Bargain buys

Another pleasantly sunny day with occasional cloudbursts. Clare made pancakes for breakfast with a nice bacon and mushroom savoury filling for me, special treat. Little news from Palestine as few people have the means to report anything from Gaza with telecoms infrastructure out of action. Only people living close to the borders of Gaza who can afford international SIM cards able to attach to neighbouring Israeli cell towers can communicate with the outside world, according to reporter Rushdi Abualouf the BBC's only person inside Gaza.

Netanyahu gave a press conference later in the day announcing a scaling up of offensive military incursions. Delicate negotiations about hostage release have been abandoned abruptly, and movement of aid trucks made impossible. What most disturbs outsiders, whether politicians, diplomats or media commentators is the inability to conceive how this can lead to a long term peaceful settlement. The death of about 8,000 people in Gaza is arousing indignation around the Middle East in countries sympathetic and hostile to Israel alike. The situation is worryingly volatile. Demonstrations protesting at the treatment of Palestinian civilians in big cities around the world, 300,000 attending one in London. There was one in Cardiff too, but it had dispersed before we got to the city centre.

After breakfast I worked on revising tomorrow's sermon, having used the wrong set of readings. There's a choice of two. It was less difficult than I imagined once I put my mind to it. Then we went for a walk in the park before lunch, ending with a visit to Elgano's restaurant on Cathedral Road, where we both had minestroni soup, Clare had seafood pasta and I had a Calabrian risotto. An excellent meal from the people who did the catering for our Golden Wedding celebration in 2016. We learned they no longer do outside catering. Covid put an end to that element of the business sadly. On either side of us were two families occupying a long table - one Chinese, and the other Anglo-French. Their youngest of five children was using DuoLingo for kids on her phone once she'd finished eating. Better than some trivial game, for sure.

It started raining when we were in the restaurant. Fortunately the restaurant has a bus stop outside, so we caught a bus into town for a visit to John Lewis' store. Clare hunted for birthday presents for Rachel and Jasmine and I went upstairs to see if there were any tech bargains. I spotted a Panasonic Lumix TZ95 camera with seventy quid off the ticket price of one on the shelf the other end of the shop floor. It's the only 30x zoom pocket camera on sale these days, and since I damaged the casing of my Sony HX90 making it vulnerable to complete breakdown, I've been looking out for a bargain replacement, so it was an irresistible purchase. There was also a discounted 2TB portable hard drive, which will become a Christmas present from Clare.

We had a cup of tea then headed for home on the bus. The rain stopped so I went for another short walk before supper, and then an evening writing a reflection for use a week Thursday, finishing tomorrow's sermon and printing it off before turning back the clocks and going to bed early enough to take advantage of the extra hour.

The big day

At seven this morning Rhiannon and Jasmine emerged from their tent bedroom and invaded our bed for a cuddle, as their mothers did thirty five years ago. What a lovely way to begin our Golden Wedding anniversary day.

After breakfast, with a car full of party stuff, Clare and I drove to the Old Church Rooms community hall in Radyr, which we'd hired for our celebration. The key code we'd been given for the main door didn't work, so we had to call the caretaker to let us in. We arrived in time to welcome and brief the reputed Elgano caterering team, looking after us, and once this was done, we returned home to don our party clothes, just as the others were leaving with all the materials to decorate the hall festively.

Owain went directly to Radyr by train and joined the others there at the hall. Ann and Anneke came all the way by train from Felixstowe, also our university friend Nan arrived by train from Swindon, having been given a lift there by car from Devon. Nephew Nick came down from Edinburgh, via Exeter, where he went to see his mother Daphne, now in a care home nearby. The longest and most complex journey was nephew Julian, from Dubai to Cork to Bristol by various aircraft, then to Weston super Mare by car to pick up his mother, Pauline, my elder sister, who came with my niece Nicky. Sister June sadly felt unable to travel from London, given her limited mobility these days. None my father's siblings survive, just Mary the wife of the youngest, who also cannot travel distances these days. We are now the older generation, even if we don't feel it!

Friends came that we'd made over the years, my Best Man Mike and his wife Gail from university days sat at the top table with us. Graham, who was at St Mike's the same time as me and his wife Eleri whom I knew from SCM in those days. Martin, whom I prepared for baptism in my first curacy at St Andrew's Caerphilly and later became a priest, with his spouse Chris. 

From Birmingham student chaplaincy days, Angela with daughter Lydia and grand daughter Becky, a near neighour in Bournbrook Road. Her youngest two children grew up with ours. 

Richard, Curate in St Pauls when I arrived and his wife Jo. Jane, who lived in St Agnes Vicarage attic in our time, along with three dance colleagues making performances with her friend Charlie. Clare's friend Marion came, with her daughter Emily plus two of her eight grandchildren, Em was Kath's best friend in primary school. 

From Halesowen days, came former churchwarden Ken and his wife Joan now living in Devon where Ken is once more a churchwarden, plus retired local GP Richard and his wife Sue, whose daughter Pru made our marvellous golden anniversary cake.

There was nobody there from our Geneva days, nor from our time at St John's, although some sent cards. Our newest friend present was Diana from the Ignatian prayer group and her husband Peter.  All in all, with immediate family there were forty four of us. And

 the hall was alive with conversations, as a special playlist representing the sound track of our lives together played in the background.

Mike made a speech, and played us a piece of Bach he'd learned for the occasion on the hall's electric piano. As he said, Bach can sound good on any instrument. Kath presented us with a custom made photo album containing photos she'd acquired from family archives and other sources, covering every aspect of the fifty three years since we met. An amazing and delightful feat of editing. Then she with Rachel on guitar sang a song they'd jointly written celebrating the story of our life together, called 'Children of the Sixties'. They'd managed to write this and rehearse it in the few days they were together, and sing it so beautifully together. It was so touching.

By half past four, all our guests were leaving, and after tidying up, the family went home and continued to talk, eat and drink well until dusk, and the girls' bed-time. What a lovely happy big day.