The Silence Deeping

As I have in years past, I had the privilege this week of spending a couple of days at Malling Abbey in Kent. It's a place I love to go to because it's so deeply at odds with nearly everything else I do. I can go to Malling and not talk to anyone, if I please; I can even let the Sisters do the praying for me. The depth of the silence here has something to do with the fact that this is not just a Victorian religious house - this was the site of a convent for centuries before the Reformation when the nuns were expelled, only for an Anglican Benedictine community to reoccupy the ruins thanks to the good offices of a 19th-century Anglo-Catholic family giving up their property.

The Sisters have been joined by two new novices since my last visit two years ago, and the blossom is out on the interlacing apple trees.

And the skies were dramatic as I left.