19 June at Sobrado

Today’s blogpost was going to be no words and just photos of the monastery…..but I had such a wonderful sleep in that ^^ bunk….and when I woke there was a massive conversation to catch up with on the kids’ chat….including the message: This will surely make the blogpost.

So, yes. Words.

Here’s my reply to the kids:

Mother Superior has just woken up in her monastery bunk (actually) and thought something had gone wrong with her phone as she scrolled back and back and back and back some more to find the first message she hadn’t seen. She started reading as the bells tolled 8 and the quarter past dong has just sounded now. She laughed and laughed – actual out loud laughing until tears were rolling down her cheeks and she felt so happy and so far away and missing everyone so much and so excited to be coming home. Almost replied to the punctuation comment and breathed a sigh of relief that I left it! Wasn’t going to write a blog post today but I might just screen shot this conversation 🤣

To clarify…or rather to justify first…the scrolling back and back and back etc was no exaggeration. I just counted the messages – there were 123!! And once I started typing they resumed thick and fast.

And the clarification:

Micaiah was cheeky, but not wrong – I almost did!

So there…words in the blogpost. Now for the pics. For those of you who came here with me the first time, you will be surprised – the restoration is phenomenal.

When the rain let off for a short while in the late afternoon I nipped outside for some more pics…

Yesterday evening I was alone in the church – tonight it was totally packed and they brought in extra chairs and still there were people standing. Just before the throng arrived I did a quick check crazy sketch of where we had to wait and then someone appeared as I took the photo.

I got to sit close enough to touch them!

ABSOLUTELY AMAZING EVENING