A Quiet Christmas

Over the years I have had noisy Christmases, sad Christmases, busy Christmases.  These days my Christmas of choice is very quiet.  I get lots of invitations to go out but I prefer to spend it alone, just me.  

The only exception I make is to go to church.  The last few years (apart from the 2020 lockdown) I have gone to this delightful church at Market Rasen to celebrate Holy Communion and give thanks that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, full of grace and truth.

 It's also a thanksgiving for all my family Christmases over many years as it means that their regular vicar can have some precious time with her children on Christmas Day.

 

May your Christmas be blessed. 

 

Advent

 I've forgotten how long I've had this Advent stable but it has to be the best part of twenty years!  I think I paid around £60 which seemed a very lot at the time but I think it was a good buy.  (Lakeland still have something similar but they're now around £100!)

Advent doesn't really start until Sunday (which is the fourth Sunday before Christmas) but, like most Advent calendars, mine starts today.  Each door has a figure hidden behind it and the last twelve are on the other side.  Today I found a shepherd who seems to have lost his sheep and is perhaps seeking divine inspiration as to how to find it..  

Check https://www.facebook.com/noradsanta/videos/1439800143293259 for Norad tracks Santa with the help of Rudolph's nose and heat seeking sensors on satellites 22.600 miles above the earth.  

Z is for Zest

 Not the stuff removed with great care from the skin of a lemon but the sheer joy of living!

And that's what I want!  I want to live life with zest.  I want to embrace new experiences and treasure old ones.  

In this series of twenty six blog posts over one year, two months and four days I have reflected on my life ranging from big things like doing VSO in Nigeria and later being one of the first English women to be ordained priest to minutiae like enjoying a cup of coffee or taking pleasure in make do and mend.  I have shared things with you and many of you have responded with the events of your own life.

So for you too I want zest.  May your life have zing and zip.

Y is for youth

Library of the State Scool Library Service, Uyo, Nigeria 1973

 When I was young I never thought about being old.  I'm older now than my grandmother was when I was born but she always seemed very old to me so I suppose I seem very old to the children around me now.

I think I made the most of my youth.  George Bernard Shaw said that youth is wasted on the young but I don't think so. 

One of the most exciting things I did as a young woman was to go to Nigeria on Voluntary Service Overseas.  I was a newly qualified librarian when I flew to Lagos in September 1973 to help set up school libraries in the area which had seen the Civil War just a few years earlier.  Schools had been commandeered as army camps by both sides and such libraries as there had been, had been looted.  I helped set up a model library and train library assistants who had never seen a library until they were employed to run one!

My VSO came to a very abrupt end in September 1974 when I was in a motorcycle crash and I had to be repatriated.

The X Factor

 

What's your X factor?  By which I mean, what's the thing which makes your life really worthwhile?  I know that for many of you, the X factor will be your family: the children, grandchildren and maybe even great grandchildren whose faces are not just in the photographs around your room, on your phone or in your wallet, but even more. always in your mind and heart.  

I've never had children so my closest relative is a nephew whom I see about three hours each year and after that it's cousins.  I get on with all of them but I don't think they are really the source of life's meaning for me.

I've heard it said, "If you've got your life and your health, that's everything" and that may be true but my health isn't all that wonderful either!

And yet I think I have a wonderful life.  My faith is central to that life and that faith brings with it an attitude of gratitude.  I've no children or close family but I have lots of people who care about me and help me.  My health isn't great but I am able to live a rich life and I can afford to buy things to enable me to live independently and safely.  I am able to contribute to community life by being a good neighbour and by being a worship leader.  I have enough commitments to make me feel valued but not so many that I feel overwhelmed.

So, what's your X Factor?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to any American readers who have popped in.  Have a lovely day.

We don't have anything like Thanksgiving here but an American lady has married into my (extended) family so we had an early Thanksgiving dinner last night for fourteen of us.  Tonight only four of us would have been able to be there, and she felt that all the family giving thanks was more important than doing it on the right day.  So I feasted on turkey and a whole lot more last night.  I was too podged to eat desert.  Hope you enjy your meal as much!

W is for Worth it!

 It's been sad to see several bloggers decide not to post anymore but it was kind of them to tell us and not leave us wondering what had happened to them.  

I've been blogging on and off since July 2014.  I've two blogs and the other one is "off" even more than this one!  I only post if I have something I really want to say.  Blogging is a creative outlet for me, the only regular outlet I have for writing.  It's a way of recording some of the events of my life in an orderly manner.  I can float my hopes and dreams.  I can make friends through reading and commenting on other people's blogs and appreciating their comments on  mine.

Because I only write when I have something special to say, I take very long breaks and it is always hard to get back after a break.  

But I enjoy other people's blogs and this is my contribution to the blogosphere.  Like all bloggers I love reading comments.  Non bloggers may not know that we can see the number of visitors we have (but not their identity) and I find it amazing what a high proportion of visitors have no inclination to comment.  I wonder why?  Is it too complicated?  I know some blogging platforms are more complicated than others.  Are they deterred because some blogs (not this one) don't publish comments until after the blogger has approved them?  Personally I delete comments which are obviously intended to advertise betting or escort services but very rarely anything else but other bloggers have had big problems with inappropriate comments so pre approval is understandable.  

For it is commenters and fellow bloggers who make the effort worthwhile.  Thank you for reading.    

Yes,  it is definitely WORTH IT!

V is for Village (now updated)

 

According to people who were born here, I live in a town.  According to incomers I live in a village.  Because I was stuck for V, for the purposes of this blog post, I'm calling Caistor a village.  Sorry, Caistorians.  T was for Treats. 

Roman wall

Caistor has been here quite a long time and its centre is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, being the site of a Roman encampment.  The only "Roman" bit which can be seen today is a smallish heap of stones which looks rather like a rockery.

The Gad Whip

This heap of stones is just to the south of the church of St Peter and St Paul.  The oldest parts of that date only to around 1050.  Inside the church there is a curious article called the Gad Whip.  Until 1846 each Palm Sunday the whip was waved three times over the head of the parson during the second reading at Mattins.  There's more about this peculiar ceremony here.  There are well over fifty listed buildings in Caistor, a significant number for such a small place but most are Georgian or Victorian.  

There's quite a lot going on here.  We have a Civic Society, a Women's Institute, Brownies, Rainbows, sports clubs, amateur dramatics and social events for everyone.  Volunteers keep the place looking wonderful both with flowers on the summer and lights and displays around Christmas.  

When I retired I had to choose somewhere to live and I wanted somewhere that was friendly with things to do.  I think I chose well

I understand there is a problem with the link to the Gad whip,  It can be found at https://caistorparishchurch.co.uk/history/  Scroll down and you will find it!