Warm and cloudy again all day, with a few sprinkles of rain. Clare and I survived a night of sharing a bed without disturbing each other too much and the grandchildren returning by eleven for a slice of Grandma's choccy cake and a drink before turning in. It amazes me to think how well travelled and adventurous these Gen Z kids are, before they start university. Sara wrote to tell me that her daughter, same age as Jasmine is in Madrid on her own this weekend for a K-Pop concert. I was twenty before I left Britain for the first time but these kids above travelled internationally, with or without parents, since they were infants. Sixty years ago we were able to hitch-hike around Europe and sleep on beaches. If there were risks we were unaware of them. It's a different world nowadays.
I got up at eight and went to the Eucharist at St John's where I joined a congregation of about twenty. This meant I was home again just after ten before anyone else surfaced for breakfast, as I guessed correctly. Unlike us the youngsters don't tend to each much early in the day. Clare was already preparing lunch when I arrived. Jasmine came down, then Rhiannon and Tal. We chatted about last night then Jasmine and I went for a short walk to Thompson's Park before we had lunch around the dining table, in the quiet presence of our Trinitarian icon. Sadly Louie didn't join us. It seems that in addition to feeling unwell, he's unused to sitting at table and eating a meal with the family. No matter how hospitable we are towards him he shrinks from the experience.
After we'd eaten, Jas and Rhi took out the family albums to show Tal photos of Kath and Rachel's weddings. They were fascinated to compare resemblances between us and our offspring over the past two generations, and hear stories associated with them. Was it also a way to reveal wedding expectations in advance? I wondered.
Rhi and Tal left us for Kenilworth around three. Jas took herself into town, as she wanted to buy packs of Welsh cakes to take back to her friends in America, and she found out on-line that a Welsh cake shop was still open. To my surprise, she was back in an hour, with packs of Welsh cakes to add to her luggage, along with the little jars of blackberry jelly she and Clare produced. She said how much she's enjoyed being able to walk in the parks and the city since she's been here. Most of the year at home in Arizona it's too hot to walk by day, so cooler weather except for her first three days here have been just what she hoped for
She and Louie are leaving for Bristol tomorrow, so her evening has been taking up with washing stuff and packing. Clare and I watched tonight's first Sunday BBC Promenade concert of the new season, featuring the world's only professional one handed concert pianist Nicholas McCarthy playing a concerto for the left hand composed by Ravel. A beautiful work brilliantly executed. For an encore he played another beautiful left handed piece, a Nocturne written by Scriabin. This Russian concert pianist practiced ten hours a day, and overdid it to the extent of being unable to play with his right hand for a year. This was when he write this exquisite work for left hand only. McCarthy didn't start learning piano until he was seventeen, having decided this was what he wanted to do with his life. He's the only left hand only pianist to have graduated from London's prestigious Guildhall School of Music. Amazing what power music has to bring out the best in people, and reveal unexpected talent.
After the prom Jas and I went out and walked for half an hour as it was getting dark, our last opportunity to chat together before she and Louie leave tomorrow afternoon. And now sleeep.
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