London - Saturday 16 August 2008

Today we met Kirsty Morgan and Stuart Fath at Hyde Park after spending a short time at St James parish church, Sussex Gardens. A Huge building - seats about 1300 - with magnificent stained glass windows. I love the atmosphere in these big old churches - although this one is young, having been built and rebuilt in the 1800s. I am so aware of the generations of worship that have been connected to a particular place - the 'cloud of witnesses' becomes almost tangible!

Stuart, Ned and Kirsty

We had a light lunch together at a tea garden, then wandered further until saying farewell to Kirsty. After that Stuart led us to a place in and around Bayswater where Ned obtained a local sim card for his cellphone. This will cut down our costs of phoning - I have international roaming but am using my phone to sms rather than phone. We will use Ned's to phone from at a cheaper rate than mine.
We wandered past Buckingham Palace and the statue of Queen Vic on the way to St. James Park. I shall be sending a photo of Queen Vic to Dawn Reynecke - they look so alike (!!!)

At St James Park we came across the 'Avon Fire and Rescue' brass and woodwind band, and listened to them for a while - enjoyable although some of the instrumentalists were a bit lacking in confidence. However the crowd present appreciated their efforts.

We left there at about 17h30 to get back to Victoria station, said good-bye to Stuart, and caught the train to visit Jean and Giles Wakeling (and daughter Catherine) whom we have not seen since leaving Zimbabwe 27years ago. We talked - and talked and talked - through supper and coffee and dashed off at 21h45 to catch the 21h50 train back to Victoria station, then Paddington and on to Henley-on-Thames via Twyford.

A lovely day, weather amenable, spent with people we love.
We are blessed.