Video hassles

Sunday worship on Radio Four first thing was from Brecon Cathedral, in honour of tomorrow's St David's Day. Archbishop John Davies preached, referring to his own call to ministry and reflecting his impending retirement. I remember meeting him first when he arrived as curate of Bulwark in Chepstow Parish, in the late 1980s where we lived during my time working for USPG as Area Secretary for Wales. I wonder what he plans to do in retirement? It seems strange to have been around long enough in ministry to see eight Archbishops of Wales come and go - Glyn, Gwilym, Derek, George, Alwyn, Rowan, Barry and now John.

What a delightful blessing to walk to church in sunlight under a clear bright blue sky in crisp morning air! There were thirty of us celebrating the Eucharist together again in St Catherine's. We're still hemmed in by 'no socialising' policy, even if we're careful to maintain social distance. No hanging around in the church grounds, go to the supermarket instead, or talk in the street with two metres (?) between you, if you want brief interaction or company of sorts. As if we weren't going to be careful, having survived this far!

It was warm enough to have lunch in the garden again today. I edited and wrote some of this week's parish WhatsApp Reflections before going out for a walk up to the Cathedral, and then to Llandaff Weir. It's the first time in many weeks that the footpath up to the weir has dried out enough not to feel treacherous underfoot.

After tea I set about recording tomorrow's St David's Day reflection, with a brief video introduction, a photo of Fran's icon and an audio commentary. I hadn't forgotten what I learned from recording my sister's eulogy last summer, and soon found out how to produce a viable video, which ran correctly on a PC, but not on a smartphone, producing only a perfect miniscule version. I tried every trick I could think of to get the video to display properly full screen without success. 

Fortunately a conversation with Kath proved to be helpful. I re-recorded the little video introduction in landscape mode, and replaced it in the file editor, then rendered it as a 720p video. The whole thing only looked best on a phone in landscape mode. There's a problem I cannot resolve with mixed portrait and landscape display. If I could have done the whole thing on my phone without resort to an internal video editor, maybe this problem would not exist, but my phone doesn't have a video editor I know of. Kath has developed expertise at video editing on her Mac, and on a smartphone in the course of work this past few years. Rhiannon, doing video projects at home for drama college uses only a smartphone, and produces some impressive sophisticated results. Ah! These digital natives!

A remarkable twenty million vaccinations have done in Britain in the first three months of deployment. It's a logistic triumph for thousands of people working together. All deserve a medal of honour. Six new cases of the Brazilian covid variant have been detected among passengers travelling from there on a flight via Zurich, thanks to rapid genome sequencing of test samples. Five of the six people infected have been tracked and traced, A sixth didn't give sufficient detail on their form to make tracing possible, potentially sowing infection chaos, so a high speed hunt is on to detect the potential super spreader. 

If only people weren't so careless about giving their details or neurotic enough to want to obscure them in the interests of personal privacy. In a village, it's not unusual for everyone to know each others' business. Now we're in a global village. While there are many good reasons for safeguarding personal privacy on a host of different issues, matters of who we are, where we've come from and going need to be known for the sake of the common good, and such doesn't have to be broadcasted or exploited to this end. Nobody is exempt from the risk of being a carrier or a victim of this plague.

Spring clean in church

Another blue sky sunny day, warm enough to eat lunch in the garden. Amazing! After our Saturday lie-in and pancake breakfast we went to St Catherine's and took part in the sweeping and polishing to ready the church to welcome back worshippers tomorrow. The walls exude mineral salts over time, maybe due to humidity when unheated, or due to lack of a damp course, but unattended, every flat surface gets covered in something more than just dust. Flakes of salt and stone need brushing off the walls to optimise the big sweep up before being hoovered and mopped over, and the pews polished back to life.

It was lovely to see people in church, and work with them. There were a dozen of us with the youngsters, and more men than women, surprisingly. Gareth, Hilary and Clive have been clearing up the church garden too, and Hilary's internet order of veggie seeds arrived this week, just at a time when when the weather is being kinder to us. At the end of the session, once the church was quiet, I shot my little prayer video in the church sanctuary, delighted to get a good result in just one take.

When I walked late afternoon, I stopped to take a photo of the sun casting shadows across Llandaff Fields, as I often do, as it always looks that little bit different through the seasons. A young woman stood beside me taking a picture with her phone. She turned and said "Are you Keith Kimber?" We had met briefly just once in the sacristy at St German's, just as she was starting there as an ordinand on placement. We had a lovely chat about the church and the change over to the Ministry Area, with Fr Phelim taking on the role of Team Leader. I also heard that finally an appointment has been made to Grangetown Parish, vacant for two years. Fr Edward Owen, now at Margam Abbey is returning to the city where he served his title at the Cathedral. Great to know they'll be in safe hands. 

Finally the gas engineers, working overtime on a Saturday, have reached us. I had to move our car this afternoon so they could start digging a hole to access the junction with the street gas supply. I think they'll be working through the weekend to get the job done.

We watched a fascinating Michael Palin travel programme this evening. He was in the eastern Himalayas - starting in western China. After that I decided to do some work on next week's batch of reflections, rather than get stuck into the new Finnish crimmie of BBC Four. I can do that on catch up some time. 

Bridge returns to life

I slept for nearly nine hours and woke up to bright sunshine. Lately I've not been waking early, or if I do, I go back to sleep while waiting for 'Thought for the Day' on Radio 4. I make a point of listening on BBC Sounds catch-up before I get up. It's useful to be able to roll back a live broadcast, and it works well.

I learned from a local news item today that Blackweir Bridge repairs are nearly complete and it will re-open next week. I also learned that the bridge isn't part of the City Council's estate, but the University which funded construction and maintains it. It wasn't closed due to the pandemic, as I presumed, but due to minor structural damage that made it unsafe. Repairs took couple of weeks, but the best part of a year to agree to get done, though there's been no hurry to complete. The public is much better informed and prepared to be cautious crossing the bridge now, socially distanced, in single file - hopefully!

I was pleased to see a photo of Fran's icon of St David appear in this week's Parish Sway newsletter. I've written Monday's reflection on the icon and a discursive prayer which I'd like to record in St Catherine's if I get an opportunity when we go to church tomorrow to join in the pre-reopening spring-clean.

For the second day running I've taken my Sony Alpha 68 DSLR camera out walking with me. It's such a lovely camera to use, I find that I take far more photos with it when I'm out in good shooting conditions. Its weight with a long lens is the only disadvantage, three times as heavy as the Olympus. If I had a long and a broad lens for the Olympus that were together as good as my versatile Alpha mount telephoto, the Olympus would be a match in terms of photo quality, and much lighter by design. The equivalent lenses, even second hand are pretty pricey on a low budget. Clare keeps asking what I am going to do with all the pictures I take. If I could decide on interesting themes to select, I could compose photo books to use as gifts or even for sale as coffee table items. Trouble is, I'm no better with the idea of seeking a market than I am seeking an audience for my writing. Fear of failure? Fear of not being noticed? I wonder why?

Another interesting episode of 'New Amsterdam' to watch on catch-up tonight, with an interesting little vignette of what happens when a medic pursues a concern about the health of drug addicts and provision of safe managed injection places in a world where doing this is against the law. The forces of law and order are unable to punish adequately or eliminate the international chain of illegal drug suppliers. Drug addiction is a major global public health issue. Why drive users underground and into crime when with the right support they can be helped to get lives and health in order and weaned off drugs? 

This approach has been shown to work in places where licensed supervised clinics have been set up. It's hard to understand why advocates of law enforcement are reluctant to change strategy, unless they are addicted to playing 'cops and crooks' never really succeeding in winning. Addicts are in a way victims of the consumer culture the world has created, but treated as perpetrators. It doesn't have to be like this.  

Alert level good news

A pleasant mild day with sunshine and cloud decorated skies. There are oceans of yellow daffodils, not only in parks but also in roadside grass verges, plus big white crocuses and smaller blue and yellow ones making a cheering sight wherever you walk. The maintenance team working on Blackweir Bridge has now returned the metal decking panels to their proper place. I believe they were taken up to do remedial work on the deck support structure, and maybe also to apply anti-rust paint. I don't suppose it means that the bridge will re-open any time soon, but at least, when it does re-open it'll be fit for purpose again.

I had to laugh this morning when I took a scam phone call from an English RP sounding robot voice claiming to be from HMRC about irregularities in my tax account, threatening me that the police were on their way to arrest me unless I pressed button one to talk to someone about it. That's one up from the Amazon Prime account anomaly robotic calls, we usually get, at least in quality. I'm so glad that for the past fifteen years or so I have filed my annual tax return on-line, so never have to worry about a paper copy going missing and causing confusion. The scammers must know very little really about the people they randomly dial with their messages. Those who get caught out are unlikely to have taken an interest in managing their own financial affairs, and not understanding that banks don't cold call people.

The work on replacing gas pipes in the street has almost reached our door. There are two neat holes in the tarmac waiting to be filled in with all the pipework exposed to view, and then it'll be our turn. You can see how new yellow plastic gas main piping has been threaded along the old iron pipework. Holes are cut in the old pipework allowing joints to be made for smaller bore piping to be run to individual homes, all very clever. Each house in turn has its supply cut off for a few hours while the job is done and the team leader lets you know when it's your turn.  

I've been invited to contribute a set of reflections for the Parish WhatsApp prayer channel next week. How nice to be starting with St David's day, and have Fran's Dewi Sant icon to talk about! I've now got to decide what to do with the other five weekday sessions. As we're resuming church services on Sunday, I think the rest of the week's reflections may well turn out to be about the Eucharist.

