Saturday was a quiet uneventful day, Rhiannon didn't get up until eleven, then after a late late breakfast, she cleaned out her rabbit hutches diligently. Later we walked into town and had a coffee in Costa's, and then bought a pizza for supper. There was nothing to watch together on telly, so she sat with her iPad watching one thing and I with my Nexus watching another. Sign of the times I guess.
This morning I went to the eight o'clock Holy Communion service at St Nicholas Parish Church. The service was taken by an retired locum priest, wearing unusually a surplice, scarf and hood. Quite a while since I've seen this attire, as the incumbent hitherto wore alb and stole. I learned that the incumbent Canon Richard Awre has retired, as we prayed for guidance in the matter of the appointment of a successor. Come to think of it, he wasn't celebrating last time I was here. When I checked on-line, I learned that he'd finished last September, so the parish has been in interregnum for eight months. Everywhere now, vacancies get longer and larger busier parishes can be difficult to fill due to the shortage of suitably experienced candidates. Another sign of the times. Still, there were two dozen worshippers present, as there were previously.
Walking back from church down the long avenue of lime trees from the church to the main road, with the sun shining through the still small unfolding leaves, to the sound of birdsong across Abbey Fields was utterly exquisite, and well worth the effort of rising for the early service.
Kath and Anto arrived home safely from their gig tour around two in the morning, and took time to surface, as did Rhiannon, but we had a pleasant long breakfast catch-up chat when they did. Rhiannon went off to town as soon as she awakened, to meet with her friends for coffee and chat. After a snack lunch I set off for home, arriving just after five, and ate the meal Clare had set aside for me at lunchtime. She arrived back from her study group in Bristol at six, and we passed the evening, thinking about our Danube cruise in just nine days from now, and some of the practicalities to be sorted out before we leave, like currencies, and reserving our seats on the plane.
I was very annoyed to discover that on our Ryanair flight to and from Budapest, we have to pay almost £25 to reserve particular seats in order to obtain both boarding passes in advance, something I consider essential, rather than have to rely on someone printing out boarding passes for our return, at whatever additional cost, once we are over there which is what happens if you accept automatic seat assignment by default, when you don't pay to reserve. No doubt Ryanair has its justifications for doing things this way, likewise Riviera Travel, which books the flights. I wouldn't willingly fly Ryanair, after my previous experience flying to Reus in 2012. I wonder how many other hidden extras we'll end up paying for on this trip?
I was very annoyed to discover that on our Ryanair flight to and from Budapest, we have to pay almost £25 to reserve particular seats in order to obtain both boarding passes in advance, something I consider essential, rather than have to rely on someone printing out boarding passes for our return, at whatever additional cost, once we are over there which is what happens if you accept automatic seat assignment by default, when you don't pay to reserve. No doubt Ryanair has its justifications for doing things this way, likewise Riviera Travel, which books the flights. I wouldn't willingly fly Ryanair, after my previous experience flying to Reus in 2012. I wonder how many other hidden extras we'll end up paying for on this trip?
No comments:
Post a Comment