip too, and the yacht tour of the Greek islands. He's not sure quite how many Brambles they got through by the time Grainne said how lovely it had been to meet someone who really knew how to listen, told the waiter to charge their drinks to her expense account, and ran elegantly off to be on time at the gym. 

So, in fact, perhaps Jolly was not at all overawed by Titanic Belfast when I picked him up. Perhaps he just had too much to think about. He's been very quiet today, but has been a great pal helping in the kitchen. He's upstairs now helping Jo revise for a Geography test. They have been having detailed conversations about meanders and oxbows. Jolly says he sees a lot of rivers on his daily route. And then I think he said he was going to give Aoife a ring...

He just has two more sleeps here and will then be packing up his bags for the return leg of his odyssey. We're going to miss him!

In which a postman delivers post

Well, it's been a very exciting day in and around the Meadowplace today. I know you're all waiting with bated breath to meet Jolly's three new lady friends. But you'll have to wait until tomorrow when Jolly will have uploaded his photos from today's coffee/lunch/dinner dates. He told me all about it when I got back from school. He came with me to deliver a birthday present and we had a great talk as we walked.

He was quite emotional when we got to our local postbox. He says he's starting to worry a bit about how close we're getting to the festive period with its increased pressure on postal deliveries. He's such a lovely bloke - just wants to make sure that everyone can be as jolly as him.

We were delivering our present by hand, so we walked on across the main road, down the street where we used to live (The Land of the Tearful Strawberries, where this little blog sprouted first), and over the hidden bridge to D's house. He was very pleased to meet Jolly. So pleased that he bravely stood on the cold, November ground in his bare feet. Jolly couldn't believe it.

Neither of us could believe the vertical rainbow we saw when we got back to our corner. We might have gone off in search of the crock of gold at its end, which was probably more or less where we had our loughshore walk yesterday, but Jolly had to get ready for his meal out with Grainne.

I picked him up in town afterwards and we took the long way home, past the Titanic Centre. I thought that Jolly was speechless at its impressive scale. The four wings of the building are designed to be exactly the size of Titanic's prow but also to look like an iceberg. Then I wondered was he speechless at my lack of tact. You probably don't want to be reminded of that horrendous night when you're about to cross the Atlantic yourself. Sorry, Jolly.

We promise to introduce you to Niamh, Aoife and Grainne tomorrow...

 

November

 

Jolly and I have had a blissful day today discussing how much we both love, adore and cherish the stunningly beautiful month of November. It turns out that we both take great comfort from the bare blue skies at this time of the year. It's a stark month, with falling temperatures and darkening days, but it has a purity and a command that is spectacular, we think!

We went for a slow short walk along the shores of Belfast Lough when I finished school and errands. Dusk was creeping across the water, itself glowing with all the colours of the day. We were very happy, but also glad to get back to a wee cup of tea. Quite a big cup of tea in fact, and look at the mug that Jolly chose... Do you get the feeling that he might be getting homesick?

He is curled up in that big armchair now with the blanket round him, reading a book while I finalise his plans for tomorrow. He has decided to get all his meetings done in a day, so he'll have coffee with Niamh before lunch with Aoife before dinner with Grainne. I asked if he wanted to pace himself, but he said that there was no point hanging about. 

"It's like when I have lot and lots of heavy parcels to deliver," he said. "I could spread them out over a few days but then people would be cross at having to wait, and I'd wake up knowing that there was still work left-over. I much prefer to keep everyone, including myself, jolly," said Jolly!

He also said that he will be wearing his kilt. It is apparently keeping him warm in these chilly Irish climes. Annie, did you tell him what he's (not) supposed to be wearing underneath?

