England October 2011

Three days before Christmas and I am realising that if any of 2011 remains unblogged-about after today, it will probably remain so for evermore. So I'll fly back a couple of months and give you a quick scattershot tour of our latest trip to the UK.

To start with, our flight was cancelled and we had to come home and try again the next day. Fortunately Toby regarded DFW Airport as a super-huge playground filled with nice people who smiled at him. We just had to prevent him from throwing himself under luggage carts.

Toby at the airport

Toby slept like the proverbial baby on the aeroplane, but once we arrived he started sleeping like a real baby - that is, up and screaming half the night. Our friends Naomi and Steve suffered through one night with us, although we were told they had a giggle at us desperately intoning, "You are feeling sleeee-py", in harmony, at 2 am. With very little effect. Our one consolation was that their baby didn't wake up and join the party.

Naomi and Luke, me and Toby

We enjoyed the sweeping chalk hills of the Chilterns, the unruffled expanse of the Severn Estuary, the willows delicately dipping their branches into the Thames, the weathered red brick of a house over a century old.

At Clevedon

Near Hughendon Manor

Admiring a grapevine in Streatley

Graham, Toby and Dad on Streatley Hill

By the Thames

Taplow Court

We played on tombstones and swings.

We visited hedgehogs, and saw seven swans swimming.

Rescue hedgehog at Tiggywinkles Animal Hospital

Their hedgehog museum...

...had quite a range of exhibits!

We spent time with family.

And a small boy celebrated his first birthday!

It was fun!

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Bonnie Prince Charlie Walk: Lees to Derby

These final two Bonnie Prince Charlie walks were quite a contrast: the first across empty fields and along quiet roads; the second crossing from country into city as I walked into Derby. I started both walks at the Great Northern Greenway car park, just off Station Road in Mickleover. Walk 1 In order to keep walking the Bonnie Prince Charlie way in the right direction, I first found my way back to Lees by an alternative route. The first section, along the cycle path, was well paved. After that it quickly got very muddy. At least it's a popular walk from Mickleover to Radbourne, so it was easy to find the path. St Andrew's, Radbourne, is rather dominated by memorials. It looks as if the preacher would be hemmed in by tombs! I liked this bench outside, with the text, "The thoughtful soul to solitude retires". Writing this, I only just realised it was a quote. Turns out it's from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam . The rest of the walk certainly provided solitude,

A Place at the Table: Spiritual Formation Book 12

"God has ordained in his great wisdom and goodness that eating, and especially eating in company, should be one of the most profound and pleasurable aspects of being human." Miranda Harris had been intending to write a book for years. She'd got as far as a folder full of notes when she died suddenly in a car accident in 2019. When her daughter, Jo Swinney, found the notes, she decided to bring her mum's dream to fruition. A Place at the Table was the result. I thought this was going to be a nice friendly book about having people over for dinner. In one sense it is, but it's pretty hard-hitting as well. Miranda and her husband Peter co-founded the environmental charity A Rocha, so the book doesn't shy away from considering the environmental aspects of what we eat and how we live. They also travelled widely and encountered hunger at close quarters; the tension between seeing such poverty and believing in a generous God comes out clearly in A Place at the Table.

Thirsting

When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the Lord will answer them; I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. Isaiah 41:17-18

Martha's Marvellous Munchies

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