Dead trees in view

A long night's sleep awakening to a warm day of sun and clouds. After our Saturday pancake breakfast, I wrote a reflection for Thursday's morning prayer and finished tomorrow's sermon. Clare made fish pie for lunch with which we ate some succulent french beans harvested from our garden plants. A few weeks ago, Clare brought home from church a cutting from a large lily root, and planted it in a corner of the garden. It a short time it has grown prodigiously and produced several large flowers, an amazing sight in between the damson tree and the blackcurrant bush. 

After lunch, I walked into town to buy some guitar strings, as both my Spanish guitars have broken a couple of their lower ones. The music shop assistant commented that the most frequently replaced string on an electric guitar is the top E, whereas on a classical guitar it's the D string. When I thought about it, that has been my experience too, over the sixty five years since I started to learn how to play guitar.

Clare had a siesta and then walked into town to do some shopping, so we met at John Lewis' and had a drink together. Then she continued her mission and I walked home through Bute Park. One group of trees on the edge of the rive has been damaged by recent strong gusts of wind, losing the top third of the trunk in two cases, causing more damage as they fell. The entire crown of one of them is in the river. Will it be removed, or just left  until flood waters return (as they inevitably will later in the year) to carry it away and cause problems downstream? Within a hundred metres of this site another large old tree was felled during a storm last year. I wondered if this was a zone whose shape encouraged wind to funnel and gain strength. Last year's drought certainly affected many trees which seemed to snap mid trunk, more often than at the roots. 

It's strange, there's one dead tree which looms at a precarious angle over the foot path by the cricket stadium. It's been like that for several years, and I don't understand why it's not yet been blown down or snapped in two. I've photographed broken trees in our parks for the past three years. Some get cut up and cleared away within days, others are tidied up and their trunks and maybe bigger branches left lying to decompose and provide insects with shelter. Most remarkable are the remains of big ash and beech trees killed by pests. They stand in place and dry out over time, sometimes losing their bark going silvery grey in their permanently wintry appearance.

After supper this evening, I continued working rather than watching telly, to try and get ahead of myself, then went to bed earlier than usual, though it's roughly the same time as usual when the lights go out. 

Proms resurrected

Rain overnight, but it cleared up this morning in time for Liz's removal van to arrive early and get to work. It was only a small van, as she is moving to a much smaller place, and has arranged to leave the furniture she doesn't need for a charity house clearance specialist to collect - a good idea I think. She took her leave of Meadow Street just before midday. The house next door seems strangely empty now.

I spent the entire morning on several different piece of work - Carole's funeral, my sister's interment of ashes prayers, Sunday's sermon and a Mothers' Union centenary service in memory of the death of Mary Sumner its founder. I've been asked to do this a week Monday. After lunch I recorded some of the texts for next Thursday's Morning Prayer using my new Olympus voice recorder. I was pleased with the sound quality and ease of use. It plugs into any USB port and is instantly recognised, so file transfer is easy.

After supper I watched another episode of 'Nordic Murders' set in Usedom on the German Polish border, but this week including the maritime connection with neighbouring Denmark as well. It was interesting as it highlighted a legacy from the end of the Second World War, when huge amounts of live munitions were dumped in offshore waters. It seems that phosphorus from deteriorating hand grenades escapes and gets washed ashore, stopped from spontaneous combustion on exposure to air by a film produced by its reaction with seawater. It looks just like pieces of amber, and stays inert until broken open, the sort of thing an unwitting beachcomber might collect and injure themselves. That was the pretext for one part of the plot. The other part involved the illegal salvaging of high explosive shells, whose contents could be extracted and used by criminals. Is this possible seventy five years after? Well possibly, if the shells lay undisturbed in cold deep water, to be collected by expert divers. An unusual backdrop for another family based crime mystery.

To finish the day, the first night of the Proms from the Albert Hall with a very happy full house audience featuring pieces by Poulenc and Vaughan Williams, plus a moving performance of a new composition 'When soft voices die' from James MacMillan and finally Sibelius' Ninth Symphony. Such a wonderful moment following on from last year's powerful defiant utterly memorable lock-down Proms in an empty Albert Hall. From Harrowing Hell to Resurrection. Hallelujah!

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User friendliness a forgotten dream

Despite a good eight and a half hour's sleep, I woke up feeling tired and felt tired for much of the day. I've no idea why. With more work to do on Carole's funeral and people to contact, it was hard going. I went to the Eucharist at St John's, which Emma celebrated. She brought her two infants with her. One slept and the other played with his toy car around the altar, not too noisily. I don't think anyone minded, but it was a challenge for Emma. She didn't think to ask me to cover, as she thought I was still away. The congregation was pleased to see her again and catch up with her, now she's seconded to Fairwater until an appointment is made. This may be further delayed now that Francis is on bereavement leave. As Ministry Area Leader Frances needs to be involved in the new appointment. 

This is an unexpected testing time for the resilience of the Ministry Area set-up before it comes into force legally next January. I think there is a significant measure of resilience in the seven constituent congregations due to their long histories at the heart of their local communities. Will this cope with identity loss, grouping together in a larger entity without precedent or preexisting social cohesion? I'm unconvinced it will do anything to forestall further decline. 

Our neighbour Liz moves house tomorrow after living forty years in the house next door, ten years before we arrived. She's moving to a retirement apartment to be closer to family in the Cotswolds, so she came for a farewell lunch today. I wonder who'll be the next occupants, and how much makeover work will be undertaken before they move in, and how long we'll have builders' noise and skips taking up parking space in the street. Houses change hands at the rate of around three a year nowadays in a street of twenty eight houses. House prices have soared and the interest in our area by first and second time buyers has increased so the rate of 'churn' in home ownership is likely to increase further.

I went into town after lunch and bought the pocket digital dictating device I ordered last week, and picked up the pair of shoe insoles ordered from the Ecco shoe shop. I hope they work better than all the other kinds I have tried. They're certainly better quality and much more expensive.

