Rogation Sunday

A minor religious festival, when the church asked for blessings on the crops and good luck for the coming year. I said no more religious references, but today we saw the rogation walkers in Staunton on Arrow, a group who walked the parish bounds after the service this morning to keep the geographical definition of the parish active. This is the 'beating of the bounds'. They were also being shown round a local organic farm called the Leen, a name which has its roots in 'lene' which means marshland, I don't know which language originally. Lots of places round here have derivatives of the word lene in them, as most places here are built on the valley floors or alongside rivers, land which at one time would have been marshy. Staunton is a very small apple village with an ancient church, and we went for a walk through a very muddy orchard, the trees starting to come into blossom, the ground covered in dandelions.