Birthday family reunion

Yesterday morning we had a new Mira electric shower installed. The old one still works but has become a over sensitive to water pressure of late and shutting down while in use. With a house full of visitors this weekend we didn't want to risk a cold damp bathroom experience for all. It's nineteen years old, and we've been fortunate that only once in that time have we needed to call out a technician to fix it.

It was another hot and sunny day, giving me plenty of time to make an early start and apply a fresh coat of paint to the coping stones on top of the front garden wall to go with the recently repainted railings. While I was at it, with paint to spare, I also did the stones on top of Liz's front wall next door, so the entire frontage now looks bright, clean and welcoming.

I then completed tomorrow's two sermons, a shorter one for eight at St John's, and a longer one for ten thirty at St Luke's. It's good to make the extra mental effort to write a shorter simpler address which has something in it worth considering. It's harder than a longer 'Parish Communion' sermon in which I try to have something to say, however brief, on all three readings and the link between them. When I look back at sermon's I've preached previously I am often disappointed by them. Sure, they were prepared and delivered in a different setting and in different circumstances, but often major on one text at the expense of others.

Late afternoon, Kath, Anto and Rhiannon arrived followed by Owain, to celebrate Owain's fortieth birthday weekend with an excellent meal at 'La Cuina' the marvellous local Catalan restaurant in King's Road. Owain's fortunes have recently taken a turn for the better, having finally been offered a permanent contract for the web content management job he does with the DVSA, after more than two years on a temporary contract. His first original techno music compilation record published under his own 'Innate' label went live a few weeks ago and has been selling well in a international niche music market, and nominated as top distribution of the month by a leading techno magazine. A substantial reward for the patient hard work of preparation he's put into this over several years, even if it's unlikely to earn him any money.

It was an enjoyable evening, although we missed having Rachel with us. She arrives on Tuesday from Phoenix to stay for a month. Next Saturday, she sings the full gig, arranged by Clare at 'The Apothecary' tea room which we've been preparing for over the past month. I'm hoping she won't be too jet-lagged after four days back home.

I was surprised at how tired I was at supper, perhaps due to all the extra physical exercise wielding a large paintbrush and bending down a lot earlier in the day. Although I walk a lot, it's not the kind of activity I'm used to, and for that, I pay the price.

Musicians to be proud of

Yesterday morning I celebrated the Eucharist with half a dozen others at St Catherines. Afterwards, Clare and I went into town to visit the John Lewis bedding department for me to select a new single mattress to replace the less than satisfactory one on which I currently sleep when I'm in a single bed. Eventually we'll get one to suit Clare, and pair them up on the double bed, which is due to be replaced in the next year or so. These things have a shorter comfort life than we realise. 

Certainly as we get older sleeping comfort seems more essential, because poor mattress support can have a bad impact on body posture in waking life. It's something I've experienced in the course of my locum tours of duty, as I get to sleep in several different beds for extended period through the year. We get less flexible and adaptable, muscles stiffen and take longer to warm up as we age, no matter how much regular exercise we take. Good quality relaxed comfortable sleep, benefits soul and body, regardless of how many times you need to get up in the night and go to the loo.

This morning I celebrated the Eucharist at St John's and bought some home made marmalade and apple chutney to add to our stock. I had a call from Fr Phelim about covering a funeral in two weeks time at St German's, when he has duties which take him away from the Parish. He's also booked me for the first Sunday in October to cover his half term break. So far no autumn european locum duty requests have come up, so there's no reason not to be available for local duties if needed. Variety in ministry is still one of the pleasures of retirement.

If nothing comes up, a trip to Sta Pola to stay in Anto's apartment will be in possible. Missing life in Spain is already a feature of my life, despite summer temperatures here equal to those on the Costas. It's not so much about the weather as the environmental mix of sea, sierras and urban life which I enjoy.

This afternoon we went to a concert given by nine final year piano students at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. They played a wide variety of music from Scarlatti to Schoenberg plus improvisations based on pieces by Hector Villa-Lobos and Chet Baker. What gifted group of musicians, not just in terms of technical prowess but also emotional maturity in their performances. We came away moved and inspired. This truly is a world class conservatoire. So proud that this is a major cultural institution in Cardiff and for Wales. Plus, it's only half an hour's walk from home on the other side of the Taff.
  

Evening Taffside walk home

I walked to St Luke's to celebrate Mass with four people this morning. Fr Jesse Smith attended, on his way to meet the Archdeacon. It's ages since we last met. It's great to see him looking fit and well after a challenging bout of serious illness several years ago. At that time I did some locum duties in his Parish, though we got to know each other when he was Team Vicar in Central Cardiff Parish 16 years ago. He left us for a Tyneside parish. I remember going up there for his induction, a six hour journey. I was delighted that after a spell over the border he returned to the Parish where he's been incumbent now for ten years.

I had an email request to take a funeral a week Thursday. I won't be able to meet with the family members until next Monday to discuss the service, but that gives me plenty of time to prepare. 

This evening we went to choir practice, and numbers attending were thin enough to conclude that it's now time to stop rehearsals for the summer. Instead of learning new pieces we did some voice exercise work, which to my mind is a good thing. Mine gets well worked in the course of leading services but doesn't really get stretched by new demands. I have a little idea now of what I need to be doing to remedy this. I've lost a few bottom notes, but it seems that it's never too late to recover them, if I make the effort.