My sister June has had several days of connectivity grief with her landline and broadband playing up leaving her frustratingly isolated. Engineers from BT and Open Reach have been two days running. I hope the problem is sorted now. There's been such a lot of rain in the area where she lives it has led to a flood of line fault reports, whether due to infrastructure inundation or connections into properties compromised by the weather. It's very distressing for her as she doesn't understand the error messages which her computer and phone throw up, and doesn't know what she can do about it when things that are fairly reliable cease to be reliable. 

It just doesn't feel right that so many people are now heavily dependent on technologies the hardly understand or adequately control, because government and business presume a level of technical literacy many older people will never acquire. I have thirty five years of experience behind me, and have got to the stage where I am less than interested in the learning detail of how new tech works. I just want things that just work in delivering what they promise  to provide in the simplest and easiest way they can be designed to function. Is that asking too much? The new digital voice recorder I bought today took me half an hour to figure out how to work. The instructions were printed so small they were difficult to read and make sense of, and working things out by trial and error, just by handing the device, was impossible without the near illegible instructions - well, near illegible for anyone with poor close vision eyesight.

T.here was a huge head of celery in this week's veggy bag, and Clare used much of it to make celery soup for supper. Just celery in the pressure cooker with a little veggy stock powder, no need for thickener when it surrendered to the blender. It's quite a strong flavour, but with a small amount of Miso added, it's quite an interesting flavour. We slumped in front of the telly and watched a slow moving episode of 'Vera' which I hadn't seen before.

Time for Windows running out

It rained overnight, and again while we were packing up to leave Oxwich this morning. We had to check out of our accommodation by ten, so we arranged to have our final cooked breakfast together afterwards and then parted company for the journeys home. Amazing that while other places had rain and even floods we had four warm days without rain. We reached Cardiff just after half past one, and my first job was to pick up the week's veggy bag. As we had breakfast late, we just had a snack and I cooked supper instead, after taking an hours walk around the park.

There was work to catch up on, relating to Carole's funeral in two week's time, drafting an order of service and working on a eulogy for which I'd already received substantial notes. When I switched on my desktop PC it immediately went into update mode, only this time it took more than half an hour to complete which was most annoying. As ever, Chromebook came speedily to the rescue. I didn't bother with my Windows laptop, just in case it wanted to delay me with an update - although it does everything five times faster - I just didn't want any more delay. Updating to Windows 11 may not be possible with my desktop PC as its hardware may not be adequate for the upgrade. If this turns out to be the case, I shall convert it to Linux Mint, as I know it will run much faster. I might not wait that long, if it annoys me any more. Fancy a key software upgrade designed in a way that make older hardware redundant. It sounds like a scam to me.

After a couple of hours of work it was time to turn in, the events of the day left me feeling very tired. It's funny to return from a refreshing holiday break and still feel tired. I think it may be something to do with  being confined to the same area and the same routines day after day for so many months. The stimulus of being in a different less familiar place and socialising with family somehow take their toll. A consequence of growing old? 

Rhosili

I'm told there was heavy rain in the night, if so I was barely aware of it as I slept long and deep. So did everyone else. Kath and Anto's telly woke up in the small hours, causing confusion however. At our ten o'clock cooked breakfast in the hotel we were told that there's been a power cut in the night (the phantom telly switch on was related to this), also the hotel gas supply cut out early on causing breakfasts to run an hour late. Fortunately they'd caught up by the time we surfaced and needed feeding. We've all slowed down considerably this past few days. Sadly this is our last before heading back to everyday pressures of work and ministry. I think we could all do with longer away.

At the end of the morning we drove to Rhosili. Despite threats of rain, it remained warm and dry with a blue sky dramatically decorated with pale and dark grey clouds. We walked down on to Rhosili Bay's mile long beach, appearing vaster than ever with the tide out as far as it could go. The path from village to beach is a steep 200m descent with steps and slopes, which I found pretty taxing on my quad muscles. The others wanted to walk the half a mile to where the tide had retreated and paddle, but I was interested in taking pictures of what remains of the 'Helvetia', a Norwegian timber carrier which foundered on the shore during a gale on All Saints Day 1887. The story is here

We then had a picnic in the shelter of the cliffs. Anto went off for a walk along the shore, Clare Kath and Owain stayed on the beach, while I climbed back up to Rhosili, and walked the mile and back to Worms Head point to take a few photos. That's the first time I've managed both of these walks in a day.  Yet again, I've been surprised that the venue has been less crowded than I thought it would be, with so many more people holidaying in Britain this year than for decades.

We met up again for the drive back to Oxwich and a final swim for those keen to take to the waters (not me), as the tide came in. We enjoyed a traditional last night fish and chip supper together, thanks to the  chippie that's part of the general store in the village. As supplies arrived, we had our first downpour of the day. We've been been most fortunate to have four days of good weather while a large unstable weather system has passed across Britain from the south west, flooding some places, even in lower Wandsworth in London. A lovely respite. If only it could have been longer! 

Riding the lanes

It's warm today, but overcast for much of the time. Kath returned from the beach last night later than us with romantic photos of the waning moon emerging from the sea beyond the Bay. At that late hour  didn't have the energy to go out again, so maybe tonight, depending on the weather. 

We gathered for breakfast at the hotel this morning at nine thirty, and lingered long, enjoying a lazy time, pottering about until lunchtime. I went down the beach to take some low tide photos of the Bay with my Sony DSLR and wide angle lens. Finally a walk to Port Eynon was decided upon with a picnic on the beach about a kilometre away from the village. The slope above the coast path is home to lots of small butterflies, and the most wonderful bright purple gorse flowers. 

Port Einon beach with the tide out is a spectacular expanse of sand, with long shoals of grey pebbles and bedrock with green and brown seaweed exposed when the tide is at its lowest, altogether colourful. In today's sunshine, it was well populated with family groups.

Clare and I were too tired to enjoy the return walk, so we waited an hour and caught the local bus, which turned out to be an exciting ride through narrow lanes, expertly driven by a guy who had his passengers in stitches of laughter with his comments as we sped along. We arrived just after Kath Ano and Owain, who found a slightly shorter route back.

