Pain and Glory

Yesterday was so grey and wet, it was such a delight to wake up at sunrise to a bright clear blue sky. Just right to put me into a good mood. We didn't linger late in bed, but got up to enjoy our Saturday pancakes with sunlight streaming into the kitchen. A special pleasure, almost like being on holiday.

Before lunch, we went for a walk around Thomson's Park. Clare's arthritic hip has been playing her up, and I wanted to take it a bit easier today after long walks in the past two days, so we weren't ambitious to go on a long hike today. Sometimes it feels as if old age is biting chunks out of us. But we're not being shot at, bombed and harassed like Ukraine's septuagenarians. How would we cope if we were driven from our homes in a freezing winter?

I had another short walk in the afternoon, then uploaded photos taken over the past few days, and finished off tomorrow's sermon. Gusts of wind sprang up from the west driving in clouds that covered the sky, and then bouts of rain again. It looks as if it's going to be changeable like this for a few days more, but at least it's not wintry cold now.

BBC Four showed Pedro Almodóvar's 2019 movie 'Dolor y Gloria' this evening. Another masterpiece of story telling about an ageing film maker, reconnecting with old friends and remembering his childhood after a long spell of creative dryness and confidence loss due to his physical ailments. It was beautifully made and very moving in the relationships it portrayed. I was amazed at the extent that I understood the Spanish. The accent was Castilian. I've been learning with the Duo Lingo Spanish app for the past seven years, and I believe its lessons use Latin American Spanish pronunciation. So this was the first time for me to listen at length to European Spanish dialogue, with its slightly different rhythms of speech and nuances. It's the first time I've heard the 's' in words pronounced 'sh'. Fascinating.