Ropner Park is a lovely park in Stockton-on-Tees, about three miles from our home in Norton. It’s where we had our wedding photos taken in 2014, and one that we visit often with our three children.
One area of the park is a conservation area, and it was here that the above photo was taken. There’s more information in the photo below (clickable).
Do you remember your school house teams and colours?
Of course, the most well-known ones are probably from Harry Potter, but which team were you in?
Naomi’s house teams were castles and she was in Richmond: Alnwick (blue), Bamburgh (yellow), Raby (red), and Richmond (green).
Mine (going further back) were poets and I was in Shelley: Byron (blue), Chaucer (yellow), Milton (green), and Shelley (red).
What were yours, and which one were you in?
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Zoe was a Welsh rescue dog (Border Collie X) that we adopted from the Dogs Trust when she was about 7 or 8 months old, she died on this day (Friday 27 May) in 2011. She had been a wonderful friend and companion for over 14 years.
I have very special memories of her running free on the Welsh mountains in the Rhondda Valley.
Her death came at a very difficult time in my life, and losing her magnified the emotions I was going through at the time. I was living on my own, and had a truly dreadful Bank Holiday weekend, one finishing with a very depressing birthday alone on the Monday.
Never diminish the emotions and feelings people have on the death of a dog, or other animal companion.
My father served in the Royal Signals during the Second World War, and was a Morse Code operator. This fascinated me as a child as he remembered and demonstrated his skills, so much so that I learnt all the letters – not that I could remember them now!
On this day (24 May 1844) Samuel Morse sent the first telegraph message over a line strung alongside a railroad between Washington DC and Baltimore some forty miles away. It was an early step in the subsequent rise of technological change upon society, one in which has resulted in me being able to write and publish this post to the whole world from the smartphone in my pocket.
Morse conceived of a rapid communications system using electricity and the electro-magnet while travelling from Europe to take up a post as an arts professor in New York. It was as a result of this idea that he first developed what became known as Morse Code, a method of rendering the alphabet in a sequence of dashes and dots which allowed the sending of messages by telegraph, though his system was significantly simplified by his colleague Alfred Vail. Source
The rest is history, as they say, for in less than two hundred years we have the whole of human knowledge at our fingertips. Unfortunately, we often sadly lack the wisdom to use it wisely.
On this day (20 May 1950) my parents (Fred and Jean) were married in All Saints’ Church Northampton.
I took this photo on a visit with my daughter Sarah two years ago (2019) on their anniversary. We’d just visited my mother in hospital, where she died a few days later. It was a poignant occasion then, as it is as I write this. I miss my parents very deeply, and tears are in my eyes.
The church stands prominently in the centre of Northampton, my home town.
There has always been a church on the site of All Saints’ since Norman times, although All Hallows, as it was then, was not the ‘Mother Church’ of the ancient settlement. The church we see today, however, is that built after the Great Fire of Northampton in 1675. Source
See also: Silent Joy in Grief
It was a big day (Tuesday 11 May 2021) for Pollyanna as she went back to a playgroup with Naomi for the first time in over a year, and for the first since we moved last year.
It’s hard to believe she’d actually been to a nursery all on her own prior to the coronavirus pandemic, it seems an age ago – over a third of her lifetime!
It was such a shame I couldn’t go with them because of the restrictions, even though they’re currently being relaxed.
Just look at her happy face!
Since posting my Mum’s Recipes I’ve found some others, although this is probably the simplest recipe ever!
You can see all the posts by clicking here.
Note: This is my 500th blog post since restarting from scratch at the end of 2016. Enjoying my posts? You might like to Buy Me a Coffee.
Since posting my Mum’s Recipes I’ve found some others, here’s the first one.
You can see all the posts by clicking here.
Following on from my popular post about Celtic Morning Prayer yesterday, a recollection of a family holiday in August 2019 in a caravan at Haggerston Castle Holiday Park. We had a great time, and you can see from the photo that it was a typical British summer!
Note: You can expand and magnify the photo by clicking on it (opens in a new tab).
The holiday park is very near the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, commonly known as either Holy Island or simply Lindisfarne. It’s a tidal island off the northeast coast of England, close to the border with Scotland, and was an important centre of Celtic Christianity.
[The island] measures 3.0 miles from east to west and 1.5 miles from north to south, and comprises approximately 1,000 acres at high tide. The nearest point to the mainland is about 0.8 miles. It is accessible at low tide by a modern causeway and an ancient pilgrims’ path that run over sand and mudflats and which are covered with water at high tide. Lindisfarne is surrounded by the 8,750-acre Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve, which protects the island’s sand dunes and the adjacent intertidal habitats. Source
When I took the photo it wasn’t possible to drive to the island, but we drove over another time on a lovely sunny evening.
Warning signs urge visitors walking to the island to keep to the marked path, to check tide times and weather carefully, and to seek local advice if in doubt. For drivers, tide tables are prominently displayed at both ends of the causeway and also where the Holy Island road leaves the A1 Great North Road at Beal. The causeway is generally open from about three hours after high tide until two hours before the next high tide, but the period of closure may be extended during stormy weather. Source
The road to the island is evocative of the both our physical and spiritual journey through life, so this traditional Gaelic blessing is an appropriate way to conclude:
May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face; the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand.
We’ve had a good week. The weather’s been good, we’ve got lots of jobs done, and I’ve given our grass the first cut of the season.
Today, we had the chance to meet friends at Stewart Park in Middlesbrough. It was great to get out in the fresh air and enjoy life’s simple pleasures, things we’re all learning to appreciate more since the start of the coronavirus lockdown.
You can see all the photos I took by clicking here.
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