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The Great Dragon Audition

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For several years now, I have wondered about getting a Nativity scene.  There are all sorts of versions around, from a range of sizes and styles available in cathedral gift shops to a tiny Mexican folk art version that I once saw in a gift shop.  Books on handicrafts offer patterns to make your very own woollen ‘Knitivity’. When I’ve raised the subject with PDB11 , his answer has always been: ‘What I’d really like to have is a dragon Nativity.’   It’s not that he thinks that Jesus was a dragon, even in a fantasy universe , but just that, as a Christian who likes fantasy fiction involving dragons, he would like to combine the two ideas. A web search for ‘dragon Nativity’ brought up three main results.   Firstly, there are a number   of essays  arguing that you should include a dragon in Nativity scenes, in reference to the allegorical poem in Revelation 15 picturing Satan as a dragon attempting to eat Jesus. I did once have a go at making a Christmas card with a dragon on it, but
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Come to Scoff, Stay to Loaf

Are chatbots making reading pointless?   As someone who has loved reading since I was a pre-schooler, and loved being read to since I was a baby, I hate the thought of this. But is there, for example, any point in reading a newspaper or magazine, when the editor could be saving money by having the articles written by a text-generating AI that just assembles a random selection of words that bear no relation to anything in reality?   Is there any point in asking or answering questions online, when the questions I find may not have been posted by a real person – not even by a bored, mischievous teenager trolling – and the answers I receive to my questions may not be based on anyone’s real-life experience? So, reclusive as I am by habit, I have had to accept that if I want to be sure that what I am interacting with is a person, I need to meet people and talk to them face-to-face, and that it’s worth getting to know the people in my area better.   After all, I’ve lived in Nettlebridge f
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Sunday 16th June - Ashwick to Asham Walk

When I proposed to do another walking challenge, one of my reservations was the effect that over-exercising might have on my mental health.   Getting over-tired, or not eating enough because my body is too focused on walking to remember to be hungry, tends to knock me off balance if my body isn’t expecting it. When I last spent a month walking as much as possible, in 2021, a friend wrote an encouraging comment about walking being good for body, mind and spirit, but, as with most things that are good for the mental health of normal people, it doesn’t necessarily work that way for me.   2021 wasn’t a good year, and the best thing I could say about July of that year was that I was tired enough after days of walking that I didn’t have trouble sleeping. By now, I’m capable of being reasonably sane for a fair amount of the time, and for the first half of the month, I was fine as long as I kept walking.   I only really started to have difficulties when a few days of wet weather kept me in
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Wednesday 12th June - Monarch's Way walk

At the start of this month, I resolved to walk as far as I could, every day that I could, health and weather permitting.  After all, there were bound to be days when it was pouring with rain and maybe even thundery, or when I was so tired that I needed a break, so I would need to make the most of the good walking days. Wednesday 12 th June was an extremely good walking day.   I had done only a little walking – just 8 miles delivering election leaflets around Ashwick and Benter - on Tuesday, so I was ready to get out for a proper day of exploration on Wednesday, exploring the Monarch’s Way path further north.   Sadly, the more northern reaches of the West Mendip Way were starting to be far enough west of my home that accessibility on day walks was becoming a difficulty, but the Monarch’s Way , which follows the escape route taken by King Charles II after being defeated at the Battle of Worcester, moves further east as it goes north here, coming nearer to the Chewton Mendip area.  
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Monday 10th June - Ebbor Gorge Walk

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When I started this walk, I wondered whether I should schedule a rest day each week, preferably (especially as I’m a Christian) Sunday.  It isn’t that I think Christianity is about adhering to a fixed set of rules, but, as Mandy’s sermon last weekend said, it’s important to rest intentionally, instead of just keeping working until you collapse. At that time, though, I really didn’t feel that I needed a rest.   I had only just begun my walking challenge the day before, and I was still full of energy.   Walking didn’t feel like a chore that I needed to rest from, but a holiday.   Also, I didn’t know how long good walking weather could persist for, so I wanted to make the most of going walking on every clear day that we got, before torrential rain and thunderstorms – or extreme heat – set in. As my first week wore on, though, I noticed that I was slowing down.   From 20 miles on Saturday 1 st June, and 18 (because I took time out to go to church) on Sunday 2 nd , I went down to 16 by
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Saturday 8th June - Four Marys Walk

One of the things I find hardest to get used to about life in the country is how small rural congregations are.  I realise that the majority of British people aren’t Christians, but I’ve spent most of my life living in towns where there were enough people overall that the numbers of them who went to church would still produce congregations of a couple of hundred or so, of all ages from children through to elderly people.  Some would hold several services each Sunday: a traditional Communion service early in the morning, a family service in the late morning, and a service for students in the evening. In a rural parish, it’s more like the scene in The Vicar of Dibley where Geraldine, newly arrived, asks in her typically irreverent way, ‘What kind of crowd do you pull at these gigs?’ and is told that the usual congregation is five worshippers.   ‘What about at Christmas?’   ‘Oh, that’s totally different – it’s four then, because one person spends Christmas with her sister.’ So church
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Friday 7th June - Political Walk

Thursday’s was not exactly a full-day walk.  PDB11  and I arranged to meet at St John’s in Midsomer Norton at 12.30 for the Trio Paradis concert, go out to lunch, and go to Haydon in Radstock to deliver some flyers for the local Green Party candidate, Martin Dimery , after which I would walk home. If you’re wondering why, after having shown no particularly strong signs of party affiliation in this blog so far, I have suddenly taken up canvassing for the Greens, it’s because, five years after the government declared a climate change emergency , they still aren’t behaving as though it is an emergency.   None of the main parties seems to be taking this nearly as seriously as practically all scientists seem to agree that we need to.   The Conservative government seems to assume that, if we have made progress ahead of schedule so far in meeting emissions reduction targets, we’re going to reach net zero by 2050, and can therefore afford to relax and focus on other priorities.   It appare
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