I'm sure I wasn't alone this morning in thinking, as I walked to my office, that it was good to see shops and cafes reopening now that we have reached stage two of the roadmap for lifting the Covid restrictions. There were more people about and it just felt a little more 'normal'. I understand from the statistics that the incidence of Covid is now very low in Islington and let's hope that will remain the case and that the steps out of lockdown will indeed prove to be irreversible.

The Easter weekend has come and gone and I am glad to say that we were able to hold services here in our building on Good Friday morning (2nd April) and both morning and evening on Easter Sunday (4th April). The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the great heart of Christianity, it is the source of life and hope for a fallen, dying world. If ever there is a time when we need to hear where real hope can be found surely this is it. So few people nowadays even know that Easter has something to do with the Bible and the Christian message...

The apostle James writes in his letter 'everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry' (James 1:19, NIV) reminding us of the importance and value of being good listeners. We are so often the opposite of what James says - we are slow to listen and quick to speak; we pay little real attention to what others are saying and are in a rush to put forward our own views, opinions and arguments. We are quick to speak...

There's a silvery sky today, it feels like the sun is trying to get through. It's like a metaphor for where we are in the progress of this pandemic. There is a sense that better days are coming when the pandemic will be under control and lockdown measures are lifted. It was good to see children going into their schools this morning as a first step on the route out of this lockdown. We can hope this really is the beginning of the end, even if we now have to learn to live with Covid as an endemic disease.

I often put the radio on when I'm in the kitchen. At lunchtime I caught the tail end of a discussion about (I think) spending our time well and coping during this next phase of the lockdown - which clearly still has quite a few weeks to run. The final speaker's suggestion was, 'read well' and suggested some good novels. I absolutely agreed, though maybe not with his choice of novel! I was reminded of an entry I put on this blog nearly a year ago about using our time well. Here is what I wrote...