We went to choir by bus, but there were no buses timetabled for eight thirty when we were ready to set off for home, and nobody going in our direction to give us a lift, so we walked back 5.3km along the Taff trail, after buying a picnic supper in the swish new Llandaff North Lidl store. It was a very pleasant summer evening walk, marred only by discarded cans and bottles. I couple of items I could not pass by, I carried 400m to the nearest bin. Sometimes the distance between bins is greater. More are needed to cope with the problem caused by the couldn't care less members of our throwaway society. More bins require more maintenance staff, and city budgets have experienced terrible cut backs. 

Last week I completed a local council on-line survey to give feedback on its public cleansing services, as I expressed an interest in the issue many moons ago. In this era of enforced austerity in public spending, I believe it's necessary to make it easier for volunteers to work on keeping litter under control, by making collection resources available to them - temporary bins, bags, gloves, tongs etc. Is this too hard to consider, I wonder?

  

Early bird

I was up early this morning as I had a check up with the doctor at nine. As the weather was beautiful I took my time walking to the surgery through the park with my Sony HX50 in my pocket, going as far as Blackweir bridge. I spotted a heron on watch on the opposite side of the river to its afternoon fishing spot. I was pleased with the picture I took.

The light in similar afternoon photos reflects the brownish colour of the river bed, but at this early hour the colour of the sky is reflected. I should get out early with the camera more often.

Celebrating St John the Baptist's Day

This morning I drove out to Dinas Powys to take two services, a nine o'clock said BCP Communion at the 11th century country church of St Andrew's Major, attended by eighteen people, and a sung Parish Communion modern rite with about forty people at St Peter's in the suburban village which grew up here as Cardiff expanded outwards in the twentieth century. 

This church dates from the 1930s and the building was influenced by the 'Arts and Crafts' movement, making use of Pennant sandstone acquired from the site of Cyfarthfa Castle ironworks above Merthyr Tydful. The stone is somewhat darker than the natural Pennant grey, and this is said to be due to ingrained soot absorbed from the air, laden with industrial pollution. The branch line from Cardiff to Barry runs through Dinas Powys so rail transport from the old industrial site to the village would be easy to organise, and cost effective in those days.

After the St Peter's service I met Andrew, the solicitor who helped Clare and I prepare our wills and then witness them. He and his wife Emma and children are regulars there. Emma has started on some theological education courses, with a view to testing her vocation to ministry. It's great to see a young mum get excited about a possibly different kind of future from that of her contemporaries.

We drove to Newport at lunchtime to visit Martin and Chris, who were throwing a party for family and friends to celebrate Martin's 65th birthday. Their capacious house has a secluded garden which overlooks the city with the Severn Estuary in the distance. Several tables were laid out for dining in quiet fragrant corners, the weather was hot and sunny, perfect for an outdoor party with a swimming pool and a hot tub for people to enjoy. It was a delightful way to celebrate the MIdsummer fiesta, if you're not in Spain!

Change in musical taste

According to my pedometer app, I walked 8.6km on Thursday, going to the office, around the city and back up the Taff Trail as far as the big Tesco in search of clip on sunglasses. As my diary was empty Friday I thought I'd do another walk. I followed the Taff Trail in the opposite direction down to the Bay Wetland nature reserve and took photos of the resident grebes and coots with their fast growing chicks. I clocked over 10km by the time I reached home, and wasn't too stiff, although I slept even better as a result of the additional exercise. my photos are here

This morning I went into town to  met Rufus for a coffee and a catch up chat in Cafe Zest upstairs in the House of Frazer store. Strange to think that it's been earmarked for closure as a department store because of the group's profit warnings. The increase in commercial market rents is being blamed for this. Will it be redeveloped, as was the David Morgan store, as a mix of retail and private apartments? Or will it perhaps be taken over by another big market name. As a property it's something of a nightmare to envision of future for. It was built in several phases, and enclosed Bethany Baptist chapel, which was converted into a retail space still known as 'The Chapel'. It would be possible to demolish the interior and keep the facade, but as the complex of buildings on the site tells such a fascinating tale of the work of Victorian retail entrepreneur James Howell, there might be conservation orders in place that would hinder this.

The streets were busy with extra people arriving for the third of Ed Sheeran's four in a row stadium concerts tonight. Such is his popularity it was clear from the accents audible on the streets that many visitors had come from all over England, as well as Wales and further afield. I lost interest in popular music decades ago, so I'm unsure if I've heard or could recognise any of his work. Music is deeply important to me, almost all kinds, but truth to tell, I've not been good at decoding pop lyrics post Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel, and the classic American popular Jazz and romantic song genre. As I get older, I find I can listen to 20th century and modern 'classical' music with pleasure, whereas I could make no sense of it when I was young and dismissed what I couldn't make sense of. That's an unexpected aspect of ageing I can't say I expected.