Today's good news is that the coronavirus alert level has been lowered from the most critical level five to level four. At level five, hospitals were at high risk of being overwhelmed by covid patients. Infection and death rates are falling steadily, but relaxation of restrictions needs to take much longer to avoid reversing the decline. About a third of the population has now been inoculated once, thanks to the coordinated teamwork efforts of medics, logistics and volunteer teams.

Church to re-open

Another mild cloudy day to help the ground dry out a bit more. More reports coming in about the high degree of efficacy of various vaccines now in use, plus the first delivery of vaccines to Ghana as part of the WHO's global collaboration by countries which are producing vaccines to share them with countries which are not. More media discussion about the stages in which lock-down will end in the four nations of Britain - all are mostly similar, but vary in detail given circumstances in different health authorities. Not everyone is happy with the plans set out, as so many businesses are struggling not to collapse.

Before lunch, I collected this week's organic veggies from Conway Road, and afterwards walked into town to look around and take photos of the Central Square construction site. The city centre shops are all shuttered, some shops have been emptied out and the trading signage over the window removed. It's hard to imagine how the city's reputation as South Wales' go-to retail destination can be regained post-covid. For so many shop workers there will be no return, only redundancy.

Finally a date has been set for the funeral I was asked to do three weeks ago which had to be postponed as the Coroner's work had not yet been done. It'll now take place a week tomorrow. Good news this afternoon in the form of an email from Mthr Emma to say that Parish Eucharist will resume in church next Sunday. I'm so relieved the church's reason to exist as a people for God's praise has been restored in our community. A review of the closure decision was taken as promised after five Sundays. 

So many, if not most of the older demographic of church members are far less at risk after vaccination. Younger members are geared to take precautions and act with consideration for others in church, so the risk is less than it was. Some parishes chose not to shut down Sunday worship. I believe closing is the rule in some dioceses. Such decisions weigh heavily on those who make them in a situation where there is scant detailed local knowledge and statistics to inform decisions. 

Averagely at the moment, Cardiff infection rate is higher than the Welsh (and UK) average. One outer suburb has double the infection rate of anywhere else. Areas where there's a large proportion of students in the population have a lower than average infection rate. Now infection numbers generally are lower a small localised outbreak skews the statistics. I suppose we'll never know if any Anglican parish congregation was an infection hot spot. If we have lost members to covid, they'll pretty certainly be older, sicker and in a care home. However the local situation is adjudged, we must all be grateful that we have survived thus far, and never presume that we're safe from the next nasty surprise nature has for us.

Parks and parking

A cloudy day without rain with a mild wind to dry out the sodden soil. We need more days like this given the broadening mud slicks alongside all the park footpaths. With so many people out and about every day, socialising without socialising strolling along and hogging the path, overtaking walkers and cyclists drives more and more people on to the grass. Heaven knows how the park management teams are going to repair and restore the greensward to its usual healthy condition. 

The task of keeping the park rubbish free has become a seven day week job, as rubbish bins fill very quickly to overflowing with takeaway cups, pizza boxes, sandwich wrappers and plastic bottles. If a day is missed, the place looks terrible, and more rubbish gets dropped than when it looks clean and tidy. No doubt we'll pay for this with Council Tax rate increases eventually, but such excellent civic amenities as we enjoy are worth paying for.

Talking about the Council - a consultation document dropped through our letterbox this afternoon relating to traffic management and parking locally. A bus lane is proposed for Penhill Road, robbing one side of the road of car parking bays, displacing vehicles into overnight parking down by Cafe Castan. It looks as if we won't be able to avoid a residents' car parking permit scheme for the whole of neighbourhood. There are already too many cars competing for too little space on the street, too many two car households. Will each household be restricted to one permit only? I love our little car, but have thought a lot recently about giving it up, as we used it so little, regardless of lock-downs, we'd be better off hiring for occasional travel needs that can't be met by public transport.

At lunchtime I had a call postponing the telephone consultation I was due to have with a pharmacology expert at Llandough who is said to be off sick. Well I've waited four months for this, and am not dead while waiting. Meanwhile, I'll just keep experimenting with the doxazosin dosage to see if I can minimise the side effects and get my blood pressure nearer to normal.

Now that schools are open again to the youngest children, Clare has decided to resume her regular Thursday visit to the Steiner kindergarten to do eurythmy with the little ones, so she's spent quite a lot of time on the phone discussing and planning this today. It means a lot to her, but she's confident that staff are going to be working with high safety standards, and infection risk is far lower with the under sevens in any case. 

An article I read this morning about kids returning to school stated that 12-14 year olds are the most likely to catch covid and transmit it. It also stated that a much under estimated preventative measure is classroom ventilation, leaving windows open and wrapping up warm. Or, classes outdoors. It's something new to get used to, and not easy for generations raised in centrally heated houses and schools whose standard of clothing is geared to 22-24 degrees indoors, rather than 18. 

Birthday girls

Not quite such a damp day today, cloudy, but with occasional sunny breaks, the parks filling up again with people out walking, running, cycling wheeling prams and chatting and generally looking cheerier. I bumped into Janie, one of the St John's City Parish Church members who used to work in Debenhams in the St David's centre, alas now closing down for good.

We're into the third week of gas pipe upgrading going on in the street. The crew are digging individual holes at the point where each house is supplied from the branch main and working their way up towards our house. Much use is made of bright yellow plastic warning fences around working areas so the street is more colourful than usual at the moment. At the same time, a house opposite is having its downstairs brick partition wall removed to create one long room, a noisy duty process, bringing in an additional truck to cart away the brick rubble. The house was recently sold. Work started immediately, before the next occupant moves in. 

Today is Rhiannon's 17th birthday, also that of Mother Frances, so WhatsApp family and church streams have been flooded with greeting messages today. Kath and Anto made a surprise greeting video, secretly contacting family and friends inviting them to contribute a greeting video clip. The result was delightful and hilarious. All the birthday greetings were framed within an artfully constructed 24/7 news programme format. A smartly groomed Anto was presenter and Kath was a roving reporter. Video footage of places around Kenilworth was used as a backdrop for Kath to stand in front of and introduce greeting contributors. All thanks to iPhone apps she's mastered in the course of her promotional work for Wriggledance. Clare and I each contributed our limericks, and a greeting using the Beatles song 'I saw her standing there'. Much fun was had all round, though we didn't get to speak to her in person. She must have been on the phone to friends all day!

Encouraged by the speed of the vaccine roll-out and signs that infection and death rates are dropping as a result, the prime minister has introduced his four stage plan for a (provisional) return to normality over the next four months. The early report from Israel that around 80% of people vaccinated aren't getting re-infected by covid-19 or acting as infection carriers seems now to be echoed by early findings here and that's a relief. Work is already in progress on an oral vaccine equivalent, which would be so much easier to distribute. By this autumn the majority of the UK population will have been vaccinated with 10-20% remaining who can't or won't be vaccinated.  Phenomenal progress has been made in the past year,

Early years schooling re-starts in Wales today, with a phased return envisaged for all the rest. Full return is proposed over the border in England in early March, but again it's provisional on there being no more nasty infection statistics. Westminster pronouncements are more cautious these days, the cheerleader approach of Boris to these matters last year did more harm than good. The thought that coronavirus, like 'flu cannot be eliminated totally and that we'll have to learn to live with it, is now being fed into public discussion. Likewise the idea of a vaccination passport. But it's still a long road back, even to whatever the 'new normal' is going to look like, still full of unknowns and surprises we may not welcome.

In the wilderness

I woke up this morning in time to listen to BBC Radio Four Sunday worship, which during Lent is taking an unusual form. It explores the scripture theme and readings set for the day in the manner of an Ignatian retreat. There's music and select prayers, but explanations of the texts and reflection upon them are woven together in a way that encourages the listener to imagine understand and dig deep into their meaning. It worked very well I thought, and look forward to the rest of the series. I read through Morning prayer before breakfast and the Eucharist of the day afterwards, then went out for a walk in the rain down to the weir. 

The flood water did rise a bit more last night and washed over the footpath, leaving some fresh silt in the puddles, but the water level had dropped half a metre by mid morning. The force of yesterday's torrent washed a heavy tree stump off the top of the fish trap, where it's been stranded for several months. Heaven knows how much further downstream it's travelled now. The river level needs to drop another half a metre before we can see how the islands of stones in the river bed have been re-shaped, and what other big debris has been caught up with them. How the river bed looks changes over the years, sculpted by the water.

After lunch we went out again down to the weir, and walked up the riverside track to Western Avenue. It was very muddy and unpleasantly slippery to negotiate, and left me feeling quite tired when we got back, Clare baked a bara brith for tea for the first time in a while - good cheer to come home to.

This Tuesday I have a long overdue telephone consultation with pharmacology expert about blood pressure medication as I was having such problems keeping it under control with the additional dosing of doxazosin at various strengths before the last operation. Since then my blood pressure has been less high. It seemed nevertheless that the extra medication was making me feel slightly faint and dizzy. 

Then I remembered that such symptoms could also be due to inner ear blockage and mis-alignment of neck vertebrae and pelvis, due to the presence of the open wound. Muscles instinctually adjust to shield it from painful pressure. It's possible to mitigate these conditions with simple physical exercises to compensate when needed, so I was able to get rid of the headache and dizzyness. I thought I would drop the doxazosin and see how I got on without it, but stopped checking my blood pressure occasionally. So, I thought I should do so before taking to the consultant, and was horrified to find that it was sky high again, which perhaps explains why I have been rather short tempered lately. So, I have resumed taking the dozazosin, starting with a low dose, to see what impact it has, and increase it if needs be. I have spare pills to be going on with. I'll be interested to hear what the specialist has to offer when I tell him all this.

