Sunday March 19th 2023

09:00 Lois has got her chair yoga class later today, at 5:30 pm, a class led by her great-niece Molly. Molly works for Leeds social services, but she's also a budding entrepreneur. She's built up a flourishing business in her spare time, offering yoga classes for city centre workers at local venues during lunch breaks, and also online sessions in the evenings from the flat she shares with her partner, local lad Sam.

Lois's great-niece Molly

Today's chair yoga class has been rescheduled from its usual Friday 5:30pm slot, so Lois has asked me to set an alarm on my phone, so that she doesn't forget to log on. Makes sense to me - aren't phones wonderful!

Lois and I think that Molly must dream of bottoms, women's bottoms in particular, judging from some of the pictures she puts on social media.

[That's enough women's bottoms! - Ed]

10:00 A lovely sunny start for the day, when we hop out of bed - having lived in Malvern for nearly 4 months now, we really appreciate some of the beautiful views you can get around here, mostly of the hills and the wide open spaces of the area's commons, and sometimes from our own dear windows, which is nice!

the view that greets us from our back windows 

when we hop out of bed this morning:

Health warning: just to be clear, the giraffe you see in silhouette in the above photo isn't a real one, it's just a 12" high ornament on the window-sill - sorry to disappoint you haha!

11:15 For a couple of Sundays Lois hasn't attended, in person, any of her church's meetings, For various reasons - health or weather - she has stayed home and taken part online using zoom.  Today, however, she says she would like to go there in person, so I drive her the 17 miles over to Ashchurch Village Hall. 

It's nice for her to get the opportunity to chat to her fellow-church-members face to face, rather than just on a computer screen, understandably enough!

flashback to  August 2021: we make our first visit to Ashchurch Village Hall

where the church's local services are held

We sneak in at the back of the hall, and luckily we find that we've arrived just as the first meeting has come to an end, and the lunch break has started.  Good timing! And somebody finds us a couple of spare seats, which is nice!

As usual the congregation has been boosted by some of the Iranian Christian refugees whom the Government is housing in nearby Gloucester, whilst their applications for asylum are being processed. 

As we walk into the hall, people are eating their lunches or queuing up at the drinks table for tea or coffee, soft drinks etc, so we're able to take our seats unobtrusively and tuck into the packed lunches that Lois has made for us: salami and cucumber sandwiches - yum yum!

when we arrive, people are already eating their lunches or queuing up

at the drinks table for tea or coffee, or soft drinks

I count only about 4 dogs in the hall this week, and they're all quiet and behaving very well. It can be quite amusing during the talks when dogs come out with some little mumbled "wuff-wuffs" -  they appear to be making "comments",  on what the preacher is saying - usually, however,  they tend to sound vaguely complimentary on balance, which is a relief!

the lunch break at Ashchurch Village Hall - Lucy (centre) talks to 

wheelchair-bound Janet, while some Iranians (left) chat in Farsi

David is there today, which is nice - he's always to happy to act a bit of a clown. Today he entertains us with his impression of one of his Australian buddies, donning for the purpose Lucy's "meeting hat", which she's discarded for the duration of the lunch break. Good "improv", David!

Funny man David makes us laugh with an impression

of one of his Australian buddies, with the help of Lucy's "meeting hat":

on the tables are the individual portions of the communion bread and wine,

a health precaution first introduced at the start of the pandemic.

12:30     The lunch break comes to an end, and this week's preacher gives his exhortation. It's quite long, much longer than usual, says Lois, at about an hour's duration. 

This is unfortunate for the Iranians because it means they have to dash off as soon as the meeting is over. They need to catch a train leaving Ashchurch Railway Station at 2:15 pm, to take them back to their Government-funded accommodation in Gloucester. It's the only train available today, so if they don't catch it, they're stuck in Tewkesbury till tomorrow, which isn't good, as nice as Tewkesbury maybe is as a town. 

My goodness !!!!

Just another manic Sunday haha!!! (copyright Prince)

flashback to black-and-white photo days:

Ashchurch Railway Station in happier times

20:00 We wind down with a look at this week's programme in Bettany Hughes's current series 

My favourite segment this week is when Bettany shows us what's reckoned to be the oldest known human settlements ever found, at Karakhan Tepe, which was only discovered in 2019. It's from the Neolithic period, and is 11,400 years old, so 7,000 years older than the pyramids of Egypt. So far only 1% of the site has been investigated.

At a time when the vast majority of humans were still hunter-gatherers, this place was expertly carved out of the bedrock, with different rooms for different purposes, which shows the sophistication of the people who created it. It seems to have featured some kind of assembly area. So far 200 massive columns have been discovered here, some with carvings of animals, some also of people, so it's assumed that some kind of ritual must have been performed in the space.

An enclosure was found that contains 11 monumental columns.

Bettany says, "You've got to ask what is going on here?". I'm not sure we necessarily want to know, Bettany - my goodness!!!! 

However, she discovers also that the whole area is overlooked by a carving of nice smiley man with a beard, a bit like Ernest Hemingway the famous writer, so Lois and I are sure it wasn't anything unpleasant that was being staged here - so that's all right!

neolithic bearded smiley man

writer Ernest Hemingway: I wonder if, by any chance,

the two could be related?

On the other hand it's a bit worrying that the bearded smiley man appears to have a snake's body, but maybe that wasn't so unusual in the Neolithic Era.

Gosh isn't archaeology puzzling sometimes!

What it tells us, says Bettany, is that these people were turning the landscape into something human, and that they had some kind of belief system. They used the site for 1500 years and then mysteriously covered the site over and left. Were they "mothballing it", hoping to come back but never did? 

Mystery upon mystery!

What a crazy world they lived in, back in those far-off times!!!

But fascinating stuff !!!!!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!