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.