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Writer's pictureCathie Rooyen

Graves and stars

Saturday 20th August 2022


What I'm really loving in the UK is every tiny village has a ruin or a church somewhere.  Unlike the grand steeples of the church found in the Karoo dorpies of SouthAfrica, the British churches can be hidden from view. Fortunately Google helps us find them.



Today after a very short drive in the country,  we stopped at Elwick, a picture postcard village.  The Church of St Peter is right beside the old school which has been lovingly converted into a beautiful home.  The church looked almost unused but in many of these small towns,  services happen on alternate Sundays. The graveyard however,  was open for my prying eyes.  It is strange how excited I get at seeing old headstones, especially when the writing is visible and dates back to the 1700s. Lives that have gone before,  now depicted by a slab of cement, it almost feels like I'm meeting old friends. Yes, I do know how mad that reads, lol!




It's almost midnight and I walked my two sisters home, who'd had a couple of glasses of wine at a friend's. It was a short walk and the sky was clear after a good downpour earlier and a bright star was shining overhead. I tried to explain to them that it wasn't a satellite but a planet, whose name I would have to look up on my app. Then I tried to explain the movements of planets and stars and the galaxy but they weren't convinced. My sister then asked which planet is closest to the earth, so I laughed and said the moon, which is sort of true, because it's the earth's planet and a natural satellite.  Enough talk of the stars for now, time to dream.




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