So, a busy day tomorrow! We wish you all a beautiful bare sky above you, a blanket around you, and a wee cup of tea in both hands x

In which a Postman encounters the Northern Ireland Protocol

Well, you too might fancy a little glass of something had you been packaged up and posted all over everywhere - Jolly the Postman has been on a Grand Tour of the Western World, much in the style of that wonderful Wind in the Willows adventure. All from the creative genius loving and lovely mind of Pom Pom, naturally. He arrived a while ago here in the North of Ireland/Northern Ireland (depending on your political ideology) after being in

Scotland with Anne after being in

Norfolk, England with Angela after being in

North Carolina with MK after being in

Indiana with Heather after being in

Minnesota  with Lisa after being

sent off on his jolly Jolly way by Pom Pom in Denver.

Poor Jolly thought he was on an exciting adventure to see a bit more of the world than he usually experiences on his daily delivery route. And yes, on the way he has been rather hoping to meet a One True Love, someone with whom he can share his jolly life, someone to whom he can come home after a long day trudging up lanes and down avenues and carrying his postbag under sun, shine, snow and storm.

Then he tried to travel to Northern Ireland!

You will all have heard of Brexit, and may well be aware that its consequences have led to all sorts of complications and calamities, including at the minute, a centuries old return to hostilities between England and France. (Officially Britain and France, and this time to do with fishing rights.) Jolly has been following the news with great insight, as only someone who delivers hundreds of newspapers and journals a year could do. Here in the north of my island we have the added difficulties of The Protocol. Everything is being blamed on The Protocol: food shortages in shops, refusals to deliver things across the Irish Sea (poo to John Lewis and Marks and Spencer). You can imagine how cross our Jolly Postman has been at such rudeness. Thankfully he fought his way through all sorts of red tape and forms and delays at ports and made it through!

Then he hit a second delay! Having survived the complexities of Northern Irish politics, he realised with barely concealed horror that he has come to a home without any prowess in opening letters. With great grace and patience he has been sifting his way through mounds of paperwork. Phew! By the time that was all sorted, it was Hallowe'en - although Jolly has enjoyed reading all about Irish traditions of Samhain.

'While the history of Halloween may be shrouded in the mists of time, at its heart it is a move to the dark half of the year. As the leaves are lost and land becomes covered in glimmering frosts, there's a pleasant melancholy to be found in making the most of shorter days, like walking through sunset before the evening chill creeps in. Halloween is essentially a celebration of nature, and how coast and countryside can sustain us. Its Celtic origins harp back to a time when people were dependent on the land. To protect the bounty of the harvest season, they carved jack-o'-lanterns and dressed in costume to ward off evil spirits, which they believed roamed more freely at the start of the dark half of the year. The Púca was one such feared spirit. the mischievous shape shifter apparently often took the form of a goat.' National Trust NI

Now, we don't really go for a spooky, ghoulish 31st October here, and Jolly seemed happy enough with that. He seems a wholesome bloke. We try to be a household of God-fearing folk so it's always just about the pumpkins in my home, my favourite US import! (Although I do also have covetous thoughts of US porches too, as Pom Pom and MK can well confirm.) We gather here to celebrate Autumn and harvest and God's great provision and love. So we've been a bit too busy for wife hunting just yet. I have a few candidates in mind though - and Jolly will be meeting them this week. I do wonder if his head is swirling a bit with all the memories of lovely ladies encountered thus far. Which is actually what I have been telling him. Thus far, Jolly, thus far has the Lord helped us. 

Happy St Patrick's Day!

 I hope you've had a lovely 17th March! The weather was glorious here today, and legend tells us that this must be because St Patrick has turned the stone! Expect a fabulous summer therefore...

On this day last year we knew that we were about to enter something that would be called a Lockdown. The two most spoken phrases in our house were to be: "the new normal" and "we'll just do what we're told". I've just had a look back to my St Patrick's Day post from last year to see what I was thinking then. I remembered how struck I had been that Patrick had been forced to self-isolate for a whole six years as a slave on what is a very windy, very muddy little hill not so far from here. I remembered feeling inspired by his dedication to praying frequently, all day and all night, as that time brought him deeper into faith. I remembered thinking how wonderful it would be to use this time shut away from the world to do just that.

