It’s beginning to look a lot like…

Once again, I’ll lead with an update on this week’s mouse score: there are no changes since last week, alive or otherwise. Yaayyy!?

This could mean they are mad at us, the honeymoon is over, or—my guess—it’s just too cold to go out hunting. After all, every mouse they have brought us has been found somewhere outdoors—never indoors—and both our charges are excellent mousers in this rural area.

?Yep, that white stuff is frost, and we’ve been experiencing freezing temperatures. It’s been enough to send us into a little bit of hibernation ourselves. Accordingly, we haven’t gotten out much.?

We did run a few errands in town, and took the opportunity to visit a couple of local parish churches.?

First up was the parish church of St. Andrew in Soham. The name Soham is said to derive from the Old English Soegan Hamm, or “swampy settlement.” This church has been a place of Christian worship for over 1,300 years.?

According to our historian friend, the Venerable Bede, an individual now known as St. Felix first founded an abbey here in 631 A.D., and he was also the person who introduced Christianity to East Anglia, the world of Sutton Hoo.?

Almost all that is known about St. Felix originates from The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (“Historia Ecclesiastica”), completed by Bede around 731, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Bede writes in Historia Ecclesiastica, II.15:?

"Bishop Felix... came to Archbishop Honorius from the Burgundian region, where he had been raised and ordained, and, by his own desire, was sent by him to preach the word of life to the nation of the Angles. Nor did he fail in his purpose; for, like a good farmer, he reaped a rich harvest of believers. In accord with the meaning of his own name, he freed the whole province from its ancient iniquity and infelicity (infelicitate), brought it to the faith and works of righteousness, and guided it to eternal felicity (perpetuae felicitatis)."

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