In all other respects, I'm fit and well, except for this wound, which is a fundamental source of stress, as it's so close to the vagus nerve that runs through the central nervous system. Living with this must have something to do with the difficulty of keeping blood pressure near to normal. Long ago I stopped being anxious about the unending wait for another round of treatment. 

The pandemic has added to the wait and that's accepted, cannot be fought against. I've survived a stressful year of infection risk, to reach the point of being vaccinated. I don't find it that difficult to live under restrictions, as two years worth of surgery has obliged me to come to terms with this, and be grateful to be alive. Normalising my blood pressure relies on completing the surgical process and healing. It's a matter of how it can be made less worse in the meanwhile. Just think - there are thousands of people made vulnerable by forced delays in their treatment regime, thousands hoping that they won't become collateral damage in the battle against this pandemic.

Clare watched an episode of the highly acclaimed series about the AIDS pandemic 'It's a sin', with some powerful acting and a deeply distressing story exposing people's range of reactions when the nature of a then incurable disease is uncovered and linked exclusively at the start to gay people enjoying new found freedoms in the seventies and eighties. As we've moved on so far in forty years, I find it hard to revisit and decided I didn't want to watch when the series started. Tonight the telly was on and I was sitting in the room uploading photos. I couldn't avoid getting the general drift of the episode, but what I did find disturbing was what I consider to be pornographic portrayals of gay sex on mainstream TV. 'If it can be seen it must be seen' is the contemporary maxim, interpreted as if we can shove it in your face and shock you, we'll do it for the sake of it.

Later we watched the final episode of 'Finding Alice'. A superb talented cast saddled with interpreting a bizarre if slightly believable tragic plot in a slightly comic way. A realistic look at the impact of bereavement on a family not expecting it? Or just playing about with it? Nothing shocking here, unless you're shocked that nice middle class ladies swear with the same disregard for grammar or context as football hooligans. Relieved that it's all over at last.

On the Sunday when the church thinks about Jesus in the desert, I feel that we're also in the stuck out in a cultural wilderness, a dearth of dignity and meaning, marked by hunger for sensation and excitement. Or perhaps it's just me coming to realise that old age is just one long desert, where you have to search diligently for oases that nourish and sustain.

Self emptying time

Another Saturday lie-in and pancakes for breakfast. Again, overcast with intermittent rain. Clare's new phone has started giving her trouble, with the SIM and SD occasionally not being recognised and then registering but leaving error messages. Is there something wrong with the way the cards are seated on the tiny flimsy tray on which they sit inside the phone, or is the contact fault something to do with phone itself? We can fiddle about with it - and it is fiddly because it's so small, and neither Clare's eyes nor mine are really good enough. 

Perhaps the cards themselves are worn at the edges and now a poor fit? It needs to be examined, which means taking it to a Currys store near us, to start with to get help. Phone shops are allowed to open, but the hours and procedures for engaging with them aren't normal. I had to dredge up the half a dozen emails sent to me from the time I ordered on-line until it was delivered on 5th January in order to find a helpline number, and the place to take the phone to get it looked at. It's the worst possible time, just when we're both so very reliant on using our phones to maintain all our regular contacts. Clare can re-instate her old phone, but that's a big hassle. It's taking her long enough to get used to a new one. 

We both found this mini crisis a distressing experience, exposing our digital dependency and helplessness when it comes to fixing anything that goes wrong. In years past, when all electronic systems were simpler, I learned how to fix lots of things. Now complexity and vendor lock-in makes it much harder, even down to finding the right path to obtaining a fix that won't violate the phone warranty.

I went out for a walk after lunch when the rain stopped for a while. The river Taff at Blackweir was almost up to path level again by the bridge, and huge volumes of spuming water tumbled loudly over the weir at great speed. It's been far wetter up in the Beacons than down on the coast, and there's more rain to come, so will the water rise another 15-30cm and flood the footpath and adjacent field overnight?

I met Jan and Peter watching the water while walking their dogs. Twice in one week? I asked Jan if she'd had any funerals delayed due to the Coroner's office not releasing the body in time, as I have this week with Wednesday's funeral postponed a second time. It seems from what she'd heard that there's a change in protocol involving coronavirus testing of all deaths referred to the Coroner, and this is bound to put extra pressure on the labs, already burdened with dealing with 'surge testing' in areas where new virus variants are detected. 

It's just as well the excess death rate is still dropping, or it would be impossible for the system to deal with the demand for funerals. Inevitably, families are having to wait longer to make arrangements because of the pandemic. Many local authorities have set up temporary mortuary facilities in industrial storage units to deal with the backlog. Public emergency management planning requires this, and municipal land earmarked for mass graves. At least we haven't got to the stage of needing to bury people in in this way, as happened in centuries past, and in some poor countries in our time, overwhelmed and unable to manage in any other way.  What we're going through is terrible, but it could be so much worse.

In one of my old notebooks, I started transcribing the travel journal I wrote when Clare and I visited Jordan in 1998. It's fascinating to make the trip again through my own words at the time. I digitized the photos I took a decade ago. Words fill in detain the photos missed.

This evening I came across a podcast on an American Jesuit website, geared to a young Catholic audience. Franciscan spiritual guide and teacher Fr Richard Rohr gave an hour long interview, in which he spoke of the different characteristics of Jesuit and Franciscan spiritualities, and about the observance of Lent. He makes the challenging observation that our Lenten efforts at self-mastery run the risk of nurturing the ego, rather than emulating Christ's own self-emptying. 

Letting go of everything, recognising and understanding our weaknesses and failures, transcending them rather than thinking we can master or suppress them is better for our spiritual health, he reckons. This stands the traditional 'spirit of discipline' on its head. It isn't by our own efforts that we can 'triumph over evil and grow in grace', but by saving grace alone. I loved it. Listening to this was just what I needed tonight, as I'm tired with watching telly programmes that are only mildly interesting or entertaining. 

Beware the air we breathe

Back to thick grey clouds and intermittent rain today, with more to come in the next few days, and threats of flooding. At least I didn't get too wet, walking before and after lunch. I cooked rice and Brussels sprouts with boil-in-the-bag mussels again, tastes to cheer us on another miserable day.

Official covid infection statistics released today show continued downward progression. In three weeks time phased re-introduction of children to classes in school will begin. Groups of four people from just two households will be able to meet again outdoors from this weekend - but judging from what I observe on my daily walks in the parks, this has been taking place already for weeks, few are even an arm's length away from others, let alone properly socially distanced. There's no sign of enforcement taking place, except in car parks. 

It's good to hear more being said about the risk from airborne infection. The existence of more contagious new variants calls for this to be emphasised, outdoors as well as indoors. I find it strange that early research nearly a year ago revealed the likely role of airborne transmission, yet only in the past three months when the contagion risk had been observed to be much higher has it been given increased prominence in public health advisory videos. 

Drivers of taxis, buses, and above all, ambulance drivers have suffered disproportionately high infection rates due to the amount of time they spend in enclosed spaces transporting, then waiting with patients, and treating them. Their standard of personal protection equipment needs to be much higher than in reality it is. I'm not sure we're hearing much from either unions or the government on what's being done to reduce the risks to health and safety in a crisis. Who cares for the carers here?

The Parish weekly notices are now being delivered by means of Microsoft's Sway, one of the apps that is part of Microsoft Office. The diocese also uses Sway to circulate its weekly info round-robin. An Office user can bring together text, images, web-links, audio and video into a presentation hosted on One Drive and accessible via a URL It can even be used to create a website. In effect, each week's round-robin is a little website of its own. Sway has been around for seven years but like video conferencing apps has seen new uses and users during the pandemic. It's rather passed me by, as I'm no longer delivering 'content' to anyone. I wonder if it will supplant the Christmas newsletter pdf in years to come?

This afternoon I watched this week's episode of 'New Amsterdam' on catch-up, and later in the evening the last episode of 'Rebecka Martinson - Arctic Murders'. Not for the first time in this series, a presumed murder turns out to be an accidental death whose circumstances cause others to lie about it. Tragedy in life can have many layers to it.

Sombre prospects

A merciful return to sunshine, blue skies with fluffy clouds today. What a difference it makes after the penitential grey skies and rain of yesterday! Before and after lunch, walks in different parks filled with kids letting off steam and mums with pushchairs chatting socially distanced (sort of), displacing walkers into the still rain saturated grass. It's quite treacherous in many places, to walk on turf whose surface is suffering badly from lack of drainage - there's a lot of clay subsoil around here. It's like walking on a layer of thick soap. Carefree boys at the end of a park outing are often caked with mud below the waist. Heaven help their mothers!

When our weekly delivery of groceries from Beanfreaks arrived this morning, there was a fine looking organic lettuce tucked in with the order which we hadn't ordered, but wished we had. Clare rang the store and reported this, and ten minutes later, Simon the delivery man returned and collected it. Someone had mistakenly added it to our order. It happens occasionally with our home deliveries, inevitably when you consider how complex a task it is to deal with scores of items for scores of customers a day. 

At tea-time Clare and I rehearsed together our version on the Beatles' song 'I saw her standing there', and then recorded it with a birthday greeting for Rhiannon who'll be seventeen next Monday. Kath has asked for video greetings from family and friends to edit together and show during their home celebration. Clare learned to play a basic piano accompaniment by heart, part of her jazz piano learning, so she can still keep playing when she can no longer sight read. 

