Blessings

 Brought to tears

To know

I’ve never 

Met you

But you

Love me

In a way

That moves me

That you desire 

For my dreams

To be realized

And for hope

To spring eternal

You humble me

Leave me wondering

If how you love me

Is how God

Wants us to 

Love each other

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Silbury

Back from Wiltshire now. It is a four hour drive away on a good run. There's so much I could blog about but I will begin with Silbury Hill.

Have you heard of it? On a woodland walk to the south of the county, we met a charming woman in her seventies. She was Wiltshire born and bred and well-spoken but had never heard of Silbury Hill until I mentioned it to her. Of course everybody has heard of Stonehenge - including the touring Canadian couple we met outside "The Royal Oak" in Swallowcliffe but they had also never heard of Silbury Hill.

I have known of it since teenhood . However, until yesterday, I had never seen the hill - the biggest man-made prehistoric mound in Europe.

I love the fact that nobody knows why it was built over a period of a hundred years between 2400 and 2300 BC. There are plenty of theories but it seems pretty certain that it was not a burial mound. Perhaps it was a ceremonial meeting place. It is estimated that it took eighteen million man hours to build and that 248,000 cubic metres of chalky earth were used. It stands about forty metres tall and covers an area of five acres.

You just shake your head in wonder and puzzlement. Maybe you close your eyes as you try to imagine the people of pre-Christian Britain and how they tried to make sense of the stars, the way that water welled from the ground, the clouds in the sky.

They embraced the unknown mystery of it all. In contrast, modern men dug tunnels into Silbury Hill in search of solutions and maybe treasure too. They didn't find these things and then typically they forgot to backfill their digs which later caused damage to the ancient hill. Earlier, Romans had also damaged it - building a settlement close by.

Below, is the only photo in the sequence that I did not take myself - an aerial shot of the mysterious mound though the top is surely not how it would have appeared in ancient times. I feel I ought to write a poem  about Silbury Hill and maybe I will. It is a special place and yet far less visited than Stonehenge which has become a "must see" attraction for millions.

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Prayer

 I’m having to trust

Trust His Goodness

Trust when the anxiety 

Sets in

Trust His Will 

Is better than mine

Enjoy the day

Not wish it away

Knowing when

To stop fighting

And surrender

Any prayer requests?

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Getting Home

This story is not an exaggeration ….for sure…it’s all pretty true 

Honestly …..for sure 

The plane journey from Inverness to Manchester Airport  was a delight…..though our single steward was a moody bastard.

I was off the plane first and literally 7 minutes later was walking down to the train platforms where various  uninterested staff shouted over that all the trains into Manchester had been cancelled because of an “ incident” 

All passengers were directed onto a unknown quantity of a Manchester tram system.

It was chaos for only a handful of people knew what to do.

Hundreds of people crammed onto the handful of trams .

I knew I needed to be at Piccadilly so rang my friend Nigel in nearby Stockport for help .

He told me where to go which was completely different to what a very loud young mother with a baby in a pram was telling everyone . She wanted to go to Preston eventually and had a big following to keep on to Victoria because she was confident and loud….she went on to Said stop  , where as I, following  Nigel’s advice  jumped off at Market Street

It was like a disaster movie 

Me and a young, sturdy legged student physio from Helsby led the charge. An Asian chap from Chester who kept saying that he was taking Tuesday off sick followed with  , a retired professor from Bangor ( who had just been to Nice with her daughter ) they were then followed a couple of trendy tattooed girls who knew where they were going followed by an old rather bemused and a bit tipsy couple from Cheshire with too much baggage. 

And we galloped across central Manchester for Piccadilly

It was obvious that the old couple was slowing us up , so the trendy girls and Asian chap took control of their luggage and as a group we managed to get to Piccadilly with 12 minutes to spare.

Piccadilly was in chaos 

But eventually the unnamed physio,  Bangor Prof Caroline, The Asian chap ( who I found out was called Sidharth ) and Hilary and Howard from Frodsham who was still helped by one unknown trendy gal with tattoos all made it more or less home .

What fun lol

People come up trumps when needed

Don’t they ?

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Dreams

 It’s early morn

The music plays

As I string

Along a thought

Hoping it resonates

Dreams

Keep me ticking

Keep me going

When I want 

To quit

The desires

Of my heart

Defy gravity 

And a constellation’s

Shine

Happy Monday my friends. 

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A Thought or Two

 

This morning Ruth went back to work in the greenhouses and I took myself down the coast towards the village of Findhorn. 

I go home this afternoon.

I wanted to see red squirrels in the pine trees skirting the sand dunes but only managed to see the pointed heads of a couple of seals well beyond the surf .

The Findhorn Foundation has been an interesting experience.

Like everything in the modern world  the community has had to evolve in covid times, with redundancies hitting the staff hard during lockdown and a change  from volunteer staff in key positions to salaried staff who have pensions, bills to pay and corporate ideals to juggle alongside the foundations’ community beliefs and shared objectives for personal growth and a healthy lifestyle. 

I can see the appeal.

There is a warmth and a camaraderie here, even though two of the main public meeting ( and community eating buildings )were set alight and destroyed last year by a disgruntled ex employee, there is still a sense of community very much evident. The new corporate, eco friendly and expensive private housing lies a stones throw from the huts and caravans where I slept last night and in one of a beautifully appointed rental house, I was invited into, I spied a 50 inch Tv alongside the homegrown plants and eco friendly decor .

Findhorn is like any community. You take from it what you want to but unlike every community there is a lot going on at the get go.

That is part of its strength and a little of its weakness, I think 

For its easy to forget the real world that lies beyond the Sandhills, and out of sight of the pine trees and the hobbit houses almost hidden away in the glades of wild flowers.

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Beach Day

 It’s been a mostly beach day today.

After a fat bastard breakfast which included a slice of the most delicious haggis, we had a tootle around an art gallery at Logie Steading before settling down over looking the Moray Firth 

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