It was a little warmer and not so overcast today, with longer, cheering spells of welcome sunshine. I caught sight of a lizard's head poking out into the sunshine from beneath the iron door of an outside closet used for gardening equipment. After walking past several times I got a few pleasing photos to prove what I'd seen. With the increase in warmth I've seen many more lizards, especially smaller ones, dashing across the path, in and out of the undergrowth today. Lizard populations in Ibiza are not quite 'at risk', but approaching it apparently, perhaps because of the use of toxic fertilizers in some places? It would be great to see the Chaplaincy house garden managed as a mini conservation area, as there seem to be such a lot of them around.
An email notification arrived from Peter Sedgwick about an interview on The Tortoise Podcast, an independent 'slow news' website, with Jan his wife the Vicar of Glanely's Parish Church 'The Res' in Cardiff, a place where she has done marvellous work in local youth music education, developing an orchestra on the lines of the Venezuelan 'La Sistema' model. Now she is doing marvellous pastoral work as the community is hit hard by coronavirus and the knock on impact of unemployment.
Fourteen funerals this month, four of which were suicides of men no longer able to provide for their families, and several more of people in care homes dying of the virus. She speaks of her pain having officiating at crematorium funerals with just ten mourners when this is a community still with large extended families, and where it is normal for 'The Res' to host funeral congregations of three to five hundred. I know that's true as there are times when I've stood in for her. Glanely one of those places where the traditional pastoral model of parochial community still works. The podcast is well worth a listen. It's strong stuff. You can find Jan's interview here.
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