She's also got the hang of recording videos as well, though she gets very annoyed with her new phone, which she thinks is fussier and more complex than the previous one with an earlier version of Android. Both of us composed 'Rhiannon' limericks to record and send as well, just for fun. Clare had the idea and that spurred me to creativity for a change. Apart from taking photos I haven't done much that's creative recently, so this little effort has done me good.

Today's news again reports reduction in the rate of infections and deaths, and discussion on the easing of lock-down restrictions which are still the main factor driving down the numbers. The mortality rate among elderly people has dropped sharply and this is the first indication that vaccination is having an impact. It's not surprising that infection rates among children, teens and young adults are still high, even if they tend to recover quickly from covid19, have mild symptoms or none at all. 

The trouble is, they can transmit the virus to older and more vulnerable people in the general population, so re-opening schools, even in a phased way with regular testing regimes in place is still a risky business. Observing the way children and teenagers behave outdoors with few wearing masks and little or no distancing makes me wonder just how the transmission of the virus can be reduced to the point where the general risk is very low.

Testing for the virus and population sampling for variants is going to become even more important as a result of the ability of covid19 not only to produce new ones, but also to combine variants that have survived into even more effective versions that are more efficient at spreading and vaccine resistant. This may happen randomly. Most 'recombinants' may not survive to spread, until one does and wreaks havoc. 

Preventing the spread of new forms depends on continuing to do what is already recommended to be done: mask wearing in enclosed spaces, social distancing, hand hygiene etc., even for the vaccinated. This is going to be tough for everyone, but we'll run the risk of promoting our own extinction as a species if we don't. Global warming is not only melting ice-caps but producing conditions favourable to the evolution of many more kinds of virus we may not be able to prevent from harming us and robbing us of our future.

Going through this Lent, reading scripture, reading the unfolding story of this pandemic and the world's heroic efforts through medicine and scientific research to see an end to this plague, is going to be the stuff of my spiritual endeavour. Would that there was something more practical that I could do.

Ash Wednesday

After an unusually good night's sleep, only having to get up twice in the night instead of four tines I had breakfast, then read Morning Prayer, Litany and Eucharist. Clare met Emma returning from her walk and was given a special Ash Wednesday prayer card with cross drawn in ashes on it. A nice gesture on the part of the clergy team. 

I received a delivery of fish for freezing from Ashtons while Clare was out. The bones filleted out of the salmon get turned into a fabulous soup. The house smells of fish soup during into the evening. And there's a treat of laver bread with bacon for supper. Not exactly abstinence, but certainly something to give extra thanks for. The must be extra room for praise and gratitude in a season of penitence.

Clare asked me to pay for the order using our secure on-line banking set up. It's not something I do often and in between times forget exactly how it works. The action buttons menu is clear enough when you know where it is and what you're looking for. I didn't, and tapped something that ende up in an endless maze of information pages with no route back. I had to log out and start again, which rather uoset me. My suspicion that inconsistent web behaviour, is a result of accidentally running into a malicious intervention runs very high, even on a site with high security entrance protocols. A glitch in data flow is usually the cause of anomalies, or else poorly designed pages using esoteric terms, but these also happen with malicious sites. It all feels to me like hostile territory nowadays. Perhaps I know too much about web security issues to trust and rely on cyber things.

I spent the morning trying to get Linux to work on an old Netbook having reinstalled it and then found the hard drive wasn't recognised. A hardware fault? Or an Installation error due to the hateful early UEFI firmware being improperly configured? I had to physically remove the drive and check it on another device using a hard drive caddy. No hardware errors, found. I downloaded the latest version of Linux Mint and used it mounted on a USB card to do a fresh netbook install. This time it was bootable despite throwing a system boot error first. Something to do with UEFI.

The system functioned but couldn't be updated. It wouldn't accept root password I'd assigned to it. It's so frustrating, I'll have to reinstall and reset, if I can figure out where I've gone wrong. Something to do when I'm not busy.

Light rain came at the end of the morning and persisted non-stop into the evening. It was quite mild and there was no wind, but walking over to and then around Victoria Park, then crossing over to Llandaff Fields was a miserable wearing experience, as if I was carrying a heavy load. I was tired when I got back, and hadn't walked as far as I thought, but my rainwear was sodden. I went out again after supper when the rain had reduced to a drizzle, to complete my daily distance in the dark.

Later, we watched another interesting archaeological programme on More Four. In suburban Newcastle upon Tyne there once stood a Roman fort. The sight was partly excavated before the houses were built, and the site of its gatehouse was left exposed. An investigative team came to the area with a theoretical maps of the fort and the civilian settlement adjacent to it, with a view to digging exploratory trenches in people's back gardens to search for evidence to confirm the mapping. Local residents were happy to give permission and took a great interest in the findings. 

It brought to light the history of how in the couple of centuries after it was built and established as a garrison gateway in Hadrian's wall, the civilian settlement grew up and over time grew closer to the fort itself. The findings suggested a prosperous cosmopolitan community had flourished there until the Romans retreated from Britain in the third century. I wonder what will be left to show of our settlements in two thousand years from now, given the threats to existence from pandemics and global warming we now face?

A different kind of Lenten journey

I went to the GP surgery this morning to collect my three monthly medication prescription, then to Boots on Cowbridge Road to collect the pills. We needed some prawns and mushrooms for lunch, so I went on to Tesco's, but there was a queue of twenty people waiting for admission to the store, so I went on further to the Co-op, where I walked straight in, bought what a needed, plus a few other things, then headed for home. Our Shrove Tuesday special lunch was pancakes, with a savoury filling, Clare cooked the pancakes and I did the filling - fried mushrooms and an onion plus garlic, prawns and seasonings. Two each, filling a dinner plate. There were two thinner spare ones for sweet. Clare ate hers but I kept mine for supper and filled it with home made hummus, avocado slices and grated vegan cheese. A worthwhile experiment, to be repeated with variations another time! 

Although it rained a little in the morning, it was mild again, ten degrees. After lunch, when I went out for a walk the sun shone through the clouds. I did a few circuits of Thomson's Park then headed through the back streets up to the top end of Llandaff Fields, and then back home, enjoying the afternoon sunlight and shadows on the grass. Everyone out in the fresh air seemed to be smiling more and not so turned in on themselves as happens when it's cold wet and windy, which is all we seem to have had in January.

Lent starts tomorrow, and I understand the Bishops have issued instructions about how to perform the rite of Ashing, without physical contact with worshippers in church, and suggestions on how to do it on-line. I confess I haven't bothered to read up on this as I'm not taking a service, and in our parish there is not service to go to, just an on-line liturgy, but I understand it somehow involves self- administered sprinkling of ashes over the head. I find the idea surreal, and utterly disconnected from what is meant to be a visceral physical experience, of having one's forehead smeared with ash to the words remember 'you are but dust'. I think I can do without playing let's pretend games. 

I could jump ship so to speak, and go to a church where a Mass is happening live, but I am a parishioner here, first and a priest only when invited. I want to share the same experience of disappointment and deprivation at the reality of churches closed for worship when they needn't be. This experience isn't foreign to lay people at different times in life. It's easy to forget this when you've had the responsibilities and privileges of being a priest for over fifty years. The treasured rites and ceremonies of Catholic tradition have been part and parcel of my life and supported my faith journey for the past sixty years. This year will be different, stripped back to the foundation - scripture, tradition, reason, and the passage of time without add-ons. 'We do not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God'.

At the moment I have no idea what Lenten exercises, if any, I am going to undertake. Much of the past eleven and a half months have felt like Lent, so much time in solitude, vigilant, exercising restraint and praying through the events of each day, though not without distractions, anxiety, boredom. Being back at home, secure and healthy with a degree of domestic routine stability is such a blessing. With far less to do in terms of ministry, it's more difficult to find a sense of meaning in life when I've been so fortunate to be active, even in retirement until now. I could do with a project or two, on which to focus me life creatively but opportunity and inspiration have so far escaped me. I'd rather do something to benefit others than just to satisfy my own needs. All I can do is wait and stay open who whatever emerges I guess.

Yesterday I ordered another batch of the sterile swabs I use for everyday wound dressing. Delivery takes two to three days, no need to pay for fast track 24 hour service. The delivery invoice said delivery will be tomorrow. We were both out walking when the courier van turned up a day early! Fortunately the firm has a local parcel collection point in a convenience store on Clare Road, ten minutes walk from home, and I was able to retrieve my ordered parcel at the end of the deliveryman's round. Impressive service from the supplier FirstAid4Less and the courier DPD.

In the evening, we watched a fascinating programme on BBC Four about excavations of stone age sites in the Orkneys. It's thought that British megalithic culture and stone circle sacred sites originated there and spread south into Scotland, Wales and England.  It's amazing the way current technologies and forensics are being applied to uncovering the past, supplying evidence that obliges us to re-think how civilization evolved in the British Isles. This was followed by a programme about Pluscarden Benedictine Monastery in Scotland, continuously in use as a monastery since its foundation in 1230. The monks wear the all white habit of Primitive Observance Benedictines, a sub-group of the family of Benedictines who live by the older more austere version of Benedict's rule which still involves routine subsistence manual labour. It was beautifully done, alluring to watch, but I quite after ten minute  and will view the series about monasteries on catch-up, rather than have a late night, and lose much of the morning as a result.

Can mutuality survive?

