London on an April Sunday Pt.1

The Mellenium ferris wheel known as the London Eye

We have had a short unseasonal heatwave and with temperatures yesterday hitting 73f and knowing we will be back to 55f by

mid-week, we decided to spend  Sunday walking in London. We arrived about 10.40 am and apart from a few breaks for tea and snacks, we walked until about 4.45 pm

I took 230 photos and have kept 166 so plan to post most of those over the coming weeks

London has a very different atmosphere on a Sunday

For this post we will concentrate on The London Eye 

We have parked the car and are walking along the Embankment on the north side of the river Thames

In the distance we see the wheel

We come to the footbridge running along the railway bridge and walk to the south side known as The South Bank

(no, that is not us in the photo)

Lots to see before we get there but that's for another post

The queues are enormous and  I am glad that I am not joining them

The Houses of Parliament on the opposite side

A mixture of different views

The last one being from Westminster Bridge

Going to take me a while to sort my photos but I'll get there

Must be Spring - It's April

Spring is in the air!

If you look closely, especially if you click for a full screen,

you might just see Mrs Blackbird sitting on her nest

It takes me back to a time which I call one of my "Memorable Moments" when one of my cats took a baby Blackbird in it's mouth, ran into the  house and up into a bathroom.

The memorable bit is that Mother Blackbird flew into the house after her and perched on the shower rail chirping so hard until my cat let the baby bird go, whereon the Mother immediately herded it back downstairs and out into the garden.

One of those moments when one wishes a camera had been close.

It was amazing to see.

It's good to see the garden awakening from it's winter sleep

even though it is a time of hard work outside

The sticks are  not very photogenic but they are there to deter the Heron from taking more of our fish
We had about 70 last Summer but so far this year have only seen
5 at one time. Hopefully there may be more  hiding

Sky from my window last evening as the sun set lighting up the clouds



Nothing to do with Spring but a fun photo

Taken on a ramble in the village of Goldhanger

To get water from this village pump one has to work hard as seen on the right of the photo

 

It's True!

I do have lots to post about but time has been in short supply recently with so many things on the agenda so just a little 'snippet' to keep in touch.

Yes, it's true I began this embroidery before I was married over 50 years ago and I have not even finished one corner.

It is a beautiful large linen table cloth

bordered with Nottingham lace.

I would like to finish it but do not know if I ever will.

I have given away a number of half finished tapestries and embroidery projects in the past to people who have been keen to finish them but did not want to part with this.

The napkins are bordered in the lace too

Changing the subject!

What happened to plain old fashioned Easter eggs

Do I buy what to me are 'real' Easter eggs

or do I buy what Oliver and Rebekah will love?

Yes, I succumbed as you see

I did not even understand this one but apparently when watching the programme one is not supposed to know who Stig is.

The egg is full of chocolate racing cars and racing cars are Oliver's favourite toy at the moment

Lunar Perigree with Sky and Faith

Out came the camera last night to capture the Lunar Perigree (the moon being it's closest to earth) and fortunately the sky was clear so got a great view.

As I so often say I like all kinds of clouds and sky

The following was taken a little while ago and having taken  the photograph I read in the media that this is a new form of cloud

Aspertus Cloud apparently

As a house church we again had permission to meet in the Christian chapel in our local hospital today for a time of praise and worship and prayer, praying for the hospital, staff, patients and visitors etc.

What was different this morning was that a patient in the hospital who had given birth 3 days ago to a sick child who was on a ventilator had woken on the ward with a strong sense that she was to go to the chapel at 10.0 am. She told the medical staff that she was going no matter what was happening on the ward at that time. She did not know why but of course 10.0 am is the time that we commence our time of praise and worship there.

She stayed with us for the whole time, joining in and receiving prayer for herself and her baby.

Very encouraging - we want more of this Lord 

Card Making and Signs of Spring

With my card stocks depleted it was time to begin to build up again

At least I have made a start

There is a little colour beginning to show up in the garden and I have begun to do some Spring pruning but the weather has not been co-operating. After one beautiful cold but sunny day, this week has so far been dull and foggy 

Every sunset is different so it was good to catch this one last week

Life has been particularly busy and Saturday being our first free Saturday since January, I was looking forward to having

Kate a blogging buddy visit. Unfortunately Kate who was staying with a friend not too far away had to cancel as she had a bad cold and sinusitis. We both look forward to meeting next time she visits the area. 

St. Peter's on the Wall

Whilst out on a ramble (in the time before my digital camera)

how long can that be!

we visited St. Peter's on the Wall - an ancient chapel on the edge of the marshes looking out over the North Sea.

