Last autumn Jane was given a plain green shrub by our friends, Ruth and Anthony. It had a label saying it should have pink flowers in due course. Now it looks like this:

Camellia "Lady Campbell"

Pas mal, heh? I love the fact of creation; as the poet put it, "There lives the dearest freshness deep down things". Here's Gerard Manley Hopkins' whole sonnet, God's Grandeur:

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;	5
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;	10
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Meanwhile I enjoyed this item which I read about today. I initially thought it was an April fool, but I see the CNN article is dated 23rd March. PETA calls for inclusive language for animals in the Bible !

By contrast, on a very serious issue, I'd urge you to look at the Right to Know website. It's to do with an amendment to the Health and Social Care Bill sponsored by MPs Nadine Dorries (Con) and Frank Field (Lab), ensuring that women considering an abortion are given independent advice, rather than from those with vested financial interests, http://righttoknow.org.uk/ . It seems to me to make eminent sense, giving women truly informed choice and hopefully saving life. There's something we can do about it. Write to our MPs.

A very good day

In fact yesterday was too good a day to blog on. Jane pulled back the curtain on a cloudless blue sky. I didn't exactly leap out of bed, though you might say I did spiritually. It's extraordinary how external factors can affect us sophisticated creatures, but on Facebook in the UK there's been general rejoicing.

For me there was the double bonus of my ear-syringing appointment. 'You've got wax, in both ears?' asked the nurse, adding sceptically. 'Have you had them examined?' 'No, but I've had it before,' I said. 'I'd better have a look,' said she, taking her otoscope and peering down my right (better) ear. 'Ooh, yes!' she said eloquently and satisfyingly. 'You have, haven't you?' A new self-calibrating pump has replaced the inflated icing syringe they used when I last had it done, with water at the right pressure and temperature. And so my ears were unstopped. The upshot is I now once again inhabit the world of 3D hi-fi sound. And I'm so grateful. I can hear the traffic, and also birdsong, and music, and of course, best of all, my wife's every word. I hope I shan't forget what a weird and frustrating world people with impaired hearing inhabit, with no easy cure ahead of them.

In the afternoon Jane worked in the garden, while I sat in the conservatory. There was a bonanza of butterflies: two commas, a tortoiseshell, a yellow brimstone, a red admiral and a peacock (these photos are courtesy of © Cathy McKinty and © Peter Eeles). I think brimstones are the first butterflies of spring; and we've never seen a comma with its ragged scalloped wings so close up. One came and landed on the conservatory door blind. Meanwhile in the conservatory we've had an Old Lady moth, which apparently overwinter in porches and similar places.

At about 4 we went down to the Coop for some milk, and then made a tour of the whole of the close. We reckon we live in the nicest part and in the best house! Anyway we have a great sense of contentment with everything. The only spoiler on a great day was when we sat down to watch the rom com Fifty First Dates, which I'd recorded on the digibox - only to find halfway through it had been interrupted by the news and the second half wasn't there!! Doh! We knew the ending, but it was a bit of an anticlimax, though not enough really to spoil the day.

LIFE IS GOOD!

There's nothing special about the weather today.  It's overcast and a bit drizzly, but... I sat in my riser-recliner in the conservatory, listening yet again to Laura Hackett, and looked at this corner of our garden over by the fence.  Isn't it beautiful - just waiting for the sun?  So I asked Jane to take a photo to show you.

And let me pass on these links to you - which are connected, in that they are both celebrations of life too.  They were posted on comments by Stephen and Mary respectively.

'A couple of programmes to make one happy about the Beeb:

Frank Cottrell Boyce on Desert Island Disks: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnmr

Simon Russell Beale's series on Sacred Music: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rbmmz/Sacred_Music_Series_2_Brahms_and_Bruckner/ '

'Did you see this? Very moving. What a lady is the baroness.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1258710/Mum-wanted-die-convincing-live-gave-gift-measure-.html'

The Desert Island programme is repeated on Radio 4 at just after 9 on Friday morning.  And Baroness Finlay is quite a lady.  Because of her stand against euthanasia, she incurs quite a bit of vitriol and hate.  We need to pray for her.