After breakfast, I walked down to St John's to meet Mother Francis and be introduced to a lady whose father's funeral I'll be doing in ten days time. He was a teacher by profession who trained as a priest in mid life, working in school chaplaincy and later in a CofE Parish. It must be forty years since I last did the funeral of a priest who had once served in the St Paul's area parish where I was incumbent. It's rather a privilege to be asked to do this, though the reason is that the deceased was opposed to women as priests, which is why Mother Francis out of respect asked me. This is not a conviction I share, but I think I have some understanding of those who do. After all, some good friends and colleagues over the years were traditionalists. We shared the same spirituality and enthusiasm for mission and pastoral care, but agreed to differ on this issue, to live and let live.
As it's Clare's morning in school, I returned and cooked lunch, timed nicely just as she arrived through the door. The school has given her a covid self-test kit to use next week the day before she goes in again. If she tested positive she'd have to get a full test to ascertain whether or not it's a false positive, so we'd both have to go into self-isolation in between tests as a precaution. Better safe than sorry I suppose.
I walked to Victoria Park to take the St John's church keys back to the Rectory, then walked on, out of the parish up to Ely Bridge, where there's now an access road into the riverside area formerly occupied by paper mills, in the throes of transformation into a new housing estate. It's not open to pedestrians or traffic yet, but what interested me was to find out if there's an old footpath along the river Ely. I've driven by many times, but never walked there.
On the other side of the river is a turn of the 20th century row of terraced houses which may have been built for mill workers. I wandered along the terrace, facing the river bank, lined with flowering trees, and took a few photos. The terrace ends with the access road to a small industrial estate and a large RAF ex-servicemen's club. A curious location, I wonder why it was chosen?
Before starting the new batch of 2mg doxazosin, I decided to have a day's break, to see what difference it would make. My head has been clearer as a result. Recently, towards the end of my daily walk, the soles of my feet have started to hurt, but without any swelling. Tingling feet I expect when I exercise, a natural sign that blood is circulating properly. What I experienced was muscles in the soles of my feet burning painfully. The longer I stayed with the 4mg, the effect worsened. The day I stop, normal healthy tingling, but no burning pain. I now recall having had this side effect when I took high doxazosin doses before, but I mistakenly attributed this to the shoes I resumed wearing when the season for sandals was over.
I had an interesting chat with sister in law Ann about blood pressure this afternoon. As a medical ethicist it's a subject under debate she takes an interest in. In an effort to reduce incidences of strokes and heart attacks, medics have reduced the healthy norm of 140/80 down to 130/70. This may well be beneficial for the general adult population, but not necessarily so for elderly people, whose vascular systems age, and average blood pressure rises. If in older people it's artificially suppressed with medication this could have an undesirable impact on heart or kidneys, or result in fainting or dizziness. So maybe it's time to challenge the dogma that youthful low blood pressure is really such a good thing in old age.
We watched the second part of 'The Story of Welsh Art' on BBC Two Wales catch-up tonight. I hadn't realised how innovative Welsh artists were in the 17th-19th century, in landscape painting, the portrayal of working class as well as middle class people, and documenting the industrial revolution in paintings of the workplace. Seeing and representing realistically people and the land they belong to seems to have been characteristic of Welsh painters.
There's an honesty of perception which art historians attribute to post reformation spirituality, a willingness to see things as they naturally are, not embroidered by myth or romantic sentiment. These artist were on a par with, if not ahead of their European counterparts, but hardly found lasting fame. The role of Welsh innovators is hardly acknowledged let alone celebrated in British art history. I hope this series of programmes may stimulate greater interest in this special dimension of our cultural heritage. Who knows, we may see some art exhibitions drawing attention to unsung Welsh masterpieces.
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