Chaenomeles or Quince blossom. Palm Sunday.

It is much warmer today.
I was out in the garden before breakfast. The camellia is heavy with fat buds and pink flowers. I’ve had it a long time now. It was a gift from parents at a school where I had been teaching, as I left for the last time. I have a lot of plants in the garden which come with special memories.
The quince is now flowering at the top of the garden by the shed. It forms part of a hedge between our boundary and next door.
It is Palm Sunday.The beginning of Holy Week.
We watched our church service on-line once more and a young friend of ours whom we met at church when she was over here studying law, sent us her on-line Palm Sunday service from Kuala Lumpur to watch later, as their time zone is several hours in front of the UK.
She is now back home and has a job thankfully. And an open invitation to go and visit!
The last time we were there was in transit en route to Brisbane to see our son, Alan, who was there for just under a year helping with Scripture Union Queensland. Too long a story to relate how it came about! But his older brother Matt played a part in it.
I well remember at the time at the airport, as SARS virus was on the go and our next plane was sprayed inside as we boarded for our onward flight.
There were men in doomsday like white suits for the queue of people who were entering Malaysia. They were checking everyone and using all kinds of equipment.
It also reminded me that it came to an end one day.
There is hope somewhere in the future in the fight against Covid19.
In the meantime, my cousin Susan, who lives in Rossendale Lancashire, where we both were born and brought up, usually sends me a palm cross from the church we both attended and where we were married. This year it isn’t possible.
But we exchanged greetings on WhatsApp.
Easter will certainly be different this year.
One of our grandchildren wanted to speak to us on FaceTime yesterday as he had been upset and “wanted everything to go back to normal”.
He’s 4 years old and missing his friends at Pre/School, and Granny and Grandad.
It doesn’t feel normal to him, nor the rest of us.
So I finish with a quote from the old hymn,
“Abide with me.”
“......Who like Thyself my guide and stay shall be,
Help of the helpless
Oh abide with me”.