It’s been pretty windy the last three or four days, but not cold. In Canada it’s now much hotter than here – a dramatic turnaround. Last Tuesday was a fairly dramatic day for another reason: Dot had a DSSO Zoom meeting in the morning that went on for about two hours, and then in the afternoon we popped into Des and Chris’s garden for a drink – observing all the necessary precautions, like taking our own drink and sitting away from each other.
While we were there David and Chrissy FaceTimed us and told us they were getting married! We needed to write a letter for the Canadian authorities to tell them we were pleased and how long we’d known Chrissy – clearly they needed to know it wasn’t a marriage of convenience designed to get David permission to stay in Canada.
In the evening we had our usual Cake and Compline Zoom session, which went pretty well, except that Eleanor couldn’t connect because David A hadn’t sent her the full link code. Vicky was busy making a video for her friend’s daughter; so she didn’t make it either.
Wednesday was very warm. We went for a short walk by the river. Hello Fresh arrived, and we ordered some more cheese from Neal’s Yard – two cheddars and a blue. The following day we also ordered another selection from Cley Smokehouse, followed closely by some stuff from Amazon, but that may have been on Thursday, which was Ascension Day.
That day we also started an eleven-day morning series of Thy Kingdom Come sessions leading up to Pentecost. Only about six minutes a day, led by Sarah, but really helpful. In the afternoon we took some coffee recycling stuff to the shop on Rosary Road, and then continued into the Rosary for a longer walk. Annoyingly, we have discovered that Hello Fresh no longer take their boxes and insulation materials back for recycling; so we have to dispose of them ourselves. Understandable, I guess.
In the evening there was a special Ascension Day service for the Deanery, which we attended on Zoom. We are “attending” a lot more services than we would normally do, which is interesting. This was followed by the usual clapping for the NHS and chat with the neighbours. I had been writing stuff for my website and articles for Parish Pump, the last of which I completed on Friday.
That turned out to be a busy day . We had a long conversation on the phone with Dave and Julia about David’s wedding plans (mainly). Everyone has seemed really happy about it. Then Des and Chris paid us a return garden visit, and we went for a short walk, followed by the VE Day +14 wine-in-the-street session, with Phoebe on ukulele. After quite a long while, during which we discovered that Mark is making another attempt to return to Alabama, via Heathrow and Dallas, I went in to cook the evening meal. Apparently this was quite impressive (my cooking it, not the meal itself). Roger and Adrian were both in touch with Dot.
Another windy day on Saturday. My cousin Ann had e-mailed me to say she was staying at Llandudno and it was blowing a gale. Not sure how she managed that. Spoke to David and Amy on FaceTime, then rang Phil to tell him about David’s marriage, and my cousin Barbara to see how she was. Dot and I walked up to the Cathedral.
Today I heard most of St Luke’s service, which included a good illustrated talk by Simon Snell. Dot was still in bed, finishing Underland, the book I had so enthused about. She was similarly very taken by it. Over lunch we were FaceTimed by David and Chrissy, and my e-mail correspondence with Ann has turned into a bit of a marathon. I don’t think she has much to do. Mark left early this morning; we wait with bated breath.