I cooked a big veggie pasta dish for supper while the others went swimming, as the tide came in again. Afterwards we went down to the beach and made another fire with driftwood, as did several other small groups along the foreshore. Oxwich Bay is one of the few places around the country where beach fires are tolerated. I'm not sure why, but it could be something to do with ownership and management of land right down to the shore. On the whole, people are respectful and tidy up after them, and after dark there are far few visitors around as the (paying) car park closes for the night, and there's no public transport at that late hour, so it's only people who can stay overnight are likely to go the the beach in the dark.

Scores of messages of sympathy have been posted on the Parish WhatsApp group over the post twenty four hours, and Fr Rhys has reorganised the rota to cover Frances' absences, I can't be of much extra help as I'm covering St German's for most of August. Just as the parish was getting back to normal, again we are in a time of upheaval. We are fortunate enough in the new Ministry Area to have five retired clerics supporting the existing four full timers (with one vacancy) and one NSM, but the availability of retired clerics varies a great deal, so there are always unforeseen crises to be managed in an area with seven congregations and a constituency of 80-90,000 to serve. It'll be quite an achievement if we can get through the next couple of months with a minimum of cancellations.

Death sometimes comes unannounced

With the service at St Illtud's Oxwich at ten this morning, I arranged to take the cooked breakfast offered by Oxwich Bay Hotel as part of the holiday booking at nine rather than nine thirty, to ensure I had time to be punctual. It was nne twenty by the time I was served, and twenty to ten by the time I left to walk to church, just as the rest of the family arrived for breakfast.

There were sixteen of us, plus Sue the newly ordained voluntary priest serving the West Gower group of churches. We started outside, singing 'Morning has broken', as we can't yet sing inside a small church - St Illtud's seats about seventy, in effect twenty under current social distancing regime. After Communion we went outside for to sing a final hymn (a version of Psalm 23), and be dismissed with a blessing. Then coffee was served outdoors for the first time. It was lovely to be welcomed back again, to join this small group of villagers who love their church and enjoy sharing life together in this open hearted community of faith.

When I came out of church I received a text message from my friend Martin to tell me about the sudden and unexpected death at 55 of Archdeacon Sue Pinnington in Monmouth. She and Frances our Rector, are in a Civil Partnership, and Martin knew this would be bound to have an impact on our parish life, as indeed it did. Frances announced Sue death on the Parish Whatsapp group at midday and since then a steady stream of parishioners have posted messages of sympathy, and Fr Rhys has organised changes to the ministry rota to cover her absence on bereavement leave. Although I'm on holiday, it meant that I've had to keep an eye on the exchange of messages all day, and contribute to it, as I am able to. Although Sue's job has been in our neighbouring diocese, she has occasionally contributed to the life of our Parish, notably by being the guest Holy Week preacher this year. It's been truly amazing to witness parishioners rallying around their priest in grief and shock today, I daresay it will be quite a while before things get back to normal.

When I rejoined the family, a picnic lunch was being prepared for a walk along the shore in the direction of Three Cliffs Bay. We stopped about two thirds of the way there to eat our sandwiches. Neither Clare Owain or I were sure we could make it all the way and back, and left Kath and Anto to continue to the destination and send us photos.

It was a gloriously hot day, and as evening approached, we gathered again down on the beach to build a fire and make a barbecue supper. Owain Kath and Anto did well to cook veggie and meat variations on three instant barbecue tinfoil trays purchased from different supermarkets. Clare and I were happy to let them get on with it and enjoy the fruit of the labours. My contribution was to forage for driftwood and feed the real proper fire we made. There was a beautiful sunset, then Clare and I headed back to base and left the others sitting around the fire and enjoying the night air. For is two, it was time for bed.

Oxwich family reunion

After our usual Saturday pancake breakfast, we packed the car and by eleven headed to the Gower. The roads were far less busy than the morning news led us to believe, and just after one we arrived in Oxwich Bay, and ate our picnic lunch sitting on the beach. Threatened thunderstorms and downpours failed to materialise, although it remained overcast, and cooler than yesterday. We checked in at two and installed ourselves in the static caravan we hired for our four dsy family reunion. Owain arrived with Kath and Anto at three, and after they unpacked, we went to the beach so that Owain Ksth and Clare could swim as the tide was on its way in.

We had a very pleasant supper at the Oxwich Bay hotel, and then walked on the beach again until dusk. Earlier there had been a wedding reception in a giant msrquee in the hotel grounds. We saw the bride and groom being romantically photographed at the water's edge. Half a dozen fires were burning along the foreshore, in the vicinity of a line of parked camper vans. The smell of smoke lingered in the still air, but not of cooking, oddly enough.

It was dark by the time we returned and we sat outside with drinks and chatted in the dark before turning in, happy and calmed by a quiet uncrowded afternoon and evening in our favourite unspoiled British holiday venue. Where are all the staycationers today I wonder?

The Olympics in Quarantine

Another hot sunny day, albeit a little cooler and cloudier than the rest of this week. There are warnings of thunderstorms and downpours ahead of us this weekend, but it's unclear which localities in South Wales will be affected, as the low and high pressure air masses meet up. It remains to be seen what the Gower's localised weather pattern will be. One thing is certain, all five of us are looking forward to meeting up, no matter what the weather does. 

I didn't do much other than read news articles on-line, apart from a trip to the shops before lunch. Clare and I watched the first part of the Olympics opening ceremony together. I got bored once the athletes' procession started and went for a walk into town. Even so, the opening performance was beautiful to watch and listen to, wonderful choreography, use of colour and rhythms. There was it seems, even more astounding visual elements at the end when the Olympic (hydrogen powered) flame was lit, atop a symbolic Mount Fuji with a rising sun. The run up to the games has been full of contention due to covid surge fears.  And there are a small number of athletes who have developed covid during or since arrival. The country is under lockdown and the Olympic constituency severely restricted in their ability to move around. They won't be seeing much of Japan this time around, that's for sure.

