Birthday surprise

After a nice lazy breakfast, Owain arrived and we were soon on our way to Brecon, to lunch at the George. It was cold and overcast when we left Cardiff, and raining when we crossed the Beacons, but it cleared up and the sun came out by the time we'd finished eating. This allowed us to stroll around town for a while. I was delighted to find the town centre church, St Mary's was open - the first time I recall seeing it open in many visits there. The church, looked considerably different to when I preached here with USPG 25 years ago. There's new flooring chairs and a nave altar, and south aisle has now been given over to serving refreshments with a kitchen and servery in the south west corner.

I also popped in to the South Wales Borders museum, while Owain and Clare waited in the car, to enquire about service record archives. I wanted to see if I could find out about Great Uncle William who served with the Borderers on the North West Frontier in the 1890s. The duty curator was very helpful, and gave me some useful leads to follow. It was only when my phone started ringing loudly in that quiet place, that I realised I'd left them parked outside for half an hour. A fascinating place to return to.

We drove on to Talybont reservoir, and walked along the foreshore, enjoying the blossom, wild flowers and birdsong. Such a delight. We'd left it too late to stop for tea on the way home, so we stopped off and picked up a few missing ingredients for the hasty assemblage of a birthday cake on arrival home. Imagine my great astonishment, when I got out of the car, to see my bike in the front garden surrounded by beautifully made brand new wrought iron railings - a special surprise birthday present, installed in our absence, without me having a clue about the conspiracy to get me away from home for the day. The idea of the railings is to have something to chain my bike to when I leave it outside (which is more often than not). I had been thinking of sinking an iron post with a ring into the ground, but Clare had much a more creative idea. Brilliant!

The other surprise of my sixty-sixth birthday was the Facebook greetings I received, not only from my family, but also from friends in Singapore, Brazil, the USA, and Cardiff, plus emails from Valdo in Switzerland and from the Wales Ubuntu forum, of which I'm a lapsed member. A memorable day.