All Saints Church - Catfield - Norfolk

 I have always had a love of old churches.

I was fortunate recently to visit All Saints Church in Catfield, Norfolk which is a typical Norfolk Parish Church, built of flint in the Middle Ages, with a square west end containing six bells,  a nave with two aisles, a chancel, a porch with parvise. It was largely built in the late 14th Century although the tower may be older. While the chancel and a Porch are 15th Century. painted

It has a rood screen between the nave and chancel with sixteen royal Saints painted on in the 15th Century, the arcades have faint medieval paintings discovered in the 1840's underneath the whitewash. The Victorian setting arrangement placed earlier box pews around a pulpit in the middle of the nave.

The setting for the church is so idyllic, the churchyard behind a small green with the parish War Memorial, which is inscribed with a verse of O'Valiant Hearts. A hymn written by John Stanhope Arkwright and which is largely forgotten now. It was specifically to be sung at Armistice Day services.

I decided to walk with my little terrier Patch past the church gate into the greenery surrounding with graves, then a little further through a little picket gate that lead us on through the woods. Countryside is beautiful with sprawling tree's, until just then we came upon two Nanny Goats who came over to see us but were well secured behind a secure barrier to the vast fields they were in, then a horse in the far distance. 

A perfect walk.!

Dylan Thomas 27th October 1914 - 8th November - 1953

 Today we celebrate an International Day of the Welsh Poet Dylan Thomas.

I am passionate about Poetry and Dylan Thomas is one of my favourite poets.

Fernhill.

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
   honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
     Trail with daisies and barley
   Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
   In the sun that is young once only,
     Time let me play and be
   Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
     And the sabbath rang slowly
   In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
   Flying with the ricks, and the horses
     Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
   Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
     The sky gathered again
   And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
   Out of the whinnying green stable
     On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
   In the sun born over and over,
     I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
   Before the children green and golden
     Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
   In the moon that is always rising,
     Nor that riding to sleep
   I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
     Time held me green and dying
   Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Note:  Fernhill is a Grade 11 Listed Building just outside Llanguin in Carmarthenshire, Wales, where Dylan Thomas spent several childhood holidays.

A collection of 'snippets' from his letters will hopefully inspire you to get your hands on the books from which they come.

The Love Letters of Dylan Thomas and Dylan Thomas: The Collected Letters, both published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Enjoy.!

Don't expect too much of me it's conceit to suppose that you would, I'm an odd little person. Don't imagine the great jawed writer brooding over his latest masterpiece in the oak study, but a thin, curly little person, smoking too many cigarettes with a cracked lung, and writing his vague verses in the back of a provincial villa.

I don't want you for a day though I'd sell my toes to see you now my dear, only for a minute, to kiss you once, and  make a funny face at you): a day is the length of a gnat's life, I want you for the lifetime of a big, mad animal, like an elephant.