Ahead of the coming festal season

The weather is truly autumnal now, bright and dry with temperatures around freezing at night rising to ten centigrade in the afternoon, just what you'd hope for as November arrives. I celebrated the Vigil of All Saints at St Catherine's this morning with a dozen people. Clare, taking advantage of half term holidays, started buying and preparing ingredients for Christmas puddings, four weeks before Stir Up Sunday arrives. 

With school, singing and choir commitments on top of present buying and usual routine activities, she's quite busy getting stuff done early to relieve the pressure on the run up to the festive season. I help with some domestic shopping and cooking. This afternoon I walked four miles along the Taff and back to Canton Bridge. It's the furthest I've walked since returning from Montreux, and I am pleased with this, keen to regain summer fitness after much idleness and languishing. Thankfully, coping with inflammation and wound management isn't taking so much out of me now.

I was overjoyed to learn from today's news of a technological breakthrough made by researchers into spinal injuries associated with the University Hospital of Lausanne, which enables paraplegics to learn to walk again. It seems that even when a spinal cord sustains damage that causes paralysis, a weak neural signal is still transmitted along it. An electronic device has now been devised to amplify this signal and relay it to the brain from the other side of the damaged vertebra. It means an injured person with this device attached to them can be taught to walk unsupported. Amazingly, the activity which device usage enables is able to stimulate a measure of regeneration of the spinal cord. It's still at the early stages of development, but a transformational breakthrough that will bring a new kind of hope to paraplegic sufferers. Film footage of a patient doing walking practice was taken on a lakeside footpath, with recognisable views of the Swiss Jura behind. Instant nostalgia for me.

There was a Parish Hallowe'en Party and bonfire at St Catherine's in the evening, but we didn't go, as being in a crowd with lots of excited children lacks appeal at the moment. Nevertheless, we had a visit from one small group of kids with their parents, out trick or treating. A small dose, just enough seasonal delight to be going on with.

  

Monday postal joy

A memorable Monday for me indeed! There were two letters in today's post, one was a cheque from my travel insurers reimbursing my Swiss medical expenses claim in full, apart from the £100 excess. The other gives me an appointment for a pre-op MRI scan on 13th November. Double delight! Two less things to worry about. Also, by the time the post arrived I had already written a sermon ready for next Sunday. Meanwhile, each day sees a slight improvement in my general condition, and that increases my optimism, but not my restlessness, for a change. 

At lunchtime, I went by bus to the Heath Hospital for a follow-up ENT appointment. I didn't leave early enough, and the journey took longer than if I had walked there directly. I was twenty minutes late, which annoyed me, but I found the appointments admin number and asked if they'd pass on the message to ENT that I was going to be late, which they agreed to do, willingly.

I met with the top consultant, Mr Stew. It really was a consultation too. He asked me to describe my nosebleed experiences, and what I was doing to prevent recurrences. Then, after examination, he explained thoroughly that my nose was healthy, so no surgical intervention was required. He observed that the lower part of my nasal septum is just a little crooked. 

This means that air intake through left and right nostrils uneven. The lower section is prone to dry out and lubricate less well, and this is a factor, along with high systolic blood pressure, over exertion and diminished blood supply due to poor sleeping position, which contributes to the occasion capillary rupture. It's the combination of factors which provokes the occasional crisis. His advice was simply to lubricate the entrance to both nostrils with a smidgeon of vaseline before sleep, as this protects and facilitates proper function, even in a slightly crooked nose. Well, you live and learn! It was good to come away with an understanding I can work with, to stay out of trouble. 

I took the bus back as far as Tescos, walked around the store but found nothing I was interested in buying. Then I went over to Office World, and found that the not so super store had closed and relocated to Newport Road Retail park. The quality of the chain's retail offer has diminished since they took over Staples, when it was in financial difficulties. 

I'm not surprised really, as increasingly you can order office goods and services on-line and get them delivered. All part of the contemporary crisis in high street retailing. I hate shopping on-line and avoid doing so, as having to wait in for scheduled deliveries, however well managed the process, ties me down far more than being able to pop into town and hunt for stuff spontaneously when in need.

Walking back home along the Taff Trail and across the Fields under a canopy of leaves unusually green for this time of year in chill air with blue skies and afternoon sun was most pleasant.