It is said to be the place where St. Cedd brought Christianity

to England.

See some history at the end of this post

The chapel is still used today

There were children on the walk with us finding a different way to occupy themselves!

653 AD The arrival of St Cedd.



654 Cedd founded a Celtic style community at Othona, built his Cathedral of St Peters on the foundations of the Roman fort and was consecrated Bishop of Essex. In fact Cedd's Cathedral was built where the gatehouse of the fort had been - so it was built on the wall of the fort - hence the name - Saint Peter-on-the-Wall.


664 Cedd died of the plague at Lastingham in October. Soon after the death of Cedd, Essex was taken into the Diocese of London and St Peter's became a minster for the surrounding country.


1068 The Chapel became the property of the Benedictine monastery of St Valery on the Somme.


1391 The Chapel was sold to William of Wykeham.


1750 For many years it was used as a barn for the storage of grain and shelter of cattle.


1920 Restored for use as a Chapel.




The Early History


1300 years ago there were people working in Ireland and Scotland to spread the Christian faith. In Ireland, Patrick had established many monasteries and from there Columba had come to Iona, a tiny island off the west coast of Scotland, to establish a monastery and many other Christian centres.




From Columba's monastery, a man called Aidan was sent from Iona at the invitation of King Oswald of Northumbria to set up a monastery at Lindisfarne on the north-east coast. It was also to be a school where Anglo-Saxon boys could be trained to become priests and missionaries. It was in this school that Cedd and his brothers Caelin, Cynebil and Chad learnt to read and write in Latin, and learnt to teach the Christian faith.




The four brothers were all ordained as priests and two of them, Cedd and Chad, later became bishops. Cedd's first mission was to go to the midlands, then called Mercia, at the request of its ruler, King Paeda, who wanted his people to become Christians. Cedd was so successful that when King Sigbert of the East Saxons (Essex) asked for a similar mission, it was Cedd who was sent.




So in 653 Cedd sailed down the east coast of England from Lindisfarne and landed at Bradwell. Here he found the ruins of an old deserted Roman fort. He probably first built a small wooden church but as there was so much stone from the fort he soon realised that would provide a much more permanent building, so he replaced it the next year with the chapel we see today! Cedd modelled his church on the style of churches in Egypt and Syria. The Celtic Christians were greatly influenced by the churches in that part of the world and we know that St Antony of Egypt had built his church from the ruins of a fort on the banks of a river, just as Cedd did on the banks of the River Blackwater in Essex (then known as the River Pant).



Cedd's mission to the East Saxons was so successful that the same year he was recalled to Lindisfarne and made Bishop of the East Saxons. His simple monastery at Bradwell would, like those at Iona and Lindisfarne, have been at the same time a church, a community of both men and women, a hospital, a library, a school, an arts centre, a farm, a guest house and a mission base. From there he established other Christian centres at Mersea, Tilbury, Prittlewell and Upminster.




Cedd often visited his northern childhood home and in 659 was introduced to King Ethelwald who asked him to establish a monastery in Northumbria. Cedd chose a site at Lastingham as it was wild and seemed fit only for wild beast, robbers and demons. Again this was exactly how St Antony of Egypt chose his sites. In 664, while at his monastery in Lastingham, Cedd caught the plague. As he lay dying 30 of his monks from Bradwell came to be with him. They too caught it and one young boy survived and returned to Bradwell.

Well Dressing in Derbyshire

The following three photographs I took in 1998 showing how the towns and villages in Derbyshire dress their ancient wells once a year

Every picture tells a story and

every picture is made up entirely of flowers

The following pictures are scanned from the above book

Outside Derbyshire well-dressing is a mystery.

Even inside the county it is a mystery in the

Shakesperean sense of a skilled craft practiced only by a priviledged few initiates.

In reading the above book, well dressing almost certainly originated in pagan sacrifices to water-gods as a thanksgiving for past supplies and an inducement for further favours. Finding the sacrifice of humans and animals wasteful and sometimes distressing, primitive man adopted the more economical, colourful practice of hanging garlands of flowers above springs as some South American Indian tribes still hang torn strips of colourful cotton above springs and wells for the same purpose.

The early Christian church handled pagan customs sensitively, absorbing and adapting rather than supressing. That this was a slow process is clear from a decree of 960 expressly forbidding the worship of fountains. As late as 1102 , St. Anselm was still condemning 'this form of idolatory'.

But well-dressing today has strong religious links. Probably 3 out of every 4 pictures has a religious theme and an interdenominational blessing of wells is held everywhere. There are some well-dressers that see it as akin to harvest festivals.