I returned home to rendezvous with Clare and take the bus to the Steiner school for the summer fair, at which the Fountain Community Choir was due to sing, but we missed each other. I caught up with her at the school after taking the next bus to Llandaff North, and we joined in the rehearsal and then an outdoor performance of half a dozen songs, most of which I am still unfamiliar with and don't know all the words. It all felt a little precarious to me, but it was fun. I walked home afterwards to relax, and the pedometer told me that I'd done another 8km, which was pleasing, as my legs weren't complaining too much. No telly tonight. There's so much football on right now, which holds little interest for me, and we watched the dark Welsh crimmie 'Hidden' on Wednesday, since BBC Wales TV previews it, ahead of the Saturday prime time slot.

Midsummer tech sales

Wednesday, I celebrated the St Catherine's midweek Eucharist, did some domestic errands, and not much else. We have warmer weather now, making life more comfortable and relaxing. I didn't get out and walk, as I should have done as curiosity led me to explore how best to take a good crisp close up photo of a piece of silver jewellery created by Clare from pieces of scrap silver fused together. She'd posted a rather blurry picture of her latest oeuvre on Instagram, using her phone, and I wondered if I could do better. It was less than easy, whatever camera or lens I used as I don't have a macro lens for this purpose. Although the closeup range of the cameras I have is fairly good, the ability to focus on a small object below 10cm reduces with a conventional lens. 

I settled for using my prime lens on the Alpha 68. I need to make more of an effort to use it and learn more about what it does best. Without any zooming capacity I find it rather narrow and restrictive for anything except portraiture, but then the majority of my photo interest is landscapes, urban and rural. Adjusting lighting helped to bring up the detail, but pinpoint accuracy while focusing hand-held with manual or auto focus, was elusive. Another time I must try mounting the camera on a tripod, and use a timer setting to hold on to the optimum sharp focus and distance.

Thursday, the longest day, no locum duty, so I took a walk with my Lumix LX5 camera to capture progress on the Central Square development. The pavements immediately surrounding the the BBC HQ are still being laid. There's been some activity on the bus station site next door, although I am not sure that and ground breaking work is yet under way, presuming that foundations will need to be dug to support the frame of the apartment building above. The steel skeleton of the HMRC building is nearing completion. It's an impressive sight.

I then visited the CBS office to catch up on the current difficult situation confronting the business, and on my way out og town, called into John Lewis store, whose electronic clearance sale has started. Not that there's anything I really need, or could make a case for buying, but just for interest. I met another old geezer just like me, ogling the hardware on offer and contemplating a purchase he knew he didn't really need. An extravert Chinese lady accosted me with questions about some of the low cost bargains, as she and her husband needed a device to Skype her son in Hong Kong. She know nothing about why there was such a range of bargain prices or the reason for it. I wondered how she'd get on with a Windows 10 machine once she got it home and working. But, I helped her to make a decision on a bargain 15" HP device, before she started chatted up the sales assistant and obtaining a further mark down on the already discounted kit.

There was one very recent and expensive Chromebook on display which I fancied, but now that I've discovered I can get a replacement battery for my immaculate Toshiba Chromebook CR104, whose battery life now is a third of what it was when I bought it two years ago, it's hardly worth considering a replacement for my everyday workhorse. It's far superior to any Windows 10 machine. There were several really cheap Windows 10 netbooks on offer, which could be run more efficiently with Linux instead. Indeed I have a laptop which I consider converting every time it annoys me by taking an age to open and update. But again, it is worth the effort?

Thanks to a cloudless sky it's been light this evening almost until bedtime. Summer delight.

  

Window on the world out there

With little else scheduled to do, I worked on editing and correcting the music slide shows for Anna all day Monday, and when we were both satisfied with the results, she uploaded them to You Tube for viewing. At choir practice on Tuesday evening, she made sure we took note of how to find them. It's not easy to find them at first, when there are almost no views, and before Google's bots have checked the content and flagged them for basic search. By trial and error we found that Googling 'Fountain Choir Cardiff' helped locate them reasonably quickly. I can't imagine having a business and a career that involves the constant promotion of video content in a market lace which is by nature global.

Lat week there was an interesting item on Radio 4 about a curious feature of YouTube, I hadn't heard of before. Apparently millions of videos have been uploaded of the years since digital video recording became a feature of every camera and phone, which get almost no views. Some people use it to document their lives or their creative output, with no concern to promote it to others. If they do get views it may be because there's another legion of YouTube users who want to be entertained by randomly selected videos, material curated by chance, you might say.

In addition, there's a variety of sites where interesting collections of randomly selected videos can be viewed. Featured in this programme was a website called Astronaut.io, brought to life by two San Francisco based techies. It features random clips of a few seconds length, and weaves a unique tapestry of images and sound. Here's an American feature article about it. I guess it's the equivalent of what we used to do as kids, turning the tuning dial on the Long Wave radio to catch the sounds of broadcasts from Europe and the rest of the world through the hiss and crackle.

It's said the internet abolishes distance, in the sense that you can communicate with people anywhere, and be informed or entertained by material without knowing where it's been produced. We home in on themes and places that catch our attention and interest, and in narrowing our attention may miss out on much more. Astronaut.io allows the flow can be halted on any video that captures attention, and let it play play to conclusion which invites viewers to be more than passive. There's something quite contemplative about just looking and listening openly, letting yourself be surprised by what's out there.

