It was not until the last day of March that the ‘mad March winds’ finally reached us, battering some daffodils to the ground and breaking small branches off the trees. Yet nature is so resilient that the steady rain of last week precipitated growth. Buds are slowly unfurling and there are intermittent carpets of flowers, although some areas remain covered in lovely carpets of shimmering greenish grey growth of moss.

Deformed mossy twig....

Vignettes from life outside....

1. "As to your comments about prayer and conversation with God: conversation is a wonderful way of sharing one’s life and thoughts with a person who really wants to hear what you think, especially when that Person was the one brought it into being in the first place. Artists sometimes appreciate a positive response to their work, and so does God. Even in the smallest brush strokes of a painting, or the scent of flowers a trace of the creator is to be found ..... and then the conversation can begin."

2. A telephone message came during the night. A dear friend, after undergoing intensive treatment for cancer, was in a critical state. I have been praying the De Profundis (Out of the depths...) intermittently ever since. I do pray that he is able to die peacefully, unafraid. He did die peacefully later that day. I ’phoned his wife the following day. Her adult daughter and son had been advising her to modify her mode of speech when reporting events - not to be so dramatic, so extreme - always standing on the edge of a precipice. We laughed about our human foibles, and our use of ‘picture language’ when feelings run powerfully through our veins. The more phlegmatic find this very embarrassing, and children often look askance at their parents when situations evoke an emotional response. It must be very hard to be a parent - almost as hard as being a child!

Meanwhile the plants open to the sound of bird-song, and find warmth in the sunshine. Bumblebees of various sizes and colour move among many types of flower, including the green bells of the gooseberry bushes and the wonderfully scented shrubs, which breathe fragrance into the surrounding area.

Magnolia buds

Earlier this week the older radiators were fixed with adjustable temperature gadgets. What a relief, as the cats’ cell was often unbearably hot before. At some stage all the radiators will have to be drained.

Sunday 10th April

Cat Joseph scratched on my door to remind me that though it was Sunday, I had to get up. Brunie mewed from her cell, and so the day began. Ducks quacked outside, urging me to get dressed, and the plaintive cry of the herring-gulls floated overhead. The eastern sun is just touching the tops of flowering bushes beyond the shadow of the House .

Have you smelled an apple tree full of blossom? Colin, one of our gardeners, was mowing the lawn this morning when an unknown fragrance reached him. Puzzled, he turned round and saw the one of our old trees was in full bloom. The fragrance came from there. He told me about this later, and the fragrance is wonderful. I am sure there are soaps called ‘apple blossom’ but nothing compared to this freshness and sweetness on a cool Spring morning.

Trevor, meanwhile, had harvested our rhubarb. There should be enough to freeze a little, after tasting some on Palm Sunday. It has a refreshing and cleansing sort of flavour, which is not quite lost in yoghurts. I have noticed that Tesco’s yoghurt is made in Germany - no wonder I like it!

I should be writing Easter cards but somehow I am reluctant to do this - both too early for GB and maybe too late for Abroad....

Saturday 16th April

The unexpected certainly happens.

There was a piteous mewing from under a recently parked car at our front door. We had just come to say ‘Goodbye’ when the repeated calls for help reached us. It seemed incredible that she had got there at all - small, emaciated, scarcely able to walk, weighing almost nothing in my arms. I took her to my cell (office and bedroom) and we tried to settle her with a small portion of food and water. It was water she wanted, and the comfort of our laps as we sat on the floor with her. Our friend from Ellesmere Port came out to examine her, and the next day we took her to our local vet, after she had slept under the warmth of a pullover blanket and a tent like cover over her chosen chair. She was very quiet, and some time later, after she had used the litter box, I found her sleeping like a normal cat, her tail round her nose. She purred as I touched her.

At the vet’s the next day she was completely docile, except when the four syringes to counter dehydration were put under her skin. She spat then. Other injections followed. Back here, she fell fast asleep, head tucked under the ‘blanket’ of my pullover, and we hoped that her life would improve. If not, at least she would have quiet shelter and loving attention during these coming days. That evening I determined to find out where she came from, since she had been used to kindness and care, and contacted our local ‘Co-ordinator’.

