Tree planting

Most of the rest of the trees and hedge plants have arrived, followed by the first tree-planter, James. The other two are arriving tomorrow, and they've all got their work cut out. The maintenance yard is piled high with a large number of bags containing a large number of whips of alder, ash, oak, field maple, crab apple, hazel, sweet chestnut, rosa fructosa and other types of wild rose, blackthorn and hawthorn, and a large number of pots of sea buckthorn. I imagine it could be painful planting the thorns. Some of the sea buckthorn are still in a crate, as if they were too dangerous to be let out.

Much of the afternoon was spent dreaming new Holy Week and Easter liturgies. So the Easter Vigil is now planned for dawn on 24 April. And because Easter Sunday is as late as it can be, the dawn and the sunrise are the earliest they can be, even with the clock change. Dawn marks the beginning of the twilight before sunrise, i.e. the start of civil twilight at 5.14am (Birmingham time). We'll need to start the service by then, probably closer to 5am, so we reach the Gloria as the sun rises at 5.51am. It could be worse - we were thinking during the meeting it would be more like 4am.