This evening the last episode of Strangers. It's been rather slow moving and the story-line lacking in clarity in parts. The social media commentariat have been very scathing about it, and not without justification. In the final few frames a handwritten letter was shown which give the final clue to the final human question viewers had been asking, if they'd not already lost interest. The short was held too briefly, the writing not large enough to be easily legible at a glance. This was poor camera and editorial direction, most annoying. I had to hunt through Twitter to find a punter who had taken and posted a screenshot - very speedily too - in order to find out what was essential to plot closure. And yet, I was wearing my TV viewing specs while I watched! 
    

Celebrating Simon and Jude in Newport

This morning, benefiting from the extra hour's sleep due to the clocks going back, I drove to Newport, at Martin's invitation, to join him in attending Mass at the Parish Church of St John the Baptist, Risca Road. It's a beautifully appointed building, light and airy in the  classic ethos of Edwardian Anglo-Catholicism, similar to others I've seen in East Anglia. There was a choir of four and six at the altar, with a dozen in the congregation, mostly older people but several youngsters too. The 1984 Welsh rite Eucharist was sung thoughtfully, prayerfully, no gimmicks, and I understood what appealed to Martin about the place, and its friendly people. 

Although the lectionary designates this last Sunday after Trinity as Bible Sunday, it coincides with the Feast of the Apostles St Simon and St Jude this year, and this was celebrated instead. I was glad about this, as it reminded me of my time in the St Paul's Area Team Ministry in Bristol, where this was one of the Benefice Feasts of Title, due to the church of St Simon, Newfoundland Road being in the group of churches within the Parish. The building itself had been given to the Greek Orthodox community in Bristol in the early sixties, before I arrived there as a student. I worshipped there with a Greek Orthodox fellow student on the Sunday of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, January 1964. For me, that was a life changing experience, introducing me to the mystical ethos of Orthodox liturgy, and forging a bond of affection for me with Eastern Christianity, which lasts to this day.

Priest in Charge, Fr Colin, has been there many years, first as incumbent and now in a retirement House for Duty. It's a pattern that's proliferating itself across the Church in Wales nowadays. There are so many churches, ancient and relatively modern, which now have just a couple of dozen people regularly attending. It's very tempting to think this how the church will wither and die off eventually, but God sometimes has surprises in store for us, as well as disappointments. Monmouth Diocese is on the verge of bankruptcy for lack of support I hear. Who knows what the future holds? Merger with Llandaff, from which the diocese was originally carved? 

We went back to Martin's house for a cuppa after lunch, and then walked to nearby Belle Vue Park, to visit an open air Sunday craft and food market. The park is set on the hillside to the west of the Royal Gwent Hospital, and was established by the landowning Tredegar Estate in the 1890s, and designed by Thomas Mawson who worked on Dyffryn House gardens. It's beautifully cared for, with a great variety of trees, effectively an arboretum, like Bute Park in Cardiff. There's a pleasant Victorian pavilion style building with a fine terrace below it, hosting a tea room, and market booths surrounded the house and space below. There's a covered bandstand in the middle of the terrace, but wasn't used by the DeeJay pumping out music to the delight or discomfort of visitors. A tent gazebo parked against a retaining wall was used instead. A strange lack of imagination, to my mind.

A restaurant lunch had been proposed, but by the time we got back, I was quite hungry, and rather reluctant to go out again and maybe wait another hour before eating, so Martin improvised a lunch of poached smoked haddock, followed by chicken pie, with wonderful succulent Medjool dates for dessert and an amazing Grenache and Carignan red wine from Languedoc to go with it.

I drove home as it was getting dark, and was relieved to find an empty space in the street to park the car. Not long after, Clare arrived from her rehearsal in Cheltenham, and we had supper together. It was a pleasant day out, the furthest I've ventured since returning from Montreux and the furthest in the new Polo. I was surprised I tired I felt, without much real exertion. I guess I've been fortunate not to have experienced much serious illness for most of my adult life, so am unused to coping with an affliction which has put much of my life on hold this past couple of months.

  

Encouraging signs

Clare went off to catch a train to Worcester yesterday afternoon, where she's staying overnight with Gail, then going with her to a community choir rehearsal in Cheltenham for a 'Carols and Capers' concert with folk rock ensemble Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band on 20th December. She came home two hours later, having discovered when she rang up to warn Gail of a delayed train that the rehearsal is Sunday afternoon. Somehow she'd booked it into her diary wrongly, ages ago.

