The skies are sliver grey, rain falls and a few, brave pigeons fly past... not a story-book Easter morning!

I opted out of the 'early' morning open air service, not because of the drizzly, mizzly, smir of rain, but because timing is too tight when celebrating in a borrowed room.

I was awake before the dawn (though then managed to sleep through my alarm! Despite which, I'd still have made the early service, had I been going), heard the birds trilling their praise, and my cats breathing as they slumbered on...

Surrexit!  He is risen.  Alleluia!

I slipped from my door to drop small boxes of mini eggs on the doormats of my neighbours (and a chewy bone, from the kitties, for the dog downstairs).  Slipper-shod, carefully closing each door, lest it bang and disturb slumbering occupants.  A gleeful, slightly mischievous exercise to bring a little surprise - and hopefully some joy.

Soon I will take my bucket of daffodils and my story bags and join with people I love to celebrate and remember:

Alleluia! Christ is risen!  Surrexit!

Blue skies or grey; sunshine or showers, these do not Easter make.  When Christ rises in the hearts of his people, when hope transcends fear, when life defies death, when love overcomes hate, when goodness is stronger than evil, when light defeats darkness... this is Easter!

(Image from web)

Enjoy!

I think my Holy Saturday experience this year is operating on a Jewish definition of when days begin, as I became aware of it late yesterday evening...

Good Friday this year was odd - no familiar markers along the way.  Apart from some private reflection on the Passion, it was mostly housework, until the evening when I joined a few hundred folk to listen to a performance of Bach's St John Passion.  The use of projected subtitles in English was definitely helpful, and easier for following than a full libretto in both languages in the programme!

The concert ended, we spilled out onto the streets and everyone headed off to cars, buses, or, on foot, to their homes.  I left my friend as she turned off to her home and began walking along the main roads (it was, after all quite late, not wise to do lanes and back streets alone).

For a Friday night, the streets were pretty quiet.  Outside one pub a few people were clearly having a disagreement, a little further along, a crowd spilled out from a wedding party.  The shops were, pretty much, shut up for the night, though a man sat alone in the 'healthy food' cafe with a smoothie.  In the children's play park, a group of youths stood round a "ghetto blaster" and danced by the light of their mobile phones.  A couple, hand-in-hand ambled homewards from an evening out; a young woman strode past me heading in the same direction...

Mostly though, it was quiet.  Shutters and curtains closed.  Very little by way of light peeping through cracks.

A population unaware of the significance of this day... which is, of course, how it must have been.

Holy Saturday is a strange, empty, what-shall-I-do-or-think kind of a day.  We know the end of the story, and we know we have to wait... our experience can never be that of those first followers who had no idea what Sunday would bring.

It's uncomfortable, this waiting... it doesn't neatly fit our nice rhythm of orderly religious observance.  But maybe that's the point: maybe it is in the sense of not knowing that we prepare ourselves to be surprised by what is yet to be.

For the first time in more years than I can remember, I am not involved in worship for Good Friday. It's strange but surprisingly liberating to sit quietly at home, read scripture and reflect on the Cross.

Sophie, the tabby cat whose name means"wisdom" is asleep on my knee. For a time, she was lying so that the markings on her back were directly in my line of sight.

can you see the cross on her back, almost donkey-like amidst the stripes?

Whoever wants to follow me must deny themselves and take up their cross daily.

It made me wonder, as I ponder Jesus' death on the cross, what that means for me.

I may not have a cross etched permanently on my back, no visible sign to remind me, but perhaps when I spend time with Sophie, and enjoy her beautiful markings, I will remember the horror and the beauty of Calvary and find myself drawn again to follow in the footsteps of my LORD.

When I was growing up, we had a family tradition for Good Friday. My Dad would get up and cycle to the bakery in the village and come back with a dozen hot cross buns, still warm from the oven. In his last few years the bicycle gave way to a mobility scooter but still the same warm , tasty buns.

The last time he can have done this was in 1989, because Good Friday 1990 he was in hospital, just days from the end of his life. This year, Easter lands just one day different from 1990, so there is a special poignancy about keeping the tradition alive.

On the Wednesday after Easter, around midday, my Dad died..so that, rather than the date, is when I tend to remember. This year, his anniversary of death lands on Tuesday, so a kind of double remembering.

I know quite a few people for whom Easter brings memories of those they have loved and"lost" so my thoughts and prayers are with them today.