We had an event at church today to celebrate the beginning of Advent: theme was a community of hope, and everyone was supposed to bring something that symbolised hope for us. With typical lack of imagination, I took this picture. Dot took a lovely picture of our grandchildren that was much more to the point.

However, there is something about the Cape of Good Hope that I do find uplifting. It’s beautiful, combining rugged rocks with stunning coastal scenery. Even better, we were able to climb up those rocks by a steep path and perch up there on the most south-westerly point in Africa. Despite a number of other people around, the feeling of remoteness – emptiness – was tangible: and that’s something I love. And of course there was a paradox too: everyone thinks it’s the most southerly point, but it isn’t at all. Remoteness, mystery, a twist – irresistible. What more could you hope for?

It’s been very wintry here recently: high winds and quite a bit of rain. At 9 this morning it was barely light. Only three weeks and the days will be lengthening! On Friday we helped our neighbours to move up to Christchurch Road. It started easily enough, but when we got to unpacking the van it started raining persistently, and we ended up pretty wet. Worth doing, though.

The other day I found an old notebook of my mother’s in which she kept notes of holidays in Tintagel (1934), the Isle of Wight (1935) and Harlech (1936) with her fiancee, David – my father. They married in 1937. While staying in Harlech they climbed Snowdon twice, once in quite bad weather and once – five days later – in much better conditions. They also did a lot of walking to various places.

While they were staying in the Isle of Wight, she wrote this note: “Man and woman, boy and girl from Broadstairs came to stay here unexpectedly, so they have meals with us – drat them!” Clearly she liked to be alone with her boyfriend…

Incidentally, the picture of their car which appears earlier in this blog (13 January) must have been taken on the Harlech trip.