Wednesday, December 09, 2015

All along by the Thames...

...on the South Bank, under a clear blue sky and in bright winter sunshine, there are  stalls selling roast-pork-and-potatoes, and French crepes with chocolate sauce, and wonderful arrays of chocolates and fudge and marzipan fruits...and there's a merry-go-round, and roasted chestnuts, and people enjoying it all.   I  bought some Christmas gifts, ate a good lunch, and then settled in a cafe with coffee and my laptop and tackled some work...a perfect way to spend an Advent weekday after a lunchtime Mass.

In one place there was recorded music, with a choir singing "Amazing Grace" and other hymns and carols which was lovely...further along there was horrible rock stuff with a woman shouting, MUCH TOO LOUDLY into a microphone the sort croon that begins "Ah gotta...Ah wanna".  But in general it was all just delightful and as dusk fell and the tide went out, and the wide sandy beach revealed its rocks and pebbles and the flotsam of centuries in the lamplight  it was rather wonderful...

We'll be carol-singing at London Bridge station on Friday Dec 18th: come and hear us - or, better, come and join in! (6pm, main concourse).

1 comment:

Faustina said...

Hello, Joanna. I enjoy your work, especially on EWTN. I just saw your comment about the joy of Christmas, that there are those who find this a difficult time of year. Not to try to elicit sympathy, but my brother is in prison, my father just died, my mother had a stroke, many son is homeless and I live with chronic pain. But I thank God every day for my Catholic faith! I converted at age 55 from agnosticism. So in spite of all these causes of sadness, I now have reason to hope! God bless you and have a Merry Christmas.