In our local park this week, the ornamental cherries are in full bloom and this tree in particular caught my attention. Not content to display its candyfloss blossom on its branches, it has bloomed all the way down its trunk too!

‘A Thousand Splendid Suns,’ by Khaled Hosseini, serves as a companion to his acclaimed ‘The Kite Runner’. Against the backdrop of the social and political history of Afghanistan from the late 1970s to the early 2000s, Hosseini paints a portrait of the lives and loves of Mariam and Laila, from their girlhood onwards.

This month my research for this blog sent me down a whimsical rabbit-hole of verbal delight.

Recently a preacher on Radio 4’s Sunday Worship spoke of a mentor who embraces a new challenge during Lent each year, instead of giving something up. One year she learned to juggle, another year to play a musical instrument and so on.

This winter, my binoculars have scanned the hedgerows in vain for some of my favourite winter visitors - fieldfares and redwings. Flocks of these thrushes migrate from Scandinavia to feast on our berry bushes.

A birthday jaunt recently took me to ‘Michaelangelo, Leonardo & Raphael’ at the Royal Academy of Art. 

I promised to delve deeper into ‘manifest,’ the Cambridge English Dictionary Word of 2024: ‘manifest’ - “To use methods such as visualisation and affirmation to help you imagine achieving something you want, in the belief that doing so will make it more likely to happen.”

In a quest for respite from world news, I’m adopting Philippians 4:8 as my verse of 2025.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Is this what a dolphin ‘sees’ when it looks at an expectant human mother?

I was very excited to receive this book for Christmas - 21 short stories inspired by ‘Jane Eyre,’ one of my favourite classic novels, in a collection compiled by Tracy Chevalier, my favourite living author.

The words of the year for the Oxford, Cambridge and Collins English Dictionaries form an interesting snapshot of the evolution of word meaning and of contemporary society.

For much of December 2024, I was unwell, along with so many others, but my advent readings were a daily uplift.

At this time of year, as well as gracing our gardens with his confiding presence and lyrical melody, the robin graces our homes on Christmas cards and decorations.

I’ve read a number of good books this year, but the only one worth reading every day is THE Good Book, so I make no apologies for ‘reviewing’ the Christmas story this month.

I love a good Christmas song – everything from dreaming with Bing Crosby, driving home with Chris Rea to Hallelujah-ing with Handel. But there’s nothing like a traditional carol.

We all know that there was ‘no room’ at the inn for Mary and Joseph, so he was born in some kind of outbuilding. There was also ‘no room’ in Herod’s kingdom, so the family had to flee to Egypt as refugees.

Autumn colours are bursting forth in our forests, parks and roadside verges – a feast for the eyes before the onset of winter. Most of the trees dropping their leaves are broadleaved – the oaks and ashes, beeches, hornbeams and so on. But did you know that a few conifer species also shed their ‘leaves’ in autumn after a display of beautiful colour?

At the last minute, we managed to get seats, in the very back row of the balcony, to see Jools Holland and his band at the Cambridge Corn Exchange. What a great, upbeat evening - Jools’ effervescence carrying us, through back-to-back songs, from one style to the next and one guest to the next.

This month’s word is inspired by a quotation by Scott of the Antarctic, who described Captain Oates, a member of his ill-fated expedition as, ‘a delightfully humorous cheery old pessimist.’

Now the evenings are closing in, I’m drawn to reflect on Jesus’ revelation about himself in John 8: 12 ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’