The Market Square in Lichfield last night … waiting for the Christmas lights to be switched on at the weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Patrick Comerford
My stopover in Lichfield last night was short. But it was sweet.
I stopped over between meetings in London yesterday [23 November 2017] and Birmingham today, involving the trustees of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) and USPG volunteers from dioceses in the English Midlands.
Lichfield has been like a spiritual home for me since I was 19, and ever since then I have made a point of finding opportunities, no matter how brief, of returning here to say thanks for the many gifts I have been blessed with in life.
I am now at Birmingham International Airport, waiting for a flight back to Ireland. It means, of course, that I have missed the exhibition in Lichfield Cathedral marking the 400th birthday of the antiquarian Elias Ashmole, which came to an end yesterday. Nor am I going to see the Christmas lights being switched on in Lichfield on Sunday evening to.
Not that I was ever one to go to see the Christmas lights being switched on anywhere. I only noticed they had been switched on in Limerick earlier this week when I found myself in the city centre on two early mornings, one after the other.
‘Cogito ergo sum’ … Samuel Johnson seems to be thinking about the preparations for Christmas in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
There was little time to do anything meaningful after I arrived in Lichfield late yesterday. But as I walked around the cathedral city after dinner last night, in the bright, crisp and dry winter weather, Samuel Johnson looked resigned on his pedestal in Market Square to sitting out the Christmas season.
Indeed, Lichfield looked romantic last night in the bright, crisp and clean winter lights, ready for being alight this Christmas. And so, these are some of my own photographs of the pre-Christmas lights in Lichfield last night as I strolled through the streets of Lichfield last night, after dinner in Ego by Minster Pool and a glass of wine in the Queen’s Head in Sandford Street to St John’s House on Saint John Street.
Night light on Sandford Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Paradise on Sandford Street in the night light (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Bird Street in the winter lights last night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Night lights in Market Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
The Johnson Birthplace and Museum bathing in the winter lights of Market Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Night at the Five Gables in Bore Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
The Guildhall in Bore Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Winter lights at the Tudor Café in Bore Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Night comes knocking at the door of the Tudor Café (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
The long-closed former Prince of Wales on Bore Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Standing on the corner of the Friary and Bird Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
Walking along Saint John Street to St Johns House in Lichfield last night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)
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