Another grey damp day, with sun peering through the cloud cover, milder and potentially wetter as cold air from Siberia is replaced by warm Atlantic air. I heard from Pidgeon's just after breakfast that this Friday's funeral has been postponed until the following Wednesday, pending clearance by the Coroner's office. It's likely that they are very busy dealing with the increased death rate due to covid-19, especially if someone hasn't been hospitalised or seen a doctor lately. 

The morning news reported that the third highest death rate in the UK is in the neighbouring Borough of Rhondda Cynon Taff. Not surprising, since this is still one of the poorest areas of Wales, with high rate of unemployment across the generation, persisting since coal mining ended forty years ago. The region has not been fully redeveloped industrially since then, with not enough new jobs or sufficient training for new work skills to meet the need. Many qualified people move away to find work and settle, or else commute to jobs outside the area. The poorly qualified are left behind, with few opportunities of making a better lives for themselves locally. It's a story that's true in other de-industrialised areas of the country as well. 

Will the alleviation of chronic poverty and associated health conditions feature in strategic planning for the hoped for 'new normal' once the pandemic has been brought under control? Or will those in national government again suffer the kind of amnesia or obstructiveness that has hindered regional government for decades? I still feel very resentful about the refusal to back Severn Barrage and Tidal Lagoon electricity generation projects, which could have created tens of thousands of new jobs and developed new skill sets for a lost generation of workers in the South Wales Valleys. 

Like many a colony, Wales was plundered for its water and its coal. Only a fraction of the wealth accrued from these natural resources has benefited the local economy in the long term. The depth of inequality perpetuated ensures that Britain cannot become a truly healthy society until there's a deep change in values and priorities, a shared change in consciousness about what matters. We've become such an individualistic society under the dominance of consumerism. The pandemic has taught many the value to seeking the common good and self-sacrifice but will this last, once life gets easier again. Can 'mutuality' survive and prevail? Reading the Psalms as I do daily is a sane reminder of how we fail to learn or forget the lessons adversity teaches, once we have it easy again. 

God is easily pushed from the centre to the periphery of life, conscience likewise, when we're distracted by selfish pursuits. Lent starts this Wednesday. The world's second Lent in lock-down. Because infection and death rates are easily, looking forward and making plans for better times comes to the fore. Will this distract us from reflecting spiritually on the present situation we're in?

Walking in the park this afternoon I met Peter and Jan walking their dogs. They come regularly but this is the first time we've bumped into each other for eighteen months or longer. I was pleased to hear that Jan has kept the Church of the Resurrection open for Sunday worship when it's not been required to close by law. They've been having Sunday congregations of sixty, and live streaming  the Parish Eucharist with congregation for those who cannot come. I wish we could have done that here in Canton. She too has her worries about the rushed implementation of the new Ministry Area plan, in common with other clergy who have to live with the consequences. Good to know I'm not alone with my misgivings. 

Quinquagesima Valentine

The Anglican church calendar for the Sunday before Lent or Quinquagesima Sunday makes no mention of it being Saint Valentine's Day today. The old Roman calendar remembers a martyr of the early Christian era whose feast coincides with a pagan celebration of romantic love and desire, and that's what persists in contemporary social custom, thanks to commercial marketing as much as anything else. The Revised Common Lectionary theme is about Christ's Transfiguration. The old Church in Wales 1984 Prayer Book readings which I used when reading through the day's Eucharist focus on Jesus foretelling his passion, and is accompanied by 1 Corinthians 13, extolling self-giving sacrificial love rather than romance. This suits me better - love that endures in hope and trust, despite the odds. What the world needs right now. 

I woke up to the news that the US Senate voted not to impeach Trump, which putting on record personal and video testimony of the frightful events of January 6th and all that led up to it. Trump is already out of his self-imposed silence declaring he will run for president again. President Biden's administration is going to need all that the power of that love which endures in hope and trust over the next three years. Will the truth prevail? Will lies and duplicity in public life be defeated? We can only pray that good-will not ill-will prevails.

I cooked lunch again today and then walked up to Llandaff Cathedral, something I haven't done since the current lock-down started. I was delighted to find that it was open for private prayer, so I donned a mask went in and spent ten minutes savouring the atmosphere and praying. It's a place with memories going back sixty years for me. When I got back, I listened to Evensong from Clare College Cambridge on the BBC Sounds app. It's broadcast at three o'clock, but I'm never ready to listen to it at that time, so catch-up is much appreciated.

I found another French crimmie to watch on Walter Presents, called 'The Red Shadows'. It was set on the Cote d'Azure to the west of Marseilles, just like the last series I watched. The story-line is also a mix of family drama and flic movie, and even features some of the same actors, thought not in the same roles, thankfully. An audience winning formula or what? I wonder. Later on, another episode of 'Finding Alice', which I'm watching more out of curiosity about its handling of bereavement, rather than eager interest. Its pace now makes it border on the dull.

 

Lessons unlearned

We slept late, had an extra lie in and then Saturday breakfast pancakes. It was ten o'clock before I looked out of the window for the first time in the day and realised it was snowing. I guess that's a measure of how turned inwards I become in these grew dark wintry days. We walked for an hour in around the fields until the chill wind became a disincentive to walk for longer. The temperature hovered  around 0-1C all day but again the wind made it feel colder. One strange thing I've noticed when I'm out walking is that my feet don't get cold, no matter what shoes I'm wearing. May it needs to be well below zero for this to happen, but really cold feet is something I do recall from skiing days in Switzerland. 

News reports today state that fifteen million people in will be been vaccinated by Monday, on target as promised. Infection and death rates keep falling slowly and political leaders are giving tentative answers to questions levelled at them by reporters or back-benchers about a timetable for a return to a semblance of normality. At the same time, leading scientists express caution over loosening restrictions too early, in the light of uncertainties about the spread of new more contagious virus variants. 

Again First Minister Mark Drakeford's response has been sober and measured, saying the best we can hope for, on the basis of timely evidence is a return to the 'new normal' of last summer's holiday season, step by careful step. He's not a crowd pleaser, but doesn't hide the truth that we're in for a long haul. Whatever develops, it's clear the economy nationally and globally is taking a hard knock. The drive is on to de-carbonise the economy and re-think all our priorities in the light of the climate crisis. One way or another the way we live will change, and it will prove very hard for many who cannot understand that the impact of human activity on the planet is the source of crises we are faced with. 

Although we were promised a centimetre of snow in the coastal plain, far less fell, and the temperature rose above zero in the afternoon. Rather disappointing really. I bought some beautiful dark red tulips to mark Valentine's day for Clare, but forgot to order a takeaway romantic supper. (Not really my idea of romance, I'm afraid), so I cooked an acceptably tasty meal instead and served it on our best Wedgewood china dinner plates. Also disappointing. Another interesting documentary about the excavations of Saint Pancras public cemetery, prior to building a new HS2 railways station on the ground, a work in progress now for several years. 

A forensic examination of several centuries worth of human remains is yielding evidence about Europe's largest city in the 17th-18th century with half a million inhabitants. Infant mortality was very high, due to poverty,  malnourishment and insanitary conditions, but it seems that the root cause of  chronic and fatal ailments was atmospheric pollution from wood or coal fires burning in crowded badly ventilated homes. An echo of current environmental health issues caused by urban vehicle emissions in traffic crowded streets. Then, another Inspector Montalbano repeat episode on BBC Four later or. We watched it as there was nothing else to capture our attention

Exciting archaeology

I drove to Western Cemetery for a funeral at lunchtime. I think it may be the first time that I've ever  had to take a full service at the graveside. The grandson of the deceased wrote a tribute which I delivered to a group of fifteen people, masked and socially distanced around the grave. The temperature was zero, but the sun shone through a thin layer of cloud making it less than dull, but with a light wind it was pretty cold. Together with the tribute and prayers, we stood there for ten minutes. Not too long for everyone to get really chilled.

Forty years ago when I worked in st Paul's Bristol, a few winter funerals started at Saint Agnes Church, and then went on to burial at a municipal on a windy hilltop on the north east side of the city. The rite of Committal would take a few minutes, but I'd be there at the graveside with a big crowd of West Indian mourners for an hour, while the women sang devotional hymns from Redemption Hymnal, and the men filled in the grave with shovels they brought with them. Wind, drizzle, snow. I remember getting very chilled, frozen feet in particular, but these were unmissable moving community events for a pastor to share in. It wasn't like that today thankfully.

After breakfast I'd received a phone call to say that the funeral team would be four men instead of the usual six, and would I mind if the coffin was lowered into the grave at the start rather than the end of the ceremony, since arranging for the coffin to be placed on two supports over hole until it was time to lower wouldn't be possible. 

I agreed to it, then realised I'd have to make some adjustments to the order of service, putting the formal words of Committal at the start to reflect the legally binding action of lowering the coffin into the ground. As this change was capable of puzzling mourners accustomed to the usual ritual, I rang the grandson to explain, so he could tell the rest of the family, revised me order of service, and despite a wee touch of nervousness about doing something different, it went as planned.

I'm still struggling with the business of glasses steaming up when wearing a mask. Clare suggested that I dip my specs in soapy water and let them dry. It didn't work, so I had to abandon my reading glasses and hope that I could cope in the sunlight, given the impact this can have due to the annoying cataract in my left eye. Reading the tribute in fourteen point spaced print was OK, most of the prayers I used are ones for which I had a smaller print text plus fairly reliable memory back-up. All ended well, and I had a nice thank you email from the grandson later in the day.

After lunch I met up with Ashley on Cowbridge Road, after he had his covid jab at Riverside surgery. We walked side by side to Cardiff Central station and talked for the first time not on the phone since last summer. 

