St David to tea in the garden

I took my prescription renewal request to the surgery this morning. Having been away and obtaining a couple of months worth of medication over in Ibiza, it's taken this long to get down to the last week's supply. The renewal procedure has changed, and the practice website doesn't reflect this. Now that the usual entrance to the surgery is closed, the designated collection box for prescription requests is not in use. You have to post them through the letter box in the door which is in use instead. I just hope it doesn't get blown into an obscure corner when the door is opened to admit patients and visitors!

As I was about to go out for my afternoon walk, I had a call from Mother Frances asking if I could do a funeral in two weeks time, as two came in on the same day. While I was out in the park, starting to pick blackberries I had a phone call from Clare to say that Fran and Mark were coming around for tea in the garden, so I had to curtail my foraging effort and head for home.

It's a happy coincidence that they have got together, as a couple. We've known them both separately for different reasons for almost twenty years. Fran, due to her involvement in the Steiner School, Mark as a musician friend of Rachel's, who put concerts on at St John's when I was Vicar there.

Fran brought with her an icon of St David which she's painting, to show us. Clare sponsored it as a gift to the school, an inspirational reminder of its Welsh roots. She's working on it thoughtfully and slowly in the tradition of Byzantine iconography, while depicting Dewi Sant primarily as a simple Celtic monk. 

Although he was a Bishop, showing him in the status loaded episcopal vestments of the Byzantine or  the Roman churches would not be wholly appropriate. Celtic Bishops were more grassroots people spending their lives travelling around evangelising and supporting church communities, rather than presiding from an urban centre of power. Looking forward to seeing the finished product!

We watched the 'War on Plastic' follow-up programme on telly later in the evening. It was an interesting exposure of misrepresentation of information about the recycleability of sandwich boxes and the plastic mesh used in many brands of teabag. Also it highlighted concern about the increased use of plastic packaging for vegetables in supermarket home deliveries during lockdown, and the growing environmental menace from discarded face masks, something I've noticed both in streets and parks. How will the vicious cycle of over consumption of plastic material ever be broken?