The past few days have passed quietly, with walks to the shops and one around Pontcanna Fields, and another around Thompson's Park and Llandaff Fields, going twice my recent usual distance. This past few months, I've kept walking most days, though without making much extra effort, going only as far as I've felt inclined to, or comfortable with, in the light of my discomfort level. My recent daily bout of inflammation has diminished noticeably, judging by the frequency of dressing changes. This contributes to 'feeling better', as it means less tricky exertion and physical contortion to perform this task. Perhaps I'm a bit more skilled at doing this, and not so distressed at doing this, now I have developed an effective disciplined routine. One way or another, I believe more exercise does me good.

This evening, I watched the second part of the Gladbeck Hostage crisis, even though I'd read about its tragic ending. Presuming it faithfully represented the behaviour of mass media journalists and cameramen at the time, it really was shocking compared to nowadays, with complete disregard for Health and Safety, let alone competent handling of the public security situation. Mind you, today the burden risk taking on the part of photographers is much more widely spread with so many members of the public using their camera phones to capture film footage at close hand even before the media people are on the scene. The risks are higher too, as murderously minded criminals and hostage takers seem much more willing to kill or injure anyone recording or obstructing their evil deeds.

I wonder how we'll look back on this in thirty years from now? Bother, I'm unlikely to be here to find out. But so far, I haven't lost interest, neither has my sister June, who says much the same about taking an interest in all that's going on, despite ailments and complaints, she's up to speed with much that's going on in the news, via LBC Radio and TV programmes.
   

On the list, in the queue

More unremarkable days of routine maintenance, waiting for medical appointments, or the promise of one. Monday was enlivened by a phone call from Doreen, the assistant curate in Malaga, bringing me up to date on things there. Tuesday afternoon I went into town and added some more photos to my 400+ album of photos taken around the Central Square development area over the past three and a half years.

Number two Central Square, opposite the station main entrance is now occupied by law firm High James and a ground floor Pret a Manger outlet. The much more of the open area between the new buildings and the station is now paved and clear of safety barriers, but not all. It's good to get a glimpse of what it will look like on completion, however. There are more construction site offices and storage units on the Bus Station site next door, but still no sign of work starting of sinking piles or erecting the steel skeleton for the future building.

Wednesday morning I went to the Eucharist at St Catherine's. I called in at my GP surgery on the way to thank the receptionists for booking me directly for a hypertension medication review without the usual prerequisite of a blood test, given that I've had three in the past month. They seemed both surprised and grateful. It seems they are more used to being on the receiving end of complaints.

Ashley suggested that I chase up the MRI scan booking to see where I am in the queue before I get any kind of acknowledgement that I'm in the queuing system, so I rang the hospital booking desk and managed to establish that my name is in their queue, even though I've not yet received a letter in the mail. I stated that I'd be willing to take a cancelled appointment at any time or place, since I'm relatively mobile. I don't know if that will make any difference. I can but hope.

This evening, Film Four aired a movie based on John Le Carre's book 'A Most Wanted Man'. I read it about ten years ago, so it was good to see a film interpretation. It ends in tragic betrayal of innocent trust, as is often in case in the world of secrets the author criticises.

  

   

Perspectives from on high

We went to the Parish Eucharist at St Catherine's this morning. Emma preached in cheerleader mode (a role I know well from locum duties), encouraging people to continue working together in the way they've found they can under Fr Mark's leadership. I guess we rely on inspiration being given a voice rather than coming from a set of raw ideas, so it's natural for people to feel uncertain about how they will continue without a beloved pastor and guide. What harder to notice, however, is the momentum generated by effective ideas and ways of working together in a community. Cheerleading in this sense, is about acknowledging and affirming who we are, what we've become on the journey being made together. 

After the service, I went straight home to cook lunch, while Clare went down to the Riverside Market on Taff Embankment, as it's the 20th anniversary of its foundation. It's rare that we go there together nowadays, as we get a bag of organic veggies delivered by the Farmers Market to Chapter Arts Centre for us to collect every Wednesday and any special cheeses we can get from a new stall that's now going strong in Cardiff Market. 