What I hadn't remembered was saying this: "I even think that these weeks will bring us closer to others as well. We can, as so many are saying now, use our multitudinous communication technologies to communicate with each other." Now, I have certainly not used this year as I could have done prayer-wise. Like the seeds that fell on rocky ground,my joy has too often fallen away when trouble and persecution came. But. I am enormously grateful for the friendships that have not only been maintained, but even deepened* by regular video calls and Zoom break-out rooms, and walks and garden cuppas when the summer restrictions allowed. 

I was reading through Patrick's story again last night, feeling all wistful about having to leave the safe pastures behind. What struck me this year was that after all that time alone and praying (and not lounging about making sour dough and reading Hilary Mantel) God told Patrick to get up and go out and his ship was ready, two hundred miles away.

So that's what I'm taking from my patron saint this year. The time for quiet reflection is coming to an end, and the ship is ready to set sail towards The Other Side. I'm going to try to be courageous like Patrick, obedient like Patrick, and faith-full like Patrick.

It's time to arise!

*895

My sun and my moon

When I started blogging I called the sons "suns" - high octane stars burning with energy and heat! I am sitting here this morning, basking in front room sunlight and trying to say some prayers, and it strikes me that what I in fact have are a sun and a moon.

All three of us will be back to school next week. So this week feels poignant and precious. The last year has painfully illustrated the ways in which both my stars have been deeply unhappy in school, for reasons that are different but connected. Jo*, definitely a sun, has always needed to be outside, his bright blond head bobbing through surf, carving along bike trails, everything fast and furious. We refer to him here as The Force of Nature and when he asks what his gift is, I always just say, "Life". And he so wants to please and be known for himself, not just for Mattman's younger brother. 

Mattman* is, I think, my moon. Silver haired, quiet, loving late nights watching (and discussing!) deep and complex movies. Where he is in relation to the difficulties he has with horrible people in school does in fact control the tides of this house. But his gift of wisdom was very clear even when he was a very small little man. He has insight that often pulls me up short. He sees very clearly where his schools have failed to help him, and is looking forward to his gap year with all sorts of expectations.

I'm trying not to dread next week's return and what it sends them both back into - lurking in the dense forest of assessments that they have entered today, now that the external exams have been cancelled. And I'm telling you this because I suppose I want to share the encouragement that I get from this app* when I don't know how to pray and can only ask forgiveness for my lack of belief. Pray as you go is gentle and still and very Godly.

This was today's reading from Isaiah 65. I'd recommend this morning's reflection. It's very lovely, and I suppose for me it's the same encouragement as last week's Micah passage:  the challenge to hold faith in God's future. The idea that there could yet be joy and delight for my sun and my moon* is wonderful, like the wonders of Micah 7 on the other side of the forest. The Pray as you go reflection from 10th March quoted Isaiah 50: "I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting. Because the Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame."* And maybe one day even these former things will not be remembered, like the men who came out of the fiery furnace with not even the smell of fire on them.

Can I just thank all of you who have so openly and honestly shared your family stories* here in the Land of Blog? You have been a significant encouragement to this struggling mum. It is good to see God's faithfulness in real lives*.

So there we are, this week will hopefully be a time when we can slowly accustom our minds to The Great Return. I'm hoping we can have flint faces and joyful, faith-full hearts all at the same time. And I wish you all a gentle and faith-full week, with bursts of sunshine* and daffodils* and joy* x

You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me.

(*up to 894 of years' worth of 1000 things for which to give thanks!)

Lockdown lunches

 

I have never really listened to lots of music. In the car and at home I like to listen to Radio 4 and I suppose if I'm at a loose end I'll crochet if I'm in the living room with anybody else or read if I'm by myself. I've always preferred words to anything else - I've enjoyed the first act of any ballets I've been to, but then I just get a bit hungry for dialogue! This time last year, however, we very quickly got into the habit of switching Radio 2 on when it was lunchtime in Home School! The first and the best online purchases I made in Lockdown were my little digital radio* and this chromebook*. The three men of the house had every device in full use, two of them with their own Google log-in for school email and Google Classroom, so I decided to spend my saved petrol money on some technology of my own!

