We’re back again!

Actually, we’ve been back a week, but visitors descended as we arrived home and stayed for this past week. It was lovely seeing them again and we had a good time together.

These visitors were very interesting. They have a caravan, and this last winter they took it to the south of Spain where they stayed until March, missing all our snow and horrendous weather. They regaled us with tales of the life out there – lots of people from all over Europe gather there every winter, and it did sound great fun, as well as having the temperature of our Spring.

They went home – or rather, onto other relatives – after lunch yesterday, but as I had a choir engagement in the evening, it’s only today that Ed and I have really begun to relax.

We had a good week in Wales, dry too, although we missed the heatwave they had here in East Anglia.

We did see a peregrine falcon up close – it chose the tree just outside our window to reside for a while, a fantastic sight. It’s a majestic hawk, which frequents estuaries and cliffs. Wales has plenty of those, and we were overlooking an estuary.

We also came across Dylan Thomas’ grave on one of our walks. He and his wife, Caitlin, are buried in the churchyard in Laugharne. Apparently he arrived on a bus one day, fell in love with Laugharne, and never left again. His little writing hut, where all his best poetry was written, was just outside the grounds where we were staying, and our lodge overlooked Milk Wood, the scene of his most famous poem, “Under Milk Wood.”

The churchyard was full of large, important-looking, granite and marble graves, but this was the only sign of Dylan Thomas’ grave,

and on the other side was his wife, Caitlin.

It was really refreshing to see how unassuming was the greatest poet in the history of Wales. Must be a message in that somewhere.

Now we’re back to normal (or what approximates to normal in the Scott household) and tomorrow I’m preaching at a different church, one way outside this deanery, and where I’ve never been before. They meet in a school, so I have a talk on the parable of the sower (which is set for the day by those on high) complete with slides. I hope they enjoy it – I think I will!