I had an unexpected email from Fr Mark after lunch, asking if I could step in urgently and officiate at St John's monthly Evensong, as something unexpected had come up. How nice! I don't remember when I last officiated at an Evensong - oh yes I do. It was the end of August last year at the chapel of St Michael in Caux, 600m above Lac Leman. The service is an annual event in a beautiful turn of the 20th century Anglican building subsequently taken on by the local Vaudois protestant parish. Sadly it was impossible to organise this again during my recent locum stay. I was quite sad about that, as it's a wonderful venue for Evensong, with the setting sun streaming in over the Savoyard Alpes across the lake, bathing the interior in golden light. You just have to sing the Phos Hilaron.

Anyway, apart from the organist, I had a congregation of two, with a long OT passage from Joshua delineating the boundaries of the tribal territories to be occupied after crossing the Jordan. It's full of hard to pronounce place names, so the man who usually enjoys reading asked if he could read the NT lesson instead. As I read, that long inventory of locations, I found myself imagining flying over the terrain in a helicopter, and shared this thought with the faithful few subsequently. It occurred to me that today's mapping technology privileges us to get an overview of any place on earth in ways not available to our forebears, and thereby able to bring alive for us a passage of scripture which in times past would have been excruciatingly dull and unprofitable to listen to.

Afterwards the other attendee asked if I'd seen a recent programme about the Lebanon in which the presenter had gone up in a hot air balloon to view an historic landscape, as part of explaining the geography behind the politics and sociology. Yes, privileged we are indeed today! But will all these new perspectives and information about the world we live in help us better to answer the problems we face, I wonder?

    

Contrasting crime stories

Friday slipped by in an unremarkable routine way. Apart from a few email and phone conversations, it was all maintenance tasks, learning to be patient with myself. In the evening I watched a bilingual English and French high speed conspiracy thriller 'The Take' (aka Bastille Day) on Film Four about a Parisian pickpocket and a CIA agent, whose only common ground was that both are American. It was pretty violent, packed with improbable set piece fight scenes. Not the best kind of pre-bedtime entertainment, plus there were several loose ends in the storyline which made the ending somewhat unsatisfactory, given the alleged far reaching nature of the conspiracy. Disappointing really.

Today was much the same, except for an evening walk down to Blackweir bridge at sunset. It was warm enough not to need a top coat and the sky was clear. The trees continue to change colour at a gentle pace, and everything looks lovely in the golden orange glow as the sun seems to linger over the horizon. It's dusk by seven now. Clocks go back next weekend, and for me what isn't the best time of year begins. Thankfully I can still make myself useful occasionally covering services in the Parish, though I'm content not to be as busy as I have been in the past - for now!

BBC Four's Euro-crimmie slot this evening brought us a two part dramatisation of a real-life hostage crisis in 1988, starting in Gladbeck in Germany's industrial Ruhrgebeit, ensuing in a chase into Holland and back to Cologne where it ended. The accent, pace and raucous nature of the dialogue made it had to follow so I had to rely entirely on the subtitles. It showed how different regional jurisdictions failed to play well together in a fast moving situation, which quickly got out of police control, dogged by live news media teams intervening and reporting live, even interviewing criminals on the run and their hostages. Presumably lessons were learned from this unfortunate experience, Could this still happen, I wonder? This was described as the darkest hour in the history of post War Germany's press industry, and resulted in some new guidelines being implemented to forestall such dangerous interference. It's a sobering reminder of the need for responsible limits to the notion of press freedom.

The way it was filmed seemed to be to be a little rough and ready making use of handheld camera shots on times, and the visual quality had a certain retro quality to it, the colour cast seemed more like eighties video, less over saturated than what we're used to nowadays. Apparently it was released this year on the thirtieth anniversary of the event, and may well serve as a focus for reflection and debate, assuming that as fact-based fiction it is true to the realities for the story it seeks to tell.

It certainly made for tense watching, more from the threat of violence than from any actual violence portrayed, in contrast to my previous night's viewing. Afterwards, I cheated and read up on the real life hostage situation, as I was curious to find out how it ended. At least now I know why certain minor characters appear early on, who seem unconnected to the main thrust of the plot. And it won't stop me watching next week, God willing.

  

New priest for St John's City Parish

Yesterday afternoon, Clare drove me to UHW Heath for a session with the colorectal consultant. I took the time to write down all that had occurred over the two and a half months since my last visit for a colonoscopy examination. This I feel is better than trying to tell it all in a connected way for another to need to write down. My little contribution goes into their record files. The man I saw wasn't the one I expected to see who did the colonoscopy, but that didn't matter. He said my brief account was useful. 