In the evening Clare and I watched a remarkable programme on BBC 2 about the recent archaeological research into the origins of the bluestone circle at Stonehenge. It was proved by chemical fingerprinting some years ago that these originated in Pembrokeshire's Preseli Hills. It's now been established that the stones in the Stonehenge circle are an exact match for a set of pits in a circle of exactly the same radius in the Preseli Hills. Some very clever forensic soil particle analysis has revealed that this collection of stones had first been erected there, some three centuries before they were moved to Stonehenge. Experimental archaeologists have worked out how they could have been dragged overland between sites, along a route that closely resembles that of the A40 road for much of its length. An amazing achievement for modern scientific investigation. The programme clashed with 'Rebecka Martinson Arctic Murders', so I watched this on More Four Catch-up straight after, as I had done later afternoon to catch up with this week's episode of New Amsterdam at tea time.

Works in progress

Another day at zero degrees centigrade. I tracked down my long johns and wore them for possibly the first time in the ten years since we visited Rachel when she was living in Canada. It's also cold enough to wear the balaclava hood my sister bought for me last year. It fits nicely under the hood of my ski jacket, which now shows signs of its antiquity, bought in the early nineties. I think the padding has compacted, reducing its ability to insulate. It's a long time since we lived anywhere with a cold enough winter to call for an outdoor clothing upgrade.

When Clare returned from her early walk she said that a team of people were about to start work on Blackweir Bridge. When I walked down to the Taff later in the morning, work was in progress. The deck of the bridge was being taken up and each panel of stout mesh steel, two metres long, was being secured to the handrail above. Since last week's break-in through the barriers closing off the bridge to the public during the pandemic, a decision has been made to make a short-cut impossible by removing the deck. It's a sensible move under the circumstances, although, like thousands of others, I resent having to walk around instead of crossing over. A second temporary bridge with a one way system would have been preferable and not impossible. In other situations where bridges have been washed away by floods, Army engineers have erected temporary crossings. Why not here?

The Wales and West Utilities team replacing the street's gas main hit a problem this morning which meant the gas supply had to switched off for three hours while it was fixed. The house was quite warm and only slowly cooled to the point that the temperature difference was noticeable. Before reconnecting the supply an engineer came in and tested the gas flow to the meter with a special device before rebooting the boiler. He used a smartphone app linked (I think) to the house smart meter to check the supply. Unfortunately, he couldn't initially access the app and had to get the help of a colleague outside to make it work. It all works perfectly, except when it doesn't!

In daily pandemic news reports, it was disturbing to learn that six out of ten covid victims were disabled, very much a reflection of the unjust social and economic disadvantages they endured, and reflected in their general health condition. The UK's high covid related death rate, one of the world's highest, is also an indication of economic and environmental disparities that contribute to poor health. It's not just a matter of decades of NHS  under-funding, but people being made more vulnerable by their living conditions. Is this going to change any time soon I wonder? 

A month ago I was very annoyed by the criticism levelled at the Welsh government and NHS at what was perceived by BBC news and other media to be a slower roll-out of the covid vaccination programme. It now turned out that Wales has reached the target of vaccinating for the first time 20% of the population most at risk a few days ahead of the date set. The logistics of distribution and inoculation were thoughtfully worked out at the outset, even surviving a few days of setback due to snow closing some of the vaccination centres. Tonight's news now reports a planned reduction in first time injections to allow for re-stocking so that second injections and first timers can be continued in March. But will the newshounds apologise for unwarranted criticism of First Minister Mark Drakeford? He's done us proud.

A taste of Occitan

It's been another bitterly cold day, so much so that I donned an extra layer in the form of a thermal vest to fend off chilling me to the bone. Instead of one long walk, I ventured out three times for shorter periods, as I found the cold quite debilitating, perhaps because humidity level is higher. Still no sign of snow apart from a brief flurry at lunchtime.

On Monday, gas engineers from Wales and West Utilities dug a hole at the end of our street to access the junction between the trunk main and the branch that serves us. We were advised that there was water in the pumping. To our surprise yesterday, we were asked to move our car so that a hole could be dug in our usual parking spot. It seems the branch main can be accessed through at special joint just there. This morning a portable pumping engine appeared and set to run for several hours. I asked the guy minding the machine if it was sucking or blowing. He smiled and told me that it was sucking out and depositing in an attached tank a mixture of water and oily fluids, which at some time in the past had been injected into the pipe as part of a fault inspection process. Its potential toxicity would mean it couldn't be released into the sewer. Hence the tank.

I collected our organic veg bag before lunch. It had a generous supply of freshly picked brussels sprouts my favourite winter treat, not just for Christmas dinner! We cooked some frozen sprouts on Sunday and despite the care taken, the texture wasn't quite right. The ones we get from Coed Organics started the day in a frosty field west of Cardiff and were picked for delivery. Perfect! A treat to look forward to.

Despite differences of opinion between certain vaccinologists about the age range in which the Oxford/AZ is to be recommended, the W.H.O. has today declared that it's good for use with adults of all ages, with all covid19 variants known so far. It's not the perfect remedy but the best of all possibilities at the moment. It takes into account ease of manufacture, storage, transport globally and production cost. These factors are as important to take into account as vaccine efficacy given the urgency of inoculating the maximum number of people around the world to stop the pandemic.

This evening we watched a delightful programme of Rick Stein's about French Catalan cuisine in Languedoc. It has it's own special character given its proximity to the Spanish border, the other side of which is the region of Catalunya. In fact people in that region use Catalan as well as French and Occitane, the ancient regional tongue. Catalan is said to resemble mediaeval French, probably true also of la Langue d'Oc. They're all deeply interconnected.

One summer back in Geneva days in the nineties, we spent a couple of weeks staying in a cottage owned by a CERN scientist in the country near Gaillac and Albi. We took our bicycles with us strapped to the back of the car and rode around on quiet country byways. A lovely experience. It was a rare occasion when I forgot to take a camera with me, so we have only happy but fading memories. Gaillac wines were not widely known and still seldom found in UK supermarkets, but I remember them with pleasure. I must look among my journals to see if I wrote about the trip at the time.

Pandemic origins according to WHO

The government has announced its plan for organised quarantine hotels for travellers returning to the UK from overseas, at a cost of £1,700 for an obligatory ten day stay for entrants from high risk countries. This includes two covid tests while confined in personal isolation. Only rich people and executive business travellers will be able to afford this. At the moment foreign holiday travel is considered illegal. A surreal notion. The hopes of an air travel industry revival any time soon are being dashed, as infection rates are still high, even if declining slowly. Any easing of restrictions and return to some kind of normality could take longer to arrive than we expect or wish for.

The WHO investigative committee has reported on its visit to Wuhan. Their findings rule out an accidental release of a virus from a research lab there. The market at the centre of the initial outbreak is thought to be the place where the virus, occurring in bats, may have crossed the species barrier, perhaps to other animals before crossing the barrier to humans. Something similar I guess may have happened in other parts of the world spontaneously, given there are reports of covid traces being found in waste water in other countries at or before the first reported outbreak. 

We're already learning from recent experience that very similar if not identical new mutations in covid19 are emerging in this way, so why not. Right at the start of the crisis environmental health experts said this kind of thing was inevitable because of the breakdown of natural ecosystem complexity which normally would check the spread of new viral mutations and the crossing of species barriers to humans. Biodiversity loss all over the planet, no matter what complex mix of species a region may contain, has a similar outcome. Humans are now reaping a disaster they have sown.

It's been another bitterly freezing cold day with strong wind. Again it was a challenge to walk in the park in the afternoon and stay warm. Yesterday afternoon I took a photo of a Tesco trolley parked on a hillock by the north west entrance of Llandaff Fields, noticed over the weekend. I posted the picture on Instagram tagging Tesco Metro's community service team. By this afternoon it wasn't there, hopefully retrieved and returned to service. I was leased about that.

I spent rather a lot of time later in the day shifting my collection of Ibiza photos from one Google Photos account to another, having discovered I uploaded them to my Google Blogger account without realising, many months ago. I need all the free space of that account for texts posted over the past fourteen years - yes, that's how long it is since I started with my first 'Edge of the Centre' blog.

It was good to hear this evening that the American Senate has voted to proceed with impeaching Donald Trump. It may not lead to a two thirds majority decision to convict him, but at least the full story will be told and stay on the record. It will be there to be quoted against Trump if he decides to run for a second term as President in four years time. And then the voters can made another hopefully informed decision on the basis of what they know then. 

Dewi Sant portrayed afresh

News of 147 South African covid variant infections identified so far, with suspicion there are many more due to rapid symptomless transmission. It seems that the Oxford AZ vaccine isn't quite as effective in stopping mild infection in the younger age bracket (and therefore contagion) as hoped for, although still highly protective against serious and fatal illness, which should help reduce hospitalizations. It's the result of a small scale study (2000 people) yet to be peer reviewed. It gives an early heads up from the experts to not to stop social distancing and mask wearing, whether you've been vaccinated or not. I do wish this was repeated more frequently every time this comes up as a news item, so that people are reminded it's not just a mere inconsequential statistic. The mews media are great at raising anxiety and not so good at reminding their audience of what is vital and live-saving.

The chill easterly wind continues to blow relentlessly, bringing a scattering of stinging icy particles but no snow. Despite a hat, ski jacket, gloves, normal jacket, two pullovers, shirt and woolen vest, I was still cold during my first invigorating walk of the day. Perhaps because I no longer have as much surplus body fat as I used to. I caught sight of a blue jay feeding on the ground at the edge of Pontcanna Fields and for just the second time in ten years of trying was able to photograph it. I got half a dozen useful pictures, though not quite as good as I'd liked. All in focus but not quite sharp enough, due to poor lighting not giving as fast a shutter speed as necessary to minimise motion blur totally. Pleased nevertheless.

