Suffolk Heights Benefice News March 2021
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SUFFOLK HEIGHTS BENEFICE NEWS MARCH 2021 2nd March 1969—Concorde’s Maiden Flight Rector: Rev Dr Simon Hill 01284 850857 [email protected] Reader: Barbara Hill 01284 850857 CHEDBURGH—CHEVINGTON—DEPDEN HARGRAVE— HAWKEDON—REDE SUFFOLK HEIGHTS BENEFICE NEWS March 2021 Welcome to the March 21edition of the SHBN. As ever, I look forward to receiving your contributions for this and future magazines. We are very keen to have photographs of what has been going on in the Benefice. In fact the lack of communal events in lockdown makes them all the more valuable so don’t be shy about sending in photos! Please DO NOT SEND PDFs if it can be avoided. Only Word docs, Publisher files or Jpegs. The deadline for the April 2021 edition is 5pm Monday 15th March 2021. [email protected]. t Contents Page Rector’s Letter 4 Rain Matters 7 ADVERTISING RATES: Book at Bedtime 8 Chedburgh News 9 To advertise in this magazine, please RAF Chedburgh 10 contact Jill de Laat on 01284 850463, Chevington News 17 or email Chevington Parish Council 21 [email protected] Depden News 24 Aggie Redpath’s Kitchen 26 £65 per quarter page per year Hargrave News 27 £130 per half page per year Hawkedon News 32 Rede News 38 Specifications: Rede Scribe 39 1/4 page - 8.5cm x 5.5cm (3¼” x 2¼”) Hartest Gardening Club 43 Portrait ADVERTISEMENTS 44 1/2 page - 12cm x 8.5cm (5” x 3½”) Useful Numbers 63 Landscape Mobile Library 64 All images must be jpeg 150dpi Benefice Contacts 64 2 MY WEBSHOP IS STILL OPEN !! Please contact me with any questions or to place an order directly All orders either directly to your door or you can collect, whatever you prefer Plus, all orders £30 or more get free delivery ! My mobile number is - 07702 310666 Email - [email protected] Do you belong to or run a group that is looking for virtual talks? My name is Simon de Laat and I work as a volunteer speaker for East Anglian Air Ambulance. The charity has worked hard to readjust to these surreal times and we now have a presentation that can be delivered virtually to groups and clubs The presentation lasts for 30 minutes with the opportunity for questions at the end. Feedback from other groups has been very positive – we have tried to engage the audience by adding video footage and slides rather than just listening to a talk. Virtual presentations are a whole new world! If you feel that your club or society would like me to give a talk please drop me an email at [email protected] EAAA has never had a set charge for delivering talks to community groups – we welcome all donations from clubs and their members to help us continue the life -saving work that we do within our communities www.eaaa.org.uk 3 LETTER FROM THE RECTOR I do hope that no one is giving anything up for Lent this year. If this pestilence (under an editorial edict, I’m not allowed put pen to its name) has taught us anything, it is that giving things up is no road to well-being and most certainly not happiness. There are bound to be exceptions to this observation but the overwhelming majority of us are living slimmed down lives already, without giving anything else up. Yes, it’s true. The seven deadly sins are just a step away. But it’s a pretty screwy idea that you only have to forgo their pleasures for six weeks a year. This persistent idea that somehow, we should make ourselves miserable for Lent, just won’t go away. ‘You’re not allowed flowers in church during Lent.’ What balderdash! I’m all for giving the over-stretched and wonderful flower people a break from their loving devotion, but don’t use a miserable Lent as the reason. In his Gospel, John recalls Jesus’ declaration as being ‘the Good Shepherd’. And in the passage that follows John contrasts the Good Shepherd with a thief, ‘The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they (the sheep) may have life, and have it abundantly’ (John 10.10). So many are suffering terribly at present. Thousands of families are grieving, others suffering lingering health conditions. Many have lost their jobs, suffering not only loss of income but of dignity. And what is abundantly clear is that, far from levelling up, an even larger wedge has been driven between those of us who are OK and those who have been disproportionately thumped, those whose lives have been stolen from them by this thief. We are