I'm preparing for my first feast day in St Andrew's church, Wood Dalling. Before that, I think a small launch party will be in order after all the work that's gone into planning the project and securing Grants for the Arts funding. I'm thinking medieval sweetmeats and ale. Oh yes, definitely ale.
By the end of the year's residency I expect to know St Andrews' interior and exterior intimately – I might even have given individual names to the highly vocal ducks (and moorhens) who inhabit the large pond in front of the church. Not to mention the barn owl who seems to live somewhere round the back.
Already, Trevor and I cycle up to the church quite frequently and wander, breathing in the dust that dances in the sunlight; the cobwebs strung from pew to pew that festoon the poppyheads; significant moments in countless lives absorbed by the stone, flint, plaster and wood and continuously exhaled – a gentle exhalation.
