More than Writers

What do you do, away from the desk?  Apart from ‘procrastination - with another coffee …’, there’s an enormous liberation in walking … We live in a very rural county  Yes, we live in big city, an overcrowded city with more child  poverty than the thousands of tourists who visit every year to cram our streets and shops and ancient buildings from Christmas to summer holidays inclusive would believe. But, this is primarily a rural county, with hundreds of acres of farmland, estates owned by private landowners, by the University, and by its various Colleges.  A few years ago, some of us from church formed a small, unambitious walking group: pilgrimage had been featuring on the church calendar, and we decided that although we’d not do a big Pilgrimage such as Compostela or Jerusalem, or even Canterbury, we could manage an escape to our own countryside. Where we wander between two or three country churches, and end up with refreshments in a village pub. T...

Christmas is ‘over’ as I write: it is two days after Boxing Day... by Clare Weiner (aka Mari Howard)  We have entered that in-between  or ‘liminal’ timeless world, while we await the New Year. (By the time you read this, it will be 2016 - at least, we expect, or hope, it will ...)  On the Solstice, I looked almost with envy at the Stonehenge gathering: how simple to greet the sun, and then go home, no necessity join the complicated rituals of a Western, Christian- ish Christmas. And we decided to keep it simple this year, and were glad.  Horrible colds and coughs assailed us in the few days before, but keeping simple muddled it through. How good to decide, and stick with, contentment with the pile of luggage in the hall, the improvised sleeping arrangements, and the possible slippage of meal times. None of that matters in the real scheme of things.  Living room welcomes family guests So, the radio is playing ‘I Vow to Thee, my Country’ ...