30th Birthday celebrations near Ross-on-Wye

A week in a lovely large farmhouse outside ross-on-Wye with family friends and colleagues dropping in and out was how our daughter Alex decided to mark her 30^th birthday with some activities planned and some more spontaneous. We visited the 11^th century Goodrich Castle on a hill above the River Wye; walked along the river; the ladies had a spa day, there was a games room; table tennis and pool often in use, a treasure hunt for the children which Alex had put together followed the next day by a treasure hunt organized by one of the children and the finale a masked ball, well dinner and games anyway.  Tricia also managed an overnight trip to Birmingham for a supervision with her Professor.

We were also able to go and visit Sean Semple and his wife Cathy and take them out to lunch; Cathy remains very ill and Sean has a very demanding role looking after seven rural parishes each with its listed place of worship, but he is positive about the progress that he has made, has seen new people join the congregations, but is under no illusion about the challenges that he faces.

It was lovely being in the English countryside and seeing the garden birds that came to the bird table just outside the kitchen window.

At the end of the week we drove back to London, staying overnight in a rather strange hotel in Canary Wharf and flew into Bahrain with KLM on Monday 11^th April.