Blossom time

Clear sky and bright sunshine return today,  but at 15C it's still with a cold breeze. We were nine adults with baby Seb at the St Catherine's Eucharist. I collected this week's veggie bag on my way home, then recorded next week's biblical reflection and added it to the Morning Prayer audio while Clare cooked lunch. I also started work on a Mothering sermon for the Sunday to come at St German's. After this I have no more bookings to take services or sermons to preach. 

After lunch Clare went to Penarth for a walk with a friend and I walked in the park. I counted three rugby matches in Llandaff Fields and six football matches in Pontcanna Fields, maybe more. There were so many players in different brightly coloured football shirts it was difficult to work out from a distance the exact number of games. There may have been some women players involved but the majority were men. Women were either spectators, or out running instead. 

Yesterday and again today in different regions of Japan, the first blossom is seen and noted officially. It's an auspicious time and the population take time out to visit parks and well known beauty spots. Each day now in Cardiff's parks, blossom and/or leaves are bursting out on the trees. Leaves on our favourite crab apple trees have come out in past few days, but it's too early for them to bloom I think. 

The terrible onslaught continues in Gaza, with Israel and Hamas trying to force concessions out of each other without yielding. more journalists have been killed. There are reports of anti-Hamas protests by people in Gaza, in the face of intimidation by armed men. Impossible to say how many protesters there might be, but it's been noticed now by the wider world. Impossible to say what impact it will have on the situation overall.

After supper I made next week's Morning Prayer video and uploaded it to YouTube. I also backed up Clare's computer Home directory to prepare to upgrade the laptop to the latest edition of Linux Mint. Time passes so quickly that was all I had time for before getting to bed early.