Movie weekend

Neither Clare nor I felt like doing much yesterday. Only later when clouds parted and gave us a few hours of afternoon sun did I venture out to take some photos of autumnal trees on Llandaff Fields. Mild weather has produced a lovely array of colours, and now that leaves are actually starting to fall, the contrast of gold and brown on the still bright green grass is just lovely to behold.

This morning after a good night's sleep, thanks to the extra hour, with the clocks going back, I returned to St John's Danescourt and Christchurch Radyr for their main Eucharists, with a baptism during and another one after the latter service. It's several years since I last baptized anyone, and an event I enjoy. But when I look into some closed hard faces when I greet visitors before or after the service it's clear they've accepted the invite more out of good-will to the child's parents than any appreciation for the value of the ceremony. The same can be true of the guests at weddings and funerals too. It's difficult to retain an open and welcoming attitude to them when the devil inside me wants to pipe up and say: "Why on earth have you come here with a look like that on your face?" Truth to tell, church is for many occasional visitors an embarrassing place to be, for a host of different reasons, and it's an unending challenge to deal with this.

Before the second baptism, I needed a rest with a drink and chocolate biscuit to sustain me, as I was starting to flag - feeling my age? Or did I fail to eat as much breakfast as I really needed, to keep me sharp? I was fine by the time I'd finished and on my way home, and didn't spend all the rest of the afternoon dozing. I went out again with my camera to Thompson's Park to enjoy the even earlier sunset. Photos are here.

It was something of a weekend for crime drama, with another double episode of the Arne Dahl series last night, with something of a post Cold War legacy crime theme with an ending worthy of spy thriller. Tonight, as Clare wanted to watch 'Downton Abbey' and I didn't, I made use of the FilmOnTV website on my Asus Transformer to view the last of four episodes of BBC's One's 'From Darkness', which I found altogether disappointingly slow. Cut out all the agonising slow facial closups and the whole story could have been better compressed into two hour episodes. 

The digital TV box I had in the Nerja chaplain's house ran the same FilmOnTV streaming service. It's only recently I realise that it could provide an alternative means of viewing when there are scheduling clashes of interest here at home. After this, I chanced upon a late showing of 'False Trail', a detective movie set in rural Northern Sweden, starring Rolf Lassgard, the first actor to portray Wallender, as another detective. The plot centred around the ability of an insane, corrupt policeman to fabricate a web of lies around a murder he'd committed. I didn't mind it being slow to unravel as there were subtitles to grapple with. The scenes of autumnal and winter forests aroused in me a strong desire to visit that part of the world, up near the Arctic Circle one of these days.