Advent begins

This morning's journey to Porth to celebrate the Parish Eucharist at St John's Cymmer was in bright clear weather. Quite unlike the previous occasion in October, when it was misty and damp, and I ended up at the wrong church. There was a welcoming congregation of fifty, and afterwards I joined them for a cuppa in the church hall before my journey home. Everyone was in good spirits as they'd netted over eleven hundred pounds at their Christmas Fayre yesterday. I was asked by the lady who served me tea if I wanted to join the men. 

Two dozen women were moving around chatting in groups. The four men present, all of pensionable age, sat around the same table together, obviously old friends. They welcomed me to sit with them and we chatted and joked for a quarter of an hour. Whether they'd worked or sung together or been church members for heaven knows how long, it was clear they all belong to the local community and were growing old together.

I enjoyed sitting with the old guys. I'm now one of them myself - it's hard to get used to the idea - but it was special to be with them. The women are pleased they're there at all. One of the men, a retired mechanic 77 years old, told me that he's a 7th Dan Aikido master, involved in martial arts for more than half his adult life. I told him I'd been learning Tai Chi for nine years. It's not something I often get to talk about to anyone in church circles and something of surprise to do so today, up in the Rhondda Valley. 

As Cymmer is equidistant from home by two routes, after making my farewells I took the alternative way home via Llantrisant, making the most of sunshine and blue skies, enjoying the scenery, laughing at Radio 4's 'I'm sorry I haven't a clue' all the way home. At lunch, Advent candles burned while we ate. I hung Ann-Marie's patchwork Advent wreath on the front door last night. It's been with us each December for well over fifteen years.

After lunch, instead of a snooze, I had enough time to catch up on last night's missed double episode of 'The Killing II' with iPlayer. It's every bit as eventful and intriguing as the first serial, but faster paced, which means that it won't be able to address in the same depth the subject of the impact of a crime on a family which was superbly explored in the first. This time the political process of coalition government is under scrutiny, and how it tackles a situation that conspires to arouse islamophobic reactions from the public. Complex.

As I set out for Evensong and Benediction the sun was on the way to setting. The thin sliver of a new moon was visible in a still pale blue evening sky. The next new moon will be on the evening of Christmas Day. Maybe there'll be more time to stand an stare at it in wonder then. Weather permitting.