Family

Sun has returned and Angie at home. Well physically at least. She spent most of the morning sorting out her mother and father. They both have the same GP and Angie had to talk through both cases with him. Luckily he has said he will drive out to check out father in the care home and deliver the prescriptions for the physiotherapist and hopefully will read the riot act both to the owner of the home but also and more importantly to Sepp telling him he must grit his teeth and get through the next couple of weeks before the rehab starts.

I did little else but finally make the mango chutney. The original recipe called for 8 mangoes but my bank manager had only authorised two. Somehow I didn't quite adjust the other ingredients to match. I can now eat a curry that consists of nothing else but rice and the mango chutney. Boy can ginger clear the airways!

Apart from a very late evening walk where I tried taking the only photos of the day and which were too faint to use today, I spent time connected to my family. Goodness can the internet and modern technology be wonderful.

Son J in USA doing a tour from Seattle to San Diego with his UK mate. They have done Washington State, today finished Oregon where the top photo was taken - Crater Lake. Very high up in the mountains and 3°C at 10:30 am. By evening they entered California and 32°C at 4:00 pm.

So watch out San Francisco. The guys are about to cross the bridge and make your city unsafe. Lock up your daughters and shut down your bars.

And meanwhile back in good old Europe...yes....Republic of Ireland: the grandchildren showed off their latest Hogwarts University gear. Daughter Kate phoned in the evening and I heard grandson Elliot in the background say he couldn't see a thing through the specs!

Although I'm not too sure I would have liked my parents to have had such "control" over me in my late teen years, there would have been times when such easy, almost real-time contact would have been great.

When I think back to the times as an 8-year-old when I could go for 10 months without hearing my parents voices or seeing their faces. Phoning from the UK to Trinidad was no doubt possible with a lot of effort but unaffordable. Letters were the only practical contact and the highlight of contact was getting a telegram which possibly happened once every few years - I was always at home on my birthday and I can only think a telegram would have announced some last minute change in plans for me to spend holidays with a relation.