Today we headed up the M5 and the M4 to spend time with family and to return Katie to London. The stormy weather was in stark contrast to the brilliant sunshine of yesterday.
While we were at Killerton yesterday, a television crew was also there, filming the flowers which are opening unseasonably early in the mild weather conditions of this winter. In fact it has not really felt like winter here in the Westcountry this Christmas.
I am preparing to lead worship in a little country chapel on Sunday. Narnia seems to be creeping into my thoughts. I looked up the reference to it being always winter, never Christmas there. A hymn by a Wesleyan minister, George Rowe (1830-1914) expresses a similar sentiment:
And to those who never listened
To the message of Thy birth,
Who have winter, but no Christmas
Bringing them Thy peace on earth,
Send to these the joyful tidings;
By all people, in each home,
Be there heard the Christmas anthem;
Praise to God, the Christ has come!
