I woke up five minutes before my seven fifteen alarm sounded this morning, and was walking to Saint Catherine's to celebrate the eight o'clock Eucharist with eight others twenty minutes later. Home then for a leisurely breakfast before driving to St German's in good time to start the Solemn Mass of Remembrance Sunday with the two minute silence at eleven. On the way through the city centre a saw several besuited men wearing service medals walking to or from the Castle's Remembrance Poppies field, on their ways to the national cenotaph in Cathays Park behind City Hall.
It was nearly half past one by the time I reached home afterwards, the road was busy with more traffic than usual I thought. Not because it's Remembrance Sunday, but because many people are already thinking about Christmas shopping and making a start on it. The city centre Christmas market is already under way, bringing extra light and colour to the streets around St John's. A skating rink has been built in the part of the Castle grounds not occupied by the Remembrance Poppies field, a big Ferris wheel has been erected, plus a small artificial ski slope on the lawn in front of City Hall and the Museum.
I think the official launch of the city centre pre-Christmas 'Winter Wonderland' special activities is next week. This includes a night time walk in the dark through the Bute Park arboretum, decorated with a light show. We noticed yesterday that a large section of the woodland has been cordoned off with fencing, not just for the lighting installation, but also to create a zone you must pay to enter. Last Christmas it was too wet to become a mass attraction. Will it be a success this year, or another failed entertainment project, expensive to arrange, and expensive to go and visit? I wonder.
After lunch, I booked Clare's return journey from Malaga next Easter on the same flight as me. It's taken a fortnight to get around to doing it, so the homebound flight cost three times as much as the outbound. After an exchange of messages with Kath, she has booked flights for Anto, Rhiannon and herself to fly out for Easter weekend, and celebrate my birthday, which is on Easter Tuesday this year. That's a special birthday treat for me, and hopefully for them too. They did the same thing eight years ago when I was last in Fuengirola for Holy Week and Easter.
I don't enjoy booking flights these days as it's more complex, with too many options, and lots of extras pitched at you in the course of purchase, which you have to skip over, insurance, hotel, car hire, extra baggage etc, even though they may be irrelevant to you if you only want a flight. So many extra choices to make whether to take up or avoid. It's like passing through an oriental market and having traders pull at your sleeve or yell or wave things at you, holding you up. I come away from the flight booking process stressed and tired. With all those distractions comes a greater risk of making mistakes. There has to be a better way, apart from getting someone younger and more savvy to do it for you.
Clare's study group arrive at four. Time for me to go for a walk and clear my head. An hour and a half in the Thompson's Park as the sun was setting, then half a circuit of Llandaff Fields as dusk arrived was enough to sort me out. After supper, I watched three episodes I hadn't seen of Stanley Tucci's Italian gastro-tourism series, Calabria, Sardinia and Puglia. All very interesting and beautifully filmed, and so many regional dishes, food products, eating experiences portrayed, but not a good idea to binge watch. I felt a bit nauseous by the end, my imagination working overtime with all that 'virtual' tasting. Nothing that a cup of lemon and ginger tea couldn't cure before turning in for the night.
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