Covid 1

Prince Charming has just emerged from his turret after eleven days of either Omicron or BA.2, who knows anymore? He doesn't have hair long enough to get him down from the window, and the only succour from his princess in shining armour was an occasional tray at the door. He had to shield in the first Lockdown, so we are immensely thankful that pain and tiredness were as serious as it got.

Downstairs life went on, with everything pared back to the bare minimum. Which is lovely enough when the bare minimum still involves heat and light and food and water and quietness on tap. I was chatting to a girl in school today about the news and about where she found her hope. We both agreed that tea is often enough.

You could get annoyed, I suppose, that the best a son could do was your school water flask when a friend leaves you flowers. But then again, here we all are together and the best that we can do at any given moment is all there is, and there's such joy in knowing that you've been given the best that someone can do.

Praying that our Ukranian brothers and sisters will be blessed with the best that friends and families and kind strangers and generous hosts all over Europe can do x
 

A game in two

We are in the Mourne mountains for a few days over half-term. Weather-wise today has definitely been a game in two halves! I have only once in my life been as wet in the hills as we all got today. And that first time was a New Year's Day, not the middle of pretend Spring!

Matt and I turned back and let the tallest and the youngest plough on for a spot of caving. And then as soon as we parted ways, the sun came out to stay!

I thought I'd be here until Wednesday which would give me time to wash and dry all my walking gear before heading to Scotland to stay with two friends, but then a weather warning of strong winds was published and all my outgoing plans fell into disarray.

So in fact I leave tomorrow to fly to an airport still quite far from where I want to be, to catch a train to a town closer to where I want to be, to catch another train to a smaller town much closer to where I want to be, and there, hopefully, will be a friendly face to gather me up!

This will be my first time in an airplane since these times of plague, and Northern Ireland is lifting all its restrictions tomorrow. For a convert to reclusivity, this is a stretch. Thus far x

 

Arboreally ironic

 No, I'm not sure if that is a word either. I'm running out of words, and we're not even into double digits of February. Today's word was 'arboreal' and I knew in my mind that I wanted it to be all about Psalm 1: planted by streams of water, bearing fruit wherever appropriate. But in the back of my mind was the growing panic that after tomorrow, there are only two words on the list (except for one that I'm saving for half-term). 

So, there I was earlier, doodling away about putting my roots down deep into words, knowing fine rightly that I haven't read a thing since January and you can't drink from an empty cup. Isn't that the expression? If somebody has a good word for that, do let me know tout de suite!

So, I am somewhat abashed as I trail upstairs to bed now. And I am taking my Bible and 'Leaving for America' with me. So far in 'Leaving for America' nobody actually goes to America. I'm also beginning to wonder if there really is anybody living next door to his big house, or if there is even a big house at all next door to his big house.

I'm teaching in school at the minute, instead of supporting teaching. Our fourth teacher out of a department of nine has tested positive. I'm a bit slaughtered. You can probably tell. So much for my glorious white space of January. Here's a tree, an aspirational tree, an arboreally ironic aspirational tree. Normal service may be resumed shortly.

Ritual

 I read Gretchen's wonderful post about on rituals late late on Saturday night, but I was so pleased to have her words still echoing in my head as we were gathering for sofa church - we're still attending church virtually for the time being.

Gretchen quotes Sergei Fudel's idea that we lay our rituals before God as expressions of our love. Gretchen, you gave me such encouragement on Sunday morning as I was setting up the room where we do church. We have our usual seats (and get a bit grumpy if someone else gets there first)! We sing, we pray, we listen. But we have our own little additions too, and one of those is having something special to eat. It's usually croissants, but I'd forgotten to order those last week, so (in a fit of generally unexpected energy) I got up in time to make scones. Now, I'm not a great scone maker! But it was a bit of labour of love: for the men here, for the set-apartness that we try to maintain for church.

Over Lockdowns I tried to make a big thing of Sunday lunch as well - there always had to be a proper dessert. I've never had an enormous repertoire there, so I did lots of experimenting with the cook books that are here but seldom used! Now that I'm back at school, there's definitely less culinary organisation but there was a Mary Berry Sticky Toffee Pudding on Sunday. And I was still thinking about all the routines that we can have that make such a difference, no matter how menial or mundane they might be.

