2010:365 12.12.12. Day, blog and photograph.

Time running out and no photographs from the 12th January - panic? No! A quick tour of the kitchen gave me a subject that took me back to school days! A basket of eggs!

Immediatly there I was in the Geography Room - Room 7 in those distant days. (It might still be Room 7) My favourite place in the entire school. It was no surprise to anyone that I read Geography at Queen's in Belfast after leaving school.

County Down (my home county) has one of the text-book examples of Drumlins. The word itself is Celtic - dromnin. Now, all over the world people refer to these little elongated hills as drumlins. "En echelon" the eggs in the photograph may not be - but the term springs to mind as easily today as it did in the school uniform days when we learned that drumlins occur in parallel and overlapping drifts.

Retreating glaciers from the last Ice Age left huge deposits of boulder clay that give the countryside that famous "basket of eggs" appearance. Place names all over the country reflect the scenery. Monaghan: place of little hills. Dromore: the large hill. Cavan: the hollow.

Thankfully this past few days of snow and ice didn't create any glaciers and with the milder conditions all but the most persistent lumps of ice have gone. Photographs alone remind us both of the beauty, and also of the inconvenience, of the last few weeks. The icy wind today is keeping the temperatures low even if the thermometer records numbers above freezing point.

I'm quite sure that there will be further opportunities to think about eggs around the Easter season - but for now - my mind is touring around South Down and enjoying the rolling green elongated hills that we call Drumlins and remembering once more the hours and hours of happy learning in Room 7. Thank you (perhaps belatedly) Miss Russell and Mr Shields.

Let us thank Almighty God for all his blessings.

For all your blessings in creation,

for the beauty of earth and sea and sky,

for all your works,

and for the wisdom with which you have created them.

We thank you, Lord,

and bless your holy name.