Finding Tremorfa

How good it is to have sunshine again, and be able to dress appropriately for a summer month!  This morning I had a funeral service to prepare for Friday, then a home visit to make in Tremorfa district of Splott. It's the first time I've ever had to navigate my way around this inter-war industrial suburban housing area. I needed to use a map several times I discovered St Philip's Parish Church in passing, looked after as a 'church plant' by the team at St Mark's Gabalfa, because church life has been difficult to sustain in this area for decades. It has been re-branded as 'St Philip's Community Church'. The external surface of the 'east' wall of the brick building is remarkable in having a crucifixion scene carved in bas-relief on to it.

Many of the streets there have names which end in 'Muir' (Clare's mother's maiden name), which is the Scots Gaelic word for Moor. This area of Cardiff was an ancient Severn Estuary flood plain known as East Moors, and once contained a large steel works and other heavy engineering industries. Most of the twentieth century employment legacy has gone. The steel works closed in 1978 and has been replaced by retail parks, distribution depots and light industry, employing far fewer people and fewer manual labourers. Unemployment is high. Tremorfa is a quiet backwater, away from main roads, slowly being gentrified as older generations of tenants and home owners are supplanted by first time buyers. It's a more pleasant environment now than half a century ago, when the air would often have been heavy with industrial pollution from the steel works.

After lunch I went into the office for a few hours. More enquiries are needed before an employment decision can be made. There's not a lot for me to do right now, until I have the new recruit to brief personally, hopefully before I leave for Spain. After supper I attended my last Chi Gung session for the time being. Christie, our teacher is experimenting with making a sound recording of her classes. Once available as a podcast via the Rising Phoenix Tai Chi website, this could be a useful accompaniment to a regular work out in future.

This evening, following a recommendation from Kath, I listened to two podcast  episodes of the 'Coffee Break Spanish' language course. It's very enjoyable and allows for lots of practice repetition of pronunciation. I think this is going to be among my favourite sites for the weeks ahead.