Summoned for screening

Another grey drizzle day. I celebrated and preached at St Catherine's this morning with two dozen others. I think some of our congregation will be going instead to the Confirmation service this afternoon, if not the Ministry Area inaugural service at 'the Res' in Ely. It's been quite a while since I celebrated and preached at this service, and I have to admit that I was nervous. 

There's a difference between ministering to a group of eight, and three to five times that number, distributed throughout the church. How to ensure you don't miss out giving Communion to anyone is the key issue. It helps to maintain a habit of walking a set course around the church each time, so you relax into the routine, but remembering what you did several months ago isn't quite so easy, and that made me nervous. I've celebrated often enough on a weekday now to relax and take the right hygiene precautions automatically now, so most of the performance of the liturgy isn't problematic, it's 'feeding the multitudes' when there are multitudes that I find difficult.

Our special treat for Pentecost Sunday lunch was a large skate wing each, with a white wine mushroom and onion sauce and roasted veggies. The white wine was a Frascati from the Colli Romani spotted on tbe shelf in Tesco's the other day. This was one of the first local wines I ever became acquainted with, back in the late seventies, when for two summers we joined a local Roman Catholic holiday group for a week at Palazzola, the English College summer quarters in a former convent above Lago di Albano. Frascati is the nearby regional capital, and the name of the wine. 

Palazzola has a wine cellar many centuries old with huge barrels of the local brew installed for serving in jugs at meal tables. In those days sulphur fuses were burned in the side opening of the barrel to sterilize the air that was let in during de-canting wine for the day. The wine itself was thin, lemonish with a hint of sulphur in taste, though not, not from sterilizing fumes, it was said, but a legacy of the volcanic soil in which the vines grew. The quality of the wine forty years on is much improved - fuller bodied with a richer citrus taste. It gives Pinot Grigio a run for its money any day, and is great for making a sauce with!

I slept for two hours after lunch and then went out for a walk down to the river. While I was standing on Blackweir Bridge I felt my phone buzz beneath the layers of waterproof and jacket. I wasn't quick enough to catch the call, from the ubiquitous 'Private Number' - it could have been Ashley, but rarely if ever on a Sunday afternoon, so I concluded it was from the hospital about my covid test. When I got home, Clare had fielded another call for me on the landline. 

I am summoned for the pre-op PCR test at a Public Health Screening drive through centre at Whitchurch Hospital Tuesday mid-morning. I'd expected an appointment on Monday given the three days quarantine requirement, but when I thought about it, the quarantine time is essentially a waiting time until the PCR test has been processed. The test wouldn't proceed if I had any covid symptoms, and self isolation is the front line defence against accidental infection meanwhile.

I wanted to know  exactly where the test site entrance is located. I googled Whitchurch Hospital and found that the hospital is marked 'Permanently Closed', and the test centre isn't tagged on the map. Disconcerting to say the least. Google same up with a year old news item relating to the opening of a screening centre on the old hospital site, which was reassuring. It's supposed to well signposted, but only when you get there, if you've gone to the right road to start with. The directions Clare received could have been a more helpful as the call handler presumed your acquaintance with the place. Something specific like a post code for the current site entrance or a street name would have been helpful. It's funny the way people tend to assume you know a place, without checking how familiar you actually are with the area.

This evening my sister June alerted us to a music documentary programme on BBC Four about guitarist John Williams. It was showing while we were eating supper, so we watched it on iPlayer following this week's episode of 'Call the Midwife'. It followed him from his emergence as a teenage classical virtuoso, just about the time I started grammar school, right through to a recent interview for the documentary. He turned eighty last month. 

In old film and video footage it portrayed his career as the consummate classical recitalist, recalling his phase of duetting with Julian Bream, his exploration of Jazz with John Dankworth and Cleo Lane and his fusion super-group Sky in the seventies, whose first LP album we bought in those days. Perhaps the best footage in the programme was a hilarious duet in which he played straight man with comedian Eric Sykes. They don't make them like that any more. 

Williams was an inspiration to me when I was a youngster trying to teach myself classical guitar. I regret not having the determination and persistence, even more than the opportunity to learn properly the music I loved. There were so many other demands and challenges to be faced when I was young. Guitar playing was always part of my life and used during my ministry in many different settings. I play rarely now that my hands and wrists are stiff and rheumaticky, but just holding my guitar brings back so many memories.