I attended the Eucharist at St John's this morning, and after lunch walked around the park, enjoying the presence of many birds out feeding while I was passing with my camera at the ready. Redstarts, long tailed tits, a solitary cormorant in breeding plumage perched on a rock in the river Taff, and a jay that fed on the ground for a couple of minutes as I approached, though I wasn't quick enough to get a shot of it as it moved around. It's just lovely to see.
Then in the evening I continued scanning more old negatives from the year 2000, fascinated to learn where they had been taken. Today's batch was a roll of film taken in Haute Savioe in May 2000. One was of the annual pilgrimage by Holy Trinity Geneva to the Voirons massif where a community of about fifty Carthusian Sisters live work and pray at 1,700m on a ridge with a stunning view of the Mont Blanc range.
In the forest that's part of their domain, looking north towards Lac Leman and the Jura, is a chapel of 14th century origins with an adjacent accommodation building for workers. Each year on Ascension Day, the chaplaincy gathered there to celebrate the Eucharist, using its huge boulder-like ancient altar stone. The chapel is dedicated to Notre Dame des Voirons, and it may have been a local pilgrimage sanctuary many centuries ago. It was a wonderful and numinous occasion, even if it was in shadow and chilly there. Sometimes it snowed while we were there. The photos I took were of our group of two dozen arriving and being welcomed by the Sister guest-mistress. I wonder where the youngsters in the photos are now? Some of the older people are still alive, others of them I laid to rest or have died since.
Another first rate episode of New Amsterdam tonight. It did prompt me to wonder how long it will be before I get my appointment letter from UHW.
In the forest that's part of their domain, looking north towards Lac Leman and the Jura, is a chapel of 14th century origins with an adjacent accommodation building for workers. Each year on Ascension Day, the chaplaincy gathered there to celebrate the Eucharist, using its huge boulder-like ancient altar stone. The chapel is dedicated to Notre Dame des Voirons, and it may have been a local pilgrimage sanctuary many centuries ago. It was a wonderful and numinous occasion, even if it was in shadow and chilly there. Sometimes it snowed while we were there. The photos I took were of our group of two dozen arriving and being welcomed by the Sister guest-mistress. I wonder where the youngsters in the photos are now? Some of the older people are still alive, others of them I laid to rest or have died since.
Another first rate episode of New Amsterdam tonight. It did prompt me to wonder how long it will be before I get my appointment letter from UHW.
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