A hopping Easter
Only in a very literal sense--I have had ups and downs. I felt a bit brighter on Saturday, and maybe did a bit too much--mainly mowing and weeding. Followed by making a difficult lasagna (Liza Tarbuck was on so I wanted to cook while listening to her, but the strength had departed my arms while knifing the raw butternut squash). Crawled to bed.
Sunday morning I 'attended' a zoom service from a Unitarian church in Edinburgh. The speaker was a very interesting American who spoke of his Ulster Scots ancestors who moved to America and became slavers. I did not know that "hillbillies" is derived from the followers of King Billie (William of Orange), many of them Ulster Scots, who settled in Appalachia. The saddest part of the service for me was singing the hymn We'll Build a Land and thinking about the future of Ukraine. Tears were streaming.
We’ll build a land where we bring the good tidings
To all the afflicted and all those who mourn.
And we’ll give them garlands instead of ashes.
Oh, we’ll build a land where peace is born.
We’ll be a land building up ancient cities,
Raising up devastations from old,
Restoring ruins of generations
Oh we’ll build a land of people so bold
Putin is trying to destroy the place physically and culturally--to wipe it from the map. It is hard to adopt the optimism of the song. I struggle to understand how you contain a psychopath with thousands of nuclear weapons.
But the service had high points as well. Another UU hymn that I love (I laughed when I realised I knew the hymn number before it was called out) and a very good choir. A reading of a poem by Harry Chapin that I found moving. It was very good to be with Unitarians in spirit during such troubled times.
A friend from Edinburgh was visiting Belfast this weekend and we ended up going for a long walk on the tow path on Easter. It was lovely to be out and to catch up with her but the walk to the Lock Keeper's Inn and back was maybe too far in my delicate state.
Today is Monday and I have done less than nothing after testing positive again--another very dark red line I find worrying. Other than two walks with Paddy, I've just been reading. I have a stack of magazines from my friend Ann (Financial Times, New Statesman) and I've now been through all of them. I read a short book she gave me and have moved on to Bill Bryson's Short History of Nearly Everything.
The nice thing about sitting around and reading is my house affords so many options as the sun follows its arc. Mornings is the upstairs lounge, afternoons the conservatory, evenings the front sitting room, where I have tulips from my friend Christine. It is not often I sit back and enjoy all the work I've done as I'm too busy with golf, triathlon training, work, chores, etc. A silver lining of being ill--stop and smell the flowers.
16-18 April