Chelmsford, Essex

I really enjoyed today.  Wonderful warm splendid sunshine.  A couple of hours in Chelmsford town centre - I love wandering the old High Street end of town where all the buildings are C18th and C19th, easy to forget until looking up above the modern shop fronts.  Sojourn included a stroll through the Cathedral gardens (extra) and I was suddenly curious to see inside.  It must be thirty years since I was there - lovely Christmas Midnight Mass services with sweet singing from the choir - and found marks of modernisation including that the old pews are gone (extra pics) but the aura of spiritual calm was unchanged and it was nice to sit in a stillness of solitude for a little while. Anyway, leaving via the Cathedral gardens gave me my blip for the day.  Which reminds me.  An auto email from Blipcentral tells me that tomorrow will be my 1,000th blip - but it isn't going to be anything special as I will spend the day in airports and airplanes.  Oh well.  Maybe some heavenly clouds....

An afternoon pottering in the garden with the tortoises, happily planting the shrubs I bought yesterday (me, not the tortoises) and I look forward to seeing how they've grown (the shrubs, not the tortoises) next time I'm home. Not sure when that will be. 

And now this evening it is a Police Procedural extravanga on ITV3 - Foyle's War, Lewis, and Frost - while I sort, tidy and pack with a couple of bottles of Adnams 'Ghost Ship' for company.   


"I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude."
Henry David Thoreau

Later: just realised it is the Rugby World Cup England v Wales.  Neither Ma nor Pa would forgive me if I didn't watch that,  - Mum was of Welsh parents even though, like Dad, she was born and grew up in London.   Difficult to know who liked rugby more - probably Mum, especially if Wales were playing, doubly so in the days of Gareth Edwards  when she would get quite excited :))  


10pm -  Happy Mum :)