Patchy

We were delighted that Pads wanted to visit the seaside yesterday with the youngsters from church. The tide was in at Southerndown's Dunraven Bay so no-one could go far down the beach or get up to much on the rocks anyway... It was warm and sunny - a rare occasion! When a few of us gave up on bathing in favour of a game in the lovely walled gardens, we ran into the young people from Met Tab who'd been worshipping with us on Sunday. They have a house-party in nearby Dinas Powis the same week as our conference. We approached this week with some trepidation about what we'd be able to attend. Now that the 'live video stream' is up and running we can view the whole thing from home. Pads was aiming to get to the evening meetings but had to pull out of Monday night because of a pain spike. Then he surprised us by coming along yesterday morning and staying to help with the CD duplication, as he had last year.
In other news, he's now having 2 fentynal patches (from Saturday) and regular paracetamol.
The photos of the Ellen MacArthur trip have been published on their facebook page. For example, this is one of him with two of the people that made him want to go back and do it again so badly: George and Starr. We're so grateful that he has such warm memories of the time with them. Sadly, there's no room for him to go again this year, but Dan reassured him that the things he liked best about the trip he'd get on the 'Over the Wall Camp' in August.
Finally, in case you hadn't noticed, Asher's been raising money for the Christian Lewis Trust through a sponsored haircut. Last night he was saying he'd like to top £500 on the justgiving page (currently £481), when Ally was playing an answerphone message from the head. They'd counted the money received as a result of a letter about the haircut and a collection at the Year 6 show and it amounts to over £800!

Yesterday we had such fine weather that we made off for Southerndown at 5pm, stopping for chips on the way. This was a chance to go out as a family before treatment starts again on Tuesday. Southerndown, or Dunraven Bay, to give it it's proper title, is a very popular beach. The tide was out, the wind gentle and most visitors had gone home, leaving us calm acres of sand almost all to ourselves. Sadly Pads had started to feel ill on the way in and that only shifted by resting in the car for an hour. Taking advantage of the disabled badge, we could park right on the front and it was a short shuffle for Pads to join us on the beach. We had a lovely time, playing in the sand, warm pools and sea, football and boomeranging, with a fire to ward off any chills and toast marshmallows.


On the way home Pads was ill and it reminded us of what we're heading towards. We've started dosing him with ondansetron early, an anti-sickness drug, ahead of Tuesday.
Today, he was tired for the morning service and stayed home for the rest of the day. He's been tired and his back is still quite sore. While ambling through a short afternoon trundle through the park he remarked he had a patch of blurred vision. Without any other symptoms it was pointless going into hospital to pursue it further. Through all this he remains remarkably sweet natured.
After a remarkable sermon by Alun Higham this morning, the following highlighted words of 'Show me Thy face!' stood out to me:

Show me Thy face! - my faith and love
Shall henceforth fixed be
And nothing here have power to move
My soul's serenity;
My life shall seem a trance, a dream,
And all I feel and see,
Illusive, visionary - Thou
The one reality!

Show me Thy face! - the heaviest cross
Will then seem light to bare;
There will be gain in every loss,
And peace with every care;
With such light feet the years will fleet,
Life seem as brief as blest,
Till I have laid my burden down,
And entered into rest.

What sublime poetry! but the truth behind the words is far more so!
Just to add that we've kitted Pads out with a mobile phone and an email address. If you would like to send him a personal message, just get in touch with me and I'll give you his details. This will be especially valuable if and when he has to go into isolation for an extended period in August/September.