Beyond credibility

It was one degree when I woke up this morning and overcast. By the time I'd had breakfast and prayed my way through Matins and the Eucharist on my own, light snow was starting to fall, so I went for a walk and took some photos. It wasn't cold enough for the snow to stick for long, but it looked pretty and it was such a delightful change to walk in. The parks were very busy with people looking more cheerful than usual, enjoying the respite from the seemingly endless rain we've had all through January. 

By mid afternoon, when I went out again snow had become light drizzle and though the temperature had only gone up two degrees it felt even chillier. While I walked, I listened to Choral Evensong on my phone with the BBC Sounds app. BBC live outside broadcasts have continued since the first on 7th October 1926 and is the longest live outside broadcast series running.  The pandemic has disrupted but not put an end to this tradition. They are now fewer and further between for health and safety if not logistical reasons. Recourse is made to the Beeb's vast archive of recorded services. Today it was a service recorded in St Paul's Cathedral on 26th January 2015. It's not the same as having the actual liturgy of the day - a bit like having yesterday's toast you might say, like all re-runs of recorded worship services. It makes Choral Evensong, more a sacred concert, but it'll do. 

The quality of the recording from St Paul's was exceptionally good. The audio recording infrastructure may be a permanent feature which the Beeb attaches to its network. There's a long echo to contend with, but the microphones are well positioned for maximum clarity. I could hear clearly the words of both the Psalms and Canticles sung, and the hear the echo during the pauses in the chant. From some Cathedrals the sound is muddy or distant due to the building acoustic and microphone positioning. So this service was an audio treat, and I found it was easy to pray along with as I walked without distraction away from traffic. It's amazing how the noise of car tyres on the road swamps the sound emitting from a pair of headphones. We're used to this, our brains filter it out, what a waste of energy. When lock-down greatly restricted all road and air traffic, many people commented on how peaceful the world became. It doesn't take long for the noise to return. Such a pity.

I whiled away the late afternoon watching the rest of the Norwegian 'Monster' crimmie. I'm still trying to figure out who murdered whom and what the relationship was between the fundamentalist Christian sect and an esoteric nature cult. They don't call it a 'mystery' for nothing, but my main criticism was the reality of some of its scenes. Two mildly obese sexegenarian men tumble out of a sauna naked and fight on snow packed ground until they knock each other out or faint with exhaustion. Night passes and at least one of them is alive enough to get in his car naked and drive himself to hospital where he's put into intensive care and lives to tell the tale. Frostbite? Thermal shock or Hypothermia surely? No evidence. 

Then two women fight on the surf at the edge of the sea, and get soaking wet. One of them walks into the ocean, and when the other realises she walks back into the sea fully clad in cold soaked clothing looking to rescue the other. She's as skinny as a rake, and not shivering or teeth chattering. Then there's the cop who tampers twice with evidence to avoid sanction for drug taking and an accidental shooting, entering a forensic lab and later a morgue undetected, both unlocked and not covered by CCTV. All ridiculous. If there is a second series. the only reason to watch it would be to see how many more totally implausible scenes there are, and pour scorn on.

Then, after supper more proper telly drama with David Attenborough's essays on threats to our planet from climate change, and another episode of the slightly bizarre bereavement drama verging on sitcom 'Finding Alice'. That's rather an overdose of TV. I was four months without telly in Ibiza and didn't miss it. Perhaps I should give it up for Lent.

The 24/7 rush to judgement

Clare was up early cooking breakfast pancakes, then returned to bed and fell soundly asleep again. So we both got up later than usual. I seem to be benefiting from an extra hour's sleep at the moment with some unexpected improvement in the condition of the wound, after a few painful instances of setback lately. I think these were a to do with how I habitually dress the wound. Minute physical changes for the better have led to the suture moving differently, almost without notice until there's a sudden sharp pain. This seem to happen when muscles relax in sleep or when I sit for too long without changing position. It's a matter of staying alert to changes for better or for worse. 

I guess we're all used to living with a certain amount of discomfort in different ways, but sometimes, tolerating discomfort for too long gives rises to unnecessary pain. For pain, substitute injustice, white lies, exaggerations, deceits. There's a point at which good humoured indulgent tolerance starts to become toxic indifference - there's a lesson for life here.

There was a cold easterly wind when I walked in the park this afternoon, so cold that I thought of turning back as it drained the heat from me no matter how hard I walked. Then I remembered my lightweight rain trousers, and put them on. Just one thin layer on my legs made enough difference to enable me to keep going. That's worth remembering another time when it's three degrees but feels sub-zero.

Having previously watched the final two episodes of "Spiral / Engrenages' on iPlayer, and with nothing else on of interest, I turned to one of the Scandi-noir crimmie sets on More Four Walter Presents called 'Monster', set up in the Norwegian Arctic Circle, just like the Swedish 'Rebecka Martenson' series. More spectacular barren landscapes of plains, lakes, seashores, distant mountains, again using drone footage to give a sense of scale and emptiness. This series also features a northern girl who joins the police, goes south, breaks up with her partner and then returns to a temporary detective posting in her home town, then a string of weird murders, mostly interconnected. Just a tad bizarre this coincidence. 

It's interesting is to listen to dialogue in Norwegian, which sounds differently from Swedish with which it has much in common, but seems to have more words recognisably in common with English. Norway the North East of England, Scotland and the Hebrides have a lot in common from ancient times, so it's nice to hear that in the language.

British, Irish, Ulster Republican and Unionist political leaders have shown a rare degree of unanimity in voicing concern over the threat to the Good Friday peace agreement made by the European Commission over vaccine distribution. It has led to an official withdrawal of the threat made by the Commission. It looks as if some individual or group has reacted without awareness of the bigger picture, the complexity of transnational vaccine production. Could this have happened because the upward consultation process has been subverted by journalists being briefed before a policy has been agreed, and then leaking ahead of time? 

It has happened often in Britain under Boris Johnston's shambolic regime, ministers announcing drafted policies not yet vetted for feasibility by civil servants and causing chaos as front-line workers find out about changes in their organisations by press release. In a world of 24/7 news, there's no pause to reflect, too much of a tendency for everyone to rush to judgement, for lies and disinformation to creep in - all because of the perpetual competition to be first with breaking news. It's unhealthy collusion in power games, rather than measured sensible collaboration for the common good. It does no service to the truth that sets us free.

Unintended consequences

Another early morning the the promise of sunshine, descending into wind driven showers by the time I went out for some fresh air before lunch. I curtailed my walk rather than get wet, returned and cooked lunch. By the time we'd eaten and cleared up, the sun was out again, but this time I went out carrying my light rain trousers in my big jacket pocket. And it didn't rain! The Taff is running high again, though not as high as last week. In the coming week we're promised the return of cold weather and snow, although the air temperature will continue to fluctuate from day to day between two and ten degrees, like this week. In the park, not only are daffodils and snowdrops out but also early crocuses. It's like we're having someone else's weather.

Clare and Kath between them have organised another four day stay in the Oxwich Bay Hotel caravan park in the last week of July. Two caravans for the six of us again. We were lucky to get the booking, as every UK holiday destination is experiencing high demand, as travel outside of the UK is unforeseeable in the light of new quarantine restrictions, let alone restrictions on flights. Stricter measures are imposed almost daily across Europe at the moment, as infection rates continue to rise. The EU lags behind Britain in the distribution of vaccines, there are major practical problems with the demand outstripping the supply, not to mention the conflictual politics of distribution. 

The European Commission made a  poor judgement call at the outset, and is now trying to compensate for it with strong-arm tactics, thinking it can get its own way by throwing its weight around. This is deeply disappointing and serves only to justify the brexiteers case, even though in just a few weeks it is proving disastrous for the flow of trade. If only Britain had stayed in the EU and put more effort into reforming the Commission, given that many European partners are also unhappy with the way it has habitually worked, and generated problems for members states.

News today of a fourth vaccine, an American one, about to be authorised for use in the UK. Batches of this one have also been ordered and should in use later in the spring. Nearly seven million people in Britain have been vaccinated, but it'll be a while before this has an impact on rising numbers of infections and deaths. It seems that infection clusters are being noticed in some offices where people are working together, even when correct H&S restrictions are in place, also in family groups, more so than in supermarkets and schools. Apparently, eighty percent of cases are now of the new coronavirus mutation, a measure of how much more contagious it is than the earlier version.

This afternoon, after completing my walk for the day, I watched this week's episode of 'New Amsterdam' on More Four catch-up. The programme has been re-scheduled from ten o'clock on Thursday evening to one thirty Friday morning, which is most annoying. I can't find any explanation for which it has occurred.

Later I watched the latest episode in the 'Rebecka Martinson Arctic Murders' series - this week portraying drug dealing way up in the north of Sweden, where drug trafficking happens across borders and involves Finnish and Russian drug gangs. and something akin to the 'County Lines' distribution networks operating in Britain. Two police officers' family members are involved, and so far there's been one accidental death by ketamine overdose and a drug distributor murdered. It's a two parter, so next week will reveal whether ot not this gets resolved without more fatalities. It's only story telling, I know, but it's not a big city or even a suburban crimmie for once, but rather a back-country tale strongly resembling the big city - and why? Due to the ubiquity of mobile phones and social networks. The internet has, indeed, abolished distance, 

 

Vaccination in sight

Yesterday I walked 13km and went to bed really tired. I slept until nine this morning, an hour longer than usual, and still felt tired until I went for a damp if refreshing walk before lunch. It rained hard overnight, but intermittent light showers driven by a warm wind persisted throughout the day with the temperature again hovering around ten degrees. Heavy rain returned this evening, there's no escaping it.

