Thursday 12th April

The day opens once more as grey and dismal but I have plants to bed so therefore I will be quiet.

Paul has come back from the parish meeting last night with a sore throat, he reckons because the church was so cold.  We trugged through the minutes and accounts, discussed the eco loo and water fountain.  Sad to say there were very few people there, our retiring church warden, who puts the future of the church in some jeopardy as there was no other warden to stand in his place, took his leave.  His wife will still ring the bells and play the organ but that was it.  The church has friends but not church goers, it is of course slowly dying on its feet.  It needs another direction, and has a new vicar, but he will be running about six of the parish churches in the district.

It has a church fabrics officer, and he read out things to be done in the way of loose tiles and pointing and filling in cracks, but on the whole the building is in good order.  One good thing is they have made a brass plaque for Mary Wood, a long term resident of the village with her brother who lived in Willow Cottage before it was demolished and two modern cottages built on the ground.

Also went to the Ryedale Garden club in the afternoon with friends and listened to a very knowledgeable garden expert on perennials for the garden, she went on for a long time but it was interesting.  They are so friendly at the Appleton-le-Moor village hall and it is a great pleasure going there.  *Note to Pat if she reads... every plant had its Latin name as well.

So all in all a quiet peaceful day in a world that is slowly unwrapping itself to a dangerous situation that has been set in motion.  It almost seems that we have passed the brinkmanship stage.  The charge against Russia and Assad is of course right, but when did meeting violence with violence work I wonder.