What’s the Story in Dalamory

Beauty is all around……helps us to feel it within.

Off to a funeral today, the death of an elder member of the family, someone who had a quiet, sure Christian faith. Someone for whom the following is appropriate.

Death is nothing at all
I have only slipped away into the next room
I am I and you are you
whatever we were to each other
that we still are
call me by my old familiar name
speak to me in the easy way
which you always used
put no difference in your tone
wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together
pray smile, think of me, pray for me
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was
Let it be spoken without effort
without the trace of a shadow in it
Life means all that it ever meant
it is the same as it ever was
there is unbroken continuity
why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you
somewhere very near
just around the corner
All is well

Henry Scott Holland
(1847-1918) Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral

Misty deserves another picture…….

From silly devotions
and from sour-faced saints,
good Lord, deliver us.

Teresa of Avila

I shall try to remember this as I drive down the lochside for an open-air service this morning. Being out in the beautiful scenery – and hopefully good weather – lifts the spirit and gives everyone a smile.

Have just finished reading  To Travel Hopefully by Christopher Rush. It is a sad but ultimately encouraging book. The author describes in harrowing detail his travels through the death of his wife and the subsequent year of bereavement. Eventually, he follows in the donkey-steps of RL Stevenson (Travels with a donkey)… and this proves to be a form of catharsis. Would I like to traverse the Cevennes in France? Might have managed it twenty years ago….as for now, well I shall be content with the vicarious enjoyment given by books like these.

Heard the cuckoo yesterday for the first time this year. A happy sound in stark contrast to a bird of such unfortunate habits.

She will be getting clipped in a couple of weeks!

“The” Gizmo is on its way. Until then the sitting room will continue to look like a movie studio. I had expected that transferring and editing the old home videos would make an ideal winter occupation. However, it has been raining a lot.

Read an interesting comment on management theory this week:  Deluding yourself is sucking your tummy in when you stand on the scales….. The real scales registered another half a pound off this week. Slow but sure seems to be the way of it. Having said that, slimming club is starting to be much more lively. There is an excellent leader and word seems to have got round. Surely all that laughing will use up calories!

Apparently there is a gizmo which allows old home movie videos to be transferred from analogue to digital via the computer, and then these can be edited using movie software. We have around a dozen tapes from over the years, so it seems like a worthwhile project. And gives good practice as well. There are never enough hours in the day!

There has been an abundance of spring around in the last few days, especially as some damp weather has given a boost to leaves and plants. What more could you want on a walk: oyster-catchers, ducks, wood anenomes, dog violet and primroses? How about a woodpecker in full peck? Yes, there was even one of those.