We heard from Diana that she and Pete, like us in the third priority tier for vaccination, were advised to  arrange to be on the standby list for a jab. It seems that empty spaces due to gaps in the schedule, plus the finding that some vials of vaccine deliver more than the expected number of doses mean that it's possible to inject more people than planned on any day. Rather than waste spare doses people on the standby list willing to travel across the city can be called upon at short notice to be vaccinated. 

Clare wonders if we should get our names on the list. She is keen to be able to visit school again. There must be many more people in our age group who are more vulnerable than us. Social distancing, masking and washing hands will still be necessary after vaccination to avoid all possibility of transmitting the virus for those rendered immune to it. We can't travel out of Cardiff, can't go shopping or socialise as long as the present lock-down persists. I'm not anxious to get vaccinated as soon as possible if others are needier. There have been glitches in the vaccination schedule anyway, due to the bad weather, but NHS Wales is confident that the mid-February target of reaching everyone in the top three priorities will be met.

There are more serious problems in the EU, as the Commission failed to order sufficient vaccines to meet the requirements of member states. It was reported that vaccinations stopped in Madrid as supplies ran out. Britain for once was pro-active in ordering vaccines three months before the European Commission, giving rise to a degree of brexit smugness which is doing nothing to maintain goodwill. The Commission is demanding a share of supplies manufactured in Britain, and threatening legal action if it doesn't. Not an unreasonable request, but as stocks are already committed to the UK market, it's unlikely for the moment. Not a healthy situation.

Epidemiologists are right to insist that nobody is safe until the global population has been vaccinated, rich and poor alike. It's going to be a challenge, as there are cultural reasons for people in some countries to resist being vaccinated, as has been discovered during initiatives to vaccinate populations against other infectious diseases. The scaling up of vaccine production is happening apace all over the world. Supplying enough for seven billion people is a huge logistic and medical challenge, but it seems that manufacturing high volumes presents problems of its own. 

Vaccine components are grown on cultures. Larger cultures produce more, but not always as efficiently or predictably as smaller scale productions, so that precise predictions of industrial scale output aren't available. It's possible this will change given the ingenuity of bio-chemical engineers, but success in improving production isn't a certainty. The one good thing about this crisis is the way it brings to public attention the value and importance of all kinds of scientific endeavour working for the common good.  

Foolishness

This is Holocaust Memorial Day I was reminded, listening to Chief Rabbi Murvis on this morning's 'Thought for the Day'. He drew attention to other genocides which have happened since the Nazi era, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, and the current plight of Myanmar's Rohingya, and China's Uighur populations, suffering persecution, denied their distinct identities and way of life, being described as genocidal treatment around the world, and yet again seemingly unstoppable. 

Jews cannot remember their own past without recognising that history is repeating itself, with the resurgence of violent extremism, discrimination and hate speech in our own time. It's a sign of persistent spiritual poverty and deprivation in the world, on a par with economic and social divisions. We haven't yet discovered how to bring about a lasting change that takes all forms of violence out of human efforts to live with our differences in an ever changing world.

It's been overcast and damp all day, but without rain, and mild for this time of year, around ten degrees. This morning I revised and edited the first couple of chapters of my novel, which I deliberately haven't touched for many weeks, so that I could re-read it with fresh eyes. It'll be interesting to see how my approach to telling the story changes as the narrative proceeds, and what I'll need to do, to give it some consistency. I'd quite like to record myself reading it aloud, to find out how readable it is, how easily it comes off the page as a story being told. First I have to figure out the best way to do it.

At lunchtime I walked to Conway Road to collect this week's veggie bag, and then decided to walk into the city centre, which I haven't visited since Christmas, and take photos of progress made on building the Centre Square bus station complex. It's a massive construction site overshadowing the elegance of the new BBC Wales HQ next door. I suppose it had to be built big to be cost effective as an investment, with not only a bus station, but hundreds of income generating apartments, office spaces and shops. 

It took long enough to get the project started, due to finance. To think, a decade ago the post-war bus station was in a huge open area in front of the railway station with a modest block of shops and offices on Wood Street. There's still open area, a pedestrian plaza in front of the station, with the BBC opposite and the bus station site next to it, but all the building loom over the station in a disproportionate way, making it look tiny in comparison. 

Quite apart from the aesthetics of the total concept, I wonder what the psychological impact will be on the thousands who pass through day by day. Is 'build back better and build profitably the same thing? Cardiff Council has nursed planning ambitions to grow the size of the city and its economy nearer to 400,000. The amount of office space available for hire with development projects all around the south side of the city centre, far exceeds present need, and probably future need for decades to come.

The pandemic may not have stopped construction work, just slowed it down, but how much of the available office space will ever be needed and turn a profit for its investors? Lock-down has shown the potential for working at home, and reducing the need to commute to an office. A change in work culture is already under way. We're already running behind viral mutations cause fresh waves of contagion, and there may be years of partial lock-downs ahead of us. What price all that available office space then?

Jesus tells a parable about a successful landowner who invests in building warehouses to keep the stocks of commodities which are the source of his wealth. It's his retirement nest-egg. Then he dies suddenly. His plans seem to have been put before his health - he's a fool for doing that. A story about an individual maybe, but reflecting the story of Everyman in this time when 'one is taken and another left'. 

The Prime Minister has realistically admitted that ridding us of this pandemic is going to take much longer that had been imagined. The government is making plans to restore some sort of normality, but how foolish it would be to set out a timetable. The vaccination roll-out schedule is for the most part going well, but it's patchy, as supplies to each region and delivery cannot be achieved in a uniform way. It would be foolish to think it was possible. A different, more humble kind of planning is needed in such an unpredictable crisis time.

"No sign is to be given to this evil and perverse generation but the sign of Jonah." said Jesus, when asked for a sign to prove who he was. It's interpreted as him alluding to his resurrection, but it occurred to me to see it as an image of a time of crisis. To all intents and purposes, Jonah is dead. He's in total darkness being carried goodness knows where in the belly of the whale, not know if he'll survive. All he can do is to pray and endure. As long as he's praying he's alive. Then when he's thrown on to the shore, he knows what he has to do, simply obey what God has commanded him. It's a humiliating experience, and even so he's still not humbled by it, until God shows him who's in charge a second time. Perhaps we're all a bit foolish like that.

When I returned from town this afternoon, I thought I should try the car and give the battery ten minutes top up charge again, as we're hardly using it at all and I got caught out last week. The battery had drained again and I couldn't get it going. A sure sign that the battery is dying. I got out our ancient mains charger and attached it to the battery with some difficulty, the first time I've had to do this in the two years we've had the car. It started immediately, so I drove it to QuikFit Cowbridge Road, booked it for a battery change and left it there overnight, rather than go through the same rigmarole again. It came as a shock to the system as I was tired after the long walk I'd just returned from, so I wasn't good for much apart from languishing in front of 'Winterwatch' on the telly, happily free of car worries. I know it's in good hands 

Deep in the dark vale

The temperature dipped down below freezing again overnight then went up to 6-7 degrees, under cloud with rain showers for much of the day. The cold clammy atmosphere left me feeling colder than when it was minus one. After breakfast, a walk over to Lidl's in Leckwith to get supplies of several kinds of nuts, as we'd run out. I walked again after lunch and for a change, trod unfamiliar streets in the housing area of Llandaff Parish adjacent to Canton Benefice. 

The oldest houses are fine original late Victorian mansions spread over a wide area of land. Each probably had extensive grounds originally, but between and after the wars in the twentieth century, detached and semi-detached houses in laid out in streets took up what once would have been rolling south facing slopes. Some roads seem to follow the line of older tracks, while others are part of the layout of a small housing estate with similar houses. Some of these have acquired extensions in this century, garages, attic rooms and so on. It's interesting to see the variety of domestic architectural styles, reflecting the period of their construction. 

The older the houses, the more use is made of coloured brick and Pennant sandstone, then plain red-brick is used, and then white painted concrete rendered exteriors, as the decades pass. There is just one house, entirely built of Pennant sandstone, enclosed by a carefully planned garden which looks as if it may be from earlier in the nineteenth century, maybe a farmhouse, with a terrace of half a dozen small labourers' cottages next to it. Some of the street names suggest this was once orchard terrain, and domestic gardens in the area still have surviving fruit trees.

I looked at these things keenly as the streets were new to me. They held my attention and made me think about local history with fresh eyes. Not a bad thing on such a dull cold day. 

The grim threshold of a hundred thousand people dying from covid has been formally noted in today's news, one of the world's worst infected populations. The true number of excess deaths to date  may be even higher. Epidemiologists reflecting on the past year admit responses to the pandemic Europe wide, not just in the UK, was too slow at the outset in imposing restrictions to curb virus spread. 

