August 2026
The regular reader will expect updates on meteorological events and trends, rhapsodies to the end of summer, news of dog, horses on the Common, a word or two on the solar (and also lunar) eclipses of the past month. They will follow.
The reader will also know that most of my walking through the Suffolk countryside, its lovely fields and paths, is done in the very early morning. It is, as they say, ‘the best part of the day’. It is a time of peace, before the rush and busyness, before much motor traffic; a time when wild life can be observed – levrets racing the length of a field and back, whole families of hares, deer in abundance, barn owls hunting. A time at one with nature, when blessings may be counted.
I am therefore starting with an appeal: on 9 October I’ll be walking at sunrise for the Samaritans. Not far – only five kilometers. But it’s close to my heart. Some of you will know that some five years after the traumatic death of my husband I was engaged to a man who took his own life. I am thus well acquainted with the dark hours before dawn. Please donate. Here’s a link to page https://dawnwalk.samaritans.org/fundraising/mary-kirk-fundraising2026.
Quite recently I have also experienced some more black times. I have hinted in recent posts of bullying and victimisation within the (Catholic) Church – by a priest. This followed an actual physical common assault by another priest nearly three years ago. Both have left their mark, but I have been supported by my tigress lawyer daughter who has persisted with her formal complaint to the diocese. Finally, vindication (though not redress) has come, and the complaint has been upheld by the Chief Operating Officer of another diocese.
I met with this courageous, outspoken and kind woman in August. I can both paraphrase and sum up what she said to me in these words: “Don’t take any crap from a man, ever, and especially not from a priest.”
Recovering from psychological, emotional and verbal abuse by priests is difficult. The thought that priests, who’ve been consecrated to God’s service, who stand in persona Christi, can use the imbalance of power within a parish context to treat their fellow human beings — equally children of God — so callously, certainly destroys trust in the Church, and with it possibly in a loving deity.
I would rather live with its absence than shape myself to an abusive monolith run by men. But that absence, after a lifetime, is very much a new reality.
And another strangely altered reality was brought about this month by the solar eclipse of 12 August, least well seen here in the far east of the UK at 88 per cent. It was a clear fine dazzling evening and so the daylight remained, but somehow the light had been removed, sucked out. It felt otherworldly, mystic, awesome in the true meaning of that word. And yet, and yet…local social media was alive with “What eclipse? Did we miss it?”
We did indeed miss the lunar eclipse of the 28th, for by then summer had come to an abrupt end, cloud prevailed, and next day rain fell.
Once again I have to bow to the wisdom and accuracy of those Weather Saints of whom I write so often. After St Swithun’s day on 15 July passed by in arid heat that continued…pretty well for 40 days, the weather broke with heavy showers around St Bartholomew’s day (24 August), inverting the old saying ” “St Bartlemy’s mantle wipes dry / All the tears that St Swithin can cry”.
Even The Guardian (no champion of the saints) felt that Bartholomew’s influence should be noted this year:
His day heralded the coming of cooler weather: “At St Bartholomew / There comes cold dew.”
Like St Swithin, his day also supposedly signals the weather ahead, as in the 1670 couplet: “If St Bartholomew’s Day be fair and clear / Then a prosperous autumn comes that year.”
This day was the occasion for great harvest fairs and celebrations, so that any riotous, chaotic scene was described as “like Bartholomew Fair”. Some of these celebrations may pre-date the saint’s arrival in England, with pagan rites surviving in disguised form.
The drought had become the overriding preoccupation of both garden and Common. Early in the month the horse pond on the Common ran dry. A water tank appeared, but there was no more grass, no nutrition especially for the lactating mares, and before the end of the month the horses were taken off, though their pastures new could scarcely be any greener.
The garden – oh the garden! I almost gave up struggling the length of the not inconsiderable vegetable garden with cans of water which in no way could provide the moisture needed for crops to survive, let alone grow, flourish and be fruitful. This year’s crops on farms as in the garden are pitifully small. The water company sends helpful hints such as “Have you considered a water butt?” My five butts have been empty since June.
Other effects of our roasting rainless summer have been more tragic. I reported last month on the wildfire that destroyed much of beautiful, purple heather-clad Dunwich Heath. I walked with a daughter recently from Minsmere Sluice up towards the Coastguards’ Cottages, which were just saved from the flames by the wind direction. Our way was barred, not just from the burnt area, but from the whole National Trust land. When shall we walk that way again?
But despite the difficulties and dangers of this scorching summer, the hottest on record, it has been glorious. To know that each day there would be no flinching from the cold or wet, that the sun would shine from a cerulean sky, that each dawn would be pure like those that broke on Eden before the Fall* has been an unbroken blessing. Our morning walks have been paradisiacal.
(*No, I am not a Creationist!).
Nonetheless, how quickly we forget the drought! How quickly grass springs up…If only other things were as rapidly put behind us. Do you know that Facebook can tell when there has been, as it puts it, “a romantic break up”? This puzzled me: I had never posted about a relationship (how could I advertise it?), there were no photos, but – aha! Meta tracks our WhatsApp messages, even though it cannot read them. And now Facebook showers me with relationship advice: how to ‘move on’, how to go ‘no contact’, how I am worth more than the attentions of avoidant narcissists.
Too right. Don’t take any crap, ever.
But please contribute https://dawnwalk.samaritans.org/fundraising/mary-kirk-fundraising2026.