In the first Lockdown we took lunch at 12.30 which was just after the start of the Jeremy Vine show - lots of upbeat music that would totally lift the mood. It's been a bit of a revelation to me how powerful music can be in changing the tone of the day. So at 12.45 this Lockdown I still switch the radio on and turn the volume up so that everybody knows they can step away from their keyboards and gather.

I keep thinking I should email the Jeremy Vine show and thank them all for the very real role they've had in encouraging us through all These Strange Times.* What we love about Vine is "The Rant of the Day". Maybe I've talked about this already? We tune in with glee to hear the day's topic and shout back at the radio. Interesting family perspectives come to light. I'm imagining that today will be all about Prince Harry and Meghan's interview, which aired for us last night. I am going to state categorical disagreement with the Ginge and Whinge brigade. Anyone who has watched appalled as The Crown pours contempt on the establishment's treatment of Margaret and Diana shouldn't walk into this greenhouse with stones. I think. They have said what they think. They have done what they thought best. And who out of any of us has made right decisions every time there has been a decision to make? And ultimately, who owns the truth?

Anyway, I know I'll miss these lunchtimes we've been given together as a family. This year has given me a whole year with two boys who have over the last twelve months become men. It's time for which I am very grateful*. And when my two fly this nest and make all sorts of decisions for themselves, I hope we'll always be able to gather round a table somewhere and eat together without too much bitterness or regret. That's what I hope for H&M (also a clothes shop... ) Especially given the situation with Prince Philip.

This was my reading this morning. I have been appalling at reading my Bible recently. So much for Lent. Isn't it wonderful that God still draws us near and shows us things*, even when we've been lying about all over the place, watching Netflix and eating rubbish? Obviously I'm speaking to myself here. But this passage has given me such hope today. I have been hiding myself away in the safe pasture of our meadowplace for a year, quite contentedly. So it is of great comfort to me to think that we will be shepherded out of our Lockdown, rather than herded, by a gentle God of great provision*. And wonders? Wouldn't it be a fabulous thing to see wonders On the Other Side? Even if we continue in a desert of trials.

Wonders.

edit: Let me apologise profusely. I see now that I blogged about our beloved Jeremy Vine on only 19th January. How repetitive. You see how small my world is now!

*879-884 out 1000 to be grateful for!

The beginning of the end

 Is there that feeling where you are? That we are still living the effects of the Pandemic, but change is coming quickly now? At the start of last week I was really quite sad. It marked one month until the boys and I will go back to school, and I imagine that this really will be the last school closure. Mattman will have left school by the autumn anyway, and I do hope that the vaccine* will preclude the awful pressures we've seen on hospitals even if there are more waves to come.

I can't pretend that we have had a difficult time with restrictions. We are all here together*, all well*, all with everything we need and more*. Caring responsibilities have kept PC and me in our respective parents' houses*, and the privilege of strong broadband* and many devices* has kept us in touch with work* and school* and friends *and church*. In fact we have been more in touch with some friends*, and able to make many new friends*.

So at the start of this week, one of only three Mondays left until we go back into the big, bad world, I am deliberately making myself savour the moments left to These Strange Times, and giving great thanks for the year that we have had here in a Meadowplace. And I suppose with the year's anniversary coming up for us around St Patrick's Day, I want to spend the remaining time reflecting on the value we found in our particular locked down lives.

While I'm here, there was no review of February books because I did not finish one single thing. That's appalling! But it was somehow like those first weeks of the first Lockdown where I couldn't settle my mind enough to concentrate on either reading or crochet, when it was so hard to sleep at night. Without being aware of anxiety during the day, there was a feeling of fragility to the days. That was before we settled into glorious days of unprecedented good weather,* with all the baking of sourdough* and the interesting dinners*, and the Lockdown birthdays that needed creative celebration*!

