Sometimes I sits and thinks - and sometimes I just sits.

Both A.A.Milne, the creator of Winnie the Pooh, and Satchel Paige, an American baseball player, have been credited with these well known words. Whoever first said them, surely their sentiment is important? Lives nowadays are so busy and so structured - why, even leisure is now an industry! - that it does us all good to simply stop, and sit, and simply “be”.

Summer holidays are important times to do this, and to combine some ‘vegging-out’ with some site-seeing and activity is surely good. If you cannot actually get away on holiday this year you still have the non-pareil Ditch Edge Lane to stroll along; stand and stare into Warwickshire with Gloucestershire in the distance; be still, admire the view, say ‘Thank you’.

Jesus was himself very keen on time apart from busy-ness and we hear of him going up into the hills to be still. He encouraged his followers to join him. Christians still take such times apart and try to simply rest in God’s presence on a Quiet Day or Retreat. This is not skiving, not wasting time, but putting that time to a good and different use.

Go on - simply walk round your garden each day, smell the roses, look at a leaf unfurling, spot a bird busy in the hedgerow. It is good for the soul!