Jane and I were up very early yesterday to walk to nearby Dishley Pool for a dawn chorus walk led by the RSPB. Compared to later in the day, the weather was glorious and the brightening sky was wonderfully clear. However it was really about what you could hear so I was listening hard.
As expected, there was a lot of bird song. I’m not great at identifying a whole host of birds by their calls and songs but it is lovely to listen to. There were also human voices. The group was quite large and a lot of people wanted to talk to others to find out information about what they were hearing. I tended to stay a little distance from the main group and I noted how little distance human voices travel compared to the bird calls.
It was, however, apparent how far other human generated noises travel. It wasn’t until we got near the banks of the River Soar that car noises from the A6 and M1 receded enough to not be obvious and part of the masking was not from distance and trees but because of other noises from the industrial plants located in that area. To misquote Marvell, at my back I always hear the infernal motorway rumbling near!
Over the past couple of days, I’ve slowly made further progress on the polytunnel – the ventilation screen yesterday, finishing battening down the covering and starting to bury some of the skirts today and, still to come, the important step of getting the doors fitted.
We are definitely over the main hurdle though and, now the cover is fitted, it also means that I’ve got a sheltered ‘indoor outdoors’ spot where I can carry on working or put tools when, like today, the weather turns dampish.
One of the (I think) positive things about the COVID-19 pandemic was that certain things that would have been marked ‘impossible’ in the past rapidly became possible. Calling up your gran for a quick web conference? Suddenly, everybody learned a new meaning for the word ‘zoom’ and telepresence took a great step forward.
Spring Harvest, a long-running Christian event that happens at various holiday camps in Britain around Easter was all set to kick off in 2020 and then lockdown happened. The team did a marvellous job of cobbling together an online version and, in 2021, they repeated that with a slightly more refined version which I was able to enjoy with several people from my church – in the comfort (and required seclusion) of our own homes but using technology to participate in it together.
Last year was a lot more scaled back online but they have worked out a way to offer online access again this year, which started tonight and runs to the end of the week. You can probably still get your online ticket for Spring Harvest Home, which gives access from two devices at a time and catch up on all the broadcast sessions until the end of April.
Tonight’s one was a fantastic start and has got me thinking about Christmas already! I know some people have had problems accessing it (I’m going to pop round to help a friend out tomorrow) but worth a look if this week looked quiet and boring at home!
I’m aching this evening, mainly from having driven in a couple of hundred nails. However that was all in a good cause, namely getting the cover on the polytunnel. There’s still a little more to do on the side ventilation and I haven’t got the doors fitted yet but, after a full day’s work, it is now a polytunnel rather than a series of metal hoops.
I led this afternoon’s Good Friday reflection at church. In a quiet service with long periods of silence, it can be quite nerve-wracking to press the buttons to move through a series of slides without ending up rushing through them, so I set the whole thing up as a video instead. As well as the option of just ignoring the screen and making use of the space, I invited participants to either read one or more of the Holy Week narratives from the gospels or to sing verses from My Song is Love Unknown, with a short reflection and suggested passage shared after each one.
If you want, you can find the narratives on the left of the video, each encompassing the story from the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday until death and burial the following Friday). Lyrics and readings will be displayed on the rest of the screen and I will put the short reflections afterwards. The swelling background sound was my cue to play and lead the singing of each verse but that was done live. The whole video lasts an hour although the main content runs from about 7:30 until about 45:00.
Good Friday Reflection
Unknown? How can we sing a song describing what Jesus did as ‘love unknown’? Isn’t it because we grasp something of what that love is that we have chosen to come and sit inside a church when we could be enjoying the beautiful weather outside? But look how few we are, a tiny fraction of those who live in Thorpe Acre, Dishley and wider Loughborough. How many of the Palm Sunday crowd really knew who they were cheering for? We understand so little and reflect it so poorly but it is Christ’s love for us which makes us worthy of that love.
Strange? Without knowing what was to come, the whole affair seems strange. Has that Galilean preacher gone completely off his rocker? Any fool can see that Jerusalem is the very last place he ought to be if he values his skin. Jesus knew not only the value of his skin but of his body and his blood. It would pay a debt that must be settled but, to receive the benefit, we must walk in his footsteps, choosing a path that still seems strange to others.
Crucify? For all that we talk of crucifixion, do we realise what an ugly word it is? Torture and murder nailed together in one, ugly, agonising package? In this time and place we are relatively insulated from the horror of what a crucifixion is. Perhaps we have an echo when our bodies and our minds betray us or when we are cut to the quick by the suffering or loss of a loved one? Jesus chose to walk that path to his crucifixion, even for those who hated him and called it to be inflicted on him, thinking it would be the end of him.
Cheerful? In what sense can we imagine that Jesus went this way cheerfully? Perhaps by remembering that the words of this song are old and do not always have the first meaning that come to our modern minds? Perhaps also by recalling that it was not the pain but the purpose that Christ kept in mind. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Mine? This used to be the verse I would skip over to stop the song running on too long. As I’ve grown older though and perhaps a little wiser, I realise I have developed a more compassionate view of people like Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. They were friends of Jesus who lived among the enemies of Jesus. We don’t know what became of them in the end but we can hope that they held true to the faith shown at their best moments. We can hope that we, too, will manage that.
Stay? If I say the word ‘rest’, do you think of the rest Jesus promised us or the rest of the things you need to get done before Easter? Other gospel accounts recount how Jesus asked the disciples to watch and pray with him and how, instead, they fell asleep. John gives us the privilege of listening into some of Jesus’ prayers from that evening in more detail. Try to rest and stay with him; Jesus longs to stay with you.
In a few minutes I’ll be heading off to church where we will have a Maundy Thursday meal. I’m one of those who has signed up to bring a tray of shepherds pie along and I decided to push the regular lamb mince sauce with mashed potato topping in a more middle eastern direction.
I added green olives, aubergine and a certain amount of chilli to the sauce. I tried the idea last week and was very pleased with it but, don’t worry, I have printed a large label to take. I’m sure there will be plenty of more traditional offerings for those who want them.
Right, time to pull it out of the oven and cover before heading out.
Today has been a pretty damp day – not much heavy rain (so far) but a fairly relentless drizzle. It isn’t the most pleasant weather to be gardening in but I don’t think the peas and beans I planted out at the allotment will mind. Probably quite the opposite – the moisture will help them bed in and the bit of sun I’m expecting tomorrow morning ought to encourage them to put on a nice little growth spurt to get themselves established.
That clears the decks of the peas and beans Jane started only just over a week ago (she put the others out in the back garden yesterday). Time to get some more seeds going.
Another reason I know that spring is here, apart from the sunshine and blue skies, is that I’m seeing butterflies. We had a comma (Polygonia c-album) resting on the garden wall yesterday and today I spotted something flit past me at the front (too fast to identify further than ‘butterfly’) and a yellow one, probably a brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni) in the back garden.
The only downside is that it means it probably won’t be too long before pretty little things like the cabbage white (often Pieris brassicae or Pieris rapae round here) start laying the eggs which develop into voracious caterpillars … and I haven’t even got my brassicas planted yet!
What a glorious spring-like day. Since we’re now into early April, I suppose that’s only to be expected but I don’t want to take anything for granted. Jane managed to get some peas and beans planted out in the background (the rest are left for me to take up to the allotment). I’ve now got all the woodwork finished on the polytunnel and I think I’m ready for a last bit of figuring out before getting the cover on.
Progress and, with the rest of the week not looking too bad, some opportunity to spring further forward too.