I set my mind on getting myself a small digital dictating machine, remembering that Olympus still do them. I was pleased to find that Rymans in Queen's Arcade sell them, but the item I wanted was out of stock, so with a bit of luck I'll be able to pick one up next Thursday when we get back from the Gower.  

I'm fed up of the vagaries of using my phone's voice recorder. It's too easy to stop it by touching the screen accidentally, or an incoming call or message cutting into the recording. Also the digital file shows that there's a tiny pulse on the track which doesn't belong. It's almost inaudible, but certainly visible when working on a file in Audacity. It would be nice to have a good clean audio file to work with, and hopefully I can get that with a new piece of kit. 

I also went to the Ecco shoe shop and found that they sell strong supportive leather insoles, better than any others I have seen in shoe shops, so I have ordered a pair, to collect next week.

A call came in this afternoon from a member of Carol's family, asking if I'd give the eulogy at her funeral. It'll be my task to gather together various contributions and deliver them. Depending on numbers, Clare and I may also sing with the St Catherine's choir. Mother Frances will lead the service. Carol and I first met when I was at St John's officiating at the funeral of a family friend, a perhaps for that reason my name was known to them, from times before I settled in as a member of St Catherine's.

This evening a spent several hours updating photo file folders and backups. It's three months since I last made the effort, a thousand photos ago. I watched this week's episode of Nordic Murders as I worked. It was a complex dysfunctional family whodunnit, with a couple of on-going interesting sub plots. As the setting is Usedom on the old East German-Polish border, this series reflects cross border tensions which EU membership and the Schengen Agreement haven't resolved. It's eighty three years since the Nazi German forces overwhelmed Poland, trashed it and wrought great suffering on their neighbours. The shadows of memory are never far away, and open borders still call for a proper respect towards human boundaries of other kinds. It must be an effort to live together without resentment, especially as Poland is in many respects still poorer than Germany.

Grace to see things differently

Morning Prayer video link uploaded on time, then breakfast and a walk down to St John's to celebrate the Eucharist in honour of Saint Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles at St John's with nine others. This gave me an opportunity to reflect on the idea of penitence as continual striving to see the world as God sees it, not as we'd like it to be or think it is. For so many centuries the church, despite Jesus' radically different attitude of woman has gone in a different direction, unable to break habitual ways of seeing them as either inferior or threatening in some way, condoning violence against them and exploitation. It doesn't fit with the vision of God's kingdom Jesus called us to embrace. We may be starting to see things in a different light, this past century or so, but there is still a long way to go before radical change touches the lives of hundreds of millions forced by male attitudes into inequality and servitude. 

The church's celebration of Mary Magdalene now highlights the role she received from the risen Jesus, but when I was young she was still regarded as the 'fallen woman' whom Jesus rescued from condemnation, to be one of his disciples, eternally penitent, sorry for what she had been. Well, there's no biblical basis for conflating stories about women into one personage. Mary helped fund Jesus' missionary travels, a woman of some social status for nobody to mind her moving about in the men's realm. Jesus is said to have healed her of seven demons - to be demonised is to be distressed and torn apart by conflicting experiences and emotions. That's understandable if you live in a word where attitudes and expectations towards you are radically different from the way you see yourself. Following Jesus set her free to be her wholesome self and not bother about other people's negativity towards her. 

Just before lunch Clare received a message to say that Carole Winters, a St Catherine's Choir member died last night. She had a terrible stroke some years ago and made a valiant effort to recover and remain living alone in her own house, but then, several months ago she had a fall and another stroke which weakened her even further and left her bed ridden, so she moved a few weeks ago into a nursing home in Penarth. The extreme heat at the moment may have been a contributory factor to hastening her end. Church friends have been very supportive and encouraging to her all this time she's been hospitalised and housebound by covid as much as anything else, but they will miss her now in a different way. May she rest in peace.

While I was walking along the west bank of the Taff, I took photos of kids jumping from tree branches into the river on the other bank, thirty metres away using the Olympus OMD's burst mode setting as an experiment. I wasn't much pleased with the result I got with my long lens. The images would have been sharper with the camera on a tripod, or at closer range with another lens. I made the two 'burst' groups of photos into little animations and posted them on Instagram, to see if it the process worked. Recently I've been learning how to use the great range of settings this camera has available, and how these can be used in different situations. Somehow the Olympus feels less intimidating than my Sony DSLR when it comes to making good use of different settings. But then Sony's camera menus are notoriously difficult to get to grips with, decidedly user unfriendly.

I settled down to watch telly in the evening  but there wasn't anything to hold my attention following an early programme about key features on the Cornish coast path. Cornwall was our first summer holiday outing as a couple in 1964. We returned once to camp at Tintagel when the kids were small, but haven't been back in forty years, seduced as we were by camping holidays in France thereafter, by the desire for sunny weather. Now it seems we're getting more than out fair share of warmth on our own doorstep.

The sweet scent of grass mown

I celebrated the Eucharist at St Catherine's this morning with nine others, commemorating Hywel Harris of Trefeca, Welsh language contemporary of the Wesleys who evangelised in rural Wales through the Welsh language, together with Daniel Rowlands and Wiiliam Williams Pantycelyn. Their thinking and preaching was the foundation of the mission to urban and rural poor of Walsh Calvinistic Methodism, Mid 19th century, half of all churchgoers in Wales identified with the Presbyterian Church of Wales. It was a powerful movement in social reform and education through its Sunday schools and adult class meetings. 

In second half of the twentieth century, the devoutly puritanical PCW  declined and is now a tiny minority, as are other Welsh non-conformist churches. Welsh language and culture thrive and aren't afraid to draw on the treasury of past poetry and music, but there's an absence of public discourse in Wales about faith matters in a secular society. Rugby and to a lesser extent other sports have captured religious fervour and gathered communities of fans which masses of people identify with today. Perhaps sport in a secular society enshrines a high set of values that are present because of a christianisation of culture that has been going on for half a millennium. How can Christians persuade others that making the world a better place needs more than decent, honourable, heroic, successful sporting role models to bring about urgent change that's necessary for the survival of humankind and planet earth?

