After enduring about a year of COVID restrictions, Elspeth looks at all the words that are now quite normal, and part of every day speech. She discovers that words such as pandemic, quarantine, and lockdown compete for the most used words, ever in this past year, and words such as sanitiser, and and social distancing, which were hardly used before these two years, can be heard on everyone’s lips!

This week, Elspeth was about to sow some lettuce seeds and she was amazed how tiny there were. This set her thinking. How could all the power to create plants, whether lettuces, or trees, or even planets come from almost nothing? So she looked at how people explained creation, from modern scientists, to modern Biblical scholars.

Now the history of Easter is a mixed bag – both of traditions, and even of religions. So many of the different celebrations of Easter date from the seasons, and even from pre-Christian days. As to the customs, from hot cross buns to bottle kicking, they are a far cry from Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection. Elspeth creates a pot pourri of different aspects of Easter, and also aims a direct question at you, the reader. “Do you know what you are celebrating and why?“

Elspeth wonders what effect the shutting down of normal church worship in St. Albans for part of this last year, will have. Will there be a growth of an INVISIBLE CHURCH ? Will those who don’t believe in the Christian faith, change their minds? She also checks on the number of different ways Christianity is expressed in this city, and wonders whether there could be a physical unity of Christian expression here, thus making the church eminently VISIBLE, by the dramatic consequences of miraculous healings, and total transformation of ordinary people into those who know they are loved by God.

“Oh to book a holiday” and “When is it safe to book a holiday” are thoughts on our minds at the moment. Elspeth recalls a few holidays on her own, without David, That certainly didn’t go to plan!

This may be a subject you don’t want to consider, but in this pandemic, with hope on the horizon, Elspeth bravely takes on the subject of what people think happens to them after they die! This is not a modern question. Archaeologists show us many artefacts left in tombs by the Ancient Egyptians, Babylonians and other ancient civilisation. But her concern today is sharing the revolutionary idea of Christians, that there is a God, and that he will give them some very different existence after death.

Are you, as they say, “a creature of habit”? Elspeth admits that, compared with several of her friends, she likes to eat or exercise or play the piano at certain set times. She wishes that computer technology would get simpler, and admits that she screams inside herself when she finds that the password she‘s used a few years ago is not acceptable now! So, sympathise with her, or enjoy her discomfort, as very little now stays the same as it was!!

Elspeth relates how she is at the very beginning of a long journey, but with a good outcome, if she can do all the work. Yes, a publisher has offered to take her collection of poems, and Elspeth shares all the ins and outs of preparation and hard work that has to be done. She has published a book before, but remembers that period as taking such a lot of time. So this latest chat is a door into what happens before you open the page of any book!

It’s winter, with lashings of rain and a bit of snow, which does not encourage a cheerful spirit!! Elspeth discovers a few of the creative activities that are being done, in this “new” age and the range of old TV programmes that are being “dredged up” to give us all enjoyment. She also recommends watching the programmes online that feature Christian services. If you want to discover a little more about Jesus, and what a relationship to Him means to other people, but don’t want to confess to others that you might be interested, here is the ideal way, and in St Albans there’s plenty of choice of different kinds of Christian worship.

February is usually rainy, cold and with snow showers, and the one lighter note is Valentine’s Day. But how did it start and how many Saints named Valentine were there? When did the romantic side of it come in? Elspeth brings you some surprising facts and you may not be surprised that a lot of these stem back to the Romans. However, it’s not all on the serious or gloomy side as Elspeth lightens up the story with a few jokes, poems and the memory of many big changes around the world that all happened in February.