Valentines Day. I got a lovely card from R – he’d had to cross out ‘birthday’ and change the words but the sentiment was there. All I had for him was heart shaped pasta! And we did start the day with heart shaped crumpets covered in nut butter and banana – delicious!
The cold still prevailed as we went walking for an hour at midday. Any hopes that the temperature may have risen by then were dashed, not helped when I discovered that I had two right handed gloves in my pocket – quite tricky I discovered to wear a right handed glove on the left hand! Greggs was open so R treated himself to a pie whilst I had a flatwhite from their automatic machine. I had to say it was a delicious cup of coffee and I reflected how snobby I am about a bought cup of coffee having to be made by a barista. Sometimes the coffee is better from a machine that has great tasting coffee beans programmed to the perfect strength! And it was hot enough!
The afternoon passed quickly by as I concentrated on writing a sermon for next Sunday’s morning service at our home church on ‘the pain of rejection’. (that’s the subject, rather than a threat!) The plan is that I will deliver it live from the boat whilst the Zoom service is in progress. Be interesting to see if the technology works. As a backup I have also prerecorded it and feel relieved that I managed to get it finished in one afternoon. I never can tell how many hours a sermon is going to take to put together. It starts with a lot of rumination and then lots of jotted ideas which somehow need to be disseminated and put into a semblance of order, all the while bearing in mind what points you are trying to get across, in a relatively short space of time – Zoom attention span is limited!
Fell into watching a detective series called ‘Unforgettable’ which we found engaging enough to watch 3 episodes on the trot! They were interspersed with a couple of video calls, one rather surreal one with our son in Mexico en route to the States for work. And then a rather late, but very happy call, with my brother and sister in law, to wish her Happy 70th Birthday. I mention the time because we had a half bottle of champagne ready to drink for Valentines Day which i thought it would be nice to use to toast my sister in law, therefore we needed to be on the call with her. As the evening grew on I did wonder if I would get my celebratory drink – R by then was on to whisky mac so unconcerned!
What a great way D had celebrated. My brother had suggested to their daughter, A, the people her mum would like a chat with and A had contacted them all and arranged time slots. She then set up a Zoom with 4 screens, one for the Birthday girl, 2 for her children and one for the guests, who changed every 10 minutes. A bit like speed dating, instead you’re reminiscing over your friendship of anything up to 70 years duration! Must have been rather tiring but what a lovely idea. Earlier in the day their son, who lives nearby, dropped off a food parcel with all the food prepared for their celebratory evening meal and instructions for my bro as to how to cook it. Then they had a family Zoom meal sharing a similar menu! (although daughter A and husband, living further away with no access to food parcel, made do with a great big steak instead!). D had had a wonderful birthday and once again I reflect on the wonders of technology. If you were to have a great big party with all your special family and friends attending you probably would not get the same quality contact time with each person that D achieved yesterday. And she had no post party clearing up!!
NarrowboatTLC 