Clare went into town shopping this morning and returned with a salmon, plus laver bread and cockles for a treat. I cooked sea bass with rice and Swiss chard for lunch, and I made an experimental sauce with some of the cockles to go with the fish, like we had when we were in Aberaeron. Clare wasn't all that keen but I was quite pleased with my effort, using juice from the fish, olive oil, lemon, a splash of white wine with a smidgin of miso. We had the rest of the cockles with laver bread for supper.

There wasn't much of interest to watch on telly tonight, so I spent the evening after supper completing the preparation of next Thursday's Morning Prayer and uploading it to YouTube. Then I went out for a late night walk around the park to complete my daily quota, as I only walked for an hour in the afternoon. Small groups and couples were sitting out in the dark chatting quietly at half past eleven. It was still a comfortable twenty degrees. The aroma of cut grass was everywhere - the sports pitches has been mown, and the sweet scent pervades the night air as jasmine and honeysuckle do in a closed garden. It awakened memories of December 2012, spent in Taormina. Several Palm trees in the church garden were dangerous and needed to be felled. As chainsaws worked on them the same sweet grass scent filled the air. That was how I realised for the first time in my life that Palm trees are giant grasses, not trees at all. Because of the heat it's not been easy to complete all my walking in the afternoon this week. There's something special about being out and about in fragrant night air. It's relaxing, and makes me ready for sleep.

Wild swimmers in the river Taff

Another hot night, but not so hot that it stopped me from sleeping, and another day at 29C. I did some sound editing in the morning before cooking lunch. It was too hot to eat outdoors until the evening. My afternoon walk took me up-river on the east side as far as Llandaff North bridge and back. There were a dozen or so people swimming and jumping in the water around Llandaff Weir, four times less than than the numbers using the waters around Blackweir Bridge as a playground. 

From Llandaff Weir up-stream there's no gradient up to the next weir and at this time of year the flow of water is poor and the river is for the most part shallow, and this weir is a much steeper drop of two metres, not so friendly for water play as Blackweir. The Council has posted safety warnings either side of the bridge saying it's dangerous, which is entirely true after prolonged rain, but in summer time it's impossible to prevent people from using it was a water park. 

Cardiff Council no longer maintains and outdoor lidos, so it's not surprising that people take advantage of exposed stretches of river bed as pebbly beaches. Kids jump off the bridge into the one area which is deep enough by the fish ladder, and upstream where water is deep enough, they jump off overhanging tree branches. Seaside beaches are bound to be crowded, but with far less people able to go abroad to swim in the sea or in some fancy holiday resort pool, wild swimming in the Taff is a compensatory adventure. I just hope the water isn't too polluted with toxins.

This evening, in no mood to write much or think, I binge watched all four remaining episodes of Baptiste. It gave much food for thought about the rise of far right wing political movements in Eastern Europe, and portrayed the radicalisation of an English diplomat's two sons, manipulated by very clever extremist able, like the best of conjurers to misdirect people into seeing what they thought they were looking for. The end of the affair was brutal and to my mind hyper-violent. I'm not sure if any of the injured parties could have survived the assaults portrayed, and yet they did, to round off the story. Too much blunt force trauma and stab wounds to my mind.

Freedom or more chaos?

I enjoyed a long and relaxed night's sleep without a duvet as the air temperature was a comfortable 23C and it wasn't too humid. Under the bright morning sun, the temperature went up to about 30C again. For me the sensation was just like being back in Malaga, and awakened memories of beautiful days under the sun. It's going to be a good while before I can return there with shifting sands of pandemic management and new viral variant threats making the future uncertain, except for the rich and crazy people determined to travel no matter what the cost to themselves and others. 

Today, the other side of Offa's Dyke, all legal covid restrictions are removed as covid delta variant infections continue to soar. What was made obligatory in similar conditions a year ago becomes optional, relying entirely on the numbers vaccinated to mitigate the impact. The Prime Minister and two cabinet ministers are now in quarantine, having realised that those in Downing Street 'pinged' by the track 'n trace app cannot get away with being infection tested daily, when hundreds of thousands around the country have to stop work and self isolate for the same reason, whether infected or not. 

Previews of an interview with Boris' former advisor Dominic Cummings released ahead of tomorrow night's broadcast give an impression of the chaotic reaction by Boris and his cabinet cronies at the beginning of the pandemic, when denial at the seriousness of the situation seemed to be the initial reaction, people reluctant to believe it was as bad as the scientific advisors said it was. But how many of them have any proper medical or scientific training in anything? Cummings is on a mission of vengeful boat rocking. The trouble is, his personal credibility was ruined by his own behaviour. Even if he tells the truth, he'll be doubted because of his motives, even if the evidence he presents vindicates him. It's as good as any political soap opera we've seen on telly in the past quarter century.

I took a trip to Tesco's before cooking lunch, uploaded photos and wrote a few things before Clare and I walked for an hour along the Taff, as much in the shade as possible. Clare doesn't enjoy the heat like I do. After supper, another episode of Iolo Williams's wildlife programme series on Pembrokeshire with some stunning photos of Kingfishers and their two fledgling chicks. So inspiring. Then I squeezed in a second episode of 'Baptiste', available in full on BBC iPlayer, before this week's new episode of NCIS series 17. Another guest appearance of Cote de Pablo as Ziva in a rather confusing (or was it just too fast moving for me?) part two follow through from last week's episode, before she mysteriously disappears again. I didn't find this reprise of an old story worth the effort that undoubtedly went into providing fans with closure. It felt tired, and un-glamorous.

Have we lost the plot?

