Lady Day

What a great day it's been today! I can't recall a drier spell of weather in March, which means I have planted all my potatoes. And to have hot sunshine as well...

I took Caroline's Japanese student round the churches of Cheltenham today, and (topically) pointed out the Annunciation windows in the Parish Church and St Gregory's, both Victorian glass. This one (right) is a much older panel in the Burrell Collection: I photographed it a few years ago. It's a far more elaborate representation, possibly German. Unusually, God the Father is himself visible top left, that link between creation and redemption again.

As someone wrote recently, The Annunciation is logically the most important feast day in the calendar: without it, there would be no Nativity, no Easter.