Iden

Gill Griffin

Belfield, Main Street

BEFORE I START: May I wish you all a happy and safe Easter weekend. I hope you all enjoy, your chocolate rabbits, whether it be the whole thing, or just an ear or two! A little chocolate is a treat now and again, and we all need a treat. My auntie Jess used to take a sherbet dab to bed, and eat it while she read her book, and I used to think “good on you aunt Jess”. It probably wasn’t advisable, but it didn’t seem to do her any harm [perhaps a filling or two] because sometimes a little of what we fancy does us good [that sherbet dab may well have been her salvation, because in truth her life seemed otherwise mundane] So, enjoy your Easter eggs and hopefully the sunshine, and just being with other people .No matter how much we indulge ourselves or have fun, there is always that ethereal feeling at Easter time. . Even if we are eating an Easter egg behind the larder door, it’s there. There is a lovely aura about Easter .isn’t there?

EASTER TRADITIONS: Topol’s song ‘Traditions, Traditions’, from ‘Fiddler On The Roof’, applies well to Easter We all love constancy, and there is much about Easter that is traditional. The very word ‘Easter’, conjures up Spring’s delicate beauty, not the same at all as summer’s sturdier kind of palette. We shop for the ground almonds, for the simnel cake with some resolve, and tread carefully to avoid treading on the crocus that pop up in the grass. We dress up to go and hear Stainer’s Crucifixion, or Handel’s ‘Messiah’, and pick pussy willow and Catkins [a must for the window sill and they both enhance a vase of daffodils]. We buy hot cross buns, and spend far and away too much on Easter eggs. We may well be living on beans to accommodate the expense, but, finding a chocolate rabbit under a watering can during an Easter egg hunt, is all about laying down memories. It’s the real significance of Easter that humbles us though, and a pair of bunny-ears doesn’t detract from that. Iden‘s daffodils window-dress Easter beautifully .Tradition is ingrained in us all isn’t it?.

CHURCH SERVICES: GOOD FRIDAY At 12 noon today, Good Friday, there will be a ‘Walk Of Witness’ in Rye, starting at St. Mary’s Church, Church square. THE LAST HOUR - GOOD FRIDAY Meditation from 2pm-3pm, at Playden Church. EASTER EVE Saturday, 4th April, ‘Blessing of The First Light’, in Iden Church EASTER SUNDAY Iden Parish Church - There will be Family Service at 9.30am, followed by coffee. Playden Church - here will be Family Service at 11am, followed by coffee.

A BOWLS CLUB COFFEE MORNING: On April 11th, there will be a Bowls Club coffee morning, in the village hall, from 10.30-12.30. There will be bric-a-brac, a cake stall, a raffle and books for sale. Something nice to do after Easter. Everyone is welcome.

THE POP-IN: The next Pop-In will be on April 13th.

BINGO: The next Bingo will be on 9th April.

THIS IS KEEPING ME UP NIGHTS!: Come clean someone, anyone, who knows who it is that plants clumps of daffodils beside motorways, or leaves them skirting wooded areas, allowing us a periodic vision of those wavering yellow beauties as we drive along. Villagers with forethought plant them around their own village (Iden is awash with them), and town councils no doubt pay for their annual Spring showing, but how do they get beside motorways? Could it be foxes with a penchant for nocturnal gardening, or badgers digging them up. If so, how do they carry the bulbs from A, to B. Anyone who sees a fox pushing a wheelbarrow up a motorway please write in! Is it birds, who drop the odd bulb, because they do spread, a highway repair man with a glut of bulbs in his own garden (a highway repair man who likes to share), or are they carried by the wind? Be honest, have you ever wondered about this, or is it just me finding something else in my repertoire to keep me awake? Either way they are a lovely sight...

GRANNY’S PARCELS: Most grandmothers re a soft touch when it comes to buying Easter eggs, because it is their prerogative to sneak in some chocolate. When I left Canada for England I was 10, and afterwards, every now and again I would get a parcel from my Granny in Canada. It always, without fail, contained packets of sunflower seeds roasted and salted in their shells. They were very big in Canada, and every child learnt to crack a sunflower seed with the speed of a hamster. She sent me all the things I missed because she knew who I was, and that’s the nice thing about grandparents. Anyway, I quickly learnt to love what England had to offer too. To this day I love parks, and gazing at the tracks on the Underground (oh, I’m not suicidal, I just love the tracks) because we didn’t have underground tracks like that in a gold-mining town. There was that dank, musty kind of smell (possibly brake- dust and cast iron), that was peculiar to the underground. Wafer thin bread and butter too, was a post-war English speciality, and those two-tiered plates of cakes when you got to choose your own (which one to have, was such an important decision wasn’t it, because two was out of the question!). Why am I telling you all this? I have no idea, maybe because it’s Easter! Have a good one!

CONTACT ME: I would love to add to the village voice, any of your news or anecdotes. Please contact Gill Griffin [telephone 01-797 280311]