Hello

I've been a bit quiet the last week; problems with my password and signing in, all sorted now. Trouble is, nothing much to write about. I've been reading several things, of course. A biography of Florence Nightingale and her family, called "Nightingales" by Gillian Gill, and "A royal passion" by Katie Whitaker, about the 'turbulent marriage' of Charles I and Henrietta Maria. Both books very readable, although I stopped about three-quarters way through with the Charles I one. (I know how the story ends).
   Both books brought home to me how lucky I am to live in a secular society, where people are not burnt at the stake for crossing themselves or not crossing themselves in church, where you can choose what you believe in and how you express that belief (or not, if you're an atheist like me). 
  Charles I was too Catholic for some, and not Catholic enough for others. Victorian England was not so extreme as Stuart England, but Florence Nightingale felt the stings of religious prejudice as well. Her championing of the mystical aspects of Catholicism and assertions that Catholic nuns were better nurses than Anglican nuns caused her to be treated with great suspicion by some quarters of English society. 
   I am about to start another biography, of John Donne, my favourite Elizabethan poet, who famously flip-flopped between Catholicism and Anglicanism but managed to keep his head attached to his body and become Dean of St Pauls. He was a complex man who lived in complex times, so I'm looking forward to this. Will get back to you.