This afternoon our icon painting friend Fran was in touch with Clare, sending photos of her finished icon of St David, which Clare commissioned for Cardiff Steiner School. It's a beautiful, original and unique in its use of iconographic form, symbolism and colour to portray Dewi Sant. She has created a work of art, that owes much to the ethos of both Byzantine and Western medieval sacred painting. It's a tradition which seems come from past religious history, and yet is very much alive today. Eventually, I'll post a photo here, so you can understand what I'm saying. 

The next step is to devise a suitable way of blessing and dedicating this icon, whose home will be in a secular pluralist school environment, reminding pupils, teachers and visitors alike that they live in Wales whose culture is inspired of a humble hospitable holy man, at home in nature, whose life was attentive to the presence of God in Christ, revealed in all things great and small alike  

Mass on Creation recalled

Lent starts in just ten days time. Months with so few landmark moments seem to slip by quickly. Once more today, I prayed Morning Prayer and then the Creation Sunday Eucharist on my own, still resolved to embrace the solitude that results from the absence of public worship in the parish, rather than sit in front of a screen for a virtual service. It's what I did with occasional lapses during last year's lock-down in Ibiza in an effort to explore what a fast from receiving Communion really means. 

It is, after all, what some faithful Christians have lived with in remote rural areas without priests over centuries. It's what a hermit may choose to live, in order to pray continuously without distraction. It's what has been forced on some faithful Christians by rigorist church discipline after a marriage failure, or due to a sexual identity crisis, or due to traumatic abuse in the church leading someone to feel revulsion towards it. The need to belong, the longing for communion with God together with others remains, but is inaccessible.

Recently I thought of Teilhard de Chardin being away on a paleontological expedition in the Gobi desert away on his own from  his Jesuit community fellow workers didn't share his religion. Providentially this week the monthly Ty Mawr newsletter written by Mother Catherine SSC contains a quotation from de Chardin's poetic prayer 'Mass on the World', included in his book 'Hymn of the Universe'. He writes this 

“O, Lord, since I have neither bread nor wine nor altar here on the Asian steppes, I lift up myself far above the symbols, to the pure majesty of the Real; and I, your priest, offer to you on the altar of the entire earth, the travail and suffering of the world. Yonder breaks the sun, to light the uttermost east, and then to send its sheets of fire over the living surface of the earth, which wakens, shudders and resumes its relentless struggle. My paten and my chalice are the depths of a soul laid widely open to all the forces which in a moment will rise up from every corner of the earth and converge upon the Spirit.”

Praise, thanksgiving, self-offering are or should be our everyday response to knowing that Jesus died and rose again for us, and is with us always, in loneliness as much as in togetherness. 'Love so amazing, so divine demands my soul my life my all', as my favourite hymn says. And we see that same amazing love in the entire created order of our existence too. The Spirit active in creation awakens us and points us to God in Christ. Whatever we miss or long for, sacraments, fellowship, ritual, celebration, we're in nature we're part of nature. Looking upwards, looking outwards, looking deep within can arouse joy wonder gratitude in us, the very essence of Eucharist. How then to learn afresh how to live it?

Walking after worship, and walking again after lunch was a very chilling experience, even though I was well dressed. The temperature was 2-3 degrees, but that persistent strong wind made it feel sub-zero, and such a relief to step back into the comforting warmth of home afterwards.

I completed watching the last three episodes of 'A Deadly Union'. It was quite complex to follow with a succession of sad sub plots and a couple of romances thrown in with all the darker stuff. The suspicious death of a bride on her wedding day turned out not to be a dark secrets. murder but the suicide of a blackmailed and sexually abused woman who concealed her suffering from her husband out of family loyalty and other. Cleverly stitched together, but I think there was a continuity error in the penultimate, but who cares now it's over?

I went to bed early as my wound decided to give me trouble. Some days it catches in the dressing and opens up unexpectedly, the physical shock more than the pain leaves me needing to lie down to recover. I watched the fourth episode of Finding Alice' in bed. It's a study in bereavement, bizarre and meant to be humorous. I'm starting to find it cringe-worthy. The portrayal of grief in 'A Deadly Union' felt authentic and much closer to reality. 

Sweet sleep

We had a long lie-in and our usual late Saturday pancake breakfast this morning. Clare was awake and up in the night feeling feverish, in reaction to the vaccine. I slept dreamlessly and deep in between waking up every two hours, with no obvious symptoms until lunchtime when I noticed soreness in and around my right jaw muscle, as I do when developing a sore throat and a cold. My weak spot I suppose. Living in relative social isolation means I've not had a cold for the past twelve months and for that I'm grateful.

Eleven million people vaccinated now and there's talk of everyone vulnerable and all under fifty will be vaccinated by May. Public debate about when restrictions will be eased and whether foreign holidays are going to be possible this summer is now heating up, even though it's too early to say anything with real confidence as long as virus mutations continue and a coherent strategy to prevent them spreading and an further immunisation plan to address new developments is worked out. In the face of rapid contagion due to ever more aggressive virus strains, caution is essential. Media cheerleaders and political pundits aren't too happy about this, and there's much futile speculation about the resumption of normal activities. Nature is giving us a master class in the need for patience. I think of this when I spot a heron watching the waters looking for prey.

Walking by the Taff for an hour before returning and cooking lunch, I saw a yellow wagtail perched on a branch on the river bank. Mostly we see pied wagtails and occasionally grey ones, swooping across the water, perching on stones and on the banks. It's good we have the variety, right in the heart of the city.

It was two o'clock before we sat down to eat, having started the day so late. Then my fit bit needed charging before going out again - it takes about half an hour - so I plugged it in at my bedside, and lay down to relax. It was two hours later when I woke up from a beautiful refreshing sleep. That means I've slept eleven hours since having the jab yesterday! Well, that's fine when there's nothing scheduled in my diary. It's like being on holiday.

In the evening, there was nothing I was interested in on live TV, so I watched the first three episodes of a French crime drama on More Four called 'A deadly union', which is essentially about a family stricken by tragedies made far worse through cover-up deceit and lies. Shot on the Cote d'Azur it makes great use of the Mediterranean coast east of Marseilles as its setting. 

V-day

After breakfast this morning we walked in good time over to Cardiff City Football Stadium for our covid vaccines. We had a shock when we arrived at the the check-in booth to be told that we couldn't proceed to the vaccination point because we weren't in a car. That was how we discovered that the vaccination centre is 'drive-in only'. 

When we were contacted and given an appointment I said that I was pleased it was near enough for us to walk there together for our vaccination. The practice receptionist said was we wouldn't be able to go in together, and I said that waiting ten minutes outside wouldn't be a problem. It didn't occur to me that this centre was exclusively for recipients on wheels. 

Truth to tell, I know nothing about drive-in facilities anywhere. The only one I can identify in Cardiff is an add-on to a fast food joint. The idea of a drive-in food outlet appals me, an offence against food, un-necessarily adding to pollution and carbon footprint.. Yes, I am deeply prejudiced against the concept, and had difficulty conceiving of a stand alone drive-in outlet without a separate pedestrian facility.

They checked and confirmed that we were listed, and reassured us that the schedule had plenty of slack in it, as people were arriving early and being dealt with speedily. I called a taxi, which arrived in ten minutes and drove us through the facility and then took us home. On schedule!

I've had no reaction, Clare isn't sure if she had a reaction from the vaccine or whether it was just the shock of the unexpected. We wait not until 23rd April for jab number two. Next time we're go by car for sure.

It's may be just an odd coincidence, but when I spoke to Ashley later in the day, he interrogated me in detail after I told him the story. He too had initially been offered a vaccination booking at the stadium by someone who didn't mention to him that it was drive-in only. He declined as the date didn't suit him, and will got to his GP surgery for his next week. I knew it was drive-in, but the decisive word here everyone needs to know is 'only'. I would have been happy to drive there if I'd known, although I walk everywhere or use public transport to get around town as a matter of principle.

Vaccination centres are portrayed in the news all the time. It's presumed that what's self evident to some is obvious to everyone. The dominant news image of such a centre in my mind is of a big sports centre with scores of walk-in vaccination points. If there has been footage of people being vaccinated in their cars I haven't seen it. In may be written down somewhere in the various sheets of A4 bilingual information churned out by the health authority, too much to read without losing attention, too many words for a small but precise piece of information. What about people with poor literacy skills, whose first language is neither English nor Welsh, as poor at processing information as I am, but for different reasons?

Anyway, disaster was avoided. We're somewhat less vulnerable to covid now, but are still obliged to keep the safety rules as strictly as ever, as there is a one in twenty chance of the vaccine not being effective and a one in three chance of being contagious if infected accidentally, especially over the next three weeks in which immunity gradually develops. For now the vaccine takes the edge of the inevitable anxiety which is the shared experience of so many at this time.

I cooked lunch and walked around the park down to Blackweir bridge. The vandalised barrier has been repaired, but how long will it stay like that? After supper we started to watch a classic comedy movie 'No Sex Please We're British' It's a fast moving 1960s farce translated from stage to film, but the humour in it is so dated it became broing to watch, so we gave up. Clare decided to read, I watched 'New Amsterdam' and 'Rebecka Martinson, one after the other, and that was it for a thought provoking day.