I now make a habit of writing to my GP and reporting anything that happens in between visits, as this saves time when I do have an appointment. These days the digital paper trail in the GP surgery is pretty comprehensive and up to date, although this doesn't seem to be replicated in specialist hospital department information systems. So much information, so fragmented, no real overview anywhere. As a patient I hope I have a fairly integrated view of my own circumstances even if my own interpretation is limited and lacking. The essential thing is to participate and not just be passive in getting fit and well again.

Anyway, an MRI scan appointment has now been ordered for me. There's a long queue and I may need to chase after this by ringing Appointments admin. Ashley gave me a useful hint for curtailing the potentially month long wait. Tell them that you're willing to show up whenever and wherever there is a free space or a cancellation, given the urgency expressed by the consultant to proceed with this. The MRI scan will map the course taken by the perianal fistula, which is apparently what is now giving me trouble, and enable the surgeons to plan a precise intervention to deal with it. This can then be dealt with, hopefully, in a day surgery session in a way that promotes efficient healing of the necessary incision(s). Well, we'll see how it turn out. More waiting to come, however, and more time on low level of activity, not making things worse. 

This morning I attended the Eucharist for St Luke's Day at St John's Canton. When I got home, the appointment letter for yesterday, postmarked the day before, had just arrived. I had agreed to take a cancelled appointment on the phone last Friday, the administrator said the letter wouldn't come before Monday. On the day of the appointment I rang up to check and found that all was in order, as promised. It's the mail department which didn't do its job. Ashley told me that he had had similar experiences on a number of occasions, arranging appointments by phone for his daughter. Complaining yields nothing it seems. And this is the age of computer automated mailing. Still over-promising and under-delivering after thirty years. At least, I'm in the treatment queue I need to be in now.

This afternoon I drove to the School of Optometry in Cathays for my annual eye test, and ordered some prescription reading glasses and a change lenses for my pair of distance glasses I can wear with detachable sunshades. The newer pair I obtained last year have a frame shape for which no detachable shades are available, so they weren't the best purchase I've made. I don't want custom tinted specs, nor photoreactive ones which to my mind work too slowly. Lighting conditions in which I do and don't need shades can change quicker than any lens, and I prefer to keep them handy so I can take them off or put them on whenever necessary.

In the evening I went to town on the bus to St John's City Parish Church to attend the licensing of its third priest in charge since I left. The new priest, also called Sarah Jones like the last has been Rector of Ross on Wye team ministry for eleven years and curate there before that for three. She had a prior history working in retail and training retailers, so this secular experience will stand her in good stead as she seeks to engage in ministry to the business sector in the city centre. It was great to see the Mayor there in full regalia, making a formal greeting to her on behalf of the City. Apparently the leader of the CIty Council took part in the interview process at the Bishop's invitation. It's a far cry from what happened when I was appointed and I am very very pleased about it. Seventeen years ago things were very different, and the detente between church and city was much cooler and remoter, with the exception of rather lame initiatives being made on the inter-religious front. This, to my mind is what a fresh mind from outside the situation can bring to episcopal leadership. We're very fortunate, I believe.
 
  

Mystery of healing and hall of mirrors

Being somewhat confined to the house, so-say 'looking after myself' i.e. not letting my unresolved ailments get out of hand, is for the most part a dull and uneventful routine, so a week can slip by with little of interest to report or reflect upon. Today was an exception however.

Today, I visited McTimoney chiropractor Clive Taylor again. This certainly does me good, and the value added is in the accompany conversation. Clive has been an active practitioner of alternative kinds of therapy for over thirty years, and speaks confidently of his understanding and experience of the nature of healing being embedded in the relationship he has with his clients, not just in a social way, but in the physical connection which therapy requires. Without any need for interpreting this in a metaphysical way, he speaks of the importance of laying on hands, resting and centering himself, and then letting his hands be guided to work on the other person's body. It's a process Rachel and others also speak about in their therapeutic work. 

It's part of what we are, what we can be for others. I like it, and trust this more than I trust the analytical and rational approach of busy modern medicine, which seems to have broken everything down into procedures. While I have no objection to this in principle, there can be so many procedures that some get missed out, avoided because of the pressure to deliver. Really I feel we need both approaches, but this calls for more time than we ever seem to have these days.