Unexpected new mini-project

I walked to St John's and celebrated the eight o'clock this morning for four people. Fr Mark arrived at the end with Rose Dymond, one of the staff of the St Padarn's Institute, to introduce her to the church set up. I was delighted to discover that she was an ordinand of the Diocese in Europe whose journey into ministry started in Leipzig, followed by Den Haag, then a spell as Rector of Bedwellty before recently joining the Institute staff. I then celebrated and preached at the St Catherine's Parish Eucharist.

Yesterday, I had a call from Andrew James the Vicar of St Andrews Major and Dinas Powys to ask if I could cover his Sunday duties next week, as he is about to start a period of sabbatic leave. As I've committed my time to help out in Canton while I'm here, I referred him to Fr Mark, who said he could manage without me next week. In all my years of ministry, I've never visited either church, although I've driven past both many times, taking a short-cut back home from Barry via Leckwith. St Andrews Major is a 12th century country church, St Peter's is in the suburban Victorian village expansion of the Parish. I must be sure to take my camera with me.

Last Tuesday at choir practice, Anna gave the gathering some musical feedback with a couple of recordings made of them at their last concert, which was, coincidentally at St Catherine's. She asked if anyone could make a YouTube video slideshow using these 'best of the bunch' tracks with some photos of the choir performing. Nobody present seemed able or willing to take this on, so I said I would give it a try.

This evening the respective image and audio files arrived. First, attempted to use the rather long in the tooth version of Picasa, still in use on my computers, but wasn't satisfied with the result. Then I hunted for Windows Movie Maker, unsure whether it had been swept aside in favour of other Apps by updating the operating system, but I found it was still there and working, so I started again. This wasn't easy, as it's several years since I last used it to edit video clips, and had forgotten how. Even so, by the end of the evening I emailed Anna with a couple of rough cuts of the tracks to see if this project was going in the right direction, pleased to have recovered a modicum of mastery over this piece of digital kit. Not something I could have anticipated doing a week ago.

Linux to the rescue

It's been an uneventful and quiet few days, cool and overcast weather giving no incentive to venture far, except for re-painting the front railings and taking exercise. I walked to St Luke's to celebrate the Friday evening Mass, and was surprised that nobody arrived. What I hadn't realised was that I'd put the incorrect time in my diary, arriving half an hour after disappointed worshippers had went away. As I was painting the fence, Fr Mark arrived with the keys, but neither of us thought to check the time of the service with each other. I was quite upset with myself, as I'd finished painting, cleaned up in good time and could easily have left and arrived in good time.

I was doubly careful to arrive in good time to celebrate the Saturday morning Mass, for which four people turned up. Mary, our neighbour from opposite asked if I could take a look at her desktop PC, which was malfunctioning. It's an ancient Windows XP box, at least ten years old. An inspection revealed that the hardware is malfunctioning. It boots, and then reboots before reaching a full desktop making a tiny click sound which indicates a motherboard trip switch being triggered, probably due to the thermal sensor malfunctioning, or doing its proper job, or reacting to a motherboard voltage irregularity.

On odd occasions in the past, I've recovered a computer from this kind of failure by taking the back off and sucking out the accumulated dust, especially from the CPU and PSU fans. As the machine is so old, and given that Windows XP is no longer supported with security patches, it hardly seemed worth the effort. Reliability and stability is a crucial issue for older users. I hear enough complaints about Windows 10, because of the way frequent updates make for variability in time elapsed from stitch on to, say for example, starting work on an actual document in a word processor. Then there are all those notifications, nags and warnings which worry people who are unsure what the can and cannot ignore. It's daunting when you just want to do familiar things, and find all those so called 'helpful' digital admonitions are distracting enough to make you forget what you intended to do.

Mary is a light computer user, doing a little surfing, on-line flight booking and emailing, nothing more. A couple of years ago I gave her Kath's old Acer laptop, of a similar age to her desktop Dell. I set it up to run a lightweight version of Linux Mint as a backup device. It hasn't seen much use until now as it involved her getting used to a different kind of keyboard. No fun for a touch typist I guess. We set it up on her workstation, attached the Epson Stylus printer and powered it all up. It booted to the desktop and started Libre Office in less time that a Windows 10 machine with ten times the amount processing power. Moreover, the operating system made light work of finding the relevant printer driver and completing a test print successfully. About five minutes from switch on altogether. 

On a Windows 10 machine this initial process might take half an hour, but not just due to boot time. The rapid expansion of the market for high street digital print-shops in recent years is an indication that occasional printing need is a deterrent to owning and managing a printer for many consumers of digital media. If you have a printer less than two or three years old, Windows 10 will find and download and install drivers automatically. For older devices, the process breaks down, search for the right download site has to be made by the user. The involves identifying the precise version and region of the world the hardware is destined to operate in. There can be thousands of options, so there's no simple straightforward solution to getting 'legacy' devices to work. 

Some older devices never get driver upgrades and have to be scrapped. The cost of all this wastage, not to mention the toxic waste generated by computer redundancy, both to the economy and the environment, is unimaginable. New improved feature sets are always touted as beneficial, but for the majority of basic users, reliability and usability are what's most needed. These essentials have certainly improved over the past thirty years, but so has their complexity, making users ever more dependent on after-sales services provided by manufacturers.

