All in the April evening...

I see on Facebook that my nephew, the News Correspondent, has posted the launching of the robotic Dragon with a load of supplies for the International Space Station, and so I hurry to the site and the image of the ship and the Falcon launcher standing straight and tall, pointed towards the heavens against the blue of the sky and the wisp of clouds, and belching smoke and fire .....

As I watched the preparations for launch suddenly into my head came the hymn, 'All in the April Evening' (Roberton) and I found myself humming, and singing snatches of the words.  A somewhat vague feeling of the passage of time, eternity, and how in some way despite the great advances in technologly since I first learned that lovely April hymn, all things remain the same throughout and despite these incredible changes.

And how blase we are about it all...  I saw nothing on the news about the Falcon and the robotic Dragon, - or the close proximity of Mars and the total eclipse of the moon (ah, I was looking in the wrong place...)

When we first came to the farm and John Maunsell was the incumbent at St. John's there were a number of good singers in the congregation and we formed a choir of sorts.  All in the April Evening was one of the pieces we sang - it has a lovely sweetness and melancholy about it and it brought back so many memories.  Singing, sheep, lambs, the years on the farm........

I love the sound of this Men's Choir and picture the sheep on the hills in the Dales when we visited Charles' crew member, Brownie, in Peakdale..

A walk in the April woods with Charles when we first met, - a journey through space this April afternoon some seventy years later.....the same incredibly beautiful world!!!