I know that there are times of great, obvious and overwhelming blessing, but isn't there such joy too in the things that you need to look for, and carefully appreciate, and be surprised by? I love those moments too. Ways to offer up a small life in small ways to a big God who enlarges us just where we are. Wishing you all lots of beautiful rituals this week - may they bless you, bless your worlds, and please the One who answers us x

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

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 

 

The Ravens

 Since March we have been tuning in to Radio 2 at lunchtimes. There is a clear need for teenage sons to be listening to upbeat music between virtual lessons, rather than my usual (and much loved, except for the dramas) Radio 4. Jeremy Vine has totally helped us get through three Lockdowns now. One of us switches the radio on, while someone else reaches for the kettle, but we all ask, "What's the nation's rant for today?" And we settle down at the kitchen table to listen with glee to all the folk phoning in about crowds in national parks, drones over pharmacy queues, and to date our still collective favourite: the woman complaining about being fined for drinking her tin of Prosecco on a bench while resting in the middle of her daily walk which was so essential to her because of her health issues. If that was you, we're sorry for your troubles.

At the end of last week, we arrived in the middle of a discussion between Mr Vine and raven breeders in England. Apparently, and I don't mean to worry you more than you already are in the middle of These Strange Times, there are only two remaining ravens at the Tower of London. We found this genuinely shocking. What was also shocking was that the iconic Mr Vine claimed never to have known the legend of the ravens. Even we Northern Irish dwellers know that should the ravens ever leave the Tower, well, dear readers, as you know too, the nation will fall.

This is why they apparently have always clipped the wings of the ravens in the Tower's hitherto healthy raven community. (What is the collective noun for ravens? Ang must know!) And I think the Beefeaters have some responsibility for their welfare, since obviously they don't have too many inmates there these days. Although Mr Vine did tell us that he had once been shown a tiny little cell in the Tower with a very lovely Armitage lavatory in the middle of the room. Churchill had the cell earmarked for Hitler, should they have been able to apprehend him. The Geneva Convention states that prisoners of war must have lavatory access, so here, in this tiny little room with bars on the window, was a lavatory fit for a genocidal dictator. The room was not used.

So right now, it seems, they are trying to boost the raven population at the Tower. We wish them every success. Obviously the last thing we need right now is for the ravens to desert us. The image of rats fleeing the sinking ship comes to mind. With Brexit, and plague, and all the worries in our heads, I think we wouldn't be surprised if both ravens flew (or passed) and the nation fell.

I've just finished reading Cymbeline, which uses Wales as a site of mystical enchantment. A place associated with faeries and spirits and also the Arthur legends. So, here's what I'm thinking. If the ravens are going to leave us, maybe the time will be now for Arthur to rise from his hill and come forth to deliver the nation in its time of greatest peril. I've always loved that legend, that Arthur is just waiting for the time when we need him most. I think that legend, going back to the Right Honourable Sir Churchill, was also discussed in the dark days of the second world war.

And surely there are indeed spiritual parallels here? A saviour rising from a hill? A nation saved? These are definitely days for putting our faith in a King.

ps I have just looked up the collective noun for ravens. "Flock" is now most commonly used, but more specifically they can be a rave, a conspiracy, or even a treachery - all of which seem very fitting words for our different approaches to this pandemic. 

pps We visited the Tower one idyllic sunny day in July 2012, just before the opening of the London Olympics. It was wonderful.

pps Guy Ritchie's Arthur: Legend of the Sword is well worth a watch.

edit: Ang's article tells us that there are more than two ravens remaining. All is not, yet, lost!

Nollaig na mBan

I suppose that it's only over my married life that I've gradually discovered the rich tapestry of the church year in different traditions. I grew up in a very evangelical Presbyterian sub-culture at a time in Northern Ireland's Troubled history when looking out of your sub-culture was by no means the norm. So even Advent and Lent weren't part of my first spiritual language.

Epiphany is something I haven't quite known what to do with at all. For years I had already been collecting santons on many trips and holiday camp stints in France, and I adore the idea of ordinary folk in all their professions making their way to the creche alongside the shepherds and the angels and the kings.

Because Prince Charming now works for a French company, I did make a galette des rois last year and sent it in with him for his French colleagues. There was no point in making another one this year, with opportunities to share food together so much a thing of the near but still so distant past!

I think it was just last year as well that I first learned about Nollaig na mBan - celebrated in Ireland on 6th January. In her brilliant RTE article, Marion McGarry explains, "As a reward for their hard work over the Christmas season, it was a day off from all house work for women and traditional roles were supposed to be reversed in the home: men did the women’s work in the house while women rested and gathered together informally."

