Movements
• I joined a Book Club that meets fifty miles north of Berwick, at Haddington. First I had lunch with Jock and Margaret Stein. He has written a poem which refers to a little known bit of Edinburgh legend which I have written about. ‘King’ Arthur encamped on the Rock where Edinburgh Castle now stands. A saintly hermit named Edana had her cell next to the present entrance to the castle courtyard. You can read all about this in Reginald B. Hales’ The Beloved St Mungo . Imagine what was said when Arthur consulted her! I sent Jock the chapter about Arthur in my novel ‘Aidan of Lindisfarne: Irish Flame Warms a New World’ (WipfandStock) – this is what I imagined.
• James Percival stayed for a 48 hour retreat. He co-leads the Community of Aidan and Hilda’s work on Wales’ island of Anglesey. There, as a result of their work, the demand for regular day retreats and formation in a way of life is growing. The dispersed Community of Aidan and Hilda may be moving out of its adolescent phase into maturity. Instead of dependence upon just one retreat house, each person in vows makes their own retreats and fosters the habit of retreat in their own region. James is involved with children’s education. So we visited Lady Waterford Hall at Ford, which was a little school where some seventy locals sat for the Lady’s portraits of biblical characters. We went on to the Peace Garden Crookham, the battlefield at Flodden and the Tea house at The Hirsel, where UK’s former Prime Minister Alec Douglas Hume’s family still lives.