Remedy for despair

It rained for most of the morning, enough to discourage me from taking a walk in the wet, without any purpose. Time seems to slip by anyway, just catching up on the overnight news. Not there's much that changes between last night's ten o'clock news programme and lunchtime today. What passes for news is padded out with politicians, industrialists, authorities, entertainers or experts giving interviews, though often the tone of an interview is more that of a hostile interrogation. Only occasionally does anything newsworthy emerge that continues to feature in the affairs of the day. Those of the receiving end are, for the most part trained in avoidance of straight answers, and interviewers often appear poorly briefed and sound more like village gossips than serious pursuers of truth. 

It seems to me 24/7 news has diminished the quality and standard of journalism. Perhaps I should spend less time following the news. Trouble is, my interest in emergent scientific developments during this crisis keeps me hooked. Thankfully BBC specialist science programmes are excellent. My favourite is Jim Al-Khalili's 'The Life Scientific', where he interviews leading experts in every scientific discipline. His warmth, interest and enthusiasm somehow encourage his interviewees to explain their research with clarity, simplicity and honesty. I feel sorry for scientists who are part of government quangos who have to be grilled by the news vultures day after day. Another Radio Four favourite of mine is Tim Harford's 'More or Less' which fact checks statistical information from government, industry, academia, and often exposes how out of date if not plain incorrect some statistics used in public life can be.

This afternoon I did the preparation for next week's graveside funeral, and was called about another funeral the week after next. With the current rise on covid related deaths funeral directors are busier than ever. Three of the four funerals I've been asked to do this year so far have been elderly pandemic victims with no local church connections, but asking for a Minister nevertheless. Covid hasn't struck close to us yet. One neighbour in the street had covid back in December didn't need hospitalising, is the nearest it's come to us. 

Then yesterday, a brief email from Richard, our GP in our Halesowen days and still a friend thirty years later to say that he's had it and suffers from 'long covid'. Glad to know he's alive and has survived thus far. I feel I have a duty to help out with funeral to relieve the pressure on regular clergy who are already hard pressed enough. A duty to accompany people suffering in grief and shock, when they ask for someone to stand with them and be the voice of their sorrow and struggle to believe in anything when overwhelmed by bereavement, and robbed of the usual consolations of close community and family support. During this long time of waiting, with a well worked out safe living routine, being on stand-by for occasional ministry helps to give my life a sliver of meaning, which stops me from feeling quite so despairing at being old, passive and powerless in the face of this immense crisis.

There was one good programme to watch on telly tonight, on Channel 5. Adrian Dunbar, the celebrated actor from Enniskillen is hosting a series of programmes about the coast of the entire island of Ireland, visiting offshore islands with ancient Christian settlements, chatting with friends old and new about the things they value most about its landscape, history, spirituality and food. A feast of conversation and culture, well worth watching.

Welcome appointments

Another dull routine day of mild damp weather, with spells of rain while walking walks before lunch. The cloud layer was thin enough for the sun to shine through bright enough to make the hedgerows glisten with raindrops. Enchanting. 

Just before I went out, I had a phone call from our GP practice mid morning giving us both vaccination appointments for this Friday morning at the Cardiff City Football Stadium. I'm so pleased it happened this way hearing the familiar voice of one of the receptionists, rather than the voice of someone at a call centre somewhere else. Ours is a big practice working out of cramped outdated premises, but they're so good at organising routine checks and winter 'flu jabs and giving telephone consultations when there's no need or too long to wait for a visit to the surgery. .

Talking of telephone appointments, I had a letter booking me for a chat with surgeon Mrs Cornish in the post this morning in mid March. That's a result of me writing to her ten days ago after a few painful days when the suture's free end stuck into me several times, and I didn't know what to do.. It's not happened again recently, as I discovered that I could avoid this happening by changing the way I dress the wound. I wonder if she's reviewed the MRI scan yet? I don't imagine I'll get the suture removal op for several months more in the present state of crisis, but I'm less worried now. I know I can live with it, confident that slowly, small improvements in the wound condition are happening.

I watched a few episodes of the second series of 'The Mallorca Files' in the evening. It's as disappointing as the first series was. An interesting idea expat detectives in a beautiful stylish exotic location, spoiled by poor acting and garbled dialogue. Many Mallorcans will be English speakers, but to have them all speaking English with Spanish accents, and never a subtitle in sight is like rolling the clock back to post war B movies. Some of the plots don't quite hang together, unless it's a case of shoddy editing leaving plot connections half inferred rather than joined up. The island's scenic beauty offers a great dramatic platform, but it could be so much better. It's meant to be entertaining, but ends up being irritating, but that is not unusual. 

I've noticed how many archaeology, history and science programmes take basically interesting reportage and flog it to death by telling the story in a way that involves far too many repeats. What aims to be 'dramatic reveal' ends up making interesting facts boring. It's not so much dumbing down as dulling down. It's reflected in many newspaper articles I read, even in 'posh' papers, so badly edited that almost all of the informative opening few paragraphs of a report are repeated later in the same article, Articles and telly programmes could all be shorter if time was spent editing them properly to deliver a coherent not a tedious message. 

Vaccine and virus news - reassurance and uncertainty

Another mild damp day with splashes of sunshine through the cloud. I walked for two hours before lunch, up to Western Avenue over the Taff, down through Bute Park, over the Millennium Bridge and back in time to share in cooking lunch. On the Bute Park side of Blackweir Bridge, I noticed that since yesterday there's been a incident of breaking and entering. Both ends of the bridge are boarded with ugly scaffolding and long planks. It's been out of use for a whole year now. Being narrow, it's a H&S risk. A low door built into both ends allows access for inspection. The Bute Park side is padlocked but the padlock mounting has been prised off with lock attached to open the door and the panel at the far end, kicked in. 

I photographed the scene and tweeted it to Cardiff Council straightaway, and had an acknowledgement within a hour. I do hope it's fixed quickly before other mischief can be indulged in. My walk around Bute Park from home was just under 10km, but when the bridge is open it's 6km. Cyclists and pedestrians coming from Gabalfa to Pontcanna, on the most direct route, many of them students, or hospital workers have to make a detour of up to three kilometres due to the bridge closure. It's surprising this hasn't been broken into before. Or if it has, it was fixed before making the local news.

Two Wales and West Utilities engineers' workshop vans were parked in the street when I left for my walk. They're preparing to replace the street's entire gas main system, right up to the gas meter in each property. Last week the project manager visited each house to brief us on how the job will be done. It'll mean that cars parked in the street will have to be parked elsewhere in phases, while the pavement under which the trunk main runs is dug up. 

A large coil of yellow heavy duty plastic tubing has appeared in their work enclosure, to replace the old one underground. From what the manager said I think, in part at least new narrower piping will fed in stages through the old wider bore main piping but that remains to be seen. It takes me back to the time when new gas mains were installed during the city centre redevelopment, and this necessitated replacing sections of older mains pipes right down Westgate Street. It was well managed, but traffic congestion was inevitable for months on end.

The death of Captain Sir Tom Moore was announced today from covid19, though it seems he was being treated for pneumonia prior to entering hospital, and for that reason had been unable to be vaccinated. His example of positivity and persistence in turning his daily hundred paces garden walk into a modest fundraising effort for NHS charities caught the world's imagination and ended raising over thirty million pounds instead of his thousand pound target. For people of all ages he became an inspirational figure in a time of great trial since World War Two. 

I was surprised to learn that he was a Burma veteran, one of worst theatres of war in terms of lives lost and long term damage to health of combatants. To survive at all was an achievement, and to live to be a hundred even more remarkable. In his quiet good humoured stoical way he gave an example of what's needed to get through this crisis and not lose ourselves. In his last year of life he achieved so much and showed the light of  encouragement and hope to the world. Dying at Candlemass give special meaning to Simeon's Song, at the heart of this day's liturgy 'Lord now lettest thou they servant depart in peace ...'

There's been news of more developments on the vaccine front today, with statistics on the Oxford/AZ vaccine showing that it's just as effective after twelve weeks as hoped for and gambled upon in delaying application of the second dose in an effort to reach as many people as soon as possible. Some experts weren't happy about the risk without the proper evidence, but now it's there. 

The Russian Sputnik V (for victory, we were told) is now demonstrating 92% effectiveness, and shown to work with surprising effectiveness as a booster second jab. Being able to mix different vaccines without losing efficacy or putting the patient at risk is quite an advantage in the chain of demand and supply. There's also the first reports of evidence showing that two thirds of vaccinated people, if reinfected, don't transmit the virus they are immune to. This really can have an impact on infection rates as numbers vaccinated spread.

That's a lot of good news for one day, much needed, given that more cases of spontaneous virus mutations similar to South African and Brazilian strains have been detected (13 in Wales), in people not in contact with anyone from abroad. A variant of the Kent strain which has been largely responsible for the massive surge of deadly infection experienced in the past two months has just been identified, and the rush is on to do mass testing and map the spread in order to impose localised containment measures to curb contagion while the vaccination roll-out is going on. It seems vaccine immunity does give a high degree of protection against the new strains, albeit slightly reduced. 

There's talk about schools resuming after Easter if not before, depending on regular testing being in place, and staff vaccinated as much as anything else. We've now booked a four day family holiday break at the Oxwich Bay Hotel static van site, like last summer, it'll be possible to repeat. Foreign holidays are being booked in hope by many, but we've no idea how control of new variants or overall suppression of the virus will happen once the mass movement of people starts again. I'd be surprised if things return to any approximation of normality until next year, seeing how viciously innovative coronavirus is turning out to be. And there's no magic bullet solution.