Another glorious summer day with 23 degree heat at breakfast time and 30C by lunchtime. The Radio Four Sunday Worship service was from Senghenydd, the parish next to where I served my title as Curate in Penyrheol housing estate, now part of the Caerphilly Ministry Area. Mark Greenway Robbins Rector of Caerphilly is now Ministry Area Leader for the conurbation which covers the ancient Parish of Eglwysilan and  that of Caerphilly. Bishop June preached, and among the other contributors was a community worker supported by the Citizen Church in Cathays Cardiff, which took over St Teilo's Parish Church, to provide a working base for an evangelical church planting 'resource church group' back by Holy Trinity Brompton in London. 

The community worker is based at St Peter's Senghenydd, aiming revitalise it and work on regeneration of a deprived and marginalised community that never fully recovered from the loss of over five hundred miners in pit disasters a century ago, and the loss of its last pit Windsor Colliery, just after I left Penyrheol for Birmingham fifty years later. Only one contributor had a distinctive Valleys accent, a former miner at Windsor Colliery. The rest sounded as if they'd crossed Offa's Dyke to re-evangelise the Welsh. Sure, the idea is to 'reach the unreached', in a secular society. I wish them well, but is this enterprise now beyond us natives? Are we being shamed by these enthusiastic in-comers? Is Welsh zeal reserved only for sports and music-making nowadays? How can we rekindle indigenous zeal for a real relevant Christianization of our national culture?

I took my choir robes with me conscientiously to St Catherine's for the Eucharist, and was relieved that it was decided not to robe up, as it was only just a little cooler in church than outdoors. Archbishop Rowan celebrated and preached. It was lovely listening to him again, he has such a relaxed and thoughtful style and always good insights to share. He was talking about Jesus re-inventing the idea of humanity, by abolishing all divisions of status, wealth, power and ethnicity - the ultimate 'levelling-up'. It's not just me that mocks Boris' latest content free catchphrase.

It was good, singing in the choir, such a change from presiding or sitting in the congregation. It keeps you on  the alert and aware of others in addition to the celebrant. I think I'll do more of this in future on the Sundays I don't have other duties, but it will be September before I can make my next appearance in choir, as all but one of the August Sundays I'm at St German's, and the other one I'm preaching at St Luke's. Next week we're down in Oxwich Bay with Owain, Kath and Anto.

Hilary was outside after the service with the first church garden courgettes of the season and a pot of blackberry jam for sale, both of which we bought. For lunch we had the first fruits of the French beans which were grown from seed. Summer delights!

My walk in the afternoon heat took me almost entirely under tree cover through Pontcanna Fields. over the Taff and back through the woods in Bute Park At a guess, there were a couple of hundred people on the pebble beaches along the river or messing about in the water at Blackweir. Hundreds more, in small groups found shader trees or erected their own canopies for shelter. I was accosted by a teenage couple in Bute Park, when the young man noticed the Olympus OMD I was carrying, and asked what type it was. I chatted with them for a while. I think they were at sixth form college. I was wearing my summer beret, which attracted curiosity and conversation about Spain. The girl had visited Fuengirola when her granny was the Church of Scotland Minister of the ex-pat community in Andalusia, around the time I was on locum duty there with the Costa del Sol East chaplaincy. Small world!

After supper we watched Antiques Road Show from Kenilworth Castle, which was very interesting and then the first episode of the second series of 'Baptiste'. An engaging if confusing plot line, as the story is told, switching between flashbacks and the present moment, a little confusing when it's not exactly clear if there's any point to this.

Real heat

A lazy lie in, and Saturday pancake breakfast with blueberries for a change. A really hot day today 26C, and for once I'm not missing being in Spain. It's troubling to think that from Holland to Switzerland, a month's rain overnight has brought catastrophe with over a hundred and twenty dead so far and more people still unaccounted for. The most forceful evidence yet of the fearful reality of climate change.

My creative streak continued and I spent the morning writing and recording another reflection. Then Clare and I went for a brief walk around Thompson's park before I cooked mussels and green beans with rice and carrots for lunch a bit later than usual.

While walking in the park after lunch I listened to a play on Radio Four about spying in the run-up to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the spark which led to the outbreak of the first world war and the end of the Habsburg Empire. I don't know if it was fictional or not, but it made good listening. I spotted a crested grebe swimming in the Taff. We've seen them in the Bay Wetland Area, but to see one so far upstream is unusually rare. I wonder why?

We had supper out in the garden, as it was still nicely warm. Then I binge watched last night's episode of 'Nordic Murders' and tonight's episode of 'Beck' on catch-up. To warm to do much else.

WNO re-emerges triumphantly

Despite the glorious weather, I spent the morning working to complete next Thursday's prayer video upload. I feel the need to clear some space to enjoy the coming weeks, as we're off to the Gower en famille next weekend. I also want to complete the upload that's due the morning after we return. I enjoy creating these things but not when I'm under pressure these days, when I have time but don't always use it wisely.

After lunch I walked into town to get some updated photos of the redevelopment work, also the current state of the city centre as lockdown eases.It's great to see lots of people again in the streets, many more now sitting to dine and drink at new outdoor restaurant facilities, many of them attractively designed, with colourful enclosures, and flowering plants uplifting the streetscape. A lot of hard work and a big  . I hope it pays off.

At half past six we drove to the Bay to attend the re-opening our our national opera house after 14 months of covid closure, with an hour's concert before an audience that was a tenth of the normal full house, everyone being correctly socially distanced in their 'bubbles'.

Just one entrance was open for check-in, and we were slowly and carefully channelled through the building to our appointed seats. This was a trial event to test the robustness of the in-house team's implementation of safety protocols.

There were fifty in the orchestra, seated on stage and another thirty singers of the opera chorus in the front stalls facing the orchestra. This actually worked surprisingly well in terms of sound balance, as the auditorium acoustics are so well designed.

The orchestra played with fervour and precision. I have never heard the overture to Rossini's 'Barber of Seville' played at such a breathless pace. Every instrument was clearly audible in a way no hi-fi disc could ever match. Sound from the orchestra pit, partly under the stage cannot be as clear as the sound emanating from down under is constrained by the smaller space.