But over the last week I have been dipping in and out of this poetry collection. Longley is a contemporary of Heaney, and I was taught Eliot's Wasteland by his wife in my first year as an undergraduate. It's interesting to read his poetic descriptions of her when I remember a stately, bohemian, aristocratic English woman bemoaning the fact that we were studying Wasteland at the start of our literary studies (when by implication we knew nothing!) instead of as an accumulation of references at the end. She always seemed harrassed and nervous, and I think I blamed Longley when in fact she must just have been distressed at yet another lecture theatre of students who thought they already knew everything when in fact they knew naught!

Anyway, here's my current favourite Longley excerpt, from "Leaving Inishmore". It says something about what this year has been for me! (And MK, I'm claiming this as my poetry anthology!)

Summer and solstice as the seasons turn/Anchor our boat in a perfect standstill

Happy Monday, world. Happy last few weeks of Lockdown x

*Ages ago I thought I'd count Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gratitudes and two years ago I got to 860. I really thought I'd got closer to the 1000 mark, but I can't find any more recent posts than this, so that's another example of my utter and characteristic lack of consistency! But with so much to be thankful for surely I can finally put this to bed?!! (878)

First weekend in February

This week not only could we not really remember a pre-Pandemic world but we also started to struggle with memories of antediluvian life! We are obviously more than used to rain here in the Frozen North, but five solid, torrential, stormy days? That's rough even by our standards! But today, today the clouds scattered and we had a reprieve full of big blue sky. Just what we needed, now that January seems finally to have left us for another circuit of the year. 

The hurricane tree is still very bare, and I can't even see buds, but I did find snowdrops looking very confident in their overgrown corner of the drive. The maple tree too is leafless and budless, as far as I can tell. But the air whispers portents of longer days and fuller branches. I'm happy to be here, even in this chapter of our histories, as the air also whispers portents of a slow but steady end to These Strange Times, I hope. And isn't faith being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see?

So, this month I am doing this: 

Reading - absolutely nothing at the minute. I've hit a concentration hiatus. All recommendations welcome! I did read some Michael Longley poetry last night. His wife taught me The Waste Land at Queen's. She was wonderful!

Making - Cushla's Comfort is finished, bar a great big blocking manoeuvre tomorrow followed by some pompom attachment! Then I will have to work out how to get it to Downpatrick under the current restrictions. Maybe February will be the month I finish the skirt I started making LAST February... And then I'll discover that it doesn't fit my Lockdown body any more!

Doing - Trying to keep swimming, but my goodness, it was painful this morning. I only swam twice in January what with all sorts of body things, and I am now woefully de-acclimatised! Trying too to keep the boys working well through their home-schooling. Trying to keep God somewhere in the middle of it all. Trying to remember that I am a daughter as well as a mother, and a sister as well. 

Belfast 4 Corners Festival has been on this week - digitally, like so many other resourceful events. So something I have been doing is going to 10pm Night Prayers with Jim Deeds. a wonderfully reflective character on the creative spiritual scene in and around Belfast. The Festival's theme this year has been "Breathe", and for fifteen minutes every night we have been doing just that. Breathing in and breathing out. Breathing in God, and breathing out hope. It's been lovely. Try it x 

 

January Reading

 Happy St Brigid's Day! I wrote about St Brigid last year, just after I had made my first ever St Brigid's cross. Here it is a year on, the green of its sap all dried up, but still a promise of Spring! February has come round again, arriving in winter, and February will roll away again, but by then we'll have our lungs full of much less wintry air. Hopefully, at least, so let's not get our lungs filled up with anything else.

I noticed in last year's post that I had reread La Peste last January. I remember pulling Camus of the shelves and his feeling interesting and topical, but still a year ago there was no real sense of what was to come to all of us. At that stage we were watching the news from China and even Italy, but pandemic implications still seemed a distant thing.

