Friday 27th February - progress on several fronts...

Cake; I've started a Nigella Bara Brith. Her recipe takes a few days from making the tea to soak the fruit, to making a pot of tea to accompany a slice. Today the fruit, sugar, mixed spice and tea is all soaking. Tomorrow I add the SR flour and egg and cook it, and glaze it with a little runny honey. Then, says Nigella, you should wait two days before you eat it! So that can be a Sunday afternoon treat. 

I think I'll have to make another cake to have a in the meantime. I'm debating between my yoghurt cake recipe, perhaps flavoured with ginger and marmalade.... or a lemon drizzle version.... decisions, decisions...

I've been working on the first patch for my QAYG quilt. Or I could call it a LAIG quilt... for Learn As I Go...

Finished?

Hmm... perhaps a little more...

Finished! This one is almost all running stitch. I don't love it... but it will be one of many so that's fine.

Lunch was another 'Nigella',  a version of her sardine and spaghetti recipe. I added extra veg; chopped red pepper, celery,  sundried tomatoes, and broccoli. With pasta wriggles instead of spaghetti. Pasta wriggles are easier to eat! But spaghetti actually works better.

The afternoon was admin, the sort I detest; s anning in stuff, copying stuff, filing stuff, emailing stuff. Huh. Grump. Whinge. Whine.

BB walked round to the corner shop for something and came back with a little tube of smarties for me!

So I was in a positive and cheerful mood to start teaching an arrangement of Danny Boy to a piano student- it was a good lesson!

Tuesday 24th February - three events today - that's enough!

 So far today I've managed to keep to the 8dea of just three 'events' in one day...

First; meeting the estate agent at my father’s flat.

Second; joy oh joy oh joy - my first real walk of the tear! After the meeting we drove to Nymans Gardens. The weather is properly spring-like today at long last.

We braved the queues in the café and emerged with drinks and pasties, and sat outside in the sunshine in a sheltered corner. The café was sufficiently busy that we both wore masks - it must be obvious to any passers-by why we consider it necessary if they saw the oxygen cylinders we wore like backpacks! (One for now, one for later).

There was an unruly gaggle of rooks keeping an eye out for opportunistic snackery... they sort of crash about from one tree to the next in the heedless way groups of young people do when they are out for a 'jolly'.

I walked a small loop around the gardens. There were quite a few couples around, mostly, it seemed to me, out for their first dodder along the paths 8n the sunshine. None of us (apart from our minders!) looked altogether steady on our feet and a fair number were propped up with sticks and rollators. 

Still, we staggered along; I felt as though I ought to be handing out rosettes for effort!

Here's what we might have seen as we ambled round;

I was glad to get back to the car; yes, I was breathless, but it was my knees and hips and legs that were protesting at all this new activity after months of staying mostly indoors.  I'll have to make a point of going out when the weather is good.

Later today it will be time for the third event; a preliminary site visit by the company I hope will do the groundworks for the extension at the back of our house. Early stages, early stages...

I was searching youtube for something Spring-like' but found this instead. Fair dos, a good many bloggers that I follow are still living in the depths of winter with spring weather some way off.

John Field, Nocturne in E minor played by Alice Sarah Ott.

Monday 23rd February - this and that

 52 ways to calm your mind; this week it is 'prepare ahead' - specifically 

lay out your clothes the night before - that's easy, it's pretty much the same as yesterday but clean vest and underwear, and clean top and trousers if that seems good. I chuck dirty clothes into the laundry basket at night, and drape the rest of the clothes over the bedpost - an improvement from dropping on the floor!

prep your lunch the night before - that's more for the packed lunch brigade than me, although it's helpful if I've got something out of the freezer the night before. Talking of which.... excuse me for a moment... I'll just get out the pork mince for meatballs tomorrow

Well do I remember those school/work packed lunch days of yore... four lunch boxes, each with ham or cheese salad sandwiches, carrot sticks, frozen frube (do they still make them?), piece of fruit, small piece of frozen cake wrapped in greaseproof paper, packet of crisps, water bottle and mini chocolate treat. That did for break time, lunch, coming home on the bus... plus, when BB was doing really heavy work in the warehouse between jobs, he needed several slabs of bread pudding to get the calories in. He lost so much weight in the first couple of weeks it was alarming! We were all out for quite a time, with travelling, after school clubs, commuting, overtime and so on.

