word from Wormingford
Ronald Blythe’s offer of protection fails to impress the white cat
THEY told me that the hunt would be coming through, but I had forgotten. All nature changes when the hunt comes through. Coming down from the study, I find the white cat shivering behind the ancient clock and think — the hunt! But [...]
Continue reading about word from Wormingford – 26th February, 2010
word from Wormingford
Ronald Blythe reflects on St Paul’s words on love — and women
Mtins with morning tea . Very early. The sun tips the fields with indescribable glory. Thousands of starlings wing north on a bird Haj. Am I approaching Lent, or is Lent approaching me?
It is dreadfully cold, and the Bemerton servants will be [...]
Continue reading about word from Wormingford 19th February, 2010
Ronald Blythe considers two new acquisions for his library
TWO books have joined each other on the library table, and will most likely stay there for many a long year. One is Andrew Linzey’s extraction from the Gospels of The Sayings of Jesus, the other is Diarmaid MacCulloch’s vast A History of Christianity. The Lord’s few [...]
Continue reading about word from Wormingford 12th February 2010
word from Wormingford
Ronald Blythe catches a glimpse, albeit briefly, of spring
SPRING arrived today. The white cat and I, toasting our bottoms on opposing radiators, watched it through the window. For a few hours, January stepped down, and April stood up to be counted. How happy we were. As I collected the post, I marked a [...]
Continue reading about word from Wormingford 5th February, 2010
word from Wormingford
Ronald Blythe admires some expert hedge-laying
DRIVING to church through the melted snow lakes, we very nearly brake with astonishment. Duncan has laid his mainly hawthorn hedge. Not given it what-ho! with what his father used to call “the murderer” — the machine that did as much in an hour as the old whiter [...]
Continue reading about word from Wormingford 29th January, 2010
word from Wormingford
Ronald Blythe hears the shouts of the spectators at a chariot race
I ALWAYS return from the PCC with the feeling of having said a good many silly things.
Looking back over the years, I see a range of venues, which stretch from frigid church halls to Henry’s cosy sitting-room, from hard stack-chairs to his [...]
Continue reading about word from Wormingford 22nd January, 2010
word from Wormingford
Ronald Blythe believes he is able to detect the approach of snow
APPROACHING snow. I think I can smell it. The fields ache in the cold. A brave band of chrome yellow straight out of my old paintbox streaks across the sky. All the trees are still. At matins, 16 of us crowd into [...]
Continue reading about word from Wormingford 15th January 2010
word from Wormingford
Ronald Blythe still feels a sense of wonder at the sight of snow
IT IS a relief to find that one does not gain a mature vision of everything — that the first sight of snow, for example, will be as serviceable, wonder-wise, as that of all the snowfalls in one’s life. A six-inch [...]
Continue reading about word from Wormingford 8th January 2010
word from Wormingford…….. Christianity is not an antiquated religion, says Ronald Blythe
LIKE everyone else — I trust — in the Church of England, I have been reading and watching Diarmaid MacCulloch’s A History of Christianity. It has been sweeping me along, racing me through the centuries, confirming my prejudices, challenging my dullness, waking me up.
And [...]
Continue reading about Word from Wormingford 1st January 2010
Ronald Blythe walks down boyhood lanes and remembers Christmasas past spent in Cornwall
I HAD hardly turned my back on the late afternoon when the vast, bleached Advent moon swung up hi the north-east. It whitened the puddles and lit the wet fields. The paths are darkened with sodden leaves, and rainwater dribbles from a blocked [...]