Anyway, Mary is now set up properly with a computer and printer that's quite quick and reliable, doesn't suffer from viruses, or need unending updates to sabotage her workflow. Best of all, it cost both of us nothing to acquire, and me just a few hours of set up time, some years ago. I'm starting to think my remaining laptop running Windows 10 could benefit from the same treatment. The trouble is migrating data from two separate user areas, and learning how to do a clean install from a UEFI motherboard 64 bit device. I don't spend as much time as I used, to messing about with computers these days, let alone using them. For most purposes these days I use a tablet or a Chromebook, and just need transfer files to one Windows 10 device to print with my trusty HP  lazer printer, which I know works with Linux as well. Is it worth the effort?

The best made plans ....

Normally I offer a few improvised reflections on scripture at a funeral, but I woke up this morning thinking that I should prepare carefully something to say, aware that the death of a young person is going to bring into church a whole generation of contemporaries, family, friends and acquaintances. So, I spent a couple of hours writing a brief address to fit the occasion. While I was doing this, I received an email with a revised text of the eulogy, which I also needed to print off before leaving for church.

I tested my home Audio/CD player with music from my phone before the church started to fill in, and was pleased that the sound channelled through the radio hand microphone was good quality  and wouldn't let me down. Nobody arrived as promised before the service with a phone containing the required downloads, however. The cortege arrived late, and I had to hunt around among the chief mourners to find out who had the device. 

Eventually, someone handed this over to me, and when I asked who was going to take charge of operating it received no response, as if it was so self evident that there was no need to consider my question. The fact that it was an unfamiliar iPhone, a smaller one, difficult to read, even with reading glasses on, was disconcerting. I plugged it in, prodded what might have been the play button - I had no way  of knowing - and nothing happened. Then I noticed that the phone had been set in flight mode, and clearly my injunction about the necessity of having proper downloaded tracks either not understood, not passed on, or ignored. 

Just at the point of discovering this, the congregation stood up. I looked around to find that the procession of the coffin into church was already inside and ready to proceed. Rather than make a fuss about the lack of music, I led the procession in, and began the service. There was a congregation of four hundred, and half of them were under thirty. In welcoming people, I explained the unfortunate glitch and said that perhaps it was just as well, since a sudden tragic death stuns us all into silence.

The family had invited a gospel singer to give her rendering of 'Amazing Grace' unaccompanied. Familiar, and effective.  I was able to work with the theme of saving grace in relation to both the readings and my prepared homily. Then, I asked the gospel singer for a repeat performance, before beginning the prayers and final farewell. As we got ready for the exit procession, someone stepped up and managed the phone, and started the music stream, a little too late for good effect, however. Despite careful planning, there was an element of mild chaos, as the family's good intentions were overwhelmed by the immediacy of their grief. Funeral directors are much more used to this than I am. Making things right despite everything tending to fall apart is their strong point. Without their calm support I'm not sure how I'd cope.

The congregation was quiet throughout and after we left the church, all seemed absorbed in grief and mutual comfort. Very few people spoke to me outside church, or at the graveside and then only a few words. I'll never know if any of them understood what I was saying to them. There was a huge crowd at Western Cemetery and the leading men took part in 'back-filling' the grave, as it's referred to in funeral jargon. Thank heavens the weather was warm and sunny with little wind. I meant that people could stand around, take their time, come out of their shells a little, before driving off to the wake. I was grateful to return home and fall asleep on the sofa after a late cooked lunch gone cold.

I'd intended to go to a Tai Chi class tonight, but the events of the day robbed me of any energy to do more than watch the final episodes of 'Rough Justice'. It concludes with closure on all the story lines, just leaving one loose end to retain the possibility of a second series, eventually or not, as the case may be.

  

Technical trials

Yesterday evening I went with Clare to the Fountain School Community Choir practice. Despite my often lengthy absences, she's keen to get me singing whenever I can. I'm not sure if my voice or my sight-singing is up to it. My lower register has certainly diminished in recent years, and my upper register improved somewhat, so I'm more of a light baritone than a bass in old age. I wasn't quite as rusty as I feared I would be, perhaps singing a few times with the St George's choir in Malaga did me more good than I realised. But now, I have to work on rescuing my lower range notes, with a few daily exercises.

Father Mark dropped off the audio adaptor cable last night for my to test this morning. I went to St Catherine's to celebrate the midweek Eucharist, and after the service the girl-friend of the deceased young man called in for a trial run of the music for tomorrow's funeral. The adaptor fitted into one of the floor sockets for microphone cables, with a phone mini-jack at the other end of a light 30m cable. I plugged it into my phone, and selected Catrin Ffinch playing the Goldberg Variations. It worked perfectly for all of ten seconds, then gave up altogether with a loud crackle. Somewhere in that 30m line there's a short circuit. Impossible to commit to working with unreliable kit in the day. 

Before leaving home I tested my phone with another cable attached to a portable radio/CD player, and knew this would work in church, with one of the substantial radio hand mics to distribute the sound through the church sound system, so I was able to reassure the girl that we had a solution. But things are never so simple. She showed me her phone and started to play me one of the tracks they wanted to use at the service. In fact she had a phone in each hand, one piggybacking on the wi-fi of the other to stream music from an internet site. Streamed from one device with its own internet connection would carry a degree of unwelcome risk going live at a funeral, to my mind. 

