Mothering Sunday – did you know the origins of it came from ‘mother church’. It was an opportunity for those in service to return home to their local church once a year. Nothing to do with mothers per se. An American lady thought it would be good to celebrate motherhood so instigated a ‘mothers day’ and in Britain the two are interlinked. Personally I prefer Mothering Sunday as it’s far more inclusive of all those who have a mothering role. Of course for many it is a very bittersweet or painful day – a stark reminder of the grief associated with mothering. Grief is the price we pay for love. For me, this was the first year I have never had to buy a Mothering Sunday card and I realise for many many people it is the same for them too. My mother always insisted on a Mothering Sunday card, not Mother’s Day and I fear I shall be the same! Our children have been let off the hook this year because we have no address! However, first thing in the morning I did have a WhatsApp message from my girls. Later in the day, once P had awoken, I had a WhatsApp from him and then in the early evening I had a call from G in America. So although it was an unusual Mothering Sunday for me, it certainly was not without it’s charm.
R and I decided to go for a walk along the Towpath but arriving at the first Bridge and looking at the map, we saw that we could go up a hill to the village of Gayton and then walk through fields on public footpaths, returning to the towpath further along. This we did rejoining the canal at Bugbrooke, a place that we want to visit tomorrow. We did not realise the extent of our walk until we arrived back at the boat nearly 3 hours later. A narrowboat had been approaching in our direction as we crossed the bridge at the beginning of the walk and as we were nearing home we met him coming the other way. He remembered us and was quite impressed by how long we had been walking so I realise we must have covered quite a few miles. At least I had a small packet of oatcakes in my pocket, but no water to refresh us. Oatcakes on their own can be a little dry! Drinking copious amounts of water on this trip has not been appealing if we want to keep the Elsan cassettes from filling up too fast!
Daffodils make all the difference!
A restorative cup of tea once we had arrived back of the boat and then the heavens opened so we were glad of our timing. The sherry R had poured me at lunch was a little big so I still had half of that to finish. I took a picture of me drinking my sherry to send to my friend, A, who earlier in the day had sent me a picture of him drinking his sherry. Both of us using this as a way to toast our mothers. We plan doing this together in our gardens once restrictions are lifted.
As it was Sunday we joined in the evening Songs of Praise, this week all the songs having been chosen by the young people from our church. It was fun to hear songs such as ‘Shine Jesus shine’ and ‘He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands’. ‘Shine Jesus shine’, R reminded me, is one of the hymns I have chosen for my funeral. Originally I did not want to be cremated but R says if I have that hymn I have to be because of the line ‘blaze spirit blaze set our hearts on fire’! The songs of praise brought home to me the generalized anxiety that our young people are feeling. This is nothing new in the young but I think it is now exaggerated and more wide spread and those of us in the older generation perhaps can think of ways we can help them through. My friend, F, thinks we should build a community of ‘aunties and uncles’ so that when we hear of a young person struggling with anxiety or other mental health issues, a few of us offer to help them and the burden is then not just on one person. We all have different gifts and experiences of life that can work well together to help ease the passage into adulthood.
We had been recommended to watch a film on prime video (Can you ever forgive me?)but when we saw that it was going to cost us £9.99 we decided to wait until the film is available for free and instead watch another episode of Endeavour. It was one of the early ones, a fairly chilling episode, but very clever. As it was interspersed with telephone calls from my children and my sister it took a while to get through it.
Our friend, C, from the CRT has sent us through her blog of her epic journey in 2004 from Cambridge to Stortford on a narrowboat that is solar powered and thus cannot travel very fast and has many idiosyncrasies. I have read some of it but got a bit lost in the technical jargon. Meanwhile R has managed to enjoy it more because he is more switched on than me!. The description of her going through the Blisworth tunnel without a headlamp on the boat is very funny and I could tell from the chuckles coming from the other end of the boat that R had reached that part of this well written blog. If you are interested in canal boat adventures it is well worth a read. Meanwhile I decided to write about ‘invisibility’. It meant that we did not go to bed as early as we should have done but for me this did have an advantage – I slept through the night, even if some of my sleep was restless and did not have to get out of bed in the chill wee hours.
NarrowboatTLC 