Llandough and Heath hospitals have experienced sharp spikes in hospital generated contagion. It's said that people who don't know they are infected are coming to hospital seeking treatment for other ailments or accidents, not being diagnosed in advance to prevent them from infecting others. We're still not making a priority of universal regular testing for covid infection. Expensive to achieve maybe, logistically complex, but much needed. Hope are pinned on vaccinating as many people as possible as quickly as possible, but that won't stop the lethal spread among the un-vaccinated. It doesn't make sense.

I've been asked to do a funeral in two weeks time at the graveside, not in church or chapel of rest. Back in my first curacy days, it wasn't uncommon to have prayers in home of the deceased and then go straight to the grave or the crem. I struggle to recall if I've ever done a funeral which is simply in the open air, and will need to give it some thought. Given the restrictions on using places of worship let alone homes for a service it's not surprising that a common sense decision has been made. Graveside only services have been around since time immemorial, but not in my ministerial experience. Being outdoors in a natural setting is possibly consoling to a group of mourners, although bad weather could have the opposite effect. I just hope there's no strong wind or heavy rain. 

It was consoling this evening to watch the nightly nature programme 'Winterwatch' on BBC 2, with some lovely landscapes and closeup shots of birds, voles, beavers and otters. The enthusiasm of the presenters is delightful. Likewise the enthusiasm of Professor Jim Al-khalili on the BBC Radio Four 'Life Scientific' programme. Each week he talks with a leading scientist from a wide range of disciplines. It's a half hour of intelligible conversation about scientific discovery and the careers of the discoverers themselves. He's by far the best interviewer the BBC has. I wish he was used on news programmes. In my opinion, few of the present generation of news presenters and interlocutors are really good enough for the job.

Unless we change

The feast of St Paul's Conversion today. As a fan of his teaching and often contentious passionate  evangelism. "Woe is me if I do not proclaim the Gospel" and "By the grace of God I am what I am." are two of my favourite phrases of his. I felt sad not to be able to be at the Eucharist on his fiesta, but I did remember him anyway.

Overnight and all day the temperature has hovered around zero, with sunshine and some cloud, and little wind. Another good day to be outdoors enjoying fresh air and exercise. After breakfast this morning, as happens several times a week, a scam call from someone claiming to represent Microsoft, who knew my name, to inform me of an internet security compromise. It's tiresome, and predictable. Often we pick up and listen without responding, so the scanner thinks the line is open to an answering machine without a message. Fifteen seconds and the call is cut. Today, I was in a good mood and felt like trying out a new scam baiting response.

"Hello Mr Kimber, I'm calling from Microsoft about your account."

"Ah, you work for Microsoft too!" 

A hesitant silence and then again 

"Er - I'm calling about your Microsoft account."

"Yes, but which department department are you, what's your identity code? I'm with cyber fraud."

Click.

I rang my sister June to share the joke with her. 

"When I realise it's a scam call, I say 'This is Balham police station.'" she said. On the ball at 86.

Just after lunch we commonly get robo calls about Amazon Prime accounts. No interaction so we just let the call continue until it times out. I feel sorry for the poor people who deceive themselves into thinking they are working for a legitimate enterprise when they are cold calling using stolen data.

I went to the Co-op for a few grocery items later on. I queued a short while to get in, and several people came out empty handed. I picked up what I needed and when I reached the till was told "Cash payments only the payment network's down nationally." I stopped carrying cash many months ago, and we've been discouraged from using it because of covid contamination. And this happens, showing how vulnerable we are when our super snazzy technology doesn't work. I went back home and got some cash from Clare then returned for my shopping. 

Funny, in the old days a grocer would write a bill, and you'd be trusted to return later and pay, but very few stores will offer that kind of account rendering any more. The admin is too complex and inefficient in our cost conscious modern world. We appreciate our convenient cashless transactions, but have lost a fall-back alternative. Society today doesn't run on personal trust in the way it used to, and we're so much poorer for that. After lunch I went and drew some cash from the bank. Who knows when electronic pay systems will fall over again?

The government enthuses daily about the vaccination rate, while expressing concern about the numbers being infected and warning that lockdown will need to go on longer than promised. Boris' lightweight cheerleader optimism is being gradually supplanted by a healthier realism. Measures are being mooted about far stricter quarantine for people travelling into Britain from countries where new covid variants are spreading like wildfire. Border control, it seems to me has all along been more aspirational than rigorous, like track and trace, not to mention ubiquitous virus testing. 

Interesting, now that the rigour of post brexit trade border control is becoming evident, the greater is the price UK businesses have to pay. The cost of living will rise, as a result of reclaiming freedom from EU 'control' in the name of old fashioned libertarian ideals, the same ideals that presumed all Brits would behave decently, common sense and courtesy and abide by anti covid restrictions. The price paid is seen in the highest excess death rate in the world. 

The more that's understood about the covid virus, and how to master it, the more it seems to me that scientific confidence is being moderated by scientific caution. Victory is far from assured, as a result of the scale of human poverty and the impoverishment of the planet due to pollution, global warming and bio-diversity loss - factors working in favour of the virus adapting and becoming even more persistent. If nature continues to turn against humankind as a species, we're headed towards extinction. Maybe only when the global population is decimated will the impact of humans on the biosphere will be reduced enough to enable the biosphere to recover its stability and health. A terrible thought. Nevertheless, I am still in a good mood, not despairing, because we are such a creative and adaptive species. But it really is a matter of 'change or die' now as it was for the Hebrew poets and prophets two and a half millennia ago. I think St Paul would agree.

Disembodied, and grief observed

Finally this morning, we woke up to a light sprinkling of snow, not much more than a centimetre. After breakfast an extended time of Sunday Prayer. I read through the Eucharist of the day, rather than watch on-line, as Clare did. That is, until the live feed transmission broke down, thanks to the introduction of a different piece of kit to the St John's chapel cum studio where the service takes place.

I can't quite put my finger on it yet but didn't have the heart to join her today. I feel fine at watching a broadcast Eucharist in any form with a live congregation. It's easy to join in. I've attended a couple of Euro diocesan services on Zoom, with eighty others in their little on-screen boxes, No sound of the group responding, or singing together. Not knowing anyone apart from the Bishops leading didn't help. I found it a bit strange, even though it was well thought out.  

I think Zoom could be tolerable at a Benefice or congregational level, because I would recognise faces in the little on-screen boxes. Our Benefice streams one service on-line via Facebook. The camera operator says the responses, and recorded hymns are played with the text displayed. I've watched Parish services with Clare before the Eucharist in church resumed, but today, I reverted to what I did in Ibiza, and read through Matins and the Eucharist. I miss receiving Communion but equally miss being in a group and responding to the priest together. 'We who are many are one bread, one body' is what we all say and that is what makes liturgy alive and life giving to me.

Watching passively even with Clare still feels disembodied - that's the word. Prayer for me is never just in the mind and on the tongue, but a physical and social action in which we carry each other. The truth of this came home to me after five months of social isolation, then returning to public worship, and then being separated from it again. In a crisis we have to do our best and make the best we can of our situation, and our clergy have certainly made an immense effort to make the on-line offering an enriching alternative. It's the passivity that leaves me feeling out on a limb, I guess.

For centuries before my time, clergy recited the liturgy at the altar and an assistant answered and maybe a choir sang, depending on the occasion. The laity were entirely observers, and the highlight for them was to watch the elevation of the Host and Chalice during the Words of Institution. But they were there together, and that mattered. Looking down the narrow channel of the video screen is not the same. In fact, I feel more involved if I just listen to a service on the radio, or recite a service aloud myself. Somehow it offers room for the imagination to work, not least in feeling connected to others who listen actively. Or am still missing something, or finding my own spiritual poverty exposed from a new angle? Time will tell I guess.

I went for a long walk in the park before lunch and a shorter one after. All morning despite clouds, the sun shone through. It was cold enough for the snow not to melt immediately. Children with their parents were having a lot of fun together while it lasted. It became overcast in the afternoon, but the snow by then had nearly all melted and the temperature stayed around zero and felt even colder. Very refreshing!

In the evening I watched the second episode of Finding Alice, in which the newly widowed quirky heroine organises a funeral at home and buries her husband in the garden without planning permission. I foresee trouble ahead. A DIY secular funeral ceremony echoed church liturgy, without text or context, featuring without explanation a cleric as mistress of ceremonies, claiming to be OK about doing humanist funerals as religious ones. No so far fetched in real clerical life. Was she a hospital chaplain running a bereavement group in the hospital mortuary suite featured earlier in the episode? I wasn't sure. All a bit odd, though not totally odd. It's been quite real in its representation of grief and grieving so far, but where next, I wonder? 

Series end, no plot spoiler yet!

A frosty sunny morning with clear blue skies to stat with. Pancakes for breakfast after a lie-in, then a walk around the Fields. There was a police car stationed at the entrance to the sports changing room car park. Masked officers were stopping and questioning drivers entering to see if they had sufficient reason not to be arriving on foot. They were also helpful to walkers as the road was covered with black ice but thanks to last night's frost still affecting in the shaded area and making it tricky to negotiate. 

