More remembering

I'm certainly not used to being out late these days. I was tired yesterday morning, and took a long time to surface, thankful that I didn't have much to do, apart from finish off my Sunday sermon. 

Last night, before turning in I exchanged birthday greetings a few hours early with Rachel in AZ. Today we spoke to her on WhatsApp as she was starting her day with Jasmine making a fuss of her.

Today is also the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, three weeks after I was in East Berlin with my good friend Geoff Johnston and seven others from Halesowen Parish, on our way back from spending time with members of the Stefanausgemiende in Leipzig, launching our Parish twinning initiative. It was the day Erich Honecker resigned as president. 

Being there in the DDR as witnesses in the thick of such dramatic events was a life-changing experience for both of us, and for all those present during those momentous days when demonstrations in the city reached their climax and precipitated the fall of the regime. The consequence for me was the desire that emerged which led to me opening myself up the the possibilities of ministry in Europe, ending up with our move to Geneva three years later, at the same time of year.

It was again late in the afternoon before I went out to walk and there was a distinct autumnal chill in the air. Across Llandaff Fields there was a mantle of mist a couple of meters think. I enjoyed finding out the best way to take pictures that reflected the beauty of the passing moment. Soon enough it passed as the temperature dropped, leaving the chill air clean and clear.

This morning I arrived at St Dyfrig & St Samson's church at a quarter to nine to celebrate Mass for twenty adults and three small children. The Remembrance Sunday observance was made an hour early, right at the end of the service. There's a memorial at the back of the church from the 1939-46 war with a dozen parishioners' names on it. I daresay that the names from Word War One were being read a little later at St Paul's Parish church, but today I wasn't required to take a service there as well.

With the Remembrance ceremony added, we finished a little late for me to drive to St Catherine's and join Clare there, so I went home and arrived in time to watch the national ceremony on Horseguards' Parade in London, a rare opportunity for me, and special this year, as it's the centenary of the first observance of Armistice Day tomorrow.

Clare had her study group n Bristol in the afternoon, so I went out early in clear bright sunshine, with my Sony Alpha 68, before she left, to make up for a week of walking just around sunset. I walked as far as Lidl's in Llandaff North along the Taff Trail, and photographed a solitary female cormorant in breeding plumage. She was on a ledge at the base of the central pillar of the road bridge over the Taff, looking lonely. Her entire front from neck to feet was as white. I don't think I've seen such an expanse of white on a breeding cormorant before. It certainly was a cormorant, to judge by the head and beak, however, I wonder why she was so far away from others, way up-river from their normal haunts?