Dereham on a Sunday - with yarn

 

Having got up at 5.30am again this morning, I edited the photos we had taken during the long day yesterday and began to write up the blog post of the day. This was longer than I expected, so after having breakfast, I had still not completed it when it was time to leave for Church at 8.30am.

Sacred Heart

Like the previous Sunday I attended the 9am Mass at Sacred Heart Church in Dereham. Given I had been here last week I didn’t take any more photos of the Church. I got there at 8:45am and was greeted by the priest who asked me about my stay in Norfolk, so I mentioned how much I had enjoyed Walsingham and the other sites of the last week. 

Mass began at 9am and the church was about half full, with everyone wearing masks and volunteering to stay about 1 meter from each other. Fr. Brendan noted that many parishioners were still attending via the live streaming of Mass and that he welcomed them as well as those of us who were physically in the Church.  

Just as during yesterday’s journey I was reminded of previous holidays so at Mass today my mind was taken back to Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, which must have been six years ago. The Catholic Church has a three-year cycle of readings and I well remember hearing today’s first reading at St. Pat's as the American translation of the bible made what today we heard in the UK as “Elijah sitting under a furze bush” and given “scones baked on hot stones” into “Elijah sitting under a broom tree” being given “a hearth cake” and reflecting on the difference translations can make to the scriptures.

The gospel for today, John 6:41 – 51, hears Jesus talk of himself as the Bread of Life: “I am the bread of life, your fathers ate the manna in the desert and they are dead; but this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that a man may eat it and not die.” Fr. Brendan, taking this theme, talked about the Last Rites of the Church and the concept of Viaticum, the last reception of the Holy Eucharist. Viaticum translated from Latin means ‘food for the road’ or ‘food for the journey’, talking of the journey from death to eternal life. Father reminded us all that we don’t know what will be our last reception of the Holy Eucharist, some people hear the viaticum prayers and recover, others die so suddenly that they never receive viaticum, so, he said, we should all live as if this reception of communion was our last. So that we will be ready when the Lord comes, as Kath Wildman, a close friend posted on her Facebook today:

reinforcing the message of today’s homily. 

I remember so well my mother’s death nineteen years ago, and that my father returned from Mass with the Holy Eucharist (he was a special minister of communion and took communion to the sick in the parish) and gave her Communion as we all prayed the viaticum prayer only fifteen minutes before her life on earth ended. It has always been a great consolation to me to know that she, who brought me and my siblings up in the faith, had the food for her last journey to bring her safely home.

Dereham

After Mass I drove the mile from the Church into the town centre of Dereham and met Drew who had walked into town for a Coffee in Costa. 

Though we have driven to and through Dereham many times in the last week we hadn’t explored the town very closely. So today, after our coffee, it was time to do so. 

The first thing we noticed about Dereham is that every post-box, tree, bench and other metal object had been covered with knitted objects. This, it appears, is part of the Yarn Bombing currently happening across the country, but especially here in Dereham where the local authority of Breckland and the Dereham Community Council has collaborated with local knitters and crocheters to celebrate Dereham and to (their pun not mine) ‘knit the community together’. It certainly brought a lot of smiles to our, and others, faces.

St. Nicholas Church

We walked down from the town centre to what we thought was the Church at the end of the road. However, much to our surprise it turns out that what we could see from the top of the road was a Bell Tower, and the Church was a completely separate building next to the Tower. It appears, as you can read below, that the Church was not stable enough for a weighty clock and bell tower to be added to the building, so it was added separately. 

We went into the Church, whose Sunday services had been completed earlier, and explored the lovely space.

The poet William Cowper is celebrated in one of the stained-glass windows.

St. Withburga, a Saxon Saint, is celebrated in another. There is also a stature of her:

St. Withburga is the patron saint of Dereham, and the Deer or more exactly Doe (yes, we couldn’t help singing the song either), who looked after and protected her, is a symbol of the town and seen on the town signs and the large welcome to Dereham memorial above the main road into town.

St. Withburga’s well, where she came to milk the does for herself and her workmen as the abbey (we'd now call it a convent) she established here was being built. The Well is still well kept outside the Church.

Next to the Church is the cottage of the famous, some would say infamous, Bishop Bonner, who having been vicar here in Dereham went on to be Bishop of London and condemned Archbishop Cranmer to death for heresy. 

Having had a lovely visit, we spotted some more yarn bomb items, one of our favourites is below, and headed back to the Barn.

Sunday Afternoon

Soon after we got back to the Barn and had fruit for lunch, a heavy rain shower passed over, so we used the time to read, Drew now having finished all five Hitchhiker books and is on to his fifth Pratchett. I’m still on book two, as my reading time is often spent blogging and editing photos, but for me this is part of the holiday that will pay off as I’ll look back on them in future years, as I was looking back at Key West, Havana and New York earlier today.

Dereham Thai

Tonight, was the opportunity for our first revisit to a restaurant. We had enjoyed the Dereham Thai so much last Sunday that we decided to visit again. Again we had the fun of trying to work out from the English Menu what it was we wanted when we know them by Thai names. 

This time we began with Tom Yam Gung, the spicy prawn soup which first brought me to my love of Thai food. It was as spicy and delicious as I had hoped. 

For starters we then had what was called here Thai spicy fish cakes but known better by us as Tod Mun Pla and Crispy Beef - that is Ner Tod to us. 

For our mains we shared three dishes – Gaeng Pa Moo (known here as Pork Jungle Curry), Ner Sai Takrai (known here as Stir-fried Beef with Lemon Grass) and Bed Tord Grob (duck in delicious tamarind sauce - for some reason this photo didn't come out) with a side each of jasmine rice.

The chef appeared during our main course to ask if we had been to Thailand, we explained we had. She said she thought that would be the case as we had chosen dishes that don't often get picked by British people when they come to the restaurant. I couldn't think of a nicer compliment. 

We arrived at the restaurant at 7pm and got back to the Barn at just after 9am, full and content.