 "The custom was that women made social calls to the homes of their friends and neighbours and enjoyed tea and the last of the Christmas cake". Photo: George Marks/Getty Images

Epiphany obviously fell on a Wednesday this year, and we are never slow to celebrate anything at Hookery, and indeed what better way to rest and gather as women during a Pandemic than at your weekly crochet (and knitting) Zoom?! In a further stroke of serendipity there were only two small slices of my Christmas cake left, and it did feel nicely symbolic to be polishing those off on the last day of Christmas!

Now, it did turn out to be a significantly more exciting night than we had planned. We gather at 7.30pm, and this was pretty much the time at which the news from the Capitol started to filter through our virtual clouds. Two of our women are absolute news fiends and they were popping in and out with updates from Sky News and CNN. I ran down to the boys, the oldest of whom had just logged in to our church prayer meeting Zoom. 

So there we all were, some of us on this side of the Atlantic celebrating female friends and resting after turkeys and tinsel, some of us on the other side of the Atlantic no doubt even more riveted to your news channels. 

I have absolutely no right whatsoever to comment and won't. I just feel that we are all, political persuasions and all, connected intrinsically. Here in Northern Ireland it baffles me utterly that this is rejected. We are all connected in good times and Covid times and all ages. We have had a very difficult week of school announcements this week, that do not help us at all, and the one thing in my head is gratitude for a God of the ages, all ages.

So, in the "Ordinary" Time starting now after Epiphany, Twelfth Night, Women's Christmas, Little Christmas, and as we all move forward into whatever else this wide world will endure in the year ahead, here's John Donne, with his 1624 devotion on an emergent occasion.

'No Man is an Island' No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Olde English Version No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. MEDITATION XVII Devotions upon Emergent Occasions John Donne

Preparing for Advent 2020

 Every now and again I go on to Instagram to check in on my sons' virtual worlds! I had a browse this afternoon, pretending to myself that I was putting parenting before dishes and not just surfing the waves of procrastination. One of them had posted a picture of our Christmas tree, stating the location as Lapland, North Pole, and announcing, "Here we go again!" I'm not sure if that was typed in a tone of excitement or resignation, but I'm hoping it was more enthusiastic than prematurely cynical! I'm too afraid to ask him.

Now, I know that we have always been very strict about 1st December being the only acceptable first mention of all things Christmas related. This year, however, we have been switching the lights on for days. I think the whole nation feels the need to be at least bright, if jolly is too ambitious. 

We went ahead with our Preparing for Advent morning on Saturday. We put the usual reflection and cookery on to this youtube playlist, but kind and talented folk also gave us musical and skincare videos, and the schools SU worker for our area made us a video about her work. And then we zoomed. Are you feeling jaded with zoom? I don't do more than one a week usually, so the opportunity to connect is still manageable. I was still amazed by this zoom though. Everyone was so open and honest that it felt as if we nearly were all sitting in our circle, listening supportively. It was such a blessing. 

We're not trying to find new ways to do many other traditional things at all. We are going to take a year off planning and parties and panic, and sit as quietly and attentively as we can in this Advent journey to a Covid Christmas. We're grateful for the hope of a vaccine that could mean that it will be just this one bare year. This is the video that I put up. Dedicated to Mary Kathryn, to whom I always mean to send my little Northern Irish accent!

Home in a time of Covid

I'm trying to work out how many months I'd need to go back to get to a time when I wouldn't believe that I'd come home from school one day to pick up the mask cut-outs and get them all sewn up, like some bizarre pandemic version of the Elves and the Shoemaker. Except that there's only me, as presumably the elves would be not very good at self-isolating. This time last year I was also thinking about The Elves and the Shoemaker, but we're definitely into Grimm days now, and not the Ladybird book version. I think it would be only three or four months ago. Back when I thought hoped that Lockdown could last forever! 

I'm using the rest of the Black Watch material to make more masks. My father was very pleased with his yesterday, although he's unlikely to be going anywhere to need it! The fabric looks quite light in today's afternoon sun, but it's actually extremely dark and thus acceptable to the men of my house. Aren't we all very particular about the masks we'll wear, or indeed not wear? They really do seem to be this year's latest fashion accessory. Fat quarters are taking on a whole new role!

Having the big table turned into a mask production line made me think about what home is like now, especially with three of us back in our two schools. Shoes and blazers stay strictly at the front door where we're greeted by a little tomte of hope that a friend made for my birthday in the summer. He tries to be a cheerful little soul. I wonder what conversations he has with the plague doctor though. Do they argue? I do hope not. I bought the little mask many many years ago in Venice. I was on a three city tour of Italy with my brother, zipping between destinations in first class train carriages and glorious heat. It all seems so long ago, not just because it was in fact decades ago, but also it seems now something from The Olden Days when people got on planes and went places! 

