Duties line up

I spent this morning preparing a sermon for another set of Sunday sermons in Radyr. I heard from our Area Dean that I'm to be put to use at St Germans for the coming months. Peter Cox rang up and asked if I could cover a service for him in All Saints' Penarth tomorrow morning. Quite a while since I've been there. I also heard from Nerja that not only am I required from early April to mid May, when Clare and I go on our Danube cruise, but also for three weeks when I return. Cover has been secured for the weeks I'd be missing in a normal three month spell. 

I also heard that I might also be asked to offer cover in February and March down at St Mary's Cardiff Bay, in the first few months of my friend Father Graham's retirement. He moves across the 'Southern Arc' of Cardiff as the communities fronting the Bristol Channel are called, to Splott. No doubt, it won't be long before he gets called on for locum duty. I hope he takes a good long rest first however, if only to realise how hard he's been working on the front line for so long.

My Swedish friend Sara emailed me to express her shock and horror at the murderous assault made on teachers and students at a school north of Gothenburg, not far from where she lives. It had only just been reported in the morning news. It looks like the work of yet another right wing extremist, and not a deranged would be jihadi. Whatever next? in a world so tolerant of violent fantasy that it's become part of popular entertainment in such an unprecedented way.

After lunch I went out shopping for an all-in-one printer/scanner, not for home or office use, but for the Alcohol Treatment Centre, which makes good use of one of the RadioNet pro bono issues. A.T.C. is a great health care initiative which cares for drunken revellers from the city night time economy in situ, and minimises the number of A&E admissions at the already hard pressed Heath Hospital every weekend and festive occasion of the year. Its funding is being reduced, and offering a necessary piece of equipment is something well within our remit that we can do.

Finding the right piece of kit was less easy than I thought. A hard wired network monochrome lazer printer was needed for cost effectiveness. Almost every lazer printer on offer in Staples and PC World had wifi and colour print but no network port. In the end, I found just what I needed among the end of line bargains, and returned triumphantly to the office to deliver it. Then home for supper and another night avoiding work (namely filling in my tax return) in front of the telly.