Better inside?

What whim of the weather gods made today as it was? Having gone to bed with sleet falling, we woke to a grey morning of mist and rain, with the thin coating of snow on the hills gone by the time we'd finished breakfast, and I've just realised the temperature in our bedroom is 8º higher than it was the other night ... which is a relief, even if the miserable day wasn't.

An encouraging aspect of today was the attendance at church - often on a lay-led service day there will be people missing, but although several regulars were indeed away, there were others who are not always present and the atmosphere belied the greyness outside. (You can tell the weather really got to me ...) And despite my feeling about 100 years old when I left the house, I was in quite good voice, and my friend Di preached well (and then sprinted off to catch a boat) and there were good conversations afterwards. 

The rest of the day? Well, there was the rugby: I hadn't really meant to watch as I hate watching television in the afternoon but I was sucked in and stayed till the very end, trying to do Pilates moves as I watched to save me sinking into torpor. Then, madly, we went out in the drizzle that turned to proper rain - not far, just enough to get soaked, just round the block to the back of the town and down again. I took a photo which really summed up the day - the silent length of our longest  street, with a street lamp already on and a palm tree in a garden mocking the weather - and I was going to use it here, today, but felt that yesterday's greyness was quite enough for one weekend and might deter anyone from looking.

So I give you instead the wall above the harpsichord in our front room. Quite a mix: two greek miniature masks which my parents brought me from Crete long before I ever visited; an original painting of a detail from the Cathedral of The Isles, showing Butterfield's polychromatic tiles behind one of the altar-side candle sticks, and three icons. The two left-hand ones - the famous Rublev trinity and a small one of St Michael - came from holidays in Crete some years ago now; the one on the right is new. It shows Saint Hildegarde of Bingen, the musician whose plainsong we love. I commissioned this as a birthday present for Himself, and we only just got round to hanging it where she can inspire and watch over him playing. 

So there. Much more hopeful than a rain-sodden palm tree ...