Travel plan thwarted

Things didn't work out as planned today. We intended to drive up to Kenilworth to celebrate Kath's birthday, after I celebrated Mass at St German's, but Clare was suffering from an inflamed blocked ear, and didn't feel up to the journey, and neither did I after several uncomfortable broken night's sleep. I took the usual buses to Adamsdown instead of driving, but one was five minutes late leaving the city centre, and that made me late arriving at church. As it happened, all except Angela of the regular midweek congregation were either unwell or away, so Angela kindly drove me back home. I was grateful for this as it was raining yet again. Kath postponed her birthday dinner until the weekend as well, as Rhiannon was feeling poorly. Ah well, never mind.

It rained for much of the rest of the day, though not heavily. Most of my afternoon walk followed a course under trees, so I didn't get too wet. Llandaff and Pontcanna Fields were covered by groups of birds grounded by the weather, gulls, crows, magpies, pigeons. No sound in the trees of the starlings I saw yesterday.

The news goes round and round the issue of Boris Johnson proroguing Parliament suppressing debate on whatever his government has to declare (if anything) about brexit deal/no-deal before the deadline on October 31st. All the commentators have ideas about where this will lead, but it's going to take weeks to develop, so there's only so much time to be squandered on crisis reportage and commentary.

With nothing else of interest on telly, I found a German crime series to watch on Channel 4's Walter Presents, with yet another lead female detective 'Helen Dorn'. It's based in the industrial Rhineland in the vicinity of Dusseldorf. Something new to watch, and good to find how much I understand of the dialogue aided by subtitles.