Tuesday 19th April - doesn't time fly?

Time moves on but it is quiet at the moment, a trip to Whitby yesterday to the cottage (which is going on the market soon) and today the sun shines and the cocks crow.  We have not seen our swallows yet, but the thrushes have arrived (two) and squabble on the lawn.  There is a grey wagtail that makes an appearance occasionally, and the birds swarm to their food every morning.  The jackdaws have become bolder, and  the little grey dove chases off the pigeons with great bravery: rabbits hop everywhere.

  

Sowing seed, old seed is not germinating, but beans and courgette are coming up, the tulip buds hold promise of their colour, the hedges are full of hawthorn blossom, or is it blackthorn?  Bumble bees fly lazily over the grass in the grave yard looking for mouse holes to nest in, the whole bird world is out nesting at the moment.

St.Finnian of Clonard

All the birds of Ireland had gathered

On a homestead in County Wicklow

To celebrate the birth of a Saint,

Of the Holy life he would lead.

Monasteries he built from Meath to Wicklow,

He enriched God’s spirit in every man,

An apostle, so devout and sacred,

Cluain Eraird, would be his resurrection.

2006  Daniel Macdonagh

I have been reading Elizabeth Rees 'Celtic Saints'. and finding that same old sense of guilt because it mentions 'Celtic', a terminology that comes with a whole load of baggage.  But suffice it to say that the early British saints are descended from the old pagan ways, when the worship of water and trees was in full swing.  Martin of Tours went in his battle against paganism to destroy the old temples, not sure about the sacred 'bile' trees (Irish terminology) but even in England, Nemeton has a resonance in sacred groves.


Outside on the road they are noisily painting 30 mile an hour signs on the road, you may not believe this but every so often in the village a solar sign saying 'slow down' is erected, as there is only one it makes the round of the villages round here!