Admittedly we did enjoy five days canoeing on and swimming in Lough Erne, in Northern's Ireland's lake county of Fermanagh, in July; and a week walking and climbing in our Mourne mountains in August. So, there are no complaints here about staying home. It is just interesting, isn't it, how quickly life, and our expectations of it, have changed? I know we'll all have either subtly or even dramatically different opinions about that, but here in the Meadowplace, we're happy to keep it small.

I follow a local potter on farcebook - Rachel Julca. During Lockdown she made batches of these pendants. I bought a few for friends who had Lockdown birthdays and for the women with whom I was, and still am, messaging and calling to extend mutual love and support. Two of us were saying just this week, as we discussed whether or not we'd be going physically back to church this month, that we have never once felt devoid of teaching or fellowship over the last six months, and that indeed we have felt more a part of the body of the church in these last few months than in these last few years. I think we have made more of an effort to cleave to each other, as we have cleaved to the faithful loving kindness of God. I'm keeping my pendant up in the kitchen until the Christmas tree goes up, and then it can hang there with all the other keepsake memories that come out to tell their stories at each year's end. 

And really, apart from these few things, inside the house there's not much changed. It is wonderful to come home from school in the afternoon to decontaminate and decompress. Maybe that's the biggest difference now: school clothes come off, masks go into the washing machine, everyone gets scrubbed, and we gather round a table for tea and tales. We are definitely taking more deliberate time to be together and breathe - breathe easily and breathe healthily. I do most sincerely hope that we will all be able to do the same through the next months of These Strange Times, esteemed blogging friends. Thus far has the Lord helped us, Blogland; thus far x

Stables and trees

 

I've been thinking about books this morning. This is a fairly common diversionary tactic for me, but now more than ever is there need for good books! I was listing in my head, as I ate my porridge, the books that were precious to me. I was thinking about Wendy Erskine's Sweet Home with all its illustrations of East Belfast life that manage to be illustrations of lots of life. She signed my copy at the book launch. And she used to be my head of department when I worked in her school. So lots of precious between the covers of that one.

And then I thought of Jostein Gaardner's not quite yet seasonal A Christmas Mystery. Definitely a book I'd want to throw in a bag of books to be saved in the event of a house disaster but obviously after my children (and Prince Charming) were safely out! I was trying to remember the end, and don't read on if it will be a spoiler, but Elisabet wonders what she'll do when all the others' roles are fulfilled and she decides that she'll bow her head under the lintel of the stable door, and she goes in to meet the Christ-child for herself. (Doesn't she?)

It strikes me today how very easy it was for Elisabet and the shepherds and the kings and the everybody to meet Jesus. They didn't have to book their place in advance, worry about how many of them would be inside or about how many households they represented, make sure everybody had a mask, that all hands were sanitised, and that there was enough ventilation. I'm very confident there was enough ventilation.

And what I think about all that is that today it is still very easy to meet Jesus. In fact, God is all over the Internet in these days of online church. Our local church is taking a return to the building very slowly and carefully, but my goodness, what an array of creativity has emerged. From services to a reading of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and amazing resources for all age groups. Prince Charming's Live Worship is there too from our mostly tidy book room! Have a look here, if you have any more time in the day!

We are less than two weeks from the return of schools here in Northern Ireland, and plans are still coming through from our Department of Education. One leading city school has this just this morning announced that face masks will be mandatory to protect staff. We'll all have different opinions of this, but I'll confess this house reassured by any strategies that acknowledge the need to manage fear as much as the virus.

I'm so grateful in These Strange Times that it is still easy to meet God. Easy to lift up His Name. Easy to call on His Name. And so worthwhile, since I do fully believe that history, even covid history, hinges exactly there.

Jeremiah 17:7-8 

But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.

He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.

It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.

It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.

What I've been reading during the Covid Spring and Summer of 2020 when I haven't been blogging

 I had ordered Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light a good while before our Lockdown*, but had been more than slightly daunted by the size of it! I was daunted as well by that fearful anticipation you suffer when the last episode of anything comes out, and this one had been so very long awaited! It turned out however to be the perfect Lockdown read: long, consuming and a very good place to hide during my early Lockdown very sleepless nights. Not that I'm sure the court of Henry Tudor would have been a good place to hide at any time of the day, as dear old TC did indeed find out. Why couldn't he have just retired to Launde? It reminded me of the very little that I recall from my English degree - the idea of the overreacher in literature from around that time. How do you know when much is too much? Tome though it was, this much of Mantel is definitely not too much. I thought she closed the saga beautifully. Thank you, Hilary. It was worth the wait.