Park footpaths were well populated with people walking, riding or standing chatting, not alway socially distanced, so we kept our distance by walking on the grass. Although the soil remains waterlogged, the grass and surface layer were frozen and enjoyably crisp to walk on, at least in the shade. Getting out in the morning recently when it's been sunny has been a treat as the light is different from the afternoon. I tend to go out again for a shorter walk in the afternoon, perhaps to the shops. The more sunlight I can absorb the better. The day is already three quarters of an hour longer than it was at winter solstice, and as I don't have any pressing commitments, it does me good to get out as much as is practicable.

In the evening I watched the final episode of the eighth and last series of 'Spiral / Engrenages' on iPlayer, wondering with some apprehension what kind of conclusion there would be to a story of crime fighting in Paris that's been running for fifteen years, and has always been relevant and disturbingly through changing times in the social issues it has touched upon. Apprehension is very much an indicator of how much I've come to care about the main characters Laure and Gilou, the team they lead and the lawyers they have to deal with. It's an indication of how well written it has been. It would be unfair to say anything about the way it ended until it's been broadcast on BBC Four and my sister June has watched it and we've discussed it, as we often do. 

 

On the record

Another sunny start to the day, with a layer of frost on cars in the street. By half past ten, while Clare was having her on-line jazz piano lesson, I went for a refreshing walk, first around Thompson's Park, then to Llandaff Village, then down to Blackweir and back home in time to make lunch.

In the early news it was reported from health authorities in Yorkshire that they were ahead of schedule with their covid vaccinations and had run out of supplies. It's being said that there are enough supplies in the country to meet the target of inoculating the top four categories of vulnerable people by mid February, but it's a matter of scheduling and delivery logistics. This is much the same as what's been reported here in Wales, except that the Welsh Government and Health Boards have stuck to their measured delivery plan and not run out for racing too fast, to avoid having the vaccination teams idling or stood down. First Minister Mark Drakeford is being harrassed by the BBC for giving honest answers to vaccination questions. It's not the first time he has been targeted for criticism for getting things right, acting in advance of English government moves and publicity.

A letter arrived for me in today's post from CofE's Archbishop's Council, inviting me to register my basic clerical identity details on an English church national database, for public reference. Hitherto, the world has relied on Crockford's Clerical Directory, a respected independent publication which has been around since 1858, and whatever information is made publicly available by each diocese. It's possible for clerics to get left out of either, and be difficult to trace, a concern when it comes to safeguarding issues. The new database will also cover lay church office holders and workers. I'm asked, as I hold a Europe diocese PTO and worked for half my ministry in the Church of England. Church in Wales, as disestablished Province of the Anglican Communion will already have its own database on which I appear as a retired licensed cleric with a PTO. Anyway registration on the CofE database only took a few minutes, then I received a confirmatory email.

By the time I went out for a load of bread after lunch the sky had clouded over and the pavement was wet. I thought the shower was just ending, but as I walked it really began in earnest, and I got quite wet. Not long after I got back, the rain stopped, the sky cleared and the temperature dropped. Another frosty night to come, and no sign of the promised snow down here on the coast.

The wound pain was quite acute for a while this evening. I don't know what to do about it. No chance of getting a wound specialist to look at it without going through the rigmarole of a GP or hospital visit. I'm not sure if a district nurse could do anything other than look at it and recommend a specialist looks at it. They're all so very busy with far worse medical crises to manage, and it's not exactly life threatening. No sign of infection, just sharp excruciating pain sometimes, which takes a while to recover from, the sort of pain that analgesics can't deaden, as it stimulates the vagus nerve, like hitting a panic button. Walking is the only thing that helps. I've done 13km instead of 10 today.

I watched this week' episode of 'Rebecka Martenson Arctic Murders' this evening. I love to see the snow covered terrain and the way it slows life down naturally. Sara observed that Swedes in the north naturally speak slowly, and take time taking with each other, yet when something goes amiss they have very fiery tempers.

The evening news told of a troubling early statistical report on the impact of the new coronvirus variant, and intimations that lock-down measures will stay in place until April. The government has talked about 'following the science', but it's been noticeable how slow the reaction has been to new data, as if needing to soften the impact and avoid inevitable economic impact. It's not worked. Despite vaccination roll-out happening at a remarkable pace, infections and deaths still rise. The situation is not under control, and the tone is more serious and less upbeat than it was (apart from vaccination news), as if the government now using anxiety to motivate non compliant people. I believe that from the outset, measure should have been imposed more strictly so that people would get used to how it inevitably has to be in order to bring the pandemic to an end. 

Normality returns, step by step

How cheering to wake up with sun shining through the window this morning! It clouded over again later but stayed dry. Despite overnight rain, the Taff water level was lower by half a metre, so no flooded fields When I was walking in Pontcanna Fields in the hour before sunset, the temperature dropped sharply. There was no wind at ground level, but the sky cleared from the north east, a high altitude weather front driving clouds to the southwest as the sun's rays dappled them with an orange hue - half the sky was bright blue, the other half what they call a 'mackerel sky'. Unusual and spectacular to see! 

Last week we both received, a few days apart, our driving license renewal letters. I  first had to renew after an eyesight test at seventy, and now again. My! Those five years passed quickly! Clare filled in the paper form. I did mine on-line, and the new license arrived in today's post. I have to cut it up and mail the pieces back to the DVLA. It doesn't say in the instructions if the address is freepist, but it doesn't mention the customary stamped addressed envelope either. Odd 

President Joe Biden has been busy since his inauguration yesterday rescinding many of the executive orders issued by Trump, who took America out of WHO membership, out of the Paris climate accord, and approved a major Arctic oil exploration project in Alaska. It has frightening potential to cause environmental damage while continuing to produce fossil fuel while the race is on globally to achieve zero carbon energy production to mitigate global warming. It's such a relief that a leader with global standing and credibility is now in charge. 

Top of his priority list is an activating a plan to get American vaccinated and controlling the pandemic. It was great to hear America's top public health spokesman, Dr Anthony Faucci on the news this morning, celebrating the country's return to WHO membership, and praising its many achievements in relation to global health. He was often under fire during the Trump regime for insisting on the seriousness of the pandemic while Trump tried to play it down, repeating all sorts of spurious 'facts' unsupported by science. Truth will out. He stood his ground and been vindicated.

There's no doubt that Biden's aim to reconcile the factions into which the country is now polarised. Hearing and understanding what disaffected people want and acting on this in response to their real needs is going to be a real challenge.

This evening, Clare wanted to watch Biden's inauguration on iPlayer catch-up. Having hear the speech, I opted to watch a couple of episodes of 'Spiral / Engrenages' instead, and then 'New Amsterdam'. I didn't have much energy for doing anything more creative. The Seton's suture is giving me pain in the wound at the moment but the wound looks healthy. The pain may be a consequence of wound closure, so the suture's not as loose as it was, and its free end sticks into me, like a needle or a thorn. I need to exercise a lot and be careful how I sit or lie, and never for too long.

Inaugural honesty in a pandemic of swindling as well as covid

A lot of rain overnight. Clare walked down to the Taff before I got up this morning, and remarked how high the water was, I went down to the river before lunch. The water had risen even further, overflowing on to the footpath by the bridge. It's as bad as it was last February, although I think there may have been an overflow a few weeks ago. We've never seen such extreme weather.

I went to our local HSBC branch to bank a cheque after lunch, wondering if it's one of 82 local branches set to close in the latest cost saving round of reduction of local services. It's disturbing to think banking bosses are willing to disregard the needs of people who cannot travel to larger branches and queue to be seen because they don't want to bank on-line or by telephone. The idea is that such clients can use services provided instead by their local Post Office, to bank cheques, make payments, deposit or withdraw cash. 

It seems some sort of deal has been done with the Bank of Ireland which I believe operates a franchise to offer financial services to the Post Office. I wonder if this will lead to clients deciding to transfer accounts to the Bank of Ireland via the Post Office? Certainly in Switzerland and EU countries Post Offices offer a range of banking services including debit and credit cards. Maybe it'll develop like that here too.  

Earlier in the week I received a text message purporting to be from HSBC recognisably a phishing scam. I enquired of the bank if any agency within the HSBC security network was keeping a record of fake phone numbers used for phishing scams. Apparently not. Only if emails purporting to come from HSBC can be forwarded to them, so they their provenance can be tracked. Voice calls and text messages are too many to be logged, and fake identities change very rapidly, so it's impossible to retrieve useful information that enables the source to be tracked. Bank staff have to deal with a growing number of client subjected to fraudulentl solicitations. Some people suspect and need reassurance, others are duped. We get half a dozen spam calls a week at least, sometimes twice a day. A swindling epidemic.

This afternoon, an hour of sheer delight listening on BBC Sounds catch-up to Choral Vespers in Latin from the London Oratory. A lovely gift for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. By the time it was over the US Presidential inauguration ceremony had started, so I switched channels and listened to Joe Biden's speech on catch-up. It was a moving powerful appeal for American unity in facing the challenge posed by the pandemic and its economic impact. He was open in declaring himself to be a man of faith, appealing to the heart of faith in others. It was a powerful secular sermon, delivered by an active Catholic. No religious piety displayed, but a deep commitment to truth, justice, equality and reconciliation. 

He was an inspiring contrast to the divisive self centred rhetoric of Trump. His parting speech wasn't inflammatory, simply a rehearsal of what he considered to be his achievements, couched in vague references to the improvement in 'numbers' on his watch. Now Trump has gone to Florida, with no intention of retiring or staying out of public life, who knows what will happen next?

