HERE COMES THE RAIN AGAIN

…which is probably my favourite pop song mentioning rain, combining comment on the meteorology (‘falling on my head like a new emotion…’) with the frustrations we sometimes tended to feel about love when we were younger…(’talk to me, like lovers do…’)  

There are other songs mining the same vein. ‘It’s raining in my heart’ is an obvious one from childhood, a hit for Bobby Vee in the UK re-visited by (aargh!) Leo Sayer at a later date. My personal bête noire is Travis’s self-pitying ‘Why does it always rain on me?’, which plumbs depths of whinge-iness perhaps only ever matched by Adam Faith’s ‘Poor me…’

I only mention this, because I’ve rarely walked ground as saturated as it is right now. As later I return to Market Overton along a field margin, each footstep is pulled out with a squelch as if I am crossing a marsh.  ‘E was in there to the top of his ‘ead, and ‘is ‘oss under ‘im’.  And this is only mid-November…

The stocks on the green at Market Overton

Leaving Market Overton by Church Lane at the beginning of the walk, I turn down the hill on a muddy path which trails across the fields in the valley. The view is expansive, grey and soft misty, the Ravilious fields light brown with a carding of green shoots which at this point in their cycle become less visible the closer you are to them.  I walked this route in reverse during the summer of ’20, but today I somehow lose my bearings and have to adjust my angle of approach to Edmondthorpe, coming in down the lane from ‘Woodwell Head’.  

Edmondthorpe

Edmondthorpe (supposedly ‘east mound village’ in Saxon) is a lovely quiet place, whose architecture betokens the benefaction of past local squires, including a village ‘social club’ in a scholastic-looking building not far from the church of St. Michael and all Angels. Perhaps there was a barrow or ‘bury’ here, or the mound is in fact the ‘mount’ of thirty metres’ height, whose fringe I’ve just walked and which I will ascend on my way home.

When I was last here, three years and a few months ago, St, Michael’s was one of the few churches that was open, as we came to terms with Covid. It’s under the care of the Churches’ Conservation Trust, and perhaps at the time they were able to be more generous in their observance of the restrictions on worshippers than individual dioceses were. Even so, my blog from the time records that the chancel was taped off. I pause now in the south aisle before the splendid seventeenth century alabaster memorial to Sir Roger Smith, with its stepped recumbent figures, and reflect.

Sir Roger and family

The figures I have, taken from the Worldometer website, tell me that as of this week, two hundred and thirty-one thousand three hundred and twenty-four people have died from Covid in the UK since the beginning of the epidemic in January 2020.  This is a terrible loss of life, representative of a great deal more human suffering, but it’s a figure to be amortised across nearly four years now, so a reality check is due.  When the epidemic was in its first weeks and months, estimates were that the virus might kill a minimum of three per cent of those contracting it.  So, assuming even only 50% of the population were infected, we could have been expecting approaching one million deaths, maybe in the first year.  That was the fear behind the ‘lockdowns’. And if something similar were to occur again, regardless to the potential damage to children’s education, personally I hope the authorities would still ‘follow the science’. But next time let’s perhaps not re-route older people carrying the virus from hospitals back into care homes.  Was that a deliberate policy?  The Covid Enquiry will probably not be so controversial when it reports.

The Enquiry has mentioned these sorts of figures, but to someone viewing the proceedings through the lens of the Press’s coverage they’ve not exactly been front and centre.  The public is of course much more agog to read about the manifest administrative chaos, the bad language and even worse decisions of the difficult days in ‘20 and ‘21. Some of those revelations are indeed shocking, and if and when the world is confronted with a similar situation, let’s hope and pray everyone can do better.   But what of ‘The Church’? 

One thing I notice as missing is any great vocalisation of thanksgiving for the discovery of the Covid vaccines.  We sing of ‘craftsman’s art and music’s measure’, but now might be a good time for a hymn celebrating the skill of scientists and medics. Those vaccines are still saving lives among vulnerable groups, even as the force of the virus naturally weakens, as I think we knew it might.  As a society we’ve become noticeably wary of any input from experts, even in extremis. The government hasn’t helped this, nor perhaps the Church. We’ve made ourselves islands complete unto ourselves – which is weird for a faith which proclaims the ‘Body of Christ’. We do not care to be borne up on the shoulders of others.

Which brings one to Zoom-ed Church etc.  Pluses and minuses here in practical terms, or so it seems. We know a little less now about ‘who is for us and who against’ because we can’t entirely be sure of our numbers.  Do people who drop into on-line services on a casual basis count as ‘worshippers’?  How many of us who are more fully involved actually find we can tune into God while we watch other people doing so?  Don’t we too remain detached, neutral? Churchgoing as an in-person activity seems to have declined more rapidly as a result of Covid-time. This may have consequences in terms of the future financial contributions the C. of E. will need to survive.

I’ve noticed with interest that churchgoers, often so bad at infection control, have recidivised. No masks visible in church any more, even at this time of mists and mellow sneeziness. I attended a choir practice recently where half the singers seemed to be happy to share their germs with their neighbours.  Most churches, though not ours, have returned to giving communion in two kinds, sometimes repeating the meme that the silver of the chalice provides an immediate antiseptic. Read the science more closely and you’ll find it doesn’t.  For me, this is a personal loss if from now on, I have to decline the invitation to share wine at the eucharistic feast. Incorporation with Christ and the rest of his Body has been a central, rescuing idea of my own faith. Henceforth I will assess risk moment to moment.  If infection levels seem high, I may not take the ‘cup’. If it’s high summer, I might take a different view.

The path on towards Wymondham is muddy, but pleasantly bosky between the fields, and therefore I assume, an ancient trackway, now shared between walkers and equine riders. The church of St. Peter is one of eleven in the ‘South Framland Benefice’, so the Rev. David Cowie has his work cut out. The weather has turned dismal temporarily. I munch on an excellent Hambleton Bakeries’ Foccacia sandwich and watch the world go by from a churchyard bench. People come and go, smoke rises from a bonfire, there are the sights and sounds of the adjacent stables. All is quiet and autumnal, while in Westminster the political psychodrama continues as Ms. Braverman is ejected from office. To use that crude reference, are we happier to have her inside the tent or outside at this juncture?  They’re not ‘my’ party though they are ‘my’ government, and I haven’t a clue. Sending people we don’t want to Rwanda is a very bad idea – that I do know.

And now picture for yourself who you'd wish to put into the scene...

I return to the car through the sticky woods at Woodwell Head as the weather clears.

Many more miles with you ( I shall sing this at the Barrowden Open Mic tomorrow)

Love songs don’t come naturally;

it’s not an English thing to do,

and this might seem to you

a poor excuse for such an omission.

Words crack under the strain;

I don’t want to re-heat

Old clichés again,

but if what’s what I have to do –

I want to walk many more miles with you.

 

The lies of politicians

have me reaching for my pen.

A hypocrite’s ‘Amen’

leads straight to flights of rhythmic fancy.

I can’t find a way to distil

all I long for,

all that I feel,

so this will have to do –

I want to walk many more miles with you…

 

…the pleasures of rambling

never fade away.

You know how much a day

of soaking up the sunlight brings me.

Time spent out on the road:

watch us flourish!

see how we grow!

Whatever else we do –

I want to walk many more miles with you.

 

Market Overton – Edmondthorpe – Wymondham - Edmondthorpe - Market Overton

14 km. 4hrs.  11 deg C.  Cloudy, clearing later after some drizzle.