I went back through my photo file to find a spring picture for the blog header; the autumn leaves have been up for far too long! Our local National Trust garden usually has a display of which flowers are out in the gardens. This is what was around in the middle of March 2020, days before the official lockdown for Covid;

    

 

I selected part of the picture with the pink camellia. Spring. Must be coming closer, surely?

The stitchbook saga continues; I had a reply offering me £4 and saying I could keep the book. I've sent a polite but robust response insisting they sent me the full cost, and if they want the book, the return postage as well. So far, silence. so here's another extract to delight you;

Here's my mock up of what a 5 inch QAYG square might look like;

I haven't done any sample stitching in the centre... yet. Five inch square are definitely a better size. I haven't dared work out how many I will need! The real stitch sample squares (that's a mouthful) will have grey and white centres. If I stick with the original plan. Slippery things, plans.

    

Sunday 22nd February - 1st Sunday in Lent

Wikipedia, creative commons

 In some Christian traditions the Sundays in Lent are seen as 'Little Easters' and therefore a break from fasting.  So although the elapsed time in Lent is 47 days, there are only 40 fasting days, reflecting Christ's 40 days in the wilderness after his Baptism. 

The Lent course I read every day written by Andrew Dotchin always takes a break on Sundays. I don't know if he takes a break too!

I'm on the fence here. I haven't given up chocolate or biscuits; but I guess I shouldn't take a break from being kind, thoughtful, considerate, prayerful! So I'll stick with keeping my Lent resolutions on Sundays.

I'm pondering the sort of things that would make a '52 tiny changes to improve your Christian life', rather in the line of the '52 tiny changes to quiet your mind' book by Kelly Dugger. They would really have to be tiny... nothing too strenuous like 'get up at 5am so you can read and study and prayer for 2 hours every morning', for example! That's SO not never ever going to happen in my life.

Let's try anyway, maybe just one tiny change for each Sunday in Lent.

Change no 1

Sometimes I say a prayer before meals, sometimes I don't.

I've got a huge collection of graces from the comments to a blogpost last year. Now I'll try and say grace more consistently. Sometime soon I'll track back through the comments and gather them together. 

 (I forgot today before getting stuck into my porridge. Never mind, lunch and supper will give me two more chances to remember).

Saturday 21st (I think) February - running

Don't get excited... not real running,... I can't remember when I last ran about a dozen steps, and that was on a downhill gradient! Although sometimes I do manage a brief moment of trotting on the spot.

Today has been a mix of running quite fast just to stay still... 🙃 I think Ang called it a 'cascade of tasks'. 

Going to find some paperwork I managed to tip my sewing tin onto the floor; trying to put the paperwork away (I did find the Grant of Probate in quite a sensible place) I ended up tidying and sorting a couple of shelves of filing...

and I've shoved everything back into the sewing tin....

Going to cook lunch I discovered some alien slime in the bottom of one of the fridge drawers hiding under the potatoes (ok, ok, should have cleaned the drawers earlier in the week, how time flies when you're not paying attention)... 

said drawer is all nice and clean, the veg is washed and dried and back in the fridge...

and I carried on with cooking lunch at the same time...

After lunch I did one of the planned jobs for the day; Three packages ready for posting, each with appropriate contents (including 10 pages copied and pasted and printed from the Internet for a friend who doesn't have a computer) and a quick note in each package... 

But the afternoon was really taken up with running with my current obsession; The Stitch Sampler. 

I sat there with notebook and pen and thought and sketched and came up with this;

I'm currently interested in Quilt as you Go as an 'as and when' portable project. So combining QAYG with the stitch sampler seemed like an idea worth exploring. 

It might come to nothing,  but it's a thought. Using an old duvet cover which has grey and white striped fabric for the sampler side, and the reverse of the quilt with a grey and white swirly pattern for the backing/border should work. The stripes will help me organise the stitches neat(ish)ly.

I've got a retired mattress protector to cut into wadding squares.

Here's how I think it might work; (Ang will notice I've corrected the number of squares the I'llneed; sums was nevermy strong point in spiteof doing maths at university!)

So here I am at half past eight, with half an eye on the men's curling final wondering where the day went!

Friday 20th February - learning through Experience

 Over the past couple of months it's become  more and more obvious that I need to be more considered in how I expend my energy through the day. Otherwise 'getting things done' in the morning results in me turning into a flopped heap all afternoon!

As part of cutting myself some slack at the moment, I'm not moving heaven and earth to blog every day, which is why I'm missing a day from time to time.