MK has an interesting reading project this year. I'm always following everyone else's reading recommendations, so I thought this might help me think of what to read next. Having said that only two out of the three books I managed to read in January can be made to fit a category. I was a bit disappointed that I only read three books in the month, which did feel like a very long month! But I notice from last year's post that I only finished three in January 2020 as well, though maybe we shouldn't ever after use 2020 as much of a yardstick...

I reread Ali Smith's Winter in the New Year. She has been publishing a book a year for four years now, following the seasons, and using one of David Hockney's Yorkshire paintings for each cover. I saw this exhibition of his ages ago at the Guggenheim Bilbao, would you believe. All the way to Spain for a day to see an English's painter's Yorkshire series! Hockney looks at exactly the same scene at different times of the year, reflecting on the influence of the seasons on our daily lives. What a wonderful metaphor for the year we've been in.

Smith is doing much the same thing, ambitiously. Assessing Britain after Brexit in four seasons, in four sets of stories, all of which intertwine with other stories, worded in layers of scintillating, metaphysical word-play that Smith conjures with such a light touch for such erudition. I love her work. I definitely don't understand it all, but she must be the only author I can read and savour without even worrying about what the tranche of landscape hovering over Art's head at the Christmas dinner table means.

And trees. She writes a lot about trees, and I do love her trees. Hockney's too.

Mattman and I both got Richard Osman's new book for Christmas. He had mentioned it shortly before online Christmas shopping crossed its threshold and I silently wrote it on the list in my head. But Prince Charming apparently overheard our conversation and silently wrote it on the list in his head! I've passed my copy on to a maternity leave colleague who had twins last August. She's now at home with three boys under the age of three. It's the perfect book for her - clever and funny, but not at all hard to read. Much less concentration, and time, needed for this one than with Ali Smith!

Osman does something very brilliant with the detective genre, I think. I hardly ever read detective books, though I do fall into glorious binges of Dorothy L. Sayers every now and then. So I'm claiming this for "A book in a genre you don't normally read", even though Osman's intrigue feels very fresh and new. It reads like comedy most of the time, maybe because it's narrated partly by one of the characters through her diary. And you are piecing together the characters as you go, then, working out who you trust or suspect or like or don't. And what a cast of characters! Mostly residents in the most atypical pensioners' community you could imagine. I'm quite sure we have nothing like it here in Northern Ireland! It's a brilliant book really. I think it would satisfy the most meticulous detective reader, while still being very engaging indeed just on a human level for someone like me. There's a wonderful wonderful wonderful relationship between the main retired characters and the two police folk. That's all I'm saying. Read it!

And then because it is quoted in Smith's Winter and because of "A Shakespeare play" I ordered Cymbeline. I'm used to watching or rereading Shakespearean plays with which I am very familiar indeed. This is the first time in more than decades that I've come completely fresh to a new story. And what an amazing story to read! I think this may be my new all time favourite Shakespeare. I couldn't actually work out if it was tragedy or comedy. It has the heroes with the tragic flaws, and is absolutely dark enough to be tragedy. It has the separated children and the disguised noblefolk and the forests of the comedies. And, one of my favourite parts, it has a literal deus ex machina. I'm not going to tell you the end so I can't say more on category, but this was a genuinely edge of my seat, well edge of my bed, experience. I loved it. 

(And on an edge of your seat note - we are currently watching the utterly gripping Designated Survivor on Netflix. Kiefer Sutherland looking the same age as us. We're about to finish series 1 - no spoilers, please!)

So, fine far friends, here we all still are. We've survived January and nearly a year of These Strange Times. I send you much love and many prayers from the frozen north! And here are some more of Hockney's glorious trees: The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire, in 2011 x

Snowswimming

 We finally got snow. Proper snow. Snow enough to make snowmen, throw snowballs and scrunch with satisfaction through bouncy, snowy grass. And so, there was snowswimming! I went on the first morning when the snow was still quite light, but still!