Still turbulent

It seemed relatively quiet when I woke this morning - I took a photo from my window of a small fishing boat (actually langoustine fishing, I think) and though it was bobbing quite enthusiastically it didn't look to be in any bothers, though the waves were still breaking on the shore. However, at high tide in the middle of the day it was once more pretty windy and quite wild with it. 

We weren't really aware of the wind in church this morning, though that may have been because we were singing rather lustily - two new hymns, or new to us anyway, one to a tune from Lewis and the other, rather better known, with some rather splendid, affirming words. And then Himself played this final voluntary that had people over coffee saying "I loved that - what was it?" and delighted to know that he'd been using the tune of Waterloo, 50 years old this weekend, as the basis for an improvisation. And of course that had them all exclaiming again and we all emerged, laughing and slightly hysterical. 

I have to say again that I feel very lucky to have this church community to be a part of; it was in fact a difficult morning emotionally as I learned before I went out that our neighbour, whom I had seen from our window being taken off in an ambulance yesterday, was unlikely to recover; I've just heard that he died this evening. We've been neighbours since we were all relatively young with small children - the kind of easy relationship where we could shout through the hedge to each other. It's shocking how swiftly life changes. 

The afternoon was taken up by a bout of irresistible sleep over the papers, followed by a lengthy phone call to dear friends on the Welsh border - four conversations, really, by the time we'd all had a go. However, I'd managed to get the dinner well under way during Himself's turn, so we went out leaving it in the oven. The pattern of the clouds had us once more heading down to Toward, and as the main photo shows we got it just right: we walked past the lighthouse along the shore road that was a riot of gold against the blues of sea and sky (blipper Sally will be singing by now ...) - daffodils, gorse and the very first skunk cabbage, lurking in a small wood. A détour round by the lighthouse itself gave us the different views down river; the second extra shows the next bank of cloud with the sun making the sea look like steel with a single, static seagull in flight. We got back to the car before the rain...

I've just watched the amazing Lise Doucett's programme on BBC2 (at least, she fronted it) on the Gaza tragedy and the Hamas outbreak that initiated it. No more words.