Job done

After breakfast and prayer time this morning, I went down to St John's to meet with Fran and Mark to shoot the basic video clips for their icon presentation. We weren't there long when we learned that tree surgeons, delayed from last week, were soon arriving to start work on trimming the trees surrounding the island of green grass on which the church stands in St John's Crescent. Oops! Unforeseen diary clash. 

Churchwarden David arranged for us to collect St Luke's keys from the Rectory, so we left St John's to drive there, dropping off the St John's keys with Eileen the caretaker on our way there. As I got out of the car, I could hear the bell of St Catherine's being tolled by Clive to signify the end of the one minute silence for covid victims, on this lock-down anniversary. Our project had so absorbed us that we didn't notice time passing until then. So, a quick arrow prayer, and then on to St Luke's to continue the job.

Mark was delighted with the resonant acoustics of St Luke's, and we quickly settled on a good setting in the nave to shoot the video, and managed to do it in one complete editable take. The hour in St John's wasn't wasted, as it gave us a chance to run through the structure and ideas about set-up which gave us a head start in a different space. We finished in an hour and I was back for a late lunch of mussels (again!) by one fifteen.

Mark and Fran are good company and I think we worked well together, but I felt strange about being out of the house, doing something different, enjoying socially distanced, masked conversations about the creative process we'd embarked upon, and spending time with people who weren't family members for the first time in six months. I've gotten used to being a hermit of sorts, and for this needed to come right out of myself, and then focus intently on getting the camera to do my bidding. I took three cameras plus spare batteries and SD cards with me, but only used the HX90. I took my Linux laptop along, so I could transfer the video files from the camera to a blank SD card for Fran to take home and give to her son who will be editing the footage under mum's directorial eye, no doubt.

After lunch, I feel asleep for an hour on the sofa, and then went for a walk along the Taff. The river is now very low, as we've had little rain for the past week, and muddy footpaths are no longer treacherously slippery. I met colleagues Peter and Jan walking their dogs in Pontcanna Fields, and learned that ex-Area Dean Mike John is leaving Pentyrch for a part time job as Priest in Charge of Llancarfan. The other part of his job will be managing the diocesan 1Family project, looking after the resettlement of a refugee family from Syria, and all that entails. He did this before as Area Dean, and found that he loved it. How imaginative of the Bishop to innovate in this way. Bravo, both of them!

This evening there was a Zoom Q&A interview with Archbishop Rowan, arranged for the Christian Evidence Society, an august, venerable body public engaged in Christian apologetic discourse for over a century and a half. His theme was Christian spirituality and understanding of God. I didn't see all of it, but what I saw was very good. I had to work on providing documents for Owain for a conveyancing solicitor to authenticate the gift we're making to enable him to make a deposit on an apartment so he can get a mortgage. It's all terribly inquisitive these days on account of money laundering regulations. You have to prove who you are and that you have the right to give your own money away. It's a measure of the climate of distrust which prevails in today's world.