Seeker

  During Lent, I've decided to post as often as I can about kindness. (See my post of yesterday, Ash Wednesday 2021 .) So today I'm starting with an early memory of how someone was kind to me. It involved plums and plum stones. I was about 4 years old and attending a kindergarten school. Usually I went home for lunch. The day of my plum stone memory was, I believe, the first day that I had lunch at school. It was a hot meal cooked in the school kitchen. The dessert that day was stewed plums. I ate one. It tasted good, but it contained the plum seed, hard as stone. What was I supposed to do with the plum stone? At home I'd been taught to spit the plum stone into my spoon and place the stone on the rim of the pudding bowl. My immediate problem on that 1st day of staying for school lunch was that the school bowls had no rims. My longer term problem was that I was then a rather shy little girl. I didn't dare ask what I should do with the stone. I knew I shouldn't put it...

One of the joys of spring is there are now more days when I can hang the washing out to dry in the garden. I have done that today.  Almost every time I have done that since my mother died in the spring of 2013, I remember her. As I perform my mother's same actions, taking pegs from their bag, hanging washing on a rope line in the garden, the memories are vivid. Some of those memories are from childhood when I watched or helped her hang the washing, or learnt from her how to count the pegs, "1 peg, 2 pegs, 3 pegs..." Others are from my teen years when I could take responsibility for the task, although my methods of hanging were different from hers. (They still are!) More recent memories are of my mother in her nineties,  vulnerable to falling,  eager to hang the washing out in the sun or take it in when it was ready to iron or the rain started. Towards the end, when she had a live-in carer, she no longer needed to hang out the washing or take it in, or do the ironing....

Thoughts on leaving home for my aunt's funeral Today is a journey one that seems fitting on this 3rd day of Holy Week. Today is a journey one that is through and to a place of memories. Today is a journey route planned tyre pressures checked. Today is a journey shoes polished tissues packed in pockets. Today is a journey of tears and laughter of meeting and farewell. Today is a journey there will be words of death and resurrection. Today is a journey of grief and hope that will be shared. Today is a journey Elizabeth has made her last journey. Prayer from Common Worship Funeral Service Support us, O Lord, all the day long of this troublous life until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes, the busy world is hushed, the fever of life is over and our work is done. Then, Lord, in your mercy grant us a safe lodging, a holy rest, and peace at the last; through Christ our Lord. Amen. I...

This may look more like a door than a hole in the wall, but as far as I am concerned it is "The Hole in the Wall" .  It is one of the pedestrian entrances to Knole Park , a large medieval deer park where the public are free to roam, run or ride. Growing up nearby I know every entrance well, but this is my favourite. The road just outside this door is deeply shaded with a high wooded bank on one side and the Kentish ragstone park boundary wall on the other. At this point, from the outside it is impossible to see what lies on the other side of the wall. I think that is why I like it. I like that feeling of walking from dark into light. The view opens up as you push through the door and see the landscape that is in all seasons beautiful, even on a dull day last October when I took these photos. This sweet chestnut is the first thing that grabs the attention after entering the park here. It is one of the ancient trees that survived the 1987 gale, when Knole lost 70%...