This evening, Clare and I watched 'Staged', the entire first series of comedy shorts about rehearsing a play via Zoom under lock-down, starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen, with a cameo appearance in the sixth episode of Dame Judi Dench, sending herself up, as did David and Michael throughout. We laughed out loud throughout  from start to finish. A refreshing inspired contemporary on-line drama production. 

A friend in deed

Another damp day, but ten degrees centigrade all day from before dawn until well after sunset, as if the clouds were trapping a large mass of warm air, and there was no wind to shift it. Curious.

I set out in good time to drive to Thornhill for this morning's funeral, but found the car wouldn't start. We have used it so little recently, and simply not left it running outside the house long enough keep the charge level up and prevent the battery from draining. It could have been bump started, but with nobody around and the contagion risk entailed in asking anyone to help, not enough time to connect the battery charger and top it up just enough to get it started, and not enough time to be certain a taxi could come soon enough to get me there on time, and the possible risk of taking a taxi anyway, I started to panic.

I called Pidgeons and explained what had happened, and bless 'em, an empty stretch limo pulled into the street ten minutes later, kitted out with anti-covid screens (a thousand quid a go, said Paul my chauffeur), so I travelled in style and peace to Thornhill and arrived with twenty minutes to spare. Paul is one of Pidgeon's long standing drivers. He used to be an emergency recovery vehicle driver, and sometimes now has to go to crash sites and recover bodies. Unflappable, good humoured, always willing to help. After the service, with his boss's permission, he drove back to Pidgeon's garage, collected his jump leads, drove me home and got the car started in just a few minutes! I hope he enjoyed the thank ou pot of home made marmalade I gave him.

I did most of my walk before lunch, then went out again down to Blackweir later in the afternoon, to see if the onset of rain in the Brecon Beacons, as warned by my weather app, was reaching us yet. It was much the same as normal, but with a rainy night ahead who knows about tomorrow?

I had a long chat on the phone with Ashley in the evening and during our talk, signed off the penultimate set of audited accounts for 2019, the last trading year for CBS. In 2020, the year of covid, there's been almost no account activity. Auditing these accounts will be very simple and the next task will to audit them and wind up the company. Thanks to some very careful stewardship the company will be wound up owing nothing, all bills paid, electronic and other physical assets properly disposed of, if not written off, nothing left in the bank, no directors' payoffs. We always believed this is how a voluntary not-for-profit business should conduct its affairs - honourably.

I said we signed off the audited accounts. In former years each of us signed the paper version, but on this occasion Ashley received an email from our accountants which contained a link to access an online document service where an applet allowed us to append a signature to the correct place in the document and then submit it for printing. A jpeg of Ashley's signature was accepted by the document portal, but not mine. This was one of three options available. If I'd been viewing on a tablet I could have used a pen and given a live signature, but as this wasn't possible, a third option, was to type in the constituents of the forename and surname I use in signing. It shows on the document in a quaint cursive copperplate script! If ever interrogated, about this I can say 'Yes I did this, and it was a surprise to me how it came out! 

All this was done standing up with my Chromebook on a chest of drawers while we talked on the phone. I never had to do anything like that before! Electronic submission to Companies House had already happened by the due date, as law requires if you're registered for Corporation Tax. We didn't owe any as our turnover was well below the threshold. 

Trump had announced his farewell ceremony, boycotting Joe Biden's Presidential inauguration, will take place at Andrews Airbase when he leaves office tomorrow. A twenty one gun salute and a final speech and then off to Florida to live. I guess the world is wondering whether he'll have anything else contentious or inflammatory to say.  

Church lock-out again regrettably

It's my sister June's 86th birthday today. I sung her an audio 'Happy Birthday to you' greeting, but it wasn't to successful as I couldn't get the sound levels right. Later in the day, I did the same on video and emailed it and that was more successful. I was delighted to hear from her that her GP surgery outreach team is visiting her tomorrow to administer her Oxford/AZ anti covid job. 

Sending the video wasn't straightforward. I recorded it on my Blackberry, but the file size was too large to email, so I transferred it to my Samsung phone where I have Whatsapp, sent the video to Clare (June doesn't use Whatsapp). The Whatsapp software is very good at compressing video to a tenth of its size for onward transmission, so it's possible to email the compressed version using Gmail to anyone, as it's not prohibitively large. it worked just fine.

There was a Whatsapp message from Mthr Frances to say that the PCC had decided to close churches for public worship for the next five weeks. I'm not surprised, but I am profoundly disappointed. There was something very special about returning to church for services, and discovering that despite mask wearing, no physical contact and social distancing the spiritual sense of being The Body of Christ was as profound as ever. As sacramental as hearing the Word proclaimed and receiving Holy Communion. Being reduced to being passive liturgical voyeurs by on-line liturgy yet again is a real deprivation, and I'm surprised to say, leaves me feeling very upset.

As a youthful Anglo-Catholic liberal zealot, it was not unusual for me to celebrate a house Mass for small parish groups, or Mass in a lecture room with students, or even on occasions to say Mass privately at home, but as the years passed I stopped doing this. My sense of value in public gatherings of Christians in a sacred space, its open sacramental quality took on a deeper significance than the rather existential small group encounters I'd enjoyed before. 

I came to understand what it must mean for people to attend worship just to listen and pray in their own way, whether they were going to receive Communion or not. There's more to the 'Fellowship of the Holy Spirit' than we may be aware of. The testimony of some adult converts to the part played in their spiritual journey by sitting in an open church, or attending worship and slowly learning how to participate and feel at home there, is well recognised. Those closed doors and gates are somehow an offence against the Gospel, light going out as the clouds of fear circulate. Spiritually loyal and hungry people will return in due course. God won't lost track of any of them, from the divine perspective clergy, church and liturgy are all ephemeral efforts to reach out, always at risk of failure. I'll get over this eventually. Famine or fast help remind us ... Somos todos mortales.

I watched David Attenboroughr's 'Perfect Planet' documentary on seasonal weather tonight, so very beautifully shot and highly informative, gently raising concerns about the impact of climate change on all life on earth. Then, Saturday's seventh episode of Spiral/Engrenages. There are several new series on at the moment, but I don't fancy any of them. This I looked forward to.

Church on hold again?

There were twenty of us for the Eucharist at St Catherine's this morning. The new covid variant scare is having hitting people's confidence. It seems tonight's PCC is set to discuss whether or not to continue to offer public worship, as some attendees are slower to disperse from the churchyard than is considered to be desirable. 

Clergy are being enjoined not to stand outside to greet people from a suitable distance as they leave, as this leads to people hanging around outdoors. Outside the church gates on the street, in the shops, the risks will be high because the public realm isn't as well controlled. It doesn't take much to ask people not to take off their masks while they are within the gates. They'll understand why. Outside, it's up to each person to assess risk for themselves.

It troubles me that if clergy can't see and hail worshippers from afar and ask how they are, offer a word of support and encouragement, what will it do to pastoral relationships? On-line isn't enough, a face on a screen doesn't allow a pastor to notice the true colour of someone's complexion, their tone of voice, their movement when they walk, all of which inform the relationship the shepherd has with the flock. I found it in Ibiza - seeing only half a dozen people over a three month period, face to face, very occasionally. It was impossible to establish meaningful pastoral relationships with people I was there to serve. That was the worst thing, not being able to assess from personal contact what was really happening to people. Social media can't be trusted when it comes to baring one's soul. 

And all this happens on a day when the key Gospel phrase is 'Come and see ...' 

It comes in a week when a contagion expert said on the news that the risk is far less outdoors, with or without a mask, although research into this is still on-going and not yet peer reviewed and published. The most serious risk is in uncontrolled indoor settings, like supermarkets, on which new health and safety requirements have been imposed of necessity this weekend. If data on supermarket based contagion is available, why not data on contagion in compliant churches? Without proper information, judgements are likely to be made on the basis of anxious hearsay - as if we needed that!

In church, we pray in a highly controlled environment, sitting in well spaced out pews, wearing obligatory masks. Those who attend behave considerately of others, and don;t hang about indoors longer than they need to. We're told there's a hugely increased risk, but without a shred of data to show how many Anglican congregations worshipping together compliantly are known to have been involved in transmitting infection. Sure, a few churches have blatantly ignored the risk from the outset, carried on as normal and become 'superspreaders', but does that mean the rest of us can't be trusted to behave compliantly?  Caution, self-discipline, good information are always essential in Christian conduct, even more so in such dangerous days. Timidity is understandable and inevitable, recklessness is folly, but giving in to the tide of fear - how does that witness to the Gospel?

On my walk in the park after lunch, the Taff water level was down again and the resident Merganser was back on the rock slabs where family can be seen. On the same outcrop stood a cormorant as I was passing and I got a nice photo of the two of them in each other's space. The merganser moved ,then fluffed up its feathers as it turned its back on the cormorant. The cormorant then plopped into the water and took off.

Afterwards, I decided to have a go at reclaiming space in my Gmail accounts now 85% full. If storage fills up completely I'll be required to rent extra space, but why bother if most of the data stored is redundant or irrelevant? Last year I deleted emails from 2007 when I registered the accounts, up to 2010 when I retired. Since then, a great number of emails were CBS correspondence, not necessary to keep as they are copied on the CBS Gmail account. 

