Possibly a Thingy

 Bless - it's not sturdy. When I came back today I could see how it was leaning. But it should manage and the fuschias will probably hold it up as they are such thugs.

Sharon - we had such a giggle.

Today I took bear for shoes. I would sincerely and seriously recommend Clinkards, because they were amazing. It was all sanitised and wiped down and there were protections, but that wasn't the big thing. The big thing was the amazing service. Bear has to have inserts and shoes that are not only fit for school but accepting of both bear's feet and the inserts are few. Bear walked out with a pair of Doc Marten shoes - not the boots, but still the sturdy, engineered, blister inducing footwear that will outlast this shoe size. Bear didn't want to take them off so wore them out of the shop, which contributed to a hole at the back of his ankle about an inch across. It should be fine by the time school starts.

We parked in our usual place, Edward Street and Templar car park, near the market. When DH got home, we were talking about parking and I mentioned to bear that the Knights Templar once owned quite a slice of Leeds, including what is now Temple Newsam Estate, in South East Leeds. There is a church there that is confidently dated to 1185 and was given to the Templars by one of the local lords. I've been there and it's a really nice church with some lovely people. I looked it up.

There's a thing called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon where you hear a word for the first time and then suddenly it seems you hear it all the time. Yesterday, on my writing blog, I posted a short story that referred to the death of a priest during the Black Death. Today, when I was curious and looked up some details, it looks like St Mary's Whitkirk went through three priests when the Black Death hit. The incumbent died, then his replacement, then the replacement's replacement, all very quickly and all marked 'died in office'. At least that's my reading of the info, you can check it here which is a list of the vicars of St Mary's but with the barest sketch. Other deductions would be possible, but I know from other reading that a lot of the clergy died when the Black Death first hit in 1348. 

Before the Black Death, many parts of the country were severely overpopulated (some places didn't reach the same level of population again until the nineteenth century) and there were more ordained clergy than there were positions for them. Some were taken on as chaplains or paid to say prayers for the dead, but it became something of a scandal with unemployed priests begging and generally being up to no good. But so many died in the plague that at the start it was easy to replace the priests, especially in places like St Mary's where it was likely that the fees from the church from burials and christenings went to the Knights Templar and the vicar (vicarious or someone acting in place of the official) would just get a wage. Some of them were barely literate. 

I hope I don't seem many more things like this. It's somewhat depressing. I'd rather think about the bat walks. I hope that they do them again next year, because if they do, I'll definitely want to go along. 

And speaking of bats, what is the first thing a bat learns at school? The alpha- bat!

Hugs and good health to all.