One almost non-negotiable, however, is to try to achieve a figure of 2000 on my step counter, however I arrive at it - chopping veg, playing the piano, walking, or just marching on the spot.

My 'journey' from Nazareth to Jerusalem has moved along a couple of miles. The view isn't very spectacular, much as I expected as I appear to be travelling along a main road, with no view points or places of interest. I don't expect these hills have changed much in 2000 years,

but the other side of the road is certainly modern!

.....

About that learning from experience;

I've learned a useful lesson from getting the crazy stitch book.

 I already follow the blogs pintangle.com and stitching life.uk, and it seems to me that all I need to do is get a piece of fabric and some threads and a few bits and pieces from stash and make a start. 

Pintangle teaches all the stitches in the free weekly 'tast' - take a stitch Tuesday -  posts, and 'The Stitching Life' gives a framework for creating a piece of daily stitching.  

By buying a book or a kit I'm just being lazy and buying stuff I don't really need, and that ultimately is not what is good for me.

I think at some stage soon I'll assemble a few bits and pieces in my (yet to be created) 'analogue bag' of pick up and go crafts to do my own, as-and-when, rather than daily, sampler.

Right. Now to finish today's 2000 steps along my virtual journey and see where that takes me!

Wednesday 18th February

The oak tree at the bottom of the garden

Yesterday was bright and sunny, appropriate for Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Carnival day. Also good, because it was dry, and not too cold. 

Today is a complete change, cold, grey and raining. Very suitable for Ash Wednesday!

For Lent, I've decided to follow 'The Jesus Trail' on the Conqueror virtual walking app. It's a 39 mile route around the places Jesus would have known, although 2000 years have changed most of them beyond recognition, thinking about it!

This is the church of the Annunciation in Nazareth where the Angel came to Mary with the message that she was going to bear a son... how hot and sunny it looks! This is where the route begins... this church was built much later, of course.

....

I succumbed and sent off for this stitchbook, sold by hobbyart.uk

It's been appearing on my newsfeed for ages. I watched the price come down, and eventually I chose the small book. It's a dinky little thing and I wanted to love it. Each page is set up to be stitched as a sampler of all kinds of embroidery stitches, something to go into an 'analogue bag' along with some needles, thread and thread cutter.

BUT, and it's a huge issue, every page, every single page, is solid with spelling mistakes. What is going on? How could this happen? So, sadly, I'm going to request a refund. 

Ah well. I did consider trying to make my own version, but I think I really don't want to invest that much time and effort. 

Some reflective music for Ash Wednesday... Andras Schiff playing the slow movement from the Italian Concerto by JSBach.

Monday 16th February - I do love a

great flashmob;

Waltz no 2, Shostakovitch 

I've never had the luck to experience a flash mob... one day, some day...

Meanwhile we're half way through February, it's been sunny all day, and we're set for over 8 hours of daylight now.

I've been designing my 'cooking area' this morning before we start creating next level plans with the architect overseeing the whole project.

My cousin's dishwasher is actually two pullout drawers under her draining board - wowsers!

You can get them with just the top drawer or with two drawers.

If you have two drawers they can be operated separately. So we'd fill the top drawer with a small load, no more stooping down to stack and empty the bottom rack. But there's always a cost... mega ££££. One can dream.

(My elderly neighbour tripped over the open door of her dishwasher, gashed her leg and 

scroll quickly away now if you are of a sensitive nature

 and there was blood everywhere. So I'm always careful how I move around ours when it's open.)

On a more cheerful note;

Einsame Blumen, Schumacher op 82, played by Mitsuko Ochida.

Apropos of nothing at all, my mother always wore 'Mitsuko' perfume...

Saturday 14th February - 52 tiny changes week 6

What happened to weeks 2, 3, 4 and 5? I had done week 2, but maybe not shared it.

There's more to each chapter than the bald suggestion; I find KDs additional ideas, suggestions on how to implement it, explanations and prompts very helpful. 

Unsubscribe as you go - in other words, unsubscribe from newsletter type emails you are no longer interested in receiving as they come into your inbox. You know the sort of thing; 'subscribe to get 10% off'. Then it's everlasting special offers...

But as for weeks 3, 4 and 5...

'Write it down'; choose a single place for lists and things you want to remember  - note book or phone app or whatever and stick to it. 

'One task at a time'; quit multitasking - it isn't actually more efficient most of the time.

'Mute the background'; either you're watching it, or listening to it, ot you're not. Even if you think it's just in the background, the sounds/music/changes still grab our attention. 

