Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant

I didn't have as good a night's sleep as I needed, as I woke up with a nose bleed an hour after dozing off. Clare and I exchanged greetings in Welsh, and so did everyone else on the church Daily Prayer WhatsApp group. Sadly, I didn't bring by daffodil lapel pin with me and there aren't any wearable small daffs or even baby leeks available either. Ah well, never mind.

I was out of the house and on my way to St Andrew's in good time. I forgot to take my voice recorder with me to record the sermon, and resolved to use the app on my phone instead. I set it up for use, and then forgot to switch it on, leaving me with a job to do later. It was just as well actually, as there was a workman outside the church door seven metres away from me chipping away at paving slabs around the cover of an underground duct throughout the first part of the service. Not so easy to filter out, listening to a recording as in real time.

There were eighteen of us for the Eucharist, and several more people came in for cake and coffee after the service, including a couple and their daughter who been visiting the Costa del Sol for the past forty years and for much of that time had an apartment in this area. They had been active in the days when the present church building was acquired and converted from a retail space to a worship centre twenty five years ago.

We were three again for bible study. I don't think it's the right time nor maybe the right place. It's a time when people like to get together and chat with their friends, then get themselves back for lunch, by bus train or on foot. It's a scheduled outing which few want to extend or replace with a discussion group. It's a relaxed and informal gathering, so it might be worthwhile trying an interactive session with a shorter homily, avoiding the service being prolonged uncomfortably.

After lunch, I recorded and edited the sermon and sent it to Caroline for emailing out to the online bible study circle, then walked over the hill and along the main road to investigate the Lidl supermarket to see what it might have to offer. The 'middle of Lidl' aisle is a feature here as it is in the UK, offering a few lines of clothing and shoes, domestic hardware, electrical gizmos and tools. Nothing I need, though I was tempted to buy a pair of slippers! Maybe next time.

After supper I got around to completing the download of a photo file with over 500 photos taken in Malaga in 2018, and archiving them on a memory stick. A job started and interrupted a week ago. That's reclaimed 2.5GB storage space from one of my Google Photos accounts. There's more housekeeping of that kind to do. Then, an hour's reading before bed.