The phone signal in church is quite strong, though not uniformly so, and if there's any sudden local demand, the signal can drop and sabotage the streaming process. Therefore, tracks downloaded and then played on a single device attached to the sound system is the least risky thing to do, I explained and begged her to go and get help to organise this side of things properly, and get the device to me well before the service, to test and adjust sound levels. Printer's proofs for the service leaflet arrived by email from the funeral directors approval, then later in the evening, the family eulogy arrived by email, and all I needed for tomorrow was ready to go. It's going to be a very well attended service, so naturally we do our best to ensure everything works as intended on the day,

Sound system challenge

I walked over to Sloper Road this lunchtime to visit a family whose 21 year old had taken his own life. It wasn't easy to engage with them, as they are still in a state of shock. I was asked if I would read a tribute which they would put together and send me. The music is going to be all digital pop tracks, so an organist isn't required, and the necessary MP3 files will be delivered beforehand.

Church sound systems are rarely up to date and able to do more than play CDs and handle wireless microphones, so I promised we'd find a way of playing music through the system from a digital device of their choice. Later in the day I checked the sound system at St Catherines, and found it had no spare jack or mini-jack plug sockets. The floor mounted spare cabled mic sockets are the old 3 pin DIN heavy duty standard. Father Mark said he'd be able to track down a cable adaptor which can be used to connect a phone to the system. I'll get that to test tomorrow.

I'm continuing to work my way through all thirteen episodes of 'Rough Justice', at two episodes a day, getting used to and enjoying listening to Flemish dialogue. It's akin to German and Dutch, with loan words from French and English. With subtitles this makes it more interesting to follow than the Scandinavian crimmies which I enjoy. There's roughly one murder an episode being solved with the thread of three story around the life of the main character, who's a senior female cop. It's not so complex and subtle as many series in this genre, but it provides insight into the life of Belgian society and its major port city.

Camera talk with Amanda

There were nine of us at St Catherine's this morning, when I celebrated the eight o'clock Eucharist. Clare went to the ten thirty service, so I had a quiet morning to myself at home. In the afternoon we drove to Bristol. It was Clare's anthroposophical study session, and after I dropped her off in Stoke Bishop I went to see Amanda. Clare got a lift and came and joined us an hours and a half later. In the meanwhile, Amanda and I talked photography. 

A couple of months ago she bought the same Sony H400 as Rhiannon got for her birthday, and since then, she's been out in her wheelchair with her carer, taking photos in the city museum, on College Green, around the Harbour and St Mary Redcliffe Church, and she's taken it to church with her. What a difference it's make to her, now that she was a care package geared around taking her out thrice weekly, for shopping, or just to visit places that take her fancy.

Handling the camera is quite a challenge given her physical limitations, but thankfully her working muscles are strong enough to hold a camera without shaking. I was able to show her how many of camera features work, that she hasn't yet got to grips with, and how to upload pictures, set up web albums using Google Photos, and make a start on learning to use web editing tools. She's got a good eye, and is quick to pick up things. This, I believe, will bring her much reward for the effort she makes in taking on this new challenge.

Over the weekend I've started working my way through a Belgian crimmie box set on the 'Walter Presents' channel called 'Rough Justice', focussing on the cases handled by a female commissario de police in Antwerp, so it's in Flemish for a change. Interesting due to her effective but questionable methods of bringing suspected perpetrators to account, and the whiff of corruption and blackmail that seems likely that its may all end in tears. Sure, it's all be done before, but we'll see if it all pans out any differently by the end of a thirteen part series.

  

Gŵyl y Llais - an audio feast

Last night we went into town to a concert at Capel Tabernacl given by a Corsican pulifoni singing group called 'A Filetta'. It was part of the current Festival of Voice / Gŵyl y Llais, running for the next ten days at venues around the city.

We heard a pulifoni a capella vocal group singing spontaneously in an Ajaccio bar the night before we set off for home, on our second visit to Corsica in 2007. It a unique genre of folk music, using close three part harmony, full of striking dissonances, complex ornamentation and grace notes. The lyrics in Corsican and Latin express sacred and secular themes. One of its main traditional liturgical forms is the funeral lament, but there are 'pulifoni' Masses, Christmas and Easter carols as well, as well as songs based on romantic and nature poetry.

Pulifoni is a musical form unique to Corsica and its popular revival, linked to Corsican nationalism, has brought the art new vigour, with an international following for its singing groups. 'A Filetta' travel the world to perform. This week, Poland and Germany, as well as Wales. I think we acquired our first CD of theirs at the airport shop as we left, and we left the concert with two more.

When you hear pulifoni singing at first it leaves you wondering where you've heard anything like it before, as it bears a resemblance to Bulgarian, Georgian and Romanian a capella singing, but it has harmonic surprises of its own and embellishments to the melodies resembling what can be heard in North African, Middle Eastern and Caucasian vocal tradition, not to mention synagogue chants and Qu'ranic recitation.

Corsica, being a Mediterranean island could have been visited by musicians and traders from all those regions over millennia, passing on their influence. On the other hand, it could by that music evolves spontaneously but separately in different cultures, where landscape and social setting are the primary creative stimulant. We noticed that on one of the new album purchased is a Georgian song the group has learned, perhaps because, due to their travels, the groups has recognised and now wants to celebrate common and very ancient musical roots.