So I'm trying to catch up on these. Either I'm watching a programme or listening to sonething, or I switch it off (unless someone else wants to watch of). No more scrolling or reading or playing games at the same time. (The exceptions are straightforward knitting and simple sewing)

This week it is

'Declutter one surface that you see or use every day and commit to keepingit that way'. Was she reading my mind? I was getting close to The End Of My Tether because of four surfaces in particular. 

The dining room table (perennial one, this). The last time I cleared it in a hurry, I  should add, I did so by piling everything up on my worktable. So now neither were usable. The same could be said of my swivel table and footstool.

I'm now relaxing, with a pot of tea, in a glow of satisfaction and calm having cleated All Four Surfaces. I'm officially an over-achiever! It didn't take long. So why did I avoid doing it before, and will I be able to keep them clear (shaking my head)

These are the 'after' pictures.

Relaxing music

'Somewhere near Cluj' from  the anthology Spectrum2, 

Friday 13th February - flowers, flowers and more flowers

On Tuesday I got some daffodils included in my grocery order;

At lunchtime the postman delivered a little postman from Flowerbee. BB gave me a monthly subscription for Christmas, arriving on or about the 15th of the month. I found a little bone china miniature tankard for the short-stemmed trimmings - I hate throwing them away.

And finally I had a surprise delivery...

There are chocolates as well! The keen eyed might spot there are only eleven roses, sadly one didn't survive the transit. These are already beginning to open up.

Outside has been.... cold and damp...  while we were eating breakfast we watched a mist suddenly appear, rising up from the nearby stream and drifting across the garden, and then just as mysteriously disappering. It didn't start raining until about 4 pm though.

I'm fiddling around with a new poem...

In the grey damp February 

Everyone made moan,

Earth was wet and squelchy

And the sun never shone.

I think it needs a bit of work...

Now for another chocolate

Thursday 12th February - Spring is on the way?

 Spotted in a road a few streets away from us;

I sort of hope the flowers will survive in their new flowerbed. Or perhaps  they can be transplanted if the road menders come to fill the pot hole.

They are are cheery sight on yet another grey day.

Tuesday 10th February - cooking and Shakespeare

 Thank you all very much for your helpful comments yesterday. I shall make notes; you've all given me a lot to think about. I'll reply soon.

It's been an 'interesting' and tiring morning, which means I've been taking it very this afternoon. I had a routine zoom consultation with a consultant at the ILD (interstitial lung disease) clinic to review the results of the lung function tests I did at the end of January. Broadly speaking I have stabilised at this new (lower) level after dipping noticeably at the beginning of 2024, so that's good news.

So, instead of an interesting post, may I offer two wonderful performances of Shakespeare; Dame Judi Dench on a Graham Norton show 2 years ago;

And, most amazingly, Sir Ian McKellen on a chat show in the USA a few nights ago!

They deliver the words with such clarity of meaning. If only I had known it could be like this when I was slogging through Shakespeare in boring, boring English lessons at school...

I loved Dame Judi's book 'Shakespeare,  the man who pays the rent'. It's fantastic to read, even better to listen to as an audiobook. So 'unstuffy', so real.

Monday 9th February - asking your opinion...

 We're in the process of doing a comprehensive cooking area (excuse me for not using the k*t*h*n word as I do not want an inundation of advertising comments from b*ts!). The current arrangement dates back to about 40 years ago and at long last we have the chance for a big rethink.

I'd like to swap out our freestanding induction hob cooker for a separate hob and oven, and I'm wondering if anyone has experience of using a counter-top oven, as opposed to a built in one? It just struck me that this might be a cheaper, and in many ways better option to putting in a built-in oven.

I've been observing how we cook. I reckon I only regularly use two of the hobs, plus the main oven, and the air fryer and microwave. Oh, and the kettle and coffee machine and toaster, of course. We also use crock pot and bread maker a couple of times a week.

What appliances do you like using for cooking?  Which never see the light of day? 

I'm planning to have a shallow pantry cupboard somewhere so that I don't have to delve into the dark recesses to see what tins and packets are lurking at the back, and a carousel for the corner, and drawers  for pans instead cupboards. Any other suggestions? 

Here's the 'March Past of the Kitchen Utensils' by Vaughan Williams.

When I was teaching class music primary schools the children used to love listening to this - it's a great exercise in keeping up with counting the beats, because the sudden loud chords follow a regular pattern of 8s and 7s. (I've forgotten the pattern but it's easy enough to work it out). Once they'd got the hang of it I could dish out drums and cymbals etc and we could all play along, trying to add our own crashes at the right moment! 