 I read Ali Smith's Spring just before Lockdown, but brought it to my At Home At Hay digital festival week because Smith was one of the many fabulous events that I had booked to stream from my makeshift festival tent. Instead of the usual conversation that other authors set up with the very serious Peter Florence, the sparklingly original Smith shared an extraordinary film of still images narrated by that scintillating word play that lights up all her work. An absolute gift of thirty minutes exploring the "and" of these covid times. Up until the film I had been thinking what a broadside covid had been since the seasons books are being written in real Brexit time, but not quite real enough for covid. Smith is obviously not so easily defeated. I'm not sure if the film is available anywhere yet, but it's worth looking out for. And after all those blissful events in my bookish haven, what did I read first out of all the erudite discoveries from this monarch of literary festivals? Pyramids by Terry Pratchett as recommended by the classicist Stephen Fry himself!

 My boss brought me two books when we had a socially distanced cuppa in the garden as soon as that was allowed back in early summer. I read Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens first. Sad; beautifully sad; but sad. I was slightly distracted by the changes in pace. Measured, gentle telling of the first chapters. Then into the segmented sequences of crime and detection. Then all of a rush of the rest. Glorious twists and turns and eddies and roars. And achingly sad. I posted the Crawdads to Catherine in Glasgow. My boss is religious about recycling.

By which time homeschool was out for summer, and they opened self-catering accommodation and the National Trust rang us to say we could after all have our lakeside cottage for four nights at the start of July and we went. Feeling very brave despite the fact that we took everything we could possibly need in the way of food and all else to obviate the need to visit a shop. I took my Boss' second book, as she reassured me that this would not have me in a constant state of tension. She was wrong. Where Crawdads was sad but beautifully sad sad, Kate Atkinson's Big Sky is depressing, but interestingly depressing. Admittedly it does turn out to significantly less distressing than you fear and from the little I know of her work, Atkinson does write the most eloquent detective fiction I've come across. I read When Will There Be Good News because it was intriguingly on the A-Level Literature syllabus. Jackson Brodie, interesting guy, and the nanny from WWTBGN is one of the main characters in Big Sky, so there was enough of a continuity to intrigue. Also interesting, and mostly very accurate, commentary on National Trust members like us.

I left Big Sky in the cottage with other novels that previous guests had left behind. I thought my Boss would approve, and sent her this picture to tell her that I was exchanging her book for a German novel. I have a German-teaching, Germanophile friend who would appreciate a German read, I thought. I am still wondering if that lies within the etiquette of holiday cottage stays. I somewhere reasoned that there really couldn't be that many German-speakers booked into deepest, darkest, wettest Fermanagh this summer?

 And here we are, moving inextricably towards whatever level of normal the Assembly wants us to reach. And I am reading Bill Bryson's The Body: a guide for occupants. I'm missing the rip-roaringly laugh-out-loud-in-public funny of Notes from a Small Island, but then since I'm not much back in public yet, that's ok.

 This is next on the pile of To Be Read, and it's an ambitious pile because of Hay "purchases" and having had a birthday. I don't know how you're feeling right now, or what sort of a boat you're using to sail through this same storm that we're all apparently in. I'm a bit fed up with that image, to be honest. All the different boats seem to do is either sail too close to each other just to try to sink that sort of a nonsense fearful excuse for a vessel, or sail circuitous routes around anyone approaching in that silent ballet that we've been dancing round each other for four months now. I'm in the second boat. Don't rock it! Apparently Bernardine Evaristo's Girl Woman Other is utterly devoid of punctuation to make it easier to swim into. I'd be happy enough to swim through the rest of this storm as hardily as I can if the sea could be utterly devoid of boats at all.

I have learnt one thing from Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, in all these months. The word egregious. He used it last week and I will confess that I had to look it up. Isn't it interesting that the archaic meaning is the complete opposite of what it means now. That seemed to me to be a better image for These Strange Times than boats. I know how shockingly bad these months have been for many of us, maybe most of us; but for us here, they were most remarkably good. And that does indeed feel archaic now, as we inch our way slowly and quietly out on to The Other Side.


*Lockdown for us started on Thursday 19th March which was the boys' first day of school being closed, earlier than the blanket closing from London as schools here began moving teacher training days to that week in the expectation of the inevitable announcement. Prince Charming started working from home two weeks later, and we have spent four months now healthy, with everything we need, privileged with space and digital devices and wifi enough for four sets of online needs. It has been remarkably good indeed. I do most sincerely hope that you and your families have all found happiness and health in the midst of your circumstances.