Our fifty fourth wedding anniversary today, on the feast of the Transfiguration, and the seventy fifth anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima four months after I was born. On the news I heard that there was no international gathering to observe this anniversary this year because of the pandemic, just a handful of dignitaries and remaining hibakusha - survivors of the bomb - all masked and socially distanced. A generation which learned about about lethal contamination the hard way in the ruins of their city. Were their contemporaries in denial about the dangers they faced, like so many people today who refuse to take seriously the need to wear masks, wash hands and keep socially distanced? Somehow I doubt it.
I went to St John's for the Eucharist of the day. There were ten of us present, five of us clergy. With its movable chairs it's easy to arrange the church for social distancing by removing surplus ones, and it still looks OK. On the walk home to cook lunch, I met Eileen on her way to church to prepare for the first funeral since the pandemic started. I wonder how it'll work, how many mourners will be allowed inside?
Nicky or niece asked if it would be possible to annotate a few of the oldest photos in the slideshow I did for my sister Pauline's funeral with identifying names. Today I got around to doing this. It meant adding text to photos and replacing the originals in the slidewshop project file, then re-rendering into MP4 file. Adding the text was a bit fiddly as I had to learn how to do it in the latest version of MS Paint. Just as with other modern apps, it's simple enough once you know how the process works, but the minimalist user interface lacks guidance
Mid afternoon we drove to Bristol for another double chiro appointment. Ruth took my blood pressure. I was relived to learn that although high it was less than when I last took it. I didn't get my GP telephone appointment yesterday and wondered if that would happen today instead, without having to chase up the surgery. I still need to discuss medication dosage rather than just guess. I am at the surgery for a blood test tomorrow, so I can ask about it then.
After supper, I watched the third of Huey Morgan's programmes on Latin American music on BBC iPlayer. This one was about Puerto Rican music, on the island and in Huey's native downtown New York. Like the other two in the series it was most enjoyable, well worth watching, all three are celebrations of cultural diversity and musical creativity. And I could follow the Spanish being spoken!
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