"Keep your mind in hell, and despair not"

Monastery of St John the Baptist - beautiful orchard
Originally uploaded by Nina Pope

I forgot to mention a strange coincidence that happened while we were at the Monastery of St John the Baptist. In the room where we had the wheat soup the frescoes on the wall showed a man holding a scroll with the words: "Keep your mind in hell, and despair not" ...
I kept looking at this and eventually realised that I'd previously read it in the book Love's Work by Gillian Rose which I'd given to my dear friend Marie. The book is amazing and I think if I had to make the 'desert island book choice' this would be the one I'd choose. Anyway the phrase had always struck me as interesting and it emerged that it comes from Staretz Silouan who left his papers to Elder Sophrony who eventually founded the Monastery of St John the Baptist.
The sister who explained the paintings to us gave her understanding of the text which rather differed from my own, but it was an interesting coincidence none the less.

To this ...

Monastery of St John the Baptist - garden & rainbow
Originally uploaded by Nina Pope

With 50+ miles on a bicycle in between ... Ritualride

Yesterday Mr P&M and myself joined my ex-student Steven Ounanian on the first leg of his Ritualride project.

It had the potential to be hell (lots of rain, heavy traffic, getting lost, desperate shelter in a mega-Tesco cafe, narrowly avoiding a dual carriageway, the furthest I have EVER cycled and inadequate clothing) but somehow by the time we arrived 9 hours later at the Monastery of St John the Baptist in Essex it seemed something like heaven.

I really have little idea why I enjoyed the experience so much. I do like a challenge but not normally of this kind. It could be just that I was so scared I would have to chicken out and get the train that I was just glad to still be on my bike by the end, but it seemed more than this.

The monastery was genuinely surprising and beautiful, covered in contemporary frescoes and mosaics by the nuns and surrounded by a huge productive garden, kept by the monks. We were soaked to the skin for a final time just before arriving, and it was pretty bizarre to be greeted by a nun under a big umbrella in a downpour after we'd been cycling since 9 am. At first the place seemed rather low key but we went in to their refectory set for the evening mean and it just looked amazing. They made us wheat soup and talked about the paintings. As we went back out to the garden the sun came out over their orchard.

From this ...

Ritualride - day 1 Setting off from Abbey Gardens
Originally uploaded by Nina Pope

What happened next ...

Ciggy & the Blackbird Eggs
Originally uploaded by Nina Pope

No prizes for guessing why the same Blackbird might have abandoned her second batch of eggs. Sadly located in an even more visible location (and constructed largely with plastic bags bits as far as I could see) the cats basically kept up a constant vigil below the next nest waiting for the inevitable 'fledgling fall out' ... maybe she decided to quit while she was ahead with a high score of 3/3 with the first batch.

In the mean time ...

Blackbird fledgling in our yard
Originally uploaded by Nina Pope

Life has been going on in the 'garden' at the Pie n Mash with our first batch of Blackbird fledglings hatched earlier this year and thankfully trained to fly in the back yard with the cats locked inside for a few days.
It's amazing to me if these three were anything to go by that any Blackbirds survive, they literally spent three days beak diving into the patio before they got the hang of it.

It's been a long time ...

Our allotment in June
Originally uploaded by Nina Pope

and this was taken last month - I've been too ashamed to take any photos since then as the weeds have taken hold in a big way :-( and I haven't been able to keep on top of it, same as my Blog it seems.