Somusing

In June and July we lived in Pocklington, East Yorkshire. In the middle of town is All Saints Church, the only church we got to know that I haven't written about here yet. We could see its tower peeking up as we looked out our front door to the left: Here is a little history from a brochure at the church: Christianity was brought to Pocklington in the year AD 627 by Saint Paulinus, who had been sent from Rome to preach the Christian gosepl in the north of England. Tradition says that he baptised people in the beck which still runs along the north side of the churchyard. There has been a Christian community here ever since. Nothing is known of the first church building here, which may have been little more than a thatched wooden structure. A few fragments remain from a stone church building which existed around the time of the Norman Conquest in AD 1066. The [present building] was begun some time before AD 1200 and was completed by about AD 1450. (More details ar...

Some of you might want to watch this video of Phin playing a video game. He was very "interactive" for a while and was cracking me up. I was already laughing really hard when I started recording him and I'm sorry for my outbursts. It probably won't seem quite as funny to you, but trust me. It was. Another quote from earlier: "Your horse! I shall hamstring it! Like I hamstrung your mother! And your brother!" It's this behavior that makes me think he's channeling his Uncle Charlie.

We've been on several trips walking, cycling, and running to the nearby hamlet Kilnwick Percy (silent w, pronounced Kilnick). A main feature of the area is a large hall that is now the Madhyamaka Buddhist meditation centre . The grounds are open to the public. It's a beautiful area of rolling hills, grazing sheep, a lake, walking paths, friendly Buddhist monks, and a café. In the woods nearby there is even a really old wooden trailer room thingy: Near the hall is St. Helen's Church, Kilnwick Percy , a Norman style church that was built in 1865 using some of the original Norman architectural features, so presumably there was a church there for around 800 years before this current one was built. However, this church has been "made redundant", and is now deconsecrated, locked up, and decaying, with overgrown grounds. The Buddhist café has a binder with some historical information about the hall and the church, and it says that a key to the church is availa...