Over the past ten years, the size of photo attachments has risen tenfold, as many senders don't bother to downsize them before sending. Also thousands of notifications that should have been deleted weren't. Google's fast search options mask the accumulation of redundant files and big attachments. After an hour's work, I got rid of ten gigabytes of data on one account and seven on another. One thing which I discovered on other file storage systems too. The deleted content of the account trash can must also be deleted before file space is reclaimed. Sneaky that one! A worthwhile effort, I think.

I had an email after lunch from Emma in the Euro-diocesan office about the new requirement for holders of PTO doing locum duty that they now need to do a further on-line Safeguarding training, before their PTO is renewed. The five year renewal cycle has been reduced to three years, the accent on training is welcome in a fast changing environment, especially regarding the rise of on-line forms of abuse. Emma works from home in deepest rural Essex where, like here they've had phenomenal amounts of rain. There was a tiny video clip of the little stream at the bottom of her garden, swollen and spilling over its banks. It's the same in many parts of Britain.

Much to my surprise, I had an email from Bishop June while I was out walking, noting with appreciation my small effort to support the Parish ministry team these past few months. How could I do anything else as an elderly churchgoer who happens to be ordained and still fit enough to function from time to time. In present circumstances ministry is extra difficult and demanding of new skills, stamina and patience. It's a relief to me that I no longer have responsibility for holding everything together and giving a lead. Acting on orders, as long as I can do that well and correctly is all I can hope to do nowadays. It's not a bad thing at all. President to be Joe Biden is my age. I'm glad not to be in his shoes! 

ON telly tonight, we watched the first of a six part drama about a woman whose property developer husband dies mysteriously at 48 while he's showing them around the high tech new home he's just had built for them to move into. It's a sort of black comedy, that may turn into a comedy crimmie, I suppose. In my Geneva days I was summoned urgently to offer pastoral support to the traumatized wife and daughter of a member of the congregation who was a banker. He dropped dead in the middle of a working day, and I was asked to accompany them to the chapel of rest where his body had just been laid out. He was still in his work suit, looking smart, eerie and unreal. 'That's not my Daddy!' exclaimed his 13 year old daughter, and they both wept. 

Watching this brought it all back to me, whether it was really true to life or not. That made it uncomfortable to watch, not entertaining at all. I am interested in how it plays out, however, given the problems which arise when someone dies intestate or mired in debt or cash-flow issues, especially as bank accounts are automatically frozen when someone dies. It's understandable that some elderly people are still in the habit of keeping a stash of cash under the bed, reluctant to entrust all their wordly goods to the self serving paranoia of a modern banking system.

Time of trial - no let-up

As soon as I woke up I uploaded today's Morning Prayer, then an hour's Saturday lie-in with Clare followed by pancakes for breakfast. It was eight degrees and the sun shone through the clouds, so we went out for a walk around the Fields before lunch, just in case the rain returned later. Although we weren't aware of it, there must have been a lot of rain  overnight as there were huge pools of water on the saturated grass. The river Taff was running half a metre higher than yesterday afternoon.

Stricter controls are being introduced on supermarkets in Wales, imposing mask wearing and hand sanitization on entry. Many stores already did this before, when it was a highly recommended option, but things have got lax recently, and discipline needed tightening up. Takeaway orders have to be collected by appointment and delivered through a hatch at the door so people don't congregate indoors while waiting. 

Flights from Portugal and Brazil have been banned, due to another fast spreading covid variant in South America. Incoming passengers from other countries must have had a negative covid test three days before travelling, and quarantine for ten days on arrival. It's unfortunate that quarantining isn't strictly enforced in this country as it is in others. Needless to say, the infection and death rates continue to rise, although there are patchy indications around the country that rates are levelling off, including here in our locality, as a result of restrictions immediately after Christmas.

Listening to 'Any Answers' on the Radio after lunch, it was remarkable the number of callers responding to exchanges on last night's edition of 'Any Questions' expressed the view that the government pandemic responses had come too slowly and weren't strict enough, or you could just say - over cautious and not bold enough given the gravity of the situation. It's clear that a majority of people make an effort to stick within the guidelines, but there's also an awareness that some don't, either rebelling against restriction of any kind, or remaining wilfully ignorant and careless, taking unnecessary risks. 

Supermarket staff are facing abuse for stopping people on entry and asking them to wear masks. Police face resistance when intervening to break up illegal gatherings. Everyone is tired and demoralised by the continuing need to be vigilant and restrict their activities, and some people are getting sick or being made sicker because their lives, their jobs, their hopes for the future have come to a standstill. This is a 'time of trial' in the biblical sense that exposes our weaknesses as well as our strengths, acknowledged and hidden. I believe the Gospel of Jesus speaks to this condition and enables us to find inner strength to endure. What more, I wonder, can the church do to help people rediscover this vital truth?

The emptiness of Sophia Gardens

I had a very lazy morning, falling asleep after saying morning prayer again, nine hours altogether! But it seems to do me good. It's not not to be under pressure, and have nothing to worry about, but rather let the natural rhythm of my physical need for rest and exercise take priority.

Yesterday, the daytime temperature was around nine degrees. It went down to zero overnight, what you'd expect consistently for this time of year. Warm damp air from the west meeting much colder air from the East and mixing in our corner of the continent. Sara, near coastal Gothenburg in Sweden sent me photos of their garden with twenty centimetres of snow, and Roy in Madrid has sent photos of Spain's capital city with thirty centimeters of snow. It's 667m above sea level there, about the same as the Black Mountains, often the furthest south winter snow settles in Wales nowadays. We both miss walking in the snow, and the lovely silence it brings. We have to be grateful for frost anyway, as it plays a part in balancing populations of insects that's vital to our ecosystem.

My afternoon walk took me to around Pontcanna Fields down to Sophia Gardens and back. The cricket stadium and National Sports Centre are closed, and the coach station deserted, as no National Express coach services are operating around the country now. Just a few joggers and dog walkers are about. The main road is fairly busy, and some local buses run, but are virtually empty. It's so strange, other worldly. There was a solitary merganser duck perched on small rock in the river, in the same position as I've seen the creature several times lately. There's a few flat stones nearer the shore where in previous years a family of mergansers has been raised before moving downstream. Is this one waiting for a breeding partner to turn up? I guess they must make a nest there on the river bank, although it won't be so congenial this year with so much of the riverbank undergrowth cut down and not yet started to grow back. I hope that poor patient duck isn't waiting in vain.

The emptiness of Sophia Gardens, looking so smart since the recent upgrading of paths and parking places, reminded me of the first few days of lock-down in Ibiza when I walked to the empty beach resorts and found everything closed with very few people out and about. March is the season when many holiday places are closed to guests or undergoing maintenance, but there are still apartments occupied by people who either work locally or stay off-season because they enjoy it when it's quieter, except that Spain's lock-down obliged people to return to or remain in their primary place of residence, so travel by land and sea without a stated legitimate purpose was impossible. Stronger enforcement measures didn't stop the virus from spreading, however, in poor deprived working class communities. It didn't stop people from socializing and spreading the virus, however heavily punished were those caught offending.

After my walk, I worked on preparing next Tuesday's funeral service, and then recorded tomorrow's Morning Prayer in the attic. After supper an episode of 'Spiral' on catch-up and 'Rebecka Martinson' live on More Four. Another routine sort of week under lock-down grateful to be alive, safe, free to go out and enjoy nature in the heart of the city, and not alone. Even so, I feel a little restless sometimes, and miss being able to go somewhere different for a change.

Thinking together

I celebrated the Eucharist at St John's this morning with nine others. The church was open when I arrived, but nobody had a safe key, by Fr Benedict rang the caretaker, and we were able to open the safe at the last minute. Mthr Emma came as well. I appreciated being able to minister to the Parish clergy for a change. 

The Gospel of the day struck a chord with me, Jesus healing a leper whose appeal to him begins; "If you want, you can heal me and make me clean" (Matt 8.2). Jesus says "Of course ..." It's like the man is trying to make Jesus feel guilty, rather than saying outright "Have mercy on me, and heal me" Jesus doesn't try to teaching him a lesson, or play his game, he just heals him, and sends him off to register his healing with the local priest and make a thank offering, and say nothing about how he has been healed. The man can't resist being indiscreet and tells everyone he meets about who healed him. 

Yes, he's got a great story to tell after goodness knows how long living in social isolation, but he ignores the only thing Jesus asked of him in return. There's no comeback, no sanction for disobeying Jesus. He's already on his way, someone else is begging him to heal them. The story begs the question why Jesus seeks to avoid publicising his ministry. It's what biblical scholars call 'The messianic secret'.

It struck me, perhaps for the first time, that Jesus doesn't look for approval or support. He asks those he helps to be discreet about his ministry. He gives to each person individually. Contrary to popular ideas about what a Messiah should be or do, His aim isn't to start a new religious or political movement, but to offer a no strings attached experience of God's unconditional free grace to anyone open to receive it, no matter what their status, motive or attitude. He's not out to change anyone he helps. They must find in themselves the need to change in response to grace they have freely received. This was hard to grasp in His own time, and it still is nowadays. 

