Tintern Abbey, Wales

As I write this, Delycia and I are somewhere over the Atlantic on our return flight from the UK. We are settled into our seats, reading and writing and nodding off now and then, and also, in our own ways, recalling with contentment the pleasures of the past 10 days. We walked on the hills of Wales with 14 newfound friends; we sat beside the ruins of an ancient Cistercian abbey and read the poems Wordsworth wrote when he was there over 200 years before us; we saw an entrancing performance of Shakespeare’s Richard III at The Globe Theater in London; we strolled the streets of London, looking for and finding the fairy-tale qualities of that timeworn, exquisite city; we cuddled in countless places – on benches in Russell Square, on the grass beside a stream in St. James Park, on buses and trains and planes; and we were sometimes silent beside each other in earnest appreciation of the lucky life we have found together in our blessed 70’s.