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.