We Christians occasionally wonder how best to welcome visitors, in an age when many adults almost never enter a church. The weirdness of the experience for the newcomer is sometimes compared with that of a respectable middle-class person entering a betting shop for the first...
I see that my last three posts have all been about books, so this one had better not be. I did speculate about writing “People I’m Hoping Will Die Soonish,” but well, it might be in bad taste. This thought was inspired by two people. One was...
“Seven days to bawl and weep; Seven weeks you’ll sorrow keep Pray for their soul for half a year; but when a twelvemonth’s passed – Lift a cup and shed one tear.” (Fallian rhyme) Some time ago, I posted https://www.penelopewallace.com/christmas-in-ragaris/about Christmas in the different parts of Ragaris. Book four...
Happy New Year! So… I promised a blog post on Charlotte M Yonge (1823 – 1901) in the year of her bicentenary, and I’ve missed the deadline by three days. Alas. Regular readers of this blog may recall that she was an extremely prolific Victorian novelist, most...
At this time when the world seems to be in an even more deplorable state than usual, I will use my space to be grumpy about modern literature. I’ve been reading "Stone Blind", by Natalie Haynes, a retelling of the Greek legend of Medusa, the Gorgon...
I have recently attended safeguarding training, run by the Church of England, and it included homework before, between sessions and afterwards. So I have as required watched the harrowing 2-part documentary “Exposed: The Church’s Darkest Secret," dealing with the serial abuser Peter Ball, former Bishop...
It does seem a long time since I drafted a post, and I can only apologise. Life is being rather busy at the moment, and I can't think of anything particularly original to say about current events. Some progress (still slow) is however being made on...
It was interesting that the Coronation came two days after the local elections. Regular readers of this blog may not be surprised that I was pleased by Labour gains, hee hee gloat gloat. I did also watch the Coronation. I had various thoughts during this long...
I have promised to blog this year about Charlotte M Yonge. This is not that blog. But knowledgeable people sometimes call her the “novelist of the Oxford Movement.” Novelist of the what? The definitive 1930 history book “1066 and all that” by Sellars and Yeatman is comparatively...
Did I tell you about the Monthly Eco Baby-Steps Plan, by the way? Last month’s baby-step was “try to make sure I don’t overfill the kettle” which is indeed pretty baby. It’s also trickier than I’d realised, because a short person like myself doesn’t automatically...