Filey Dawn

For about three weeks now Colin and I have awoken with the first light . There is something promising about a day which starts with a bright start , especially when I don't have to get up and go to school.  Spouse has had to leave the house at 7am several days this week to go to work in Liverpool and Leeds. He is the early bird anyway, and whereas I always stumble downstairs to say 'Goodbye' to him I am usually not keen to be as Tim Norwood says being and doing at such an hour. I can quite easily turn over and go back to sleep at 4.30 am in the morning.  'No, I don't want a cup of tea now Darling, Thank You! Even that takes some saying in the half light. Treading on ones dreams takes on  a stark meaning , not what Yeats meant at all. So for three weeks I have had a bright thought on my half waking.

I will get up now, I will get dressed quickly and walk around the corner to the Fishermans ' Lookout and take a great picture of the Dawn for the Blog.

So the solstice has passed without action. I will get up today.  I will get up today definitely.  I am going to get up today.It will be a great picture, it will get sent to Carol Malia, or the  Filey Mercury will want to use it.

I will put on  my day-glo socks in case I am overtaken by a passing fisherman on his way to the lookout. I will take a mug of hot tea with me. I will wear my glasses, putting in my contact lenses will signal an up for the day, and I will NOT be.

Aurora disappointed me .I didn't see the slightest hint of her red flannel petticoat as she got up.

So its going to be another lovely day in Filey

Labyrinth

When our children were small we stopped here at Alkborough on our way from  the New Holland Ferry  before the Humber Bridge made life less of an adventure. We had a Mini Traveller Estate in 1977. It was no joke fitting 3 small children into it , the packing of the roof rack was a masterpiece and a journey home to London from Yorkshire took about 6 hours .

 We had seat belts-just , but I seem to think the carrycot bearing the new baby just rested in the back of the car with luggage all round it to keep it in place.  Alice 21 months old in 1977 is watching her Aunty Alice in our family Home blowing bubbles.  Nothing has changed. I am looking now at the window sill next to this laptop ,where my sister has left 4 pots of bubble stuff . Baby Alice has her own small girls, and sister Imogen has her own small boys.  Now it is Alice who travels from the south to Yorkshire, but over the Humber Bridge.

That visit to Alkborough all those years ago was a response to my plea to investigate what looked interesting on the OS Map and called Maze. We didn't stop long . Two tiny children were not really suitable visitors for a few cuts in the lawn in a shape. A long journey with 'when will we be there' and 'can I have a biscuit'  loomed ahead for hours.

For 30 years I have wanted to go back to Julians Bower and  explore and decide, then categorize it into the folder in my brain which says Fascinating Old Places.   So this weekend the  pull is back, the urge to go again  has re surfaced and is flashing 'do it' 'do it'.

I have just been to Wydale for a Parish weekend. I have been enthralled by the Labyrinth.  So I now know that Julians Bower is not a maze.  It is a Labyrinth. 

A labyrinth does not invite choice. A labyrinth is a safe flat way to walk a virtual life . It is not a fantasy , it is not only a David Bowie Movie, but an  small piece of land where a path has been laid out which has a beginning, and an ending, and if you wish a going back to the beginning. This path is just wide enough for one person to walk. It takes the longest possible way to get to the end. The path never crosses itself.  You have no idea when you have reached the middle of the journey to the end. You may walk it quickly.  You may run. What is certain is that it will REALLY make you think.  It is like a Suduko with no correct solution and everyone is a winner, for everyone will get to the end.  You can cheat. You can turn back, jump over and give up.  You can forget what you were doing when you started. You will not be the same when you have finished.
You will have taught yourself Meditation in one easy 20 minute walk, and when you do it again another day you will not repeat the first experience. If this is what a medieval religious did to get close to God I am glad  it has been rediscovered. It does  to  Christian Spirituality what the Cloud Appreciation  Society has done to Meteorology.

Here it is then-
I'll do the meditation bit on the Filey parish blog soon, here are the illustrations

Rest In Peace -Angela Swansborough

When we moved to Dorking in 1981 the Dorking Christian bookshop had just opened. I asked Tony , the manager to put me in touch with any one I might pray with. He gave me Angela Swansboroughs name and address. I remember he sort of grilled me first as to what sort of person I was, very wise . Angela was my friend and support for all the years we lived in Dorking, she saw me through my own operation for cancer in 1982, and we were there for her in 1987 when her life  and circumstances changed so dramatically. 

She will be known for always as the person who did a Jericho on Dorking. She did circuits of many miles around the perimeter of the town, and did it just as Joshua did, 6 times round and then shouted the victory on the 7th day. It took her a day a week for 7 weeks. She would not have company, it was HER job, a PRAYER MARCH for the Lord.

Years later Thora and I did the same round the Dorking Christian Bookshop, and more recently I joined 3 Christians as we marched around  St Oswalds Church 7 times ,  claiming an outpouring of the love of God on the Town, and the breakdown of strongholds.

 

So we will remember all the things we learned from you Angela Swansborough, and Praise God for you. 

May light eternal rest on you

You are as David Watson so famously wrote as he knew he was to die , 'I will be

-with Christ which is far better'

The Music Room

I wondered all the way through the book why it was called 'The Music Room', and did not find out until the last chapter.

My Reading group choice last month was a ghastly and ghostly book by Sarah Waters called 'The Little Stranger'. We nearly all sort of liked it. The story kept us going. We had a good discussion about it. A book centered around a decaying Grand House . 

As I looked at this months choice . I thought Oh! NO !Not another book about a Stately home!

This book says Hope and Joy on every page, in the midst of a Family living with a Son with Severe Epilepsy.

I knew a bit about Epilepsy before I started the read . My niece had spent several years working in a Residential Centre for Children with Severe Epilepsy in the late 90s. She had a tale or two to tell about George , her special Client. At her wedding , George was an honoured guest, and yet physically like a 7 stone baby. In 'The Music Room', Rich Fiennes is a severe Epileptic, but nothing about him but his manner, and demeanor would single him out.

With my hindsight of knowledge , and hindsight about 'The Little stranger' I was prepared to enjoy William Fiennes book from Page 1. Half of it I hated -pages and pages of real Case histories about Epilepsy. I cant see why this book got such acclaim.  Yes it is an interesting , even fascinating picture of life in a gem of a Stately home. The family seem so ordinary, loving and caring. It was only remarkable because of the goings on in the daily lives of those who did and do live in an ancient house, where money is earned for its upkeep by hiring it out  as a Location. I know a lot more about living with a moat, about lead joins on flat roofs, about the way the Landed gentry make do and mend. 

It was a good choice for our reading group coming as it did straight after another book about landed gentry. The contrast will no doubt  be made on our next meeting.

I ask this question 

'Why is William Fiennes so acclaimed?'

I read many essays every day from ordinary people called Bloggers. Their lives and Literary styles are Hope and Joy on every Post as well. Many of them are unknown literary Giants, treasured wordsmiths and astute commentators on the third millennium.  How will they ever know how valued their Efforts are?  So if you are a blogger -keep going someone might be enjoying your words without you ever knowing it. You will have made their day. I am going to add to my Blog Rolls and  keep commenting.