I don’t usually duplicate 365 posts, but I thought that I would today.
Poppies for Remembrance Sunday, these poppies growing amongst the stubble in the fields behind our home.
Later this morning Chantal and I will walk down to the village with Tia (Lesia is too old to sit in the cold for an hour) to join in the outdoor Service of Remembrance, standing, along with a few hundred others from ours and surrounding villages, on the grassy embankment that descends from the pub to the road, with the War Memorial and Garden of Remembrance on the far side. This year, the centenary of the beginning of the First World War, the service will be particularly poignant.
I was brought up in a small market town not far from where I live now, and as a Scout I paraded annually at the Remembrance Parade (wearing as many layers as possible under my uniform shirt for warmth in what was often a cold wind at the War Memorial). When the names of the fallen were read out in alphabetical order, the surnames were repeated over and over again, because many individual families had lost sons, fathers and uncles. Many of the families ran (and still run) local businesses and the names were familiar to me, linking past losses to the present time. We remembered them, and still remember them, as we do those who have fallen in more recent and current conflicts.
Technically we live in Oaktree House, but sadly the tree had to go.
We now have a thriving Oakstump at the front of the house.
