We all know that there was ‘no room’ at the inn for Mary and Joseph, so he was born in some kind of outbuilding. There was also ‘no room’ in Herod’s kingdom, so the family had to flee to Egypt as refugees.

Autumn colours are bursting forth in our forests, parks and roadside verges – a feast for the eyes before the onset of winter. Most of the trees dropping their leaves are broadleaved – the oaks and ashes, beeches, hornbeams and so on. But did you know that a few conifer species also shed their ‘leaves’ in autumn after a display of beautiful colour?

At the last minute, we managed to get seats, in the very back row of the balcony, to see Jools Holland and his band at the Cambridge Corn Exchange. What a great, upbeat evening - Jools’ effervescence carrying us, through back-to-back songs, from one style to the next and one guest to the next.

This month’s word is inspired by a quotation by Scott of the Antarctic, who described Captain Oates, a member of his ill-fated expedition as, ‘a delightfully humorous cheery old pessimist.’

Now the evenings are closing in, I’m drawn to reflect on Jesus’ revelation about himself in John 8: 12 ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’

I’ve always loved the sea, its otherness, vastness and restlessness. One day benign and inviting, the next, turbulent and forbidding.

Travelling through Hampshire, David and I broke our journey at the Gilbert White Museum, a delightfully rambling house dating from the 1500’s which hosts the collections of 3 explorers - Gilbert White and Frank and Lawrence Oates.

Do you have any quincunxes in your garden? October is the time for re/planting spring bulbs - how about a tulip quincunx?

It’s unfashionable in secular society to speak of God as our Judge and many Christians now feel uncomfortable about it. But it’s clear from the moral outrage about issues like the Post Office scandal, that people of all persuasions have a keen sense of justice/injustice. 

Sky above, a horizon of tree-lined banks around, the body immersed in natural water, without a whiff of chlorine, and preferably not another soul around – this for me is swimming!

Who doesn’t love an Agatha Christie Murder Mystery? A sleepy English village or university town; vintage cars and costumes on screen or in the mind’s eye;

Originally the word ‘cloister’ meant ‘a place of religious seclusion,’ a religious community, ‘cloistered’ or ‘closed off’ from the world.

Do you enjoy the BBC’s ancestry programme, ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’

Six weeks of nursing a sprained ankle have amplified my gratitude for the ‘little piece of earth we call our own.’ So this month's nature notes are inspired by our garden.

My July book club assignment got off to a promising start. Adam Kindred, climatologist is set up, deliberately or accidentally, for the murder of a scientist working on a drug for big pharma. So far, so interesting.

The sunshine has broken through at last and over the next weeks, many of us will go on holiday, some travelling to far-flung shores and others to the nearest seaside resort.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen is a master of irony in the English novel. It's one of the reasons I, along with countless readers, return to her books again and again. Did she detect irony in the pages of her Bible, I wonder?

Out of the corner of your eye, you spot movement in the treetop, you raise your binoculars and… it's gone! At times, bird-watching can be a series of near misses; but then there are golden moments when you manage to focus in on that barn owl or yellow wagtail and it takes your breath away.

At book club last night we discussed Tracy Chevalier's ‘Burning Bright’. It's a historical novel about William Blake, described by Brittanica as an English engraver, artist, poet and visionary. He’s most well-known for his poem, ‘Tyger, tyger burning bright’ hence the novel’s title.

The word scriptorium rolls off the tongue rather deliciously. It refers to a ‘writing room,’ especially in a monastery or abbey where monks used to copy manuscripts. The word derives from the Latin, ‘scribere’ to write, from which we also have ‘scribe.’