Come & visit my favourite Abbey with me ....

I had cause to visit my favourite local Lilleshall Abbey . I have visited this dozens of times, even though

there are several local Abbey's that I visit, this is the one I love the most. 

Lilleshall Abbey is the one  I feel connected to spiritually. It is a place that calms my mind & soul & I am always so happy to find myself alone there, free to take in the atmosphere of the stones. 

I visited again recently & being alone, I climbed the tiny tower with its stone staircase that spirals up to a little space. The stairs are worn by centuries of feet & I am always aware of that history. It is a space you have to take care in as it the stairs are narrow & steep but the view is worth it as it catches the breeze across the fields ... 

It is the place I come to when my mind is troubled and I need to make sense of the world.  Sometimes life just overwhelms you when things & people are not as you wish them to be & you see them for how they are. 

These stones absorbed such times last year when I was totally at loss to understand a situation & a health scare made me feel very vulnerable - I needed space to think. I'm sure we all have such times when we just need a quiet spiritual space to make sense of it all ... 

This Abbey would have been a landmark in the countryside with its vast height & the chanting drifting across the fields. 

At times, when alone,  I have caught the sound of voices & have backtracked to find it quiet, then they start up as soon as you leave the space, whispers, shadows ... 

It can only be described as layers of comforting history - to feel that it is still fulfilling its use centuries later as a spiritual space. That is why I love it so much when it is quiet. 

Thank you for visiting with me, I hope you have a space too that you can go to when you need clarity & hope, 

Dee 💕

Croxden Abbey ...

A week ago we visited a new Abbey in the next county of Staffordshire - Croxden Abbey.  The weather turned wet & wild on our 80 minute drive over & by the time we got there it was wet. 

Don't you love that they had a bookroom (early library) as well as the robing room (sacristy) 

Useful notice boards so we could make sense of what we saw ... 

However, it is a new one was an interesting space with a road splitting the site. 

It is on private land and their is great care in protecting some of the items as they are under a very nice cover which does not distract from the feeling of the site. 

The stone coffins are very interesting, these are very slim so might have been for a child & it is a reminder that we have got larger & taller in time. 

The church was locked which was a shame - the Abbey ruins visible from the grave yard, a quiet reminder of the history of the space. 

Croxden was an interesting space, it would have been a vast Abbey in its day & to just take in the space is very special. I have you have enjoyed this visit, I hope you will visit Lilleshall Abbey with me in the next post as it is my favourite space .
Dee 💕

A return to simpler times ...

 While out yesterday running some errands, I spied this dolly for French knitting & I was instantly transported back to my childhood in Africa when these were in great demand. 

Ours were simply wooden cotton reels with 4 nails hammered in to the top of them, nothing elaborate at all but in great demand. It was simply known by its Afrikaans name of Tolletjie brei ...

I come from a line of very handy women who sewed, knitted, crochet, made clothes & furnishings & more, so wooden cotton reels appeared regularly.  The larger ones were very desirable. 

I sometimes used to take my cotton reel (no fancy name for it) on the school bus with it. My Mother used to drive the 3 of us to the bottom of the farm track & the school bus would pick us up on the rounds around the rurals & then the same in the afternoon which made quite a long day. 

Depending on your pick up, you could spend up to an hour each day on the bus. I used to sometimes take my cotton reel with me to pass the time. Soon others wanted one too & so Dorothy (my grandmother) would magic up an empty cotton reel & Peter (my grandfather) would duly add the  4 nails, smooth out the centre so the wool didn't catch & present it to me to gift. 

They were in great demand,  & it was a good introduction to patience & social time. 

I had to look up how to start the wool with this modern one which has a much longer body than our modest cotton reels. This is a good video of the process 

It was a fun time just doing something again after many decades. This dolly has quite a thin hole that was not very smooth so I found my efforts bunched up in the insides & it was quite a tug to get it through, hence a bit of fluffy parts.

Who else remembers using these? Did you use the long knitted part for anything? I remember my grandmother stitching it in to a circular mat for me ... 

Thank you for your company, do stop by again soon, 

Dee 🧵🪡