Ely Trail discovered

I posted the Morning Prayer link to WhatsApp before 'Thought for the Day' this morning and then fell asleep listening to the news. Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine are getting nowhere. It's thought that Russia will try to break the stalemate by using chemical weapons as it did in Syria, and even heavier weapons. What more can western allies safely do to avoid all out war? Is it unavoidable, as long as Putin won't back down? The Russian people are being lied to and protest extinguished forcibly and the true situation covered with lies. Going to sleep during the news is getting to be a habit, perhaps because it's so hard to listen to. 

After breakfast I joined ten others at St John's for the Eucharist plus a cuppa and a chat afterwards. While Clare cooked our favourite fish pie dish for lunch, I worked on next week's Morning Prayer upload, and completed it after we'd eaten. Then I went for a walk to Sanitorium Park, somewhere I've not explored before, but I learned from another walker some time ago that a footpath starts there that runs alongside the river Ely.

Finding the way into the park wasn't easy as there were no signposts to it from the main road. Google Maps directions were unclear to the point of being misleading. To find the entrance gates it was necessary to go to the far end of a newish housing estate. There's a circular children's playground inside a large circle of grass fringed with trees. Beyond the trees, the river Ely and the woodland of the Leckwith escarpment. 

I walked down to the river and followed the footpath down to the bottom of Leckwith Hill, then headed for home alone the road that connects the Leckwith trading estate with Canton. Beneath the concrete flyover bridge dating from 1935 that takes the Leckwith hill road over the river, there's a narrow stone bridge crossing the Ely dating back to 1536. Although a grade two listed building, it needs repair. Some parapet stones have suffered damage from vehicles crossing over to reach small industrial buildings on the west bank. The juxtaposition of these two bridges built four centuries apart reminded me of similar sites I seen in in Spain, ancient stone bridges of similar design overshadowed by concrete ones dating from the thirties. It's the crossing place itself which has an even longer history. 

Clare went out to RWCMD for a Welsh language play. There wasn't much of interest to watch on telly, so I found a rather quirky German crimmie series called '23 Murders' to watch on More Four.