After this, I drove over to Dinas Powis to have coffee and a conversation with Russell on the subject of Artificial Intelligence. He's interested in what the church may have to say about it. I can't really say what theologians or Christian philosophers are publishing on this, let alone what Bishops and others have to say. In the end, it's a matter of morally evaluating the use of various AI resources and concluding whether they are a blessing or a curse, and that's complex enough. The key worry seems to be over progress towards autonomous self replicating systems, promised by visionary promoters to be with us in a couple of decades.

Seeing will be believing. All sorts of things are possible in lab conditions, like cloning sheep, but that's not turned out to be as perfect as hoped for. It's not just that such immense complexity can be perfectly reproduced, but that, to put it simply, the date, time and location of any clone is different from the original, and this alone my be enough of a change in the basic precondition for perfection to avoid flaws at a genetic or systemic level. We think that various mathematical universal constants governing the laws of the universe are perfect, unchanging and absolute. For the most part they are,  until someone comes along with new observations of certain conditions which call the presumed absolute into question. There may be no end to the process of refinement in search of ultimate truth. Maybe, an infinite regress is all we can expect, like a hall of mirrors.
  

Surprise announcement

Friday night, and for much of Saturday South Wales was hit by a huge deluge of rain. It rained hard in Cardiff but probably less so than further inland. There were photos in the news from late Saturday afternoon of the water level in the Bay lagoon raised enough to cover the boardwalk on Mermaid Quay, indicating a volume of water coming in so rapidly that the weir on the barrage itself couldn't take it away fast enough. 

There were also photos of the Taff Trail footpath near Blackweir Bridge covered with water, indicating that the river was at that time running two metres above normal. It's just as well that where the Taff runs through urban areas it was re-engineered to handle big changes in river water level, but this weekend's 'extreme weather event' was a (so far) rare functional test of its re-design, made in the aftermath of the December 1979 flooding of the city. I daresay we'll see more of the same under the impact of climate change. 

I was disinclined to go out in the rain and try to take photographs of my own, and when I got around to walking to the river this afternoon the level was only half a metre above normal - which we see quite often in winter.

I celebrated the Eucharist at St Catherine's this morning at Fr Mark's request, so that he could start the service by announcing his departure from the Parish, before moving on to St Luke's, to make the announcement there at the end of the service. He'd started at the earlier service at St John's, feeling the need to make the announcement personally in each place on the same day, understandable after twenty years in creating a United Benefice out of three old parishes from scratch. He's confided in me Wednesday last, and this gave me an opportunity to preach with this news in mind - a privilege indeed. 

It came as a shock to most people and it's clear he will be missed. He's been appointed to the post of Canon Precentor at Llandaff Cathedral, to a new role created by Bishop June. She was previously Dean of Salisbury and has a strong sense of the strategic value of Cathedral ministries and evidently she wants to improve the resources available for this. Already a senior member of the Cathedral Chapter, Fr Mark brings a wealth of pastoral experience to a situation which has not been without its troubles and conflict in recent years. I'm sure he'll be an invaluable asset there in team building with a renewed sense of purpose in facing up to changing times for the whole church. 

It's too early to start wondering who will take his place as Rector of Canton. Bishop June is certainly being effective in recruiting and deploying new incumbents. Given my present medical problems need sorting out before I can travel abroad again, I'll be around to help out during the interregnum during the early months of 2019, but for the sake of the Parish I hope for everybody's sake this is only a short spell.

  

Progress at last

At Clare's insistence today, I contacted the hospital colorectal specialist department to which I was first referred to enquire if my GP's requests for an urgent consultation had been received. No luck there, although I did exist on their system. Apparently the lead consultant Lt Col Davies whom I saw is away in Oman on exercises with his regiment at the moment, so any requests would have been passed on to other members of the team. 

I was referred back to our GP surgery for information on the destination of their booking requests. It seems each department administers its own booking and I was given a contact number at UHW Heath. Eventually I got through the lady who administers the team of colorectal surgeons whose head saw me originally. I asked her what the wait time for an appointment was likely to be, and while interrogating the system she noticed what she called "A rare cancellation" in next Wednesday's schedule, and immediately booked me in. What luck!

Adjustment

After a blood test in the surgery this morning before breakfast, I returned to King's Road and went to St Catherine's and joined eleven others for the midweek Eucharist. That's the best turnout for quite a while. Fr Mark and I had a good chat afterwards, and caught up on the news. He asked if I would be able and willing to celebrate the Parish Eucharist this coming Sunday, and I agreed. The discomfort of the day doesn't really start to develop until late morning, so I reckon I should be able to celebrate without being too distracted. 