After the overture, we had Figaro's famous opening aria, then the Cantique de Jean Racine from the chorus, an aria from a Massanet opera sung by WNO favourite Reecca Evans , Sibelius' New World 9th Symphony, and a song from a Bernstein opera with chorus and soloists to finish with. It was a moving and powerful event, filled with defiant hope and confidence for the future. Whatever happens in future, there will be music, there will be opera, and we'll be there!

Over organised for decline

How good to awaken to another lovely sunny morning on St Swithun's Day with only a few wisps of cloud in a clear sky. Legend has it that Swithun warned his people not to move his body once he was buried in the place he chose. When eventually his body was moved to Winchester Cathedral, the region was subjected to forty days and nights of torrential rain. So if it rains on this day it is destined to rain for forty days and nights. It's a silly tale which I remember my mother telling me when I was a child. It doesn't figure in European folk-lore, but it's a bizarre coincidence that unusually heavy rain hit the Low Countries, Germany and Switzerland yesterday, causing over sixty deaths from flash flooding. The Rhine is higher than anyone can remember in living memory. It's the curse of climate change, not an odd saintly legacy.

I uploaded a link to my offering of Morning Prayer to the Parish WhatsApp group when I woke up, half an hour later than usual, as I'm now sleeping better than I have for several years. After breakfast, I walked to St John's to celebrate the Eucharist with six others, half the regular congregation is away at the moment. Then a quick visit to Tesco's to buy flowers for Clare and wine for me, before returning home to cook lunch for us.

A walk to Llandaff Weir in the afternoon past the Cathedral, the south side Norman door was open and as I stopped to take a photo, Fr Mark came from within to close it, so we stopped and chatted for a few minutes. It seems that a clergy quiet day had just finished, led by Archbishop Rowan. Fr Mark told me it was a new gathering of Ministry Area team members called the 'College of Vicars'. Apparently there's a separate 'College of Ministry Area Leaders', and another for those who are newly ordained and/or serving in curacies.  I'm not sure where non stipendiary clergy fit in the scheme, unless there's something in the pipeline I haven't heard about. I don't think there's going to be a College of retired clergy. Demands for ministry couldn't be met to the same extent as they are now without them.

I have to admit that my first reaction to this disclosure was 'divide and rule', and when I told Clare about this, that was her immediate reaction too. Clergy are being managed, obliged to be compliant to the Grand Plan, like it or not. Being entrusted with freedom and responsibility to pursue mission and ministry in their Parish setting is taking second place. I fail to see the point of it. I think the health of the church lies in its diversity, the mixing and interaction of clergy and laity in their different roles producing different creative sparks, and outcomes, rather than segregating them by type to manage them. I draw the analogy between the managed forest of conifers in straight lines (for efficiency and profit) and the mixture of broad-leaf deciduous woodland in ancient forests, far more biodiverse, productive (albeit in a different way) and good for the planet.

The Anglican churches in Britain are spiralling into bankruptcy as overall support drains away. It's not as if people are attaching themselves to other religious communities in significant numbers. Sport is bigger than religion in retaining loyalties, not to mention music and entertainment. Mass pilgrimages in Britain at least, are rare events yet huge crowds endure hardship at outdoor festivals to hear the performers they are devoted to. 

For all the skills, expertise and resources still available to churches, finding ways to speak to the perennial spiritual hunger longing and distress is as elusive as ever. We cannot control this situation. Coping with decline has to be done, but like dying and bereavement, it cannot be completely managed. It's painfully hard to let go of what the church has been to society for so many centuries, but there's no resurrection without death. There are many new lessons we need to learn in humbly facing the future 

Clare and I went to St Catherine's choir practice this evening. She sings already in the Fountain Choir, but thought it would be good to sing in the church choir also when opportunity arises with the promised lifting of restrictions. Now I'm feeling a lot better singing appeals to me. I feel I've regained the energy for it. Tonight was fun, it was also challenging, my sight reading is very rusty.

Old, but perennially funny

A beautiful sunny day, clouds thinning out and a temperature of 21 degrees, good for the morale. We were ten when I celebrated the Eucharist at St Catherine's this morning. I collected this week's veggy bag on my way home. Clare cooked prawns with spinach, beetroot tops and rice for lunch. Delicious summer flavours. The raspberry canes in the garden are producing a handful of ripe fruit each day at the moment, a small tasty treattfrom our small beautiful garden.

I had an optician's appointment at two, and lingered a little too long over the pleasures lunch, so I wasn't able to walk there and had to call a taxi. Driving was out of the question, as the test required dilation of pupils, prior to a retinal scan. The scan was unsuccessful when I went for my annual test three months ago because of my left eye cataract. Optometrist Ceri agreed to examine me with the intention to refer me for cataract surgery at the Heath. This time she established there's no macular degeneration, but the cataract is causing enough visual impairment to justify putting me on the very lengthy NHS queue for surgery. I might hear I'm on the waiting list in three months, but the wait could be a couple of years. 

My taxi driver chatted to me about his cataract surgery, done privately. He said it cost fifteen hundred pounds which he had to pay in instalments. I don't think that I want to afford that much, In general, my vision is pretty good despite the cataracts, it's just that my vision is misty due to light dispersion when the sun is low in the sky. It's a real nuisance when I'm using a camera. I have to rely on auto-focus, point and shoot. Only when I've uploaded the pictures is it possible to see if they're any good.

A walk home with my pupils still dilated, able to see around me quite well. When it came to looking at messages on my phone and later on my computer, however blurred vision continued until supper time. Afterwards I went for a walk around Thompson's Park and took some photos of the evening sun shining through the trees as it neared the horizon, grateful to be able to see fairly clearly again. We laughed our way through a couple of episodes of 'Allo,Allo' before turning in. Like 'Fawlty Towers' it is classic sit-com and is as entertaining now as it was forty years ago. There's very little contemporary comedy that will prove as durable.

Prairie in the park

Another warm day with clouds and sunshine plus the occasional shower. I spent the morning and part of the evening working on the audio file for next week's Morning Prayer and Reflection. Clare went to her study group and I cooked lunch in time for her return. It's a pleasure just to live without the constraint that an open wound imposed on me for so long. It's less of a struggle to get done all the things I set out to do, and for this I am most grateful.

