A SEAT WITH A VIEW - WITH A DIFFERENCE!

Usually when there I do a “Seat with a View” collage, Mr. HCB features, but (a) he wasn’t wearing his famous Tilley hat and (b) the seats were quite mucky so he wasn’t keen to sit on one, so you have a seat in the middle shot, but no Mr. HCB!

I was pleased that after about 6 weeks of not singing at Church, I sang with the Worship Group this morning and really enjoyed it.  We had a great sermon and then stayed for coffee and caught up with several friends, which was good.  

Having been told that the cherry blossom was looking beautiful in the Town Gardens, we decided to go up there afterwards.  We haven’t been to this particular park for a couple of years, so it was good to see the cherry blossom again, except it was raining!  We thought there wouldn’t be many people there, but we were mistaken - and I guess lots of others had thought the same.  

Several couples were taking photographs under the cherry trees and leaning against them, so on two occasions I asked if they would like one of the two of them and they were both happy for me to take shots of them as couples.  One man was there with his little daughter - dressed in pink - and who was carefully carrying some blossom, which she gave to me and then found some more on the ground.  We had several conversations with various people - unknown to us - in the rain, but it was good to be out and to see and enjoy the beauty of God’s creation.  

The bandstand at the Town Gardens always makes a good shot and reminded us of the many times we have wandered through during the summer months and listened to bands playing there.  We even saw someone doing handstands in the bandstand today!  

The floral displays in this particular park are always beautiful, although not quite as good as we have seen them in previous years, but I guess that the Gardening Departments in our parks often have their budgets cut which means that the displays are not quite as good.  

I did see a seat with some roses attached and recognised the names of the people - we all went to the same Church well over 50 years ago - and the roses had obviously been put there in memory of the anniversary of the death of Ashley Smith, who died on 11th April 2020 and his wife, Margery.  In fact, her parents, Harry and Olive Booker were very involved with the Sunday School at Immanuel Church for many years and we remember them well.  

I apologise for not responding to any comments for yesterday’s Silly Saturday Blip, but when we got home from our party, I went up to bed to try and get warm, because I was so cold.  The next thing I knew was that it was 11 o’clock and Mr. HCB was just coming to bed.  I then slept until 8 o’clock this morning - I’m not sure what was in that Pimms at the party, but it certainly knocked me out - or I guess it could have been my jab! 

I guess today we could have been described as these - another word I’ve learned:

PHILOCALIST - noun
A lover of beauty - someone who finds and appreciates beauty in all things.

P.S.  I even thought the little snail was beautiful!