I can always take an ibuprofen to be on the safe side. I no longer take them daily, as I can manage without, and keep them in reserve, just in case. I don't think I am a masochist. Low level pain and discomfort draws attention to what's happening in my body, but not always to the point of distraction. I don't think it's good to get too used to medications unless you really need them, like ones I take for blood pressure.

I've had a week now on the additional pill the GPs urged me to take to reduce my erratic and high systolic readings. It seems to have brought about some reduction, but consistency is another matter. I have to be on the lookout for side effects. Some people apparently experience such a drastic drop that they tend to faint (the medical equivalent of taking sledgehammer to crack a nut?). I feel light headed, as if I'm up a 3,000m Alpine pass. Maybe this is what nearly normal is like, but it's so long since my blood pressure was 'normal' back in Geneva days, it hard to recall what that was like. Well, as long as I don't pass out while cooking lunch or saying Mass, I guess I can put up with it, until they can come up with something better.

   

Life on hold

Another day of not doing much, determined by the continued discomfort caused by this unhealed wound and untreated condition. Some days are better than others, but it's demoralising not having any acknowledgement from the hospital consultancy which did the colonoscopy of the two urgent requests made by my GP for an early appointment. We hear a lot about waiting time delays for this or that condition in the news these days. The system is under great strain, so I'm in the same boat as thousands of others, just not knowing, wondering how long before there's any movement. 

I had hoped it would get better on its own, but not so. Sister in law Ann says it's most likely rectifiable by simple day surgery. I could probably pay to have this done privately, but that would feel like disloyalty to the NHS, such a marvellous institution, coping heroically with underfunding and over demand, particularly from people my age and older. Well, maybe if I get desperate, or get a definite response which says I have to wait another six months, which is the time I had to wait last time, I'll just have to pay. Life on hold, being unable to make plans is a real misery for an impatient soul like me.

Due to the necessity of sitting in an unbalanced may, my back is twinging, unsurprisingly, so I got in touch with Kay, our McTimoney osteopath and found that she's out of action due to injury. Clare had once been to a local practitioner who lives ten minutes walk from here, the other side of Thompson's park, Clive Taylor so I arranged to go and see him this evening. It was a very thorough introductory session and treatment, and I came away conscious of the benefit. One of his colleagues also does acupuncture so I must enquire about that too. My energy levels are dropping with the sheer stress of have to cope with this most awkward of afflictions.

Cinderella Italian style

Clare got up early and went to the eight o'clock this morning, to give herself time to prepare for her trip later in the day by bus and train to East Grinstead for a Eurythmy conference. I went to the ten thirty Parish Eucharist at St Catherine's. It was a Family Eucharist for Harvest Festival. I didn't feel much like socialising afterwards so I went home, and started making lunch.

Clare had so sacrifice her afternoon opera ticket in order to go to this conference, so she invited Fran to take her place. She'd also invited friends Russell and Jackie to for Rossini's 'La Cenerentola'. All three are her Anthroposophical circle friends, and they aren't bothered that I'm not one of them. In fact Russell and I often have lively conversations about the state of our changing world. As we were on our way out after he asked me, "What's the church have to say about Artificial Intelligence?" As I have done no theological reading on this subject, nor glimpsed any reports I was unable to offer as much as an ad lib response, but promised I'd get back to him on this. He's in his early nineties and is now very frail, but his mind is a keen and penetrating on core human issues as it ever was.

The opera was, yet again, wonderful. Great performances from the singers and an all male chorus singing technically challenging pieces throughout, especially some tricky bel canto duets. This was only the second performance of the run, and in a few places the orchestra seemed to be driving the duettists at a pace they found hard to keep up with. Which made it seem unnecessarily edgy, but no doubt that will improve. 

I've never heard anything from this opera before, though musically it's familiar, as you can hear Rossini building on the popular success of his 'Barber of Seville' (the first WNO opera I ever heard over 60 years ago in Cardiff's New Theatre), which was written a year earlier, when he was only 24. 

