Apples galore

Another day of clouds, sunshine and occasional light showers. This morning's Sunday Worship service on BBC Radio 4 from Northern Ireland was a beautiful poetic series of reflections, music and other recorded sound on the spirituality of listening as the worship leaders had rediscovered it during lock-down. In parts, it resonated with my experience in Ibiza in the deep silence of the countryside punctuated only by the occasional calls of birds, and even rarer sounds of motor traffic, as nobody went out unless they had an official reason to justify doing so. The change was audible too once the restrictions were gradually lifted.

We went to St Catherine's for the Eucharist with Fr Rhys returned fresh from holidays, and Emma who preached. There were three dozen of us in church, including six children, brought by their parents. I hope we'll see more family groups returning once the schools re-start, as they are now bound to do by official edict, backed by the four national top Public Health officials. 

There continues to be a small increase in coronavirus infections in localised outbreaks, but the death rate is now in single figures and the number of sufferers needing hospital treatment is a small fraction of what it was at the height of the initial wave of the epidemic. The battle is now on to control infection rates and enable to get back to work in the face of a rising tide of bankruptcies and unemployment due to global economic recession. These are troubling times indeed, specially for the poor in every country. Who could have imagine this nine months ago? 

Jacquie invited us over to her house in Dinas Powis to drink tea with her and a house guest who'd lived and worked in Switzerland for a pharmaceutical company before retirement and eventual return to the UK. We came away with several kilos of Bramley cooking apples which had fallen from a garden tree, good for cooking into apple puree and freezing for future use. These were in addition to apples from the church garden purchased this morning. Church garden produce sales have now raised £500 for church funds, a welcome addition in a time of reduced income from giving. In addition to the two jars of blackberry and apply jelly in preparation since yesterday, the filtered pulp residue yielded a couple more jars of blackberry and apple puree. Wonderful flavours! 

It was early evening by the time I started my daily walk. With so much sitting and typing last night and sitting around this afternoon, putting a different sort of pressure on my wound for lengths of time, I paid the price for it today in pain and discomfort. The range of protective measures I can take is limited. They work some times but not others. It's frustrating and debilitating, as is the impact of the extra medication I'm taking. I used by my last 4mg Doxazosin tablet to see me through the day, and will take the 8mg slow release tablet before going to sleep, in the hope that sleep will cover the worst impact during the first eight hours of 24 hour once a day slow release pill. I have to do something to mitigate its effects as they ruin the first half of my waking day.