Yesterday Clare started talking about making face masks, as both of us find the designs of those we find in the shops are never quite satisfactory in use. She found a sewing pattern to work with on the internet and then produced a trial version which fitted me better than her. I have a larger head and a long jaw. A mask that I wear correctly always feels as if it will slip off when I talk, as I have a big jaw and long chin. It's good to have a mask that gives me more confidence to wear when I'm ministering to others.

I had a walk around Pontcanna Fields after lunch, and was surprised to find, later in the day, that I walked further in total today than at any time since the first week I was in Ibiza, without feeling tired. It's good that my energy levels are still improving - well, maybe not every day. I'm just glad that improvement is still possible at all.

By chance this evening I discovered Series Two of the New York City hospital drama 'New Amsterdam' started last Thursday on the More Four Channel. I was much taken with series one, both the story-lines and the characters, and the first couple of episodes of series two which I watched this evening didn't disappoint. 

It was amazing tonight to see a hospital's medical director portrayed as making a effort to learn what was possible to do to improve the general health and well-being of staff complaining that they never had enough time for themselves and their families and always felt tired. He figures out that most of them are taking four hours a day to commute to work, on public transport if not driving across a congested city, exhausting in its own right. He proposes that staff pool their commuting expenditure and hire a coach that will pick them up from home to take them to the hospital, saving a couple of hours a day to be that much longer at home, and give them quiet time on the bus, enabling them to plan their day, and get extra rest. It just works. 

So often in life complex problems can be addressed in a simple creative way, once a right understanding of surrounding issues has been reached. John Bell's 'Thought for the Day' on Tuesday spoke of Jesus, not as one who handed out edicts from on high, but as one who sat down and discussed essential matters with people at grass roots level. It's something the church needs to pay more attention to in its 'strategic' planning, rather than do surveys and bring in experts to forge policies everyone can follow,

Trumpism confronted at last?

Another damp drizzly day, but the temperature is nine degrees, unusually mild for January. There were eleven of us for this morning's Eucharist at St Catherine's. It's our regular day for home deliveries of food ordered on line or over the phone. Something went wrong with the Co-op delivery. All the groceries Clare ordered turned up, but in addition a couple of bags of someone else's order. It's happened before, and when it does we don't get charged for the excess, but they won't take back the mistaken goods, as a precaution against covid. 

The small amount of fresh food we eat and the canned food we give to the food bank, as there's no way of tracing who the spare bags were intended for. When they discover the shortfall however, they can call the Co-op and get a replacement delivery. It's happened to us in the past, and the staff in out local branch are very good about it. It's a huge task for any store, for which few were structurally equipped to do from the outset. I guess they are still learning by doing. 

I suspect that home food deliveries will remain commonplace for much of the rest of this year, as it'll be summer before the whole population is vaccinated, and longer still before the vestiges of covid contagion are eliminated from the population. I just hope food stores don't lose too much money in the process and end up going out of business, as is happening with so many high street retailers.

Our organic veggie bag delivery resumed today, so I walked around to collect ours after lunch and went for a damp walk after making a bereavement call in preparation for next Tuesday's funeral. Pidgeon's called me about a service for the still-born child of a Romanian couple. They seemed OK with having an Anglican priest. I'm willing to help, but I asked if a Romanian priest had been approached. The person who called me didn't know about the Romanian Orthodox church community in Cardiff, or of services that take place regularly in St Dyfrig and St Samson's church. It seemed to me that pastoral care and support from a Romanian speaking person was important in such a tragic situation. I couldn't offer any contact details, but directed the enquirer to the Area Dean, who should have that information. I do hope he is successful finding a Romanian pastor, for the couple's sake. 

Sunset is now at four thirty, and that little extra time seems to make a difference, even if the skies are grey, as they often are. I recorded tomorrow's morning prayer video before supper, the relaxed in front of the telly and caught up with the day's news.

Talk of impeaching Trump for a second time while still in office turned into a reality this evening with a vote in the US Congress House of Representatives, in which the slim Democrat majority was reinforced by the votes of ten Republicans, A trial will take place in the Senate, though it's unlikely to happen until after he leaves office. The point of the exercise then will be to complete a process which will prevent him from standing for office again in 2024. 

With credible threats of more orchestrated violence from extremist groups in all fifty states, Washington is already in lock-down a week early. Hotels are shutting for the next week, and AirBnB reservations have been cancelled across the board to prevent an influx of demonstrators accumulating in advance. A security operation of this scale surrounding Inauguration Day has never been seen before, and shows how determined the political and governmental leaders are to protect American democracy and the Constitution from subversion and insurrection. There's no knowing in reality how far right wing populist sentiment has been stoked up by agents of foreign powers, but it is clear that the Alt-Right movement in American public discourse over the past decade has been driven by patriotic resentments and fears of change, coupled with the persistence of the rich-poor divide. 

The right to free speech is widely accepted, social media has evolved and given a platform to people of all kinds of persuasion, promoting ideas and values from the highest to the most debased imaginable. In the absence of shared moral consensus, racist and sexist hate speech flourish on-line, and conspiracy theorists strive to persuade people that the brand of falsehood is true but all others are liars. A place of nightmares as well as dreams and visions. Will it be possible for Joe Biden's administration to reset the nation's moral compass, and do enough justice to those voicing real grievances to ensure healthy debate and reconcile a country now do locked in confrontation and conflict? 

Trump saw the way things were and exploited them to gain support on his pathway to power. His effort to do things his way has unleashed pent-up forces of division he was incapable of channelling for the common good, and this has only made things worse. A great deal of soul searching and repentance is necessary when the drama of coming weeks dies down and the pandemic is brought under control. By the time Joe Biden's Inaguration takes place, over 400,000 Americans will have died of covid and 24 million been infected, with immense collateral damage done to the world's biggest economy. Biden is an active practicing Catholic. He needs all our prayers to become the blessing America needs right now, to curb the curse of Trumpism.

Better safe than sorry

I woke up just the second time last night at half past six, and couldn't get off to sleep properly again afterwards. After Thought for the Day, I uploaded today's Morning Prayer without a hitch, then got up for breakfast, conscious of not having enough sleep. Often I doze off after praying, but not today. I've had an email from Emma at Eurodiocese HQ asking me to do the on-line stage two Safeguarding course, now a requirement for clergy with PTOs. I'm happy to do this, whether or not it ever becomes possible to do another spell of locum duty abroad. 

I'm conscious there are all sorts of low level abusive habits or tolerated practices persisting in the life of the church, some of them to do with bizarre kinds of piety, but others to do with changes in governance and management styles under the guise of coping with crisis. Clergy and lay leaders can be victims as well as perpetrators. I'll be interested to see if any of this is reflected in the stage two course.

This afternoon I walked up to Llandaff Weir for the first time since 22nd November. There's been so much rain over the past couple of months that the footpath and surroundings stayed waterlogged and muddy, treacherous to walk on. A photo I took that day shows a huge tree stump, roots trunk and remains of branches, lodged at the top of weir in the same position as it had been since last February's floods. I think it must have washed out of the river bank nearby, eroded by the storm water surge. I was curious to see if it was still stuck there after the more recent spell of heavy rain, and it wasn't. 

There was no sign of it among the entangled remnants of trees and bushes trapped by island reefs of pebbles that build up in the river bed. Could something that heavy, perhaps half a ton of wet wood, have been carried further down the river out of sight? Or was it necessary for the river management team finally to remove it, as even more wood washed downstream built up and impeded the water flow? I'll never know the answer, but it's clear that work has been done along the banks of the Taff to improve the outflow of flood water.

On the walk back I was pleased to find the Cathedral open to visitors. A dozen English Cathedrals are now closed to visitors and offering only on-line services, because of soaring infection rates. In Wales the rate of increase is showing signs of slowing, but numbers of infections are still high and rising. First Minister Mark Drakeford instigated partial lock-down in Wales before England did, and the measures have been tightened since. Shopper behaviour in supermarkets is being identified as a source of contagion, as well as indoor meetings of households, are now to be restricted. Wales was first then England followed, again.

In the evening I watched the fifth episode of 'Spiral' on iPlayer, having discovered that all ten episodes of this final series are already available to watch. It means I'm not tied to watching later on Saturday evening and ending up not having an early night before church.

Clare's recently been learning to play a 1950s jazz ballad 'Cry me a river'. Julie London's recording with the legendary electric jazz guitarist Barney Kessel and bassist Ray Leatherwood made it into the hit parade after it was performed in the epic Lil' Richard rock 'n roll movie 'The Girl can't help it' in 1956, the year I started grammar school. The song was written for Ella Fitzgerald to sing in a movie, but it was dropped from the story-line, and she sang it in an album of her own 1961. By that time it was a cover version of London's hit. I still remember the words off by heart. I found it on YouTube and played it to Clare this evening. She remembers them too. 

Timely words about bogus Messiahs

Before uploading today's Morning Prayer video I listened to John Bell's 'Thought for the Day' on Radio 4 reflecting with some perspective on last week's events in Washington. It was a superb concise analysis of how and why certain strands of religious people have rallied behind Donald Trump, despite his appalling behaviour before and during his years of office. Part of the problem he said, is the false separation of the political and spiritual dimensions of life, as if political ethics and values were nothing to do with God - a totally un-biblical and heretical notion. 

