Dorset tales

I walked to St John's in good time the celebrate the Eucharist this morning, but we were still late getting started. It took me longer than I expected to prepare for the service as there are extra things to remember now that it has to be hygienically covid-safe, and a sacristan mustn't do anything to assist for this reason. If I was celebrating routinely it would be easier to remember everything and I'd be quicker to set up. But nobody in the congregation of six was bothered, so I could be relaxed about it. Nobody was in a hurry. 

I took with me Clare's Christmas cake contribution to the on-line Christmas fayre to deliver, and collected the three jars of apple chutney ordered and paid for. Circumstances are exceptional, but a real creative effort has been made by parishioners this year to make it business as usual when it comes to church fund-raising. It's marvellous to see, and be part of.

I did some writing before and after lunch, so it was done three when I walked around the park. It's been drier for most of the day, but overcast, so the water level in the Taff was going down again, It's been raining this evening and more spells of heavy rain are expected. In coming days. It was nearly dark when I got home, and the lights around the trunk of the decorated tree at the bottom of our street were on, so I took a couple of photos. As they were winking lights and the general illumination of the scene was poor, it took the camera longer to focus, and capture the blinking lights in their 'on' phase. Low light photography isn't easy. Even with a sophisticated camera shutter speeds are lower and a stready is vital. I got lucky! 

We watched the 2015 version of the movie of Thomas Hardy's 'Far from the Madding Crowd' on BBC Four this evening. I remember when we were young watching the 1967 version with Julie Christie and Peter Finch and Alan Bates. This one starred Carey Mulligan, Michael Sheen and Matthias Schoenaerts and the scenic photography was superb. But then, the coastal Dorsetshire Downs landscape is superb. We remembered some though not all of the story. It'd be nice to compare the two versions. 

We've seldom visited Dorsetshire, over the years, despite having a friend living in Hilfield Friary near Sherbourne. It's rather strange really when you think that my paternal great grandfather migrated from the Vale of Wardour area on the Dorset-Wiltshire border having married there a servant girl, Mary Ann, from Ebbw Vale. He worked as a labourer in the steel works there, back in the 1890s. The family tree drawn up by my late cousin Lindsay goes back two hundred years before then. Somewhere to visit when things get back closer to normal maybe.