 

Sunday 8th February - this multicoloured life

Cilla Black singing  'I can sing a rainbow ' (if you are one of the people who dislike this song because it isn't a proper rainbow, please just, skip past! I happen to like it, and anyway those colours have all appeared in my knitting!)

Every page in my diary this month has complaints about grey, damp, dreary, wet, dreich weather. However if I look back over this week, it has been full of bright rainbow colours.

The slippers I made.

The 2By2 patch Ang did;

This one's Ang's, she sent me a  Ark, which might be more appropriate considering the amount of rain we've had so far this year. We drove over to Midhurst for tea with 'the children' (what do you call them when they are fully adults?) and the River Arun had filled the fields on both sides.

I've persuaded myself to start sewing up my rainbow cardigan. Remember this?

(My original plan was to finish it in time for Christmas...)

I shared this prayer with Ang because I thought it fitted in with our collaborations so well;

O living God, draw all the fragments of my life into the bright mosaic of your love;

weave all the tangled threads of my desires into the tapestry you are spreading, like a rainbow, on the loom of the world;

and help me celebrate the many facets and the dazzling colours of your peace.

 It's written by Julie M. Hulme, no 72 in '1000 prayers' collected by Angela Ashwin.

Ang has posted a truly beautiful version on her blog! I'm very tempted to print it out to keep a copy.

What really caught my attention was the final phrase - 'the dazzling colours of your peace'. Now that is something new to think about; I've always used soft, gentle, pastel colours in my mind when considering the idea of 'peace'.

I'm taking a day or so to think through and consider each line in turn.

Saturday 7th February - cooking and footwear

 I've been winter batch cooking. The freezer is full to bursting but it's all that needs cooking, are there have been so many days recently when summoning up the energy to create a meal from scratch has seemed like too much.

The local corner shop has a COOK freezer selling delicious ready-meals - a terrible temptation! But we can't keep succumbing to it's siren call.

Now I have a winter beef casserole to add to a bacon and pepper pasta sauce and I'm feeling a little bit virtuous. I've also made several portions of winter veg and lentil soup for evening meals. Now I'm feeling even more virtuous! The bonus is that all the chopping up of carrots and celery and onion somehow adds to my step count... what a win!

.....

Here are the finished slipper socks. But not on my feet... the yarn was thicker than the one I used before and they are just a bit too big. I gave them to a friend and she says they are a good fit. She sent me this picture, and said I could share it... they are certainly bright. Much easier to find than my old drab ones.

Did anyone, does*** anyone follow the FlyLady? She was/is a cleaning supremo. When I followed her, many years ago, it seemed her mission was to inspire people who were despairing of every getting on top of cleaning and tidying and clearing up their houses. I couldn't keep up and abandoned her checklists and methods. But I do remember her insistence on putting on proper lace up shoes when you get up.

 *** see Ang's comment below, I'm clearly quite behind the times regarding Flylady.  

If you flop around barefoot or in socks or slippers all day, she said, it's harder to motivate yourself to put out the rubbish, or do any outdoor jobs. 

Well, these past few days I've been wearing slippers with proper rubber soles, and yes, it's so much easier to get past the door step and into the garden, even if it's just a yard or two. Maybe I'll hold off getting started on a new pair of slipper socks for now.

Friday 6th February - Rainbows!

 There was one, honest, for about 5 minutes in a short break in the otherwise endless rain today. What a gift.

I can post my final 2By2 stitch now, since I know Ang received it yesterday.

I've sent Ang the right hand one, obviously! I was so excited when I had the idea of doing a nine-patch quilt that I got going straight away. I've recently read 'The House of Silence' by Linda Gillard, and quilts are a feature of the story. One of the unmarried sisters living at a vast, decaying mansion on the bleak East Anglian fens makes endless quilts, including a postage stamp quilt, double bed sized. Imagine it... each patch is the size of an old-fashioned postage stamp.

The advantage is that you only need very small scraps of fabrics, and squares are so much easier to paper piece than hexagons.

I've ysed all the fabrics in previous collaborations except for the 'joy' patch. 

Reading left to right, starting at the top;

A recent Christmas choice, a postage stamp print to represent trips to the post box, some Japanese style flowers, 

Another Japanese flower, 'joy' from a Christmas print, which is what these collaborations mean to mem and a batik print from the last collaboration 

Time spent on the collaborations (a print sent to me by Ang), a Christmas print which I used as the basis for 'Spring' last time, and a print with writing to represent our correspondence. 

