An enchanted island...

...awaited us over the Solent as we crossed to the Isle of Wight for what was to prove an extraordinary weekend.

A number of things had come together. Kind friends had invited us to use their cottage at Cowes for a little holiday. While on the Island, we would be able to do something I had been planning for a while - visit a prisoner who is in HM Prison there (regular readers will be aware of this case, as I have been begging for prayers for him). I completed the neccessary paperwork and we made arrangements...we also planned to visit the dear nuns at St Cecilia's Ryde, who are not only wonderful friends and a delight to be with at any time, but have also been praying for this particular prisoner.

And then, quite unconnected with any of the above, last week when writing to the winning schools in the ACW/CTS Schools Religious Education Project, I realised that one of the winning schools was St Thomas of Canterbury primary school at Carisbrook...on the Isle of Wight! So I was able to contact the school and arrange to bring the trophy and prizes over for a presentation ceremony...

Finally - in what was to prove another extraordinary link in a chain of things binding the weekend together - the next-door neighbour at the cottage where we would be staying, a close friend of our kind hosts, had contacted me about a project of particularly interesting historical research, of which more in due course...

So our weekend began, with the sunlight sparkling on the Solent, and lunch in Ryde, all trippers and sun and noise and seaside... and then a wonderful affectionate welcome at St Cecilia's, where glorious pink roses snuggle over the fence and trellis, and bushy lavender scents the air as you walk up to the main door, and a sweet Extern Sister greeted us with hugs and dear Sister E. came whirling into the Parlour to hug us through the grille, and we sat and talked of a thousand things, and there was that sense of wisdom and humour and down-to-earth reality that seems so elusive in so much of life and so ordinary in this quiet place set up on the cliffs beyond the Ryde sands and the sea.

We went into chapel for Vespers and the nuns sang enchantingly - you can listen to them, too, if you click on to the link I've given.

And then on to Cowes, via the most glorious sweeps of rounded green hills and lovely meadows - proper meadows, not just bare patches or big squares of yellow rape - and the fun of discovering the (very charming and comfortable) cottage, and then a long evening walk by the sea, with the sun setting and people milling about looking yachty and suntanned, heading for drinks and barbeques, and the sound of tinkling glasses and noisy laughter coming from pubs and clubs. We enjoyed long cold drinks and ended with fish and chips from a friendly shop, and the ferry chugged in and out across to Southampton and the waves lapped up by the Victorian Esplanade and there were faint trails of the memory of a once-great seafaring nation and lots of history to think and talk about...