It's a tribal way of avoiding having to think deeply about what religious faith and practice mean for the entire way in which we live and serve God. In a changing world, having to understand and be concerned about events is avoided by hiding behind a tribal banner. Trump gives the illusion of caring about what they believe and promising to defend them, in exchange for their unquestioning loyalty. He becomes regarded as a divinely appointed champion of their religion and liberty so that challenging Trump is perceived as an assault on God, so believers are prepared to fight and die for him.

"For many other Christians" says John Bell, "Trump has been a bogus Messiah, his photo shoot holding a bible outside a church during a Black Lives Matter protest was not, in my view, an endorsement of faith, but an attempt to convince the faithful that he was on their side. His ability to stand on a podium, manipulate emotions, pontificate and defy contradiction is in complete distinction to the great religious leaders. They, like Jesus, sat at ground level, even among those who disagreed with him, to discuss thorny issues, make themselves vulnerable and affirm the humanity of all."

I felt that I should quote him verbatim as it's the first time I have heard any Christian leader or teacher openly so what I have been thinking since Trump was elected. He sees himself uniquely as one who can save America from all its misfortunes - a bogus Messiah indeed. If any American religious leaders have said this openly I've not heard it, likewise as for European religious leaders. Is it considered unseemly to engage in openly criticising a head of state for dangerous messianic behaviour? Is this the price of unity? 

Unless, of course, news reports have been suppressed or not syndicated so that they don't become part of the public debate. It seems that only comedians and satirists have stood up and dared to mock Trump. On Wednesday, the retiring Archbishop of Wales came out openly in criticism. Sorry, too little too late. And what abut the rest of the establishment of church hierarchies? Simply to have stated, time and time again in public that the true Messiah Jesus didn't behave like Trump would surely have been a start in witnessing to the truth, rather than being so reticent for so long. 

Every Advent the church reads prophetic words about the Messiah from Old and New Testaments. early Christians in a turbulent changing were very conscious that life as they knew it could come to end both violently and abruptly. In this context the Messiah would appear, but nobody knew when or how. It was a mystery. Jesus and the Apostles urged people not to second guess how things would work out according to God's will and warned against preacher and leaders promising to rescue them and claiming to be sent on this mission by God. No matter how good or well meaning they seemed to be any claims to be godlike or superheroes shouldn't be trusted, they were manifestations of the anti-Christ - fake Messiahs. Nobody these 'enlightened' days dares to go against the flow and call a populist leader, religious or secular an anti-Christ. The use of such words has lost its force by being part of the rhetoric of sectarian protestant preachers, usually with the Pope as their target. So it was good to hear John Bell coming at the current American political crisis from a mainstream biblical perspective today.

When I stepped out of the house to walk after lunch I thought it was drizzling and about to stop. I didn't realise it had only just started and over two hours the fine mist turned into rain and soaked my ski jacket. Curiously, the temperature went back up to nine degrees at night, after hovering around zero yesterday. Apart from the grass today, gaunt dark trees against a uniform grey sky, with hundreds of crows wheeling above the trees on both sides of the Taff, made for an ominous and dramatic landscape to walk through rather than photograph, simply too wet to get a camera out.

The Welsh government has banned indoor mixing and outdoor socialising while walking now. You wouldn't think so, to judge by groups of teenagers and adults standing or walking along in groups of four if not more. I know it takes time for new instructions to sink in, but I see no sign of police officers out on patrol. The city centre has CCTV. Apart from traffic crossings there's no surveillance in the park, so patrolling is all the more needed to remind people of what's expected of them to stay safe.

No telly this evening. I spent my time trying to resurrect an old Acer laptop with a new linux install. It used to work except that the trackpad didn't function. I got the hardware to work perfectly and reinstalled Mint 19, but after the first successful reboot, the existence of the hard-disk was not recognised. There's something amiss in the set up of the UEFI secure boot firmware that I cannot figure out how to change. It's so frustrating! 

More covid worry and frustration

Waking up again to more bad news of covid infections continuing to rise out of control, and calls for a stricter lock-down. We were twenty adults and three children for the St Catherine's Eucharist, but for how much longer, amidst calls for even tighter restrictions, heaven only knows. Our church warden fell at home broke her leg and needed a few days in hospital after surgery. Then someone on her ward was tested positively for covid, so now she's stuck there in quarantine for ten days, and we're hoping and praying that the rest of the ward doesn't get infected.

When I walked in the park after lunch, I noticed that Coffee #1 and Cafe Castan were open for takeaways. Outside Cafe Castan, despite distancing measures, and a line of people queuing properly to be served, small groups of people stood un-distanced, un-masked, chatting nearby. And no sign of law enforcement. 

The BBC seems to be interviewing an 'disproportionate' number of elderly people expressing the opinion that the country should go back to a much stricter lock-down asap. Maybe they can't get anyone who doesn't care a toss about others to stand in front of a camera and be counted, unless they are in some kind of anarchic demonstration in defence of their civil liberty right to be careless and selfish. 

Calls for Trump to be removed from office before his term finishes continue to grow in the USA, as public outrage against him and congressional supporters continues to grow. He's been banned from both Twitter and Facebook, and the alternative far right free speech extremist social network is being removed from app stores and deprived of its web server space, as the big companies are recognising how damaging the persistence of their paranoid hateful messaging has turned out to be. The control of both national and international security rests ultimately with a President who increasingly behaves like a mad dictator, to the point of talking about a counter demonstration on the day of Joe Biden's inauguration.                                 

After my walk and before supper, I caught up the third and fourth episodes of 'Spiral / Engrenages', it is turning into a tragically powerful story of undocumented child migrants from North Africa in Paris, and how they subsist by mugging people and stealing phones or wallets. A phone shop dealer not only acts as a 'fence' for stolen phones, but is trusted to perform a social service for them, by electronically transferring ill-gotten euros to family accounts back home. 

One child gets murdered having stolen a batch of cocaine from a dealer who has collected it from drug 'mules' bringing it into the country in their digestive systems. It was shocking to hear an airport customs officer stating that they could only catch a fraction of travellers transporting drugs daily in the way. An dramatic exaggeration or not? Maybe recreational cocaine users will watch this series for entertainment, and realise how their demand makes them complicit in such an evil form of exploitation of poor people.

It was Anto's birthday today, and various family members Whatsapped him their greetings and talked on line. No family get-together in this year of covid for any of us.

After supper I worked on this week's batch of recordings of morning prayer, this time in the attic bedroom. At the moment the parish intercession list for the sick and departed needs regular updating. Unfortunately this can happen after I've made a recording, and then it needs doing again, since it's impossible to edit the video and get it to render correctly on Whatapp, the chosen platform for prayer group use. With a four year old phone, uploading the video file is problematic as the phone doesn't have enough memory and the process stalls. I've had to strip all but essential apps from it to free space. Recording ahead is necessary in case I hit unforeseen problems. Doing it on the day carries too much of a risk of failure. Doing it the day before risks not having an up to date intercession list. I wish there was a better way of doing this that'd justify scores of users making the change, but there isn't. It's been hard enough to develop the circle of users to may who have never used Whatsapp before. If only I could figure out what stops edited videos from rendering correctly on a smartphone ...

Winter watch

Finally, reading from a teleprompter, Trump video broadcasted a condemnation of Tuesday's mayhem on Capitol Hill - it's being likened to a hostage video by the media commentariat. Half a dozen members of his cabinet have resigned, dissociating themselves from his actions. Open discussion in Congress about removing him from office before the due date. Whether it will happen or not on such a short timescale is doubtful. 

Trump also stated that he won't attend Biden's presidential inauguration, the first time this has happened since 1860. Whatever he does on that day (and nobody knows what), will draw attention away from the President. A calculated move to undermine a celebration of national unity. A refusal to be reconciled. As long as he's in office he can still wield executive power to do dangerous things, The worry is that he'll declare war on Iran, and leave others to sort out the chaos generated.

Meanwhile rates of covid infections and deaths continue to climb in America and in Britain. A third new vaccine has been authorised for UK use, and there are reports of two new effective treatments that can be used on seriously ill covid victims, shortening their stay under an intensive care regime. Both assist in dampening over-reaction by the inflammatory mechanism of the immune system and reduce the chance of a fatal outcome to the infection. One drug costs a thousand pounds per treatment. A lot of money, but set against the cost of two thousand pounds a day per intensive care patient, its cost effectiveness is evident. The rate of advance in some areas of medical science this past year has been as amazing as the spread of the virus has been terrifying.

My crisp cold afternoon walk in the park was blessed by the sight of a family of long tailed tits foraging in the trees leading down to Blackweir Bridge. I also caught sight of a tree creeper in the same vicinity. They occupy same habitat year after year. Unlike the last time I saw them when I had a camera with me, this time I didn't. But never mind. It's a comfort to know that nature continues as best it can despite global warming and  other man made environmental damage projects.

This evening heralded the start of a new series of Rebecka Martenson - Arctic murders, set in the far north of Sweden. The first episode portrays the life of a community of Sami reindeer herders, with some wonderful photography and explanatory detail about their way of life today, with a family drama and a fatality at the heart of it. A must-watch series now for the next seven weeks of winter in the warm.