The Moss-Gatherers

You'll probably have come across at least the title of Robin Jenkins' novel The Cone Gatherers, particularly if you're in Scotland. (He actually lived just down the road in Toward in his later years). It was that I was thinking of when I wrote that title, as moss-gathering was one of today's huvtaes. (Now read on ...)

It was reasonably pleasant first thing this morning, though the faint sunshine had vanished by the time I'd had breakfast. It stayed dry till mid-afternoon, however, which meant that my pal Di and I had decent weather for what is more or less an annual event, extreme Covid lockdown excepted: collecting moss with which to recreate a garden of Gethsemane on the Altar of Repose on the night of Maundy Thursday. 

We decided on Puck's Glen as providing an abundant supply, and in fact had filled our bags with great handfuls of the stuff within moments of leaving the car. The car park was actually full, to our horror - I don't know why we didn't think of a well-known gorge walk as being full of families exploring in their Easter holidays - but we ignored any curious looks and left very little trace of our foraging down the backs of rocks and tree-stumps in an area where no-one (other than mad women from church) ever goes.

This left us time to get in a walk before lunch, which meant I was able to climb the steep path through the gorge for the first time in over two years. The glen, and its car park, was shut for much of the pandemic, and Himself's aches and pains have ruled it out as the frequent destination it used to be. The photo shows Di on one of the bridges in the lower gorge; the path is very slippery and eroded in places, and there are new warnings about the dangers of falling stones and so on after heavy rain, but we think this is just a back-covering exercise. It was a great pull up to the upper forest track, and a really slippery slither back down again by another path through the forest, but a strenuous little walk before lunch.

The afternoon was taken up by consecutive visits to the sports therapist and (for Himself) organ practice and (for me) Italian Duolingo sessions. Later there was online Compline and the usual somnolent collapse on the sofa. Tomorrow has more busyness - and we're still really at the start of Holy Week. 

And meanwhile our Great Leader has been found guilty of breaking the laws he made, along with our no-longer-squeaky-clean Chancellor. What will happen next?

Probably nothing. Huh.