A gloriously sunny Summer Equinox day with dry heat just like in Spain. Thunderstorm warnings issued again but Cardiff hasn't had any so far. Clare took Jasmine to visit Cardiff Castle this morning. Waiting after breakfast for my ride to Thornhill for this morning's funeral, I finished and uploaded next week's prayer video just in time to be picked up. There were only six mourners, a small family circle stunned by unexpected loss. When I was standing with them outside afterwards, I noticed my friend Rufus, robed and standing outside the Wenallt chapel with a large group of mourners at the end of a service. After taking my leave of the family I went and chatted with him for a short while before returning home.
Back to downloading Google Takeout files before lunch, this time on my laptop. Downloading is notably quicker. The laptop's wi-fi ethernet card is newer and runs at a higher speed than our wired Powerline network, which must be ten years old by now. I didn't think it would make such a difference, but it does, so I've switched devices, and getting the job done in half the time.
After lunch I took Jas to visit Llandaff Cathedral and told her some stories about the building, and my life long association with it. She's grown up in a secular environment, so I'm not sure how much anything I told her made sense to her. She'll have a different sense of history as a teenager living in a country where few built structures are over two hundred years old apart from Native American edifices and sacred sites which aren't on the same scale. I feel sad that secularity has penetrated my family to the extent it has, and that they don't value our shared faith inheritance. Even if they respect it, they distance themselves from it and disregard it as irrelevant or antique.
After the Cathedral, we walked up to Llandaff weir, hunted for foraging honey bees to take pictures of, then returned via the main entrance to Pontcanna Fields, where Jas was delighted to find raspberries and strawberries growing wild in the hedgerow next to the allotments. She made sushi for supper which tasted good, though to my mind it feels like eating a meal composed of finger buffet food, so even when you're full, you wonder what you're getting for the main course. But as she said, it's great for picnics. She and her mum go paddle boarding on Tempe Lake at home and eat sushi on the water, out on their boards!
As the sun began to set we went out together to Thompson's Park to check on the Moorhen nest, but the gates were already locked sadly, an hour before the latest sunset of the year. We did a circuit of streets around the park, while the sky turned pink and grey in between the houses. It's such a different domestic environment to suburban Tempe for her, and she enjoys just being able to walk everywhere, in contrast to a city so spread out you have to go everywhere by car. It's lovely to have this time walking together, not saying much, noting the interesting differences in environment. Jas is still looking forward to some proper rain to use her umbrella. So far, only light drizzle, and despite the promise of thunderstorms, so far, nothing.
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