Landmark tree demise

Cold and overcast today. After breakfast I sent the draft eulogy written last night, and then went to the Eucharist at St Catherine's celebrated for just four of us by Archbishop Rowan. He had coffee with us in the church hall afterwards, and in the course of conversation said that he still gets seventy emails a day - ten years into retirement! I get a small fraction of that amount and am grateful as it means I don't have to spend nearly as much time doing this as I used to. 

Clare cooked pease pudding and quinoa for lunch, using the split peas I mistakenly purchased instead of lentils some time ago. It made a pleasant change. It's a pity that they take much longer than lentils to cook as that's a deterrent to using them to make a quick meal. 

After lunch. Then I went to Beanfreaks and collected groceries ordered by Clare, then I worked on files Ruth emailed me of two weeks worth of texts for Morning Prayer, so prepared these and wrote one of the reflections, before going out for a walk in the park. 

It was a quite a shock to find that a prominent Elm tree situated on the allotment boundary had been felled. It died of disease some years ago. It lost its bark and slim dried out branches to wind and rain, and had weathered to a strikingly stark silvery skeleton. It was standing there stark and solitary against the western horizon only yesterday. Today it's in pieces on the ground behind a cordon of safety tape. It'll take time to get used to the visual change in the local landscape. I was surprised when I looked through my photo archive to find just one photo of this tree, from five years old, although there may be others filed in an obscure location, as I reckon it's been dead longer than that.

After supper, I watched a couple more episodes of 'Helsinki Crimes', which puts the spotlight on what drives different people to murder another person. Portraits of mental health issues as a result of substance or sexual abuse or domestic violence are highlighted in an apparently wholesome attractive environment. It also portrays the impact of these crimes of investigating officers and their families, and so far none of cops seem to be dysfuctional, which is a bit unusual in series like this.