Easter 2016
Dear Friends & Family.
Happy Easter 2016! Here in Lincolnshire we are very much enjoying these suddenly longer and warmer days. With such an early Easter, spring seems to have been launched with extra aplomb this year – the garden is loving it!
2015 was intended to be the Year of the Website. For reasons lost in the radiological mists of time, that final countdown was delayed a little. But with a drum roll and a fanfare, and 2 years software-wiser than I was at its inception, I launched my new website in all its austere resplendence just after Christmas 2016. The new website address is www.schdn.co.uk - links to the old one should redirect you automatically. Take a look and see what you think.
One of my projects for 2016 is to walk 2 million steps! This is primarily to boost my get-fit-again-quick regime: 2 million steps equates to approximately 5000 steps per day (3 times round the village) which is, apparently, the magic threshold required to transform me from a feeble, demented couch-potato into a respectably ambulant, sentient being once more.
But to reach my 2-million-steps-target I will still need to supplement the daily 5K forced-march around my patch, with a few longer summer hikes. The OS explorer maps for the Viking Way route arrived today – this is a gentle Lincolnshire-based National Trail which starts on the southern banks of the Humber in Barton-upon-Humber, and finishes on the shores of Rutland water near Oakham. Apparently the place-name-ending “by” (Tealby, Owersby, Kirkby, Walesby) refers to a Viking settlement, and the 9th Century Danes are deigned () to have held much sway in the area, hence the title. I have lived and worked in and around Lincolnshire for nearly twenty five years now, so it is probably about time I began to explore a few more of its byways & wildernesses. I will be strutting my stuff on odd days throughout the summer, so if anyone would like to join me for a short section of the route, then I am quite happy to walk-‘n-talk the miles away. Get in touch!
I am also hoping to raise some money for “Freedom from Torture” by my efforts. Freedom from Torture is the only organisation in the UK dedicated solely to the treatment and rehabilitation of survivors of torture. Their website is here: www.freedomfromtorture.org. This was my nominated charity for donations at the time of my Solemn Profession, nearly 10 years ago now, so supporting them again is a sort of celebration of that milestone too. If you would like to find out a little more, or to sponsor my 2-Million-Steps challenge, I have created a Just Giving page here: https://www.justgiving.com/2-Million-Steps. Feel free to give generously! Thank you.
My alternative route to fitness has been to join the local yoga class. Hoping to restore some of my natural grace and presence I enlisted in autumn 2016. We have a very skilled and experienced teacher who is, thankfully, also very sympathetic to the more supplely-challenged amongst us. I seem to spend half the class flat on my back admiring the twisted contortions of my fellow-students, but I am learning to “organise” my elbows, and my half-crocodile is apparently a wonder to behold. It is exhausting, but a lot of fun. I am hoping and anticipating that the same may be said about the summer ahead.
I keep you all in my prayers.
Rachel (Hermit of the Diocese of Nottingham)
Ps. Sad news for fans of media-star Mrs Henny Penny . She crowed for Peter for the last time on Good Friday, and was found early on the morning of Holy Saturday, peacefully succumbed to Dead-Hen-syndrome. Perfect timing to the last for everybody’s favourite chick-lit.
A short photo gallery of her much feted walking tour of the hermitage, in celebration of an eggstraordinary life.
