London and Cardiff

Of course the main reason that we travelled to England was to visit our grandson and my mother: over eighty-seven years between their ages, but when I see them together I see no barrier between them. I took this picture at the farmhouse where we spent a week in the company of Emma, Peter, Gill, John, Rob, Sally, Jenny, Briony, Alan, Fiona, Richard and Sarah. Our party comprised every age group except the forty-somethings and the seventy-somethings, a happy juxtaposition indeed.

At 37000ft over Northern Ireland on March 19th we saw the red sun rise very early. We landed early too and were on the Heathrow Express to Paddington well before 8 o'clock. Another passenger sitting in our carriage, having made a mistake as to which platform, was obliged to travel to Terminal 4 via Paddington, poor fellow. At least he didn't have to pay the ridiculously expensive £17.50 for his fifteen minute ride.

Paddington concourse was bustling with rush hour commuters, but we found a breakfast bar from which we had a relatively peaceful vantage point. No sign of the statue of Isambard Kingdom Brunel that used to be down there but a text message from our daughter told us that pilgrims could now find him on the leftmost platform. No luggage lockers to be found either because of threats to security so we wheeled our suitcases up and down Praed Street for the sake of some fresh air and exercise, past St Mary's hospital where Sir Alexander Fleming first discovered penicillin. A plaque on the pub opposite claims that the famous mould probably floated in through his window from their premises.

On the train to Cardiff I slept a while—it was a bright morning with fluffy white cumulus in a blue sky and everywhere flowering trees and celandines—but was awake in time to see the familiar views around Newport: the unmistakable Twmbarlwm and the River Usk.

At Cardiff we took a taxi, driven by a Somali gentleman taking an interest in the Welsh Rugby team, to my mother's house. Before we did anything else, she wanted to take us to see the nearby magnolias (see my previous blog post) blooming in a disused graveyard on the next street. On one of the grey, moss stained tombstones, dated 1877, we read this epitaph:

Remember, man, as you pass by
As you are now, so once was I.
As I am now, so you shall be.
Remember Death is awaiting thee.

but the magnolias were a sort of contradiction to those grim sentiments. Later in the day we also witnessed a funeral taking place at the parish church, the priest carrying a veiled crucifix.