Clifftop walk

How lovely to wake up to a bright sunny day after a dull and mostly wet week. After our usual Saturday pancake breakfast, I finished off and printed my Sunday sermon, and then we drove to Cold Knap in Barry for lunch at Mister Villa's fish restaurant. It serves the most delicious fish soup, even better than the one at La Marina by Cardiff Barrage. What a treat. I also had cod and Clare had hake, perfectly cooked. 

While we were there, restaurant owner Christine arrived for lunch. Clare knows her through Steiner study groups but not seen her since before the pandemic, so after we'd eaten they had a catch-up chat before we went for our clifftop walk to Porthkerry for a cup of tea. I don't think I've ever seen the tide so far out, exposing bedrock a couple of hundred metres from the vast bank of pebbles forming the beach.

Fighting continues in Ukraine with more than a million feeling the country altogether so far. Attempts to create a humanitarian corridor to let civilians to leave Mariupol failed in the first hour of implementation due to a breakdown in trust between invaders and defenders. Russia and Belarus have been banned from the World Cup, and the Russian Formula One Grand Prix  cancelled. Paralympic athletes have been barred from the Winter games, the day before it started and more banking sanctions imposed, hitting the global economy as well as the Russian economy even harder. There's no sign of a halt in fighting though it seems Ukranian forces are still slowing down the Russian advance remarkably. What next?

There wasn't much of interest on telly after supper, apart from a French satirical comedy called 'La Belle Epoque'. It was hilarious in parts, poking fun a digital modernity but the plot was rather confusing to follow and over reliant on simulated oral sex scenes to represent boredom in jaded relationships. Totally pointless and time wasting. The movie run time could have been ten minutes short without them. I don't know why the BBC bothered with it.