Skip to main content

Planning

Well, the Christmas cake is made, a nativity play has been written, and that all means it must be getting close to.... Advent!  In fact, closer than you might think; because Christmas Day is a Sunday this year, that means the first Sunday of Advent is the earliest it can be, on the 27th of November.  The church has to fit its four Sundays in, you see, even though the calendars limit themselves to 24 days.  Don't tell the kids, or they'll be wanting an extra five days of chocolates.

The main reason that all interests me this year is because I've decided to write a series of four Advent reflections, one for each Sunday.  So watch out for the first one on here in 10 days!  The theme is Jesus' incarnation, which turned into a set of rather neat prepositions:

Jesus came to earth -
  • to reflect God to us
  • to suffer with us
  • to die for us
  • to be glorified over us
If you or anyone you know would like a pdf copy, to print, email or otherwise distribute, please do get in touch.  I'd love for this to reach a wider audience.  These will be available a week in advance of being posted on the blog.

Also, if anyone remembers the daily Advent reflections from 2013 and would like their very own copy to re-read, this is also now available in pdf format.  Drop me a line at marthawhite656[at]gmail[dot]com and I'll email it to you.

So, sorry it's been quiet around here.  Things have been going on, just behind the scenes!  I'll try and post a few more pretty pictures before we hit the Christmas rush.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Churnet Way: a wonderful walk

The loop from Oakamoor to Froghall and back was one of the most enjoyable walks I've done in a long time. It had a bit of everything: woods, ponds, rivers and railways; steep climbs and sweeping views; an unusual church, an ex-industrial wharf, and, as a final bonus, car parks with toilets. Of course, the sunny weather helped too. I parked in Oakamoor and set off along a quiet lane called Stoney Dale. This is the route of the Churnet Way, which deviates away from the river for a couple of miles. After a while I turned right and climbed up through the woods on a gravelly path, then dropped down to the B5417. a spring in Oakamoor   Crossing the road, I entered Hawksmoor Nature Reserve. It has some fine gateposts commemorating John Richard Beech Masefield, "a great naturalist". I found a photo of the opening of the gateway in 1933; unsurprisingly, the trees have grown a lot since then! A track took me down through the woods to East Wall Farm. Lovely view! Nice duck pond as ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Ecclesbourne Way

On the first Saturday of the month, the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway runs a railcar from Duffield to Wirksworth at 8:20 in the morning. Its stated purpose is to carry people to the monthly farmers market in Wirksworth; I suspect that the railway needed to get the railcar up the track anyway, and decided that they might as well carry a few customers at the same time. To me, it looked like the perfect way to start a walk on the Ecclesbourne Way . The railcar was a funny little thing, more like a tram than a train, with stripy seats and a good view at the front through the glassed-in driver's compartment. Toby glanced at the other passengers and decided that he was the youngest by a long way. I guess not many teenagers get up early on a Saturday morning to travel on vintage rolling stock. We chugged steadily along the track, pausing at a couple of level crossings where the guard had to hop off and open the gates for us to go through. The railcar then stopped again for him to get back o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Trent Valley: the march of the pylons

In the 1980s, the River Trent supplied the cooling water for fifteen coal-fired power stations, each one gobbling up coal from the local mines and quenching its heat with gallons of river water. The area was known as Megawatt Valley . As the 20th century gave way to the 21st, the mines closed, the coal trains stopped running, and the iconic cooling towers, one by one, fell to the ground. The high-voltage electricity lines which connected the stations to the grid are still there, however, and they dominated the walk I did today. The stately silhouettes of pylons stalked across the landscape, carrying fizzing power lines which sliced up the sky. At one point, I was within view of two of the remaining sets of cooling towers. Diving further back into history, I parked by Swarkestone Lock on the Trent & Mersey Canal, walked past St James' Church, and arrived at Swarkestone Bridge, a 14th-century causeway which still, remarkably, carries traffic today. It was famously the southernmos...
Post a Comment
Read more