Oh yes, 'A Filetta' performed immaculately and a good variety of songs both secular and sacred were sung. They were supported by a man who read translations of some of the lyrics, to evoke the ethos of this art form. An audience of about a hundred, was captivated by the atmosphere generated by the six male singers. The acoustics of a sizeable Welsh chapel meant that no amplification system was needed, even though they often sang quietly and tenderly. You could hear every breath and each distinct voice clearly. An audio feast in its own right.

With Sunday sermon ready to preach this afternoon, I took my Sony Alpha 68 for a walk in the park and caught sight of a couple of Mallard families with eight ducklings thriving, no longer with their downy coating, but brown feathers with white markings, quite charming. Clare's garden roses are looking wonderful at the moment, very photogenic. The pictures are here. And after a week of cool greyness, it's getting summery warm with cloudy blue skies, so I won't miss Spain quite as much, for a while, at least.

Check up and catch up

I had my six monthly dental check-up this morning. No repair work was needed. I was home in time for Clare to have the car to drive to her dental check-up at the same surgery. We agreed to ask them to re-schedule our appointments ensuite next time, so we can arrive and depart together with just one journey. Unfortunately Clare scratched another parked car while leaving her parking place on the way home. Making contact with the owner isn't going to be easy, but a passing neighbour helped her to make the first move, as the car owner is away at the moment. What a bother! And all due to me arriving home early enough for her to take the car just as she was about to leave to catch the bus! There can be unforeseen consequences behind every action we take.

I was collected and taken to Pidgeon's chapel to officiate at the funeral, and then we went up to Thornhill cemetery for the interment. With nothing else planned for the rest of the day, I decided to do some catch-up watching. I discovered that I could access a series of episodes of NCIS season 14 which I haven't seen on MY5. Being away for three months without being able to watch UK telly means there's a much greater variety of catch-up programmes to choose from. Funnily enough, living without telly, I find other things to occupy myself, and grow less inclined to to spend quite as much time being entertained as I used to.

   

A world tour starting in Cardiff

I celebrated the Eucharist at St Catherine's this morning. I drafted a sermon for Sunday, and then in the afternoon went into town to look for a new camera bag. I found just what I needed in the shop where I habitually go to buy cameras and accessories kit, Cardiff Camera Centre, a family firm with two shops and an internet store as well.

Road closures were already under way when I arrived, as there was a concert in the stadium, the start of Rhianna and Jayzee's world tour. An armed response police team was located prominently at the entrance, for public reassurance after last year's Manchester stadium bombing.

The streets were unusually busy for a Wednesday, and lots of people were relaxing out doors, chatting drinking, either at tables or standing in the street. The only jarring note was the sound of breaking glass, as a few people accidentally dropped or toppled a drink. For some strange reason, the public safety injunction applying on match days, that drinks be served only in disposable plastic wasn't in force, and it meant that broken glass was being trodden under foot. Not very desirable in the sandal wearing season. 

Whenever there's a large crowd in town, discarded rubbish accumulates, especially after normal Council working hours, so the quality of the environment soon deteriorates. I makes me wish our city was more like Malaga where street sweepers are numerous and work in shifts from early morning until late at night, and take a pride in keeping the streets clean. The sight of broken glass is rare. How anybody with safety oversight as part of their job, whether Council, Licensee or Police didn't expect a seventy thousand pre-concert drinking crowd in summer to be outdoors is a mystery to me. 

More episodes of NCIS watched on catch-up this evening. Interesting to see how a change of actors to reflect greater inclusivity is reflected in squad room personnel. A Latino, a black Brit, an Afghan and added prominence to female leads among them.

  

Sobering thoughts

Thinking about Rhiannon flying to Holland this morning, and Rachel travelling to Penslyvania from Arizona to visit an internet friend. She'll be in a time zone two hours nearer us during her week of holiday, which means having to figure out different possible phone calling times. The environment in Pensylvania will be more like Wales, which will suit her better than the climate in Phoenix.

I had a bereavement visit to make in Rhiwbina this morning, to complete preparations mostly made by email for a funeral tomorrow. Fr Mark has asked me to do another funeral next week, this time of someone who committed suicide under the influence of alcohol, not due to mental health issues. This isn't going to be easy. I'm racking my brains to remember if I've done the funeral of a young suicide before. In my twenties, I worked regularly with Samaritans on suicide prevention watch, but never had to deal with families of those we were unable to help.

It's hard to understand how survival instinct fails to override that fatal impulse, even though alcohol can reduce self control and inhibition. London and other big UK cities have seen a worrying increase in knife and gun crime in relation to street gangs in recent years, also deadly domestic violence, murderous revenge attacks with child victims. It's as if a sense of the value of human life as well as self control is withering away in some parts of society.

The injustice of growing social inequality with the detachment of wealthy elites from the need and suffering of the poor creates a moral climate that starves them of self esteem and hope for change in the future. Without a spiritual basis in life, despair is hard to resist, and vulnerability to destructive impulses increases. It happens when people think they can dispense with institutional religion and relegate ethics and spirituality to the privacy of each individual. This is the dark side of modernity and secularity with which we now have live. Finding the way to a new place is going to be painfully tough.