It's a comedy, evoking the pantomime ethos, based on the French version of Cinderella, by Charles Perrault, and it has a strong moral streak to the storyline. There's no fairy magic in getting Cinders to ball, but wise and thoughtful facilitation on the part of the Prince's Privy Counsellor, who secretly sets out to find him a bride. I like this version far better than what gets served up in the British Pantomime season, and believe this has something to do with Ferretti the liberettists's redaction of Perrault's story. Delightfully executed by the company, it certainly pays homage to traditional Pantomime decor and mixed media storytelling in presentation. Frankly, I'd rather see this during the Twelve Days of Christmas than a modern Panto, a medium that has sadly become crass and debased over my theatregoing lifetime.

    

Multi-cultural fields

Notification of an appointment for an ultrasound scan of my gall bladder has come through. It's in a month's time. Still waiting for an urgent specialist appointment to follow up on the abscess problem however. Minor improvements continue. The wound is definitely drying up now and I can sit down properly without much discomfort for most of the time.

This afternoon I walked to Blackweir bridge as the sun reached the horizon and took a few photos. It was just mild enough to be outdoors without a topcoat. Most of the trees still have their leaves, and they are green, a little darker than usual, like they often are mid-August. Few have fallen, there are just occasional patches of brown and yellow leaves in the canopy of trees around Pontcanna Fields.

On my way there, I noticed a group of footballers arriving in their kit for an evening kickaround. Noticed them because everyone shook hands with each other before they started to warm up. As I came closer, I realised they were speaking Spanish. You often hear cricketers in summer speaking Asian languages, most likely Urdu, on the Fields in the summer. One of the delights of our diverse city where, to judge from the number of daily joggers and cyclists a large number of the population are sports mad.

A lovely evening, but night time seems to arrive early at a pace. Perhaps I notice this because I've spend so much more time indoors recently. I don't look forward to winter darkness, and the clocks going back.

  

Homesickness in reverse

Yesterday, I spent quietly at home resting and recovering. A call from the surgery offering me an early appointment with my GP Dr Jordan this morning. She told me that Sunday's hospital blood tests showed that the infection count continues to reduce, and a feel this is corroborated by daily reduction in discomfort and wound weeping. Very much at its own pace, my innards are starting to function as our Maker intended once more. And I am feeling most grateful.

Clare noticed that the central locking system and electric window on the Polo worked as expected from the passenger side but not the driver side, so she returned it to the garage, where a connection fault was diagnosed. We'll get it back in a couple of days. It's rather strange not to see it outside.

I while away the time watching Channel 4 Walter Presents euro-crimmies on my tablet, cooking some of our main meals and taking short walks. I'm committed to a week of inactivity and not making plans, doing only what I feel I have energy for, to prove to myself that I can achieve some measure of peace without always pushing myself to be engaged in 'meaningful' activity.

I think about Spain a lot, and places there that I love. It's like homesickness in reverse.  Only occasionally do I look at any of my thousands of photos, as they remind me that miss the climate, the social ambience and walking by the sea. After all, over the last few years I've spent three to five months on locum duty there. Maintaining daily Duo Lingo drills keeps me going ad interim. It could be a while before I get to travel south again.

  

Savouring the time

I was relieved to awaken and feel better this morning than when I finally drifted off to sleep after expelling blood clots from my throat for several late evening hours. I should have gone to the doctor's for a follow-up on yesterday's A&E visit, but wrote a letter accounting for events instead, and not take up any more valuable surgery time. I have three specialist appointments booked for to follow up on three different medical issues, none life threatening. I neither expect nor feel I need any further attention meanwhile. So, most of today has been rest and recuperation, time to catch up on myself and reflect, now that ageing seems to be catching up on me with a vengeance. Each day over three score years and ten, I receive with gratitude. What more can I say?

As a precaution, I have cancelled my engagements to say the midweek Mass at St Catherine's and also St German's next Sunday. In order to be confident in public ministry I need to eliminate as much uncertainty as possible, so as not to let people down, I was keen to return to Montreux and glad that I went, but I admit I had misgivings in the months before I went aroused by ebb and flow of discomfort in my rear end.

It was no different from previous spells abroad when I'd lived with the same problem, but unconsciously a sense of vulnerability crept in, so homecoming was a relief and the weeks seemed to drag on more than they used to. Yes, with hindsight I shouldn't have gone, but having made the commitment, I was aware of the problems that pulling out with only a few months notice would have caused to the valiant few keeping the show there on the road. But, I did what I promised I'd do and paid the price in anxiety and cash. At least my medical insurance claim has been accepted for processing, and so far without query.