Sunday 23rd February - a steady Sunday, ready for Monday

I've had a pretty relaxing weekend, gathering myself ready for the week to come.

I opened a packet that came through the post yesterday; my new medal has arrived

I completed the Conquer Event Challenge to walk the Camino de Santiago  - 480 miles - which I started back on 23rd November 2023. It's taken me a year and a quarter, at around 2000 steps on my wrist tracker per day. My tracker reckons that 2000 steps equals a mile.

Obviously it's a virtual challenge! It's been interesting to follow my track on the map which also allows me to gave a look around at the scenery using Google Street View.

I'm now two miles along the Jurassic Coast trail; I've reached Sandy Bay, a not-so-picturesque view of uniform holiday lodges laid out in rows above the beach and sea. Still, the weather looks better in the street view there than it is here today; the holiday-makers are in swimming things, t shirts, shorts, sun-hats. A reminder of the warmer weather to come.

.....

One of the books I'm dipping in an out of is by the concert pianist Jeremy Denk 'Every Good Boy Does Fine'

It's part memoir, part teaching about the inner workings of music, part a revelation of how JD began to reach for the soul of music, beyond the notes, and beyond the technique.

Each chapter is headed by a list of the music that is referenced so I'm listening to a whole load of music that is new to me and appreciating it in new ways.

.......

Beth, thank you for introducing me to Keith Jarrett's Koln concert. There's a BBCSounds podcast on the concert in the Artworks series which I found fascinating. How come I never heard of it before?

All this listening as well as thinking about the poem and finding the some music for the next line!

.....

I find myself thinking over the whole poem when I'm awake at night. Last night I was annoyed to find I couldn't remember 'the soul in paraphrase'... I  hope I've got the memory safe now.

The line for today was very appropriate; 'the six-days world transposing in an hour' for a Sunday.

Now, for Monday; 'A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;'

So where, maybe in Proverbs, maybe in Job, there's a verse that goes 'the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom '. I'm not sure that this is about the kind of fear that makes one terrified, scared out of your wits, petrified, sick, but fear as in awe, wonder, respect.

I've chosen something composed by Hildegard of Bingen, from the 12th Century, called 'O Power of Wisdom'.