Back to Sunday duties in the Vale of Glamorgan today. First, celebrating the Eucharist at St Mary Church. I was last there for the Easter Vigil. It hardly seems like six weeks since then. Then, on to Ystradowen, my third Eastertide visit. How delightful it was to see Cowbridge Team Rector Fr Derek Belcher and his wife Pam in the congregation. Although still on sick leave, Derek is starting to get out and about now, and get himself fit to return to work after his Big Op. An arch of Clematis is blossoming over the gate into the churchyard and the huge trees on the ancient motte to the west of the church yard are growing a bright green canopy of leaves. It all looks wonderful.
At lunchtime our friend Claudine rang from Thailand to confirm arrangements for her visit next weekend to hear the Welsh National Opera sing Wagner's 'Tristan & Isolde'. She's only just returned home to Bangkok from a trip to Burma this week, where she gave a training session to humanitarian workers on internally displaced persons. When she went to work for the Swiss Mission in Thailand, her briefing was to examine the situation of Burmese refugees settled in the north of the country. Now, after a year of swift political changes, she is being invited to work both sides of the border. This week she goes back to Switzerland briefly, then comes to us for the weekend. I don't know how she copes with the jet lag.
It was sunny and warm enough to sit out in the garden this afternoon and fall asleep without getting scorched. It's not a match on forty degrees in Bangkok. I wonder how long Spring will last this time? I hope Claudine won't be too cold when she comes.
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