Flowering-twig Cross

Palm Sunday

A bright day, full of birdsong and wondrous fragrance from a medley of Spring flowers, including lilac and wallflowers, as well as bluebells and lily-of-the-valley. I was asked to cut some greenery to go with the yellow palm leaves. I went out thinking about the old cat , who does not appear to be suffering, and the fact that I am to be the Narrator of the Passion Gospel for this year from St Matthew. Life and death mingle eternally and bring forth their own new leaves.

Later that morning the carer of the cat was traced. A few days later a note us told that the cat Molly had died. She had spent much of Palm Sunday cradled in loving arms, slept in the same bed, and died the next day.

I replied: "Thank you for letting me know that Molly has died, and that she was so much loved by you. It was quite obvious to us that she had come from a loving home, and so trusted us accordingly. It was lovely to see you holding her, with her eyes looking serene. We were grateful she came to us, and are pleased to have met you and your friend....."

You could say that I had some hope of a quiet Holy Week, with the trees and blossoming bushes surrounding our garden with their gentle new growth, with birds singing early in the morning..... But this has only been partially realised.

Monday and Tuesday afternoons were spent in the parlour or sitting room, seeing friends. Then came an avalanche of lovely Easter post and gifts, and the need to reply to such faithful and kind people meant I was hastily addressing envelopes and signing cards in any spare moment.

22nd April

Yesterday we celebrated the Last Supper (Maundy Thursday) with its lovely frame of liturgy. Father A. spoke about the pagan shepherds some four thousand years ago who used to kill a lamb at this time and anoint their tent posts with its blood to protect them against all harm. I did not know this. So this was the origin of the custom Moses taught the captive Israelites when the Angel of Death passed through Egypt, and which has been celebrated ever since as ‘The Passover’. It was done at the time of the Spring full moon, and for two thousand years has had special significance for Christians, too. (Father A. always sleeps with his curtains open at night as he loves looking at the sky, and marvelling at the moon which has shone for thousands of years on the earth...)

After our special Passover meal, beautifully prepared and presented, we spent an hour in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament (the Altar of Repose). Night slowly wrapped us round, and it was dark when we went to bed. The hot weather has made the whole garden flower, and the perfume from different shrubs and flowers is wonderful. Brunie spent her vigil in the wall-box of the flat roof. I had quite a job to get her indoors, although a dish of food helped!

Early this morning, when the Chapel was still, the altar stripped and the tabernacle empty, I went in to meditate on the Way of the Cross. Instead of ‘saying’ all the prescribed prayers, I reflected on the prayers in a CTS booklet of 1960 by Dorothy H. Wells. Here is a sample prayer:

" O Lord, when we discover that we are weak and not strong; when we must bear the first shock of self-disgust and failure; grant us Thy humility, that we may struggle to our feet once more and dare, under God, to start afresh."

I prefer that sort of thing to feeling terribly sorry for a past historic event. Since then, and before then, millions of people have died most terrible deaths, and some are dying equally horribly this very moment. If religion means anything, it must be present, and not in the historic past, but including us now. Neither did I spend the time in vigil thinking about the Garden of Gethsemane: I was spiritually aware but wordless. Our times of liturgical prayer express all the anguish and sorrow, and love and trust and gratitude, which our human condition needs to express before God. (As well as the rage, hatred and lust for vengeance which we also feel at intervals.....)

Easter Saturday

It had rained during the night and some of the parched earth had a darker hue this morning, while raindrops glistened on leaf and petal. Although somewhat cooler, when one works on one’s feet for several hours at a time, one still gets over-heated!

It is now Easter Monday. We had a very peaceful and prayerful Holy Week and Easter, with such wonderful touches of appreciation from some of ‘our’ parishioners. They really do seem to like attending Mass here, and we do so enjoy having them here praying with us.

Alleluia