Saturday 22nd February - easy day

 I was going to write 'lazy day' in the title but that's so judgemental, so negative. Anyway, who decides when I am taking it easy or being lazy? I'm taking it easy.

So what's easy?

The chicken in tomato sauce we had for lunch the other day; a tub of fresh tomato and vegetable pasta sauce from the supermarket, some leftover cooked chicken, a handful each of frozen peas and sweetcorn heated up together in the microwave while the pasta was cooking in the saucepan. Minimal washing up too.

I know I could have made my own sauce - sweat some onion and garlic and celery in a little olive oil, add a tin of tomatoes or passatta, season, simmer, check the seasoning and consistency... that's easy enough, but not the same as taking it easy.

Sardines on toast for supper (again, but I'm not complaining!)

Or even quicker, soup and toast...

....

I have been reading. 

I've started rereading Helene Hanff' 84 Charing Cross Road; the lively correspondence between HH in New York and a secondhand bookshop in the Charing Cross Road beginning around 1950.

Back in 1975 I was sent a list of music that I should have for the Romantic Piano Music module for the first year of my university course. Like a complete innocent I believed what they had written and was horrified; there were about 30 items of music and books. A music student friend took me to Charing Cross Road and we went up and down and in and out of the shops buying everything secondhand. I didn't know that this was possible! We had a great day, and I took a heavy suitcase of mostly books on the train to university. (My trunk followed on via Red Star parcels).

Ah, memories....

I'm also dipping in and out ofa children's/young adult book called 'My Name is Mina' by David Almond (of 'Skellig' fame; I've not read that yet). It's.... different..... I  have the feeling that Mina's rambling journal entries will become a more cohesive narrative as the story develops.

..... 

Maybe tomorrow I'll get on and do things... maybe I won't....

....

The next line of the poem is 'The six- days world transposing in an hour, '

The helpful website I've been using pivots around making good Christians of its readers, and so suggests that we could cause a great change to the world around us if we all spent an hour in prayer. I struggle to spend 10 minutes in prayer, so that's not so encouraging. Taking that view I doubt I'll be making any difference to anyone or anything!

This article by Malcolm Guite in the Church Times has a different approach; that the time in church on a Sunday is an hour well-spent, in recharging between the week that's past, and the week to come.

I went looking for something that would suggest a busy week, but end in calmness, a chance to wind down, take stock, ready to meet whatever the coming week would bring.

Here's the first movement of Sibelius' Karelia Suite. Lovely video as well.