I pieced the first patch over felt squares which I've left in. It came out rather wonky! The second one is done the traditional way, except I've used thin card instead of paper. 

Ang and I have started arranging and stitching them. This is where I've got to;

I'm ending with another rainbow, from Ang's 'Noah's Ark piece;

Wednesday 4th February - Sunshine!

 Sunshine in my heart... the postman has been delivering wonderful things yesterday and today.

A postcard of a favourite NT garden came yesterday; a sunny scene on a rainy day... thank you! 

And today a notebook swap from a friend - must post mine to her tomorrow, and a box of delight from Ang; this is her 2by2 stitching in her own words;

I'm in awe of the blacksmith, and also of Ang's piece. Isn't is beautiful 😍 

I'll post mine tomorrow when I'm sure Ang has received it.

Today we were blessed with a sunny day, the last until bext week if the weather forecast is to ge believed. I stood on the door step and gazed at the blue sky, noticing the leaves of the bulbs appearing, a few crocuses and the last of our snowdrops. Next-door's daphne wax wafting a lovely fragrance over the fence.

This recording of Dinu Lipatti's last recital at the Besançon Festival is so well known to ne. My mother played it all the time when I was little, and later when she was in hospital she just played it through her headphones on repeat. Schubert's Gflat major impromptu,  preceded by sone 'preluding'

Tuesday 3rd February - beauty and books

 Frittering away a bit of time on YouTube I came across this

'O salutaris hostia' by Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds, sung by Voces8. 

TEXT

O salutaris hostia,

Quæ cæli pandis ostium:

Bella premunt hostilia,

Da robur, fer auxilium.

Uni trinoque Domino,

Sit sempiterna gloria,

Qui vitam sine termino,

Nobis donet in patria.

Amen.

TRANSLATION

O saving victim,

Who opens the gate of heaven:

Hostile wars press upon us,

Give strength, bring aid.

To the one and triune Lord,

May there be eternal glory,

Who gives us life without end,

In our heavenly homeland.

Amen.

Just, just glorious. Even without the video you can hear the joy in the sound.

I've finished reading 'The Egg and I" by Betty MacDonald. I got it because of a mention in Jane Brocket's newsletter (you can follow her on substack') two Sundays ago. It's an account of the first years of her marriage to a marine who decided to be a chicken farmer, and bought an old farm up in the mountains in the Puget Sound area. It's back in what must be the 1930s, there's no running water or electricity. Be warned though, she has a shocking opinion of the native Americans living nearby. I hope things gave changed since then... it's a very backwards, backwoods community. Some of her stories are hair-raising, others plain hilarious. 

I'm now about to start Brian Bilston's "Diary of a Nobody", and I've also been dipping in and out of "My Family and other Animals" by Gerald Durrell for a bit of sunshine, for there sure ain't any change in the weather round hereabouts!

Monday 2nd February - here we go!

New month, new moon, (we should really call it the Rain Moon, not the Snow Moon), new week...

Same weather, same routine, 

It's quite reassuring, I suppose, when life is just a series small surprises, rather than humongous upheavals.

Today's happy little surprises; listening to the dawn chorus while I was having a bath this morning as it was still dark at about 7.30, and spotting daffodils are for sale on Ocado. 

That will do me nicely.

Snow, Moon, Flowers by Peter Sculthorpe, played by Jill Morton

Sunday 1st February - Candlemas

 The actual date of Candlemas is 2nd February and there are many traditions associated with it. 

This picture is hauntingly familiar to me. I managed to track it down to a book called 'My Book of the Church Year' by Enid Chadwick and Peter Kwasiewski, written in 1948. Did I have a copy as a child? Grandmother might have had one, but it's published too late for her children, all born in the 1920s and early 1930s. A mystery.

All the people in my family who could have shed any light on it are now sadly gone. You can find the whole book and all the charming illustrations here.

It's the day for particularly remembering when Jesus was brought to be presented at the temple by Mary and Joseph as their firstborn child.

Simenon, a very old prophet says, 

 Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word.

For mine eyes have seen thy salvation;

Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;

To be a light to lighten the Gentile and to be the glory of thy people Israel.

(Luke chapter 2, verses 29-32)

This brings me straight back to the phrase I have chosen to sustain me through the year;

'Arise! Shine! For the light has come into the world, and the glory of the Lord is upon us'