Newport Station

"Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do."
Pope John XXIII

In the spirit of finding inspiration from sources outside my usual gamut I used this at Quaker meeting this morning.  It struck me as being quite imaginative, even challenging, for an "establishment" figurehead, especially as the 23rd one to use the name John.  But then if your dream is to become Pope, why not.

K2 is having lunch with the remnants of the hen party at Newport, so we head off to join her for a coffee before she leaves.  We head over the footbridge to Hortons coffee shop, a friendly welcoming place we found a couple of weeks ago.  Just the place for a quick catch up with K2, only slightly hung over after last night, before she gets her afternoon train back to London.

Waving her goodbye, or probably some other passenger baffled at the appearance of these complete strangers waving enthusiastically - well we couldn't see in because of the direction of the sunlight, but we knew she was in there somewhere.  Oh for a full set of marbles.

Another celebration this afternoon, this time an 18th birthday celebration, the family version.  The daughter of K2's cousin N, does that make her a cousin once removed?  Anyway it's her 18th celebration today.  Doesn't seem that long ago we were nursing her, in Bangkok, a couple of weeks after she was born.  We were on the return leg from a holiday in Oz to mark my departure from the corporate world.  She gives us a rapturous welcome and almost immediately drags me off to the Rodeo Bull, to become part of the entertainment for the assembled gathering!  I could barely climb up onto the thing and wondered just how much more of an idiot I could look - ah well, plenty of practice.  I managed a creditable 9 seconds before ending up flat on my back - I wasn't last and I think I deserved a prize for being the oldest competitor!

A really enjoyable end to a weekend of celebrations, now back home to watch Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince.  K reminds me that I used to go to Cwmbran at midnight - with K2 - to buy copies of the latest Harry Potter books.  Ah, happy memories, zzzz