   

Early service at Kenilworth

I was awake at seven, and out of the house to attend the BCP celebration of Holy Communion with two dozen others at St Nicholas' Parish Church, before everyone else got up. A retired cleric, rather than the Vicar took the service, and told us that he was volunteering to cover the eight o'clock first Sundays of the month from now on. I don't think there's a Curate at the moment. 

There's nothing quite like a BCP early service in a 15th century church with sunlight streaming in, birdsong in the background in Shakespeare's County, heart of Established Protestant England. Despite changes in appearance of the building and congregation, I get that special feeling, of time standing still. Maybe that's why it's relatively well attended. Eight o'clocks are not as well attended in Wales, apart from Cathedrals and Minster churches. In Canton Benefice the early congregation is usually half the size.

After breakfast, a walk into town for some shopping at Waitrose then lunch, before setting off back to Cardiff late afternoon. We got back just as The Archers was finishing on the radio. An enjoyable few days away, and a pleasure to be on the receiving end again, in the congregation on a Sunday.

New railway excursion and an outdoor gig

Today a shopping expedition was required to buy some last  minute items for Rhiannon, who is off to Arnheim in Holland on Monday for a school exchange visit. We took the train there, rather than use the car or the bus, in order to use the restored rail passenger service on the branch line running from Coventry to Leamington, which was discontinued over fifty years ago. Over the past couple of years a completely new station has been constructed in Kenilworth. There's one train an hour, and so far just, one diesel railcar plying to and fro. It's ten minutes from Kenilworth to either Coventry or Leamington. It makes for a much quicker and more predictable access to mainline train services for commuters, so demand is expected to grow, and house prices set to rise, reflecting the convenience of the location.

Most of the route to Leamington passes through rolling green landscape. So nice to be able to gaze out of the window, and not having to concentrate on the road ahead. While the others went hunting for swimming costumes, I tracked down a nearby specialist camera shop in search of a protective bag for Rhiannon's camera, but there was nothing the right size, so I have ended up giving her my camera bag, in the hope that I can find something suitable as a replacement in Cardiff. Actually, her Song H400 is slightly bigger than my HX300 though much the same shape, and my donated bag fits her camera better than mine.

Before the return journey, we had a picnic lunch in a park over the road from the Leamington Spa Pump Room buildings. The elegantly decorated main hall has been restored and is used for a variety of cultural and social functions. Other large rooms within the building have been transformed into a small museum and art gallery, and a modern library extension has been added, a neat combination of repurposed historic Georgian with modern buildings, ensuring continued public use.

In the evening we accompanied Kath and Anto to a gig at Leamington's rugby club, which is located a mile or so across the A46 from Kenilworth. The 'Just Imagine Music Festival' was an all day music festival arranged by a supporters association for people with learning difficulties, with a stage and sound system set up on the patio outside the club-house. Grateful for the benefit of good weather, they performed for about an hour, so we were back in the house just after nine. Often they have more than a hour's journey to get to the gig venue, so this was an easy assignment for them. It wasn't easy either, working as a duo instead of the full Sonrisa band, as most of the audience were seated on the field below the patio, ten metres away from the stage. Here are some photos I took.

Discovering Upton House in Warwickshire

After a slow start we were on our way down the M42 to visit Upton House, a country mansion in deep rural South Warwickshire. It was built in 1695 and served as a grand hunting lodge from the mid eighteenth century until 1929 when it was acquired by the heir of the Samuel family whose members founded Royal Dutch Shell. It underwent a period of expansion and remodelling in order to house a large display of paintings spanning a period of five centuries, belonging to Lord Bersted, an enthusiastic collector of fine art and porcelain. 

The house is set in a rolling wooded landscape of tall mature trees above a valley which is part of the estate. On the valley floor is a series of 'stew ponds', lakes in which fish used to be cultivated for food. Nowadays, a couple of them are for ornamental purposes, and one has been transformed into a 'bog garden' featuring a wide variety of exotic wetland plants. The main slope down to the largest of the ponds is south facing, and was originally developed as a giant vegetable garden, but since Lady Samuel took charge a substantial section is devoted to a series of floral gardens enclosed by hedges, reached by a flight of steps from the huge apron of lawn in front of the house. 

The valley cannot be seen from the house, only the steep side of the hill opposite, so it's a surprise when you walk to the end of the lawn and discover the spectacular view below. On the east corner of the lawn is a 25m swimming pool, which has the reputation of being the first heated outdoor pool in Britain. The house and pool enjoy the benefits of an early oil fired central heating system, which is what a wealthy oil magnate could easily afford to maintain.

The introductory guided tour of the house told a fascinating story about family members and the role they played in the making of 20th century Britain and not only in the energy industry. As their forebears had taken refuge in the East End of London from 19th century anti-Jewish pogroms, they foresaw the need to help finance the Kindertransport rescuing thousands of Jewish children from the Nazi genocide in the late thirties, and  they were involved in counter-espionage as well as fuel supplies as part of the war effort. Successful trading relies on information, so business experience is a good preparation for intelligence gathering, whether military or economic.

Rhiannon took even more photos than I did, and after supper we each uploaded ours and compared notes. It was interesting to observe what young eyes pay attention to in photography. She took more closeup pictures than I did, perhaps partly because I'd discussed with her earlier how get the best results on auto-focus with a telephoto lens. She's a quick learner. My photos are here