Rain was threatened when I left for my afternoon circuit of the Fields and Bute Park so I wore a raincoat. It didn't rain and I ended up carrying it as I was overheating. Yesterday I got damp from drizzle as I didn't take a raincoat. I can't get it right, but refuse to encumber myself with a brolly just in case. Perverse is the word for it. Because of the abundance of rain earlier in the spring and present warmth the vegetation has grown with abundant luxury. I don't recall seeing bramble bushes before covered with so many flowers for so long, or did I simply not notice. 

An increased area of grassland in the parks, not mown for sports users is rich with wild flowers and long grasses, so we have more than just lawn green in the city landscape; pale gold, yellow, brown. It enhances biodiversity, economises on running costs and carbon footprint. It's an enhancement to our environment which hope will continue and felt to be beneficial to all, people and creatures alike.

Despite the continued rise in delta variant covid cases causing concern to all in the medical profession, the English government is pressing on with easing restrictions and making mask wearing voluntary rather than obligatory, insisting that everyone take personal responsibility for keeping each other safe. Well, we should do that in any case, but if there's no possible sanction other than a disapproving look or comment, some won't bother to think of others and the risk factor is enhanced. 

We're already seeing a third wave of covid infections, not as serious or dangerous as previous ones, but the outcome of the decision are quite unpredictable. It's being seen as an experiment in resuming normality (of a kind), but it's more of a political experiment than a scientific medical one. More of a gamble really and disquiet is being expressed by members of the public who consider themselves vulnerable, as much as medics. Tomorrow the Welsh government will announce its decision about restriction. It'll be more cautious and pay more attention to infection statistics and their impact, thankfully.

Racist aftermath of defeat

As expected, there were repercussions from England's failure to win the Euro-soccer cup after a drawn game led to a penalty shootout, with reports of racist abuse against black players on social media after the game. It's a minority of fans that indulges in violence, vandalism and racism, generation after generation, despite the good-will and concern of the majority, No amount of social engineering seems to lead to this being resolved positively, even if the antagonists are identified and punished. 

Football, like other team sports, nurtures tribalism among its fans. It becomes part of peoples' sense of identity and culture. The excitement of the game stirs passions in supporters. Like a wildfire they are difficult to control properly and can be dangerous. Too much energy is invested in the outcome, rather than how honourably the game is played. Individuals take winning or losing very personally, either as a boost or a threat to morale and self-esteem. The hateful reaction shown by a minority, is to my mind, a pathological state, projecting their own self-hatred and failure to give their lives meaning and purpose, on to black people who have worked hard for their success. It's fuelled by excess alcohol and constant media hyperbole on 24;7 news surrounding sporting events.

Akala's book 'Natives - Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire', which I'm reading slowly, talks of white peoples' identity crisis, now that they cannot any longer control the world forcefully and get away with making victims and exploiting people of colour. With only ten percent of the population sharing any kind of religious faith and values it's no longer part of the common social bedrock that inspires, motivates and helps discipline individuals - everyone does what is right in their own eyes. And that doesn't always work towards the common good. 

Walking to the river on Friday afternoon I noticed half a dozen plastic water bottles, some of them full, on the ground along the football pitch touchline, thirty metres from the nearest waste bin. I didn't have gloves or a bag to use for picking them up. Sunday afternoon in the same spot twice as many plastic water bottles had been discarded, as I passed a lady overtook me and began picking them up, I felt ashamed that I'd not returned with a protection bag on Saturday, and joined her in clearing them up. Another regular walker in the park, upset by the defilement of the ground football players rely on for their game. 

I've seen parents take their children out litter picking in streets and park. If they didn't it would look so much worse as the Council's waste management team would be overwhelmed. Team sports have groups of fans and not all of them behave so selfishly, but why do they ignore those who misbehave? Does their passion for the game weaken their passion for leaving the pitch in as good a state as they found it? There's something about sporting passions that erodes the sense of common decency. It's the last thing we need.

Well, apart from that, today was quite productive really, with Thursday's Morning Prayer and Reflection video finished and uploaded to YouTube, and a Reflection drafted for the Thursday following as well. Best of all, I sat for two hours without pain and discomfort, working undistractedly and without and negative consequence, except that I forgot to start the washing machine, and forgot to start cooking lunch. Clare went early to school for an INSET morning, and returned to find me still beavering away. She took over and did a super pasta tuna and vegetable dish in half an hour.

After lunch, a long walk in the park, during which I got slightly damp due to intermittent drizzle. Then another episode of Iolo William's nature series on Pembrokshire - Wales' Wild West. Superb photography but best of all is Iolo's enthusiasm for wildlife, and the exemplary way in which he goes about watching birds, a demonstration of how best to get to see and enjoy what's there to be seen. Very useful. Then the first of series 17 of NCIS in which there are several episodes in which Cote de Pablo reprises her role as secret agent Ziva David. She looks that bit older - or is the hairstyle and makeup?

A sports free day

After breakfast this morning Owain returned to Bristol was we set off for church. Clare and I were on sidesperson's and reader's duty, at St Catherine's. It was a bit awkward as I was scheduled to preach while Fr Rhys celebrated. Anyway, I read the first lesson and also the Gospel before the sermon. Rather too much of me, as it wasn't properly thought out in advance. I sat in choir and wore my choir robes. One choir member was away so I was allowed to sing under the covid safety rules, which made a change.

I had a siesta after lunch, then went for a walk around the Fields in light drizzle. A small flock of about thirty starlings were feeding on grass mown last week, along with a pair of goldfinches, and I got some photos of them.

After supper I avoided the emotional stress of tbe Euro soccer final on telly, and read for an hour until my eyes got tired. Then I watched an interesting documentary about the conferences between wartime leaders which seaked the fate of nations and borders while fighting continued. Not the most admirable of proceedings on the part of the most powerful of free world leaders.

