We have just returned from a lovely weekend in Wales with the lovely Owen and Anne.  We had a brilliant time chilling out in their beautiful new surroundings.  They are located just outside the village of Penycae in this house:

Lovely, isn’t it? Not a bad ‘garden’ either!

We went for a pub lunch and a lovely hill walk on the Saturday, before watching the rugby and The Curious Tale of Benjamin Button, which, if you haven’t seen it, is a beautiful (if slightly bonkers) film.  Really good.

This shot wasn’t posed – honest!

Catkins

Lichen

A sheep skull

Sockface (the Pink Sky mascot) came with us of course!

View around O & A’s house

Owen and Anne have hundreds of different birds in their garden.  I liked them very much.

And finally, a sure sign that spring is on the way!  On the Sunday, we went to Owen and Anne’s church, the Swansea Valley Bible Church.  It was brilliant.  When you come from a church of around 2000 people, it is really humbling to go to a place with around 100 passionate people from whom you can learn so much.  As we walked in, several different people welcomed us.  As the worship started, it was clear that everyone was genuinely overjoyed to be there singing their hearts out to God.  There was a fantastic sermon about psalm 42 (or was it 48?  Better read and check) with some really interesting points that I am sure I will blog about.  The teaching was delivered in a very biblical and humble way, with great insight appropriately balanced with a sense of human limitation (i.e. not being afraid to say “I don’t really know whether it means this or that” rather than wild ‘theological’ speculation.  All in all a really great service.  We took communion at the end which consisted of crackers and grape juice.  I was really glad that Owen told us that they all eat the crackers at the same time before I gobbled mine down with a mumbled “Amen”, which is the standard practice.

That afternoon we watched the Grand Prix and then I embarrassed myself on the Playstation, before setting off for home.  A great weekend and our huge, heartfelt thanks go out to Owen and Anne for having us and for cooking awesome food and for bearing with my physical limitations.  You’re ace!