under no illusion. The social cost will be felt for a long time to come, paid for by those who are least able to afford it. So how on earth, in these appalling times, can we speak of the Good Shepherd as one who ‘offers life in abundance’? I wonder whether the psalmist was faced with a similar conundrum when he/she penned, ‘You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore’ (Psalm 16.1). Was the psalmist also faced with pestilence and fear? We don’t know, but the psalmist suggests that by trusting in God we will be led through the wilderness into the fullness of joy. And, in his Gospel, John tells us how the Good Shepherd will lead us away from the poverty to pastures new. 4 There’s no escaping the desert we are living in at present but when the Israelites found themselves in the Babylonian wilderness, amidst the sorrow the prophet Isaiah finds a sign of hope, ‘The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing’ (Isaiah 35.1-2). The crocuses will soon be in flower, by when we will be approaching Easter and hopefully the easing of restrictions. So, don’t waste time thinking about what to give up, and then fretting because you gave in to your temptation and ate a whole bar of chocolate. That’s the path to miserableness. No, fight the good fight of the faith, in lives overflowing with generosity and love, rich in good works and ready to share. Because herein lies life in all its fullness. This is nothing about giving anything up. Except yourself of course. Every year the Diocese has a Lent Appeal and this year we are again supporting our twinned diocese of Kagera. Kagera Diocese is in North-West Tanzania, where, unsurprisingly, the people have been devasted by recent events. In particular, we are raising funds in support of Kagera’s Church and Community Mobilisation Project. The project seeks to help subsistence farmers survive the climate crisis, support the diocesan hospital providing medical care to the most in need and trains priests in their pastoral work directed towards leading their people out of poverty. The vision of Kagera is, ‘Life in all its fullness’ and with our support we can assist them achieve it. If you would like to make a donation, you can make a payment online at cofesuffolk.org/bishops-lent-appeal or drop your gift at the Rectory, New Road, Chevington IP29 5QL and I will forward on your behalf. BENEFICE SERVICES IN MARCH Due to the changing nature of lockdown at the moment it is difficult to plan church services accurately, so for the latest information of Benefice services can you please refer to the information on the Benefice website, suffolkheights.org 5 THE COLD SNAP We’ve all had a dollop of snow lately and some of us may have enjoyed it more than others. I can’t say I like being cold but a touch of the white stuff during the proper time of year does make it feel right, somehow. I asked for photos from around the benefice of snowy scenes the result of which you will see scattered with gay abandon throughout the magazine’s pages. So thanks to Ian Leggett, Christine Fitzgerald, Lucy Agazarian, Pip Goodwin, Fiona Reddick and Jacky Pratten who answered my plaintive cry for photos. I look forward to the next exciting “weather event” so we can liven up these pages with more stunning images. JdL Stanley in the Snow A mini snowman in Hargrave Fiona’s frozen puddle 6 Rain Matters Jamie Robertson January was another wet month with 95.75mm of rain, a figure you might well expect to be near the average for the time of year. In fact it is the third wettest January since we came to Chevington. 2014 (99.75mm) and 1995 (98mm), the first year we took measurements, were both wetter. Other Januaries were positively dry in comparison. 1997 had only 3.5mm of rain. This year the month had no spectacular downpours, just a seemingly never- ending succession of dull, damp days, in fact the worst kind of weather for a lockdown. The ground seems to have drunk up as much of the rain as is geologically possible and the water table has come about as high as it can come without turning the village into a pond. We did have snow on the 15th and 16th January and the temperatures came down to zero on a few days. In the past we have seen daffodils and snowdrops well into bud by the end of the month but not this year, with flowers keeping their heads down and safely tucked away until we get a proper change of weather.