… or is it a planet?
8 Comments CherryPie on Jan 3rd 2017
For the last few years I have made a personalised calendar as a Christmas present for Mr C as one of his Christmas presents. I choose from the photographs that I have taken from the previous year, one from each month. The process of choosing causes me to reflect on the things that we have done throughout the year.
The first memorable event of 2016 was a lovely family get together in the Haughmond restaurant. One of my nephews organised the get together to make up for not being able to meet up with my mum over the Christmas period; she was ill over Christmas which meant she was unable to join the family gathering.
Mr C and I had many enjoyable days out including; Glansevern Gardens, the Brockhampton Estate, Keddleston and Chester Zoo where we were privileged to see a day-old, new born Zebra
We enjoyed several holidays and breaks, all in the UK this year. The first was a Valentine’s break in Colwall near Malvern. We travelled through the land where mistletoe grows to a delightful hotel, spending time at Gloucester Docks, Gloucester Cathedral and Tewkesbury Abbey.
This was followed by a return to Lincoln to view the Poppies: Wave displayed at the castle. This allowed Mr C to visit the National Civil War museum on the way home. The museum, annoyingly for Mr C, was not quite open the last time we tried to visit after a stay in Lincoln.
A stay in Wells at Stobbery House was the highlight of the year. A beautiful setting and a place we will return to at Easter in 2017 which will allow us to take part in the Easter service at Wells Cathedral. Whilst we were in Wells we visited the Cathedral and the bishop’s palace. Stobbery was only able to accommodate us for three of our four nights’ break so we moved on to Salisbury taking in Stonehenge and staying at the White Hart for our final night’s stay. We enjoyed our visit to Stonehenge because the site access has been transformed and the stones are able to be enjoyed in the context of the original landscape. We took a leisurely stroll to the stones and back again. Unfortunately our choice of venue for our evening meal during our stay in Salisbury did not meet expectations. The meal was quite unpleasant and not up to the standard of our previous visit to the same venue.
For our main holiday we visited Northumberland choosing Newcastle and Alnwick as places to stay. Our stay in the Jesmond Dene Hotel just outside Newcastle was a perfect choice. It was a relaxing place to stay with music playing as we entered the room and a rooftop patio where we could sit out and relax in the exceptionally warm autumn sunshine. One evening during our stay we dined in the Peace & Loaf restaurant which turned out to be a special dining experience. After our stay in the Jesmond Dene we moved from the city to a small B&B in Alnwick; although it was lovely we missed staying in our usual venue, the Coach House. We did however meet our friends, the former owners of the Coach House and enjoyed a wonderful evening in the Alnwick Tree House with them. Somehow we managed to get the dates of our holiday muddled up and we ended up returning home a day earlier than we had booked for…
The places we visited during our stay included Vindolanda & The Roman Army Museum, Alnwick Garden, Brinkburn Priory, Wallington, the coastal drive leading to the Grace Darling museum and Manderston where we met a delightful lady guide who we came to realise had a long standing connection with the family and was highly regarded by them. Also during our stay we tried to find some stones displaying megalithic rock art that are prevalent in the area. Unfortunately we failed in the quest, although I did get to meet a cow half way up a hillside. Mr C romped up the hill and disappeared out of sight and the sweet cow came down to say hello, licking me profusely in the process. On our way home we stopped briefly in Ripon so that Mr C could visit the Green Howards military museum.
Our final vacation of the year was our annual trip with my mum and the venue was Winchester. The Cathedral wasn’t quite as tranquil as the last time we visited due to ongoing repair work and scaffolding leading to parts of the Cathedral being closed or obscured. We were however able to see the Winchester Bible in its temporary display area. During our stay we visited the Mary Rose museum, Hinton Ampner,the Royal Green Jackets museum & diorama (which had closed the day before our last visit), The Great Hall and its garden, The hospital of St Cross and The Vyne. We also saw HMS Victory which is in the process of being restored including a more historically accurate paint scheme.
On a less happy note I had to deal with a small bump to the back of my car and some awful insect bites which thankfully subsided over time. These were obtained whilst celebrating my brothers wedding which was a much a happier occasion.
We completed several household projects; tiling the hall, a new pavia drive and patio and the still ongoing garden project. The latter, and favourable weather, led to much dining on the patio in the summer months. The birds also saw fit to give us the gift of a sunflower which looked spectacular.
We also went on our annual London trip which might be the last one in this format. We had a lovely afternoon visiting the museum of The Order of St Cross.
The year concluded with many family gatherings, several of which we hosted, leaving us a little tired and in need of a few days rest.
I wonder what 2017 will bring…
- Click on the photo for links to the original size photographs.
12 Comments CherryPie on Jan 2nd 2017
Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.
Helen Keller
As the New Year turned I was reminded of the Elizabeth Gilbert’s Happiness Jar project which I blogged about a couple of years ago:
What is a Happiness Jar? The simplest thing in the world. You get yourself a jar (or a box, or a vessel of any kind) and every day, at the end of the day, you grab a slip of paper and write down on it the happiest moment of the day.
Even on lousy days, you do this. Because even on lousy days, there is one best moment (or at least, one least-worst moment.)
You stick that little piece of paper in the jar.
Over the years, you have a record of your happiness.
On bad days, I will thrust my fist in that jar and go fishing — pulling up a handful of great moments that I would have utterly forgotten, had I not documented them.
I’ve been doing this practice for years, and I love it.
If my house ever caught on fire, this would be the one material object I would grab before I ran out the door…because what’s inside this jar? THAT’S WHERE IT’S AT — the whole point of this life.
Over the years, my Happiness Jar has taught me much. What continually amazes me is what ends up on the slip of paper every day. Not awesome events, not huge achievements — usually just a small and tiny thing, a moment of awareness…that moment when you step outside and between the house and the car you get hit on the top of the head with a beam of sunlight, and suddenly feel awash with gratitude simply for being alive, and you think, “Yes. This is it.”
It’s usually something that small — and something that grand.
It is a fun thing to do so I got myself a jar and a small tear off calendar so that I can write a thought on the back each day. The jury is out as to whether I keep this up for a whole year. The last time I tried I was having so much fun on one of my holidays that I forgot to write down a thought each day 
18 Comments CherryPie on Jan 1st 2017
It is that time of year again… I know our time zones are all different so midnight will bring in the New Year at different times for each of us. But tonight, ‘New Years Eve’, as midnight turns in the UK is the perfect occasion for me to think of friends, old and new, and also remember absent friends.
Happy New Year, I raise my glass to you. I wish you, your family and friends a happy, healthy and peaceful 2017.
16 Comments CherryPie on Dec 31st 2016
14 Comments CherryPie on Dec 29th 2016
Pilgrims still make the journey to Glastonbury Abbey where they are able to take part in church services that are held in St Patrick’s Chapel.
Every week throughout the year, services are held in St Patrick’s Chapel which was founded by Abbot Richard Beere in 1500 and so has been witness to 500 years of Christian worship.
Summer – a Saturday in June – is the high point of the modern-day Glastonbury Pilgrimage. Begun by a few local Somerset churches in 1924, the pilgrimage has become a public expression of personal faith.
Groups of worshippers come from all over Britain and Europe. At noon, the pilgrims gather to process down Glastonbury High Street, with banners flying and then return to the ruined nave of the abbey church, where Eucharist is celebrated.
Several thousand people take part in this service, presided over by bishops and priests and receive the Holy Sacrament.
On the same day, an Orthodox service is held in the ruins of the Lady Chapel to venerate the icon of Our Lady of Glastonbury; Musicians, choirs and actors also entertain the pilgrims as the day progresses. The day culminates with the Christian multitude celebrating Evensong in the nave of the abbey church at 3.30pm.
In early July, on a Sunday, the Roman Catholic pilgrimage comes to the abbey. A procession is made around the abbey grounds, then out into the High Street and back to the abbey via the main entrance, in Magdalene Street. Bishops and visiting dignitaries lead the singing pilgrims in procession. On return to the abbey, Mass is celebrated in the Nave of the Abbey Church at 3.30pm.
Situated in front of St Patrick’s Church is a statue of Sigeric, a former monk at Glastonbury who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 990:
He travelled to Rome on a pilgrimage and kept a diary of his return journey to Canterbury along the Via Francigena (Via Romea), a route much-used by merchants, pilgrims, scholars, soldiers and ordinary men and women. In 1985, using Sigeric’s chronicle as a guide, the route was mapped out again and pilgrims can once more tread the road used by their medieval predecessors.*
*From Glastonbury – The Isle of Avalon handbook
10 Comments CherryPie on Dec 28th 2016
