Palm Sunday

I always find the change to Summer Time very discombobulating. That loss of an hour overnight weighs hard when you actually have to be somewhere in the morning - have to get going and get out of the house, after months of slobbish rising and long breakfasts. Today's blip comes from the same viewpoint as yesterday's - my bedroom window - but looking more to the east, where the first thing I saw when I woke just after 7am (which should've been 6am) was this amazing sunrise. It didn't last, and the weather has gone steadily downhill ever since. Tonight it's mild, and the rain may have stopped for now, but it's blown wetly all afternoon.

We were under pressure to go out because we were allowed back into our church just in time for Palm Sunday and there were things to do. The church was filled to Covid-restrictions-capacity, and the buzz was palpable. It was even more so when the celebrant, our lovely retired Canon, made a dramatic entrance from the back of the church, led by the crucifer, to the sound of a specially-composed triumphal piece on the organ (Mr PB's been working hard!) (Personally I preferred it to the breathless singing of All Glory, Laud and Honour, but then I get singing on my own ...)

It was a lovely service, despite the tendency of the long-abandoned candles to go out, one by one - have they got damp sitting in the unheated church all that time? - and the usual restrictions; there was a real feeling of community as we met friends we'd not seen since Christmas, other than on a screen. And my bestie preached a great sermon, being at once relevant to now and to Ancient Rome, and bringing popular demonstrations of 2000 years ago into line with those of our time.

And then the rains came, and my border flooded again, and the burns which had been low and tame became brown, white-flecked torrents again (we saw this when, ludicrously, we got tired of being indoors as the afternoon wore on, and went out. We got soaked. Before this I randomly phoned my younger son's house phone, in the chance that someone might answer, and was rewarded with a good chat with my DiL about how tedious we were finding all this separation. 

The second high point of the day was Line of Duty. I have to concentrate like mad, but it makes so many other TV dramas seem ...well, ... undramatic.

And so begins a week of living two parallel lives - one here, full of politics and tedium, and one in first century Jerusalem, which doesn't seem as far distant as once it did. Oppression is as old as civilisation, don't you think?