Summer at our cell in Spalding, Lincolnshire. Summer in the flood lands and the fens of the Isle of Ely, near Cambridge. The sun shone through the reeds to greet another day, the river Glen looked calm and quite normal for this time of year as it flowed towards joining the river Welland, the reeds were rustling and swaying in the wind. It was a beautiful day, one on which you could only feel glad to be alive. My thoughts were, however, elsewhere as I wrestled with the problems of the future of our kingdom. The freedom and contentment of our Anglo-Saxon population was ever with me at this time. Another day dawned, one of rumour and intrigue, the question on our minds, were the Normans going to arrive or not, and if they did what was going to happen. The word was that they would destroy much of our abbey if we tried to defend it and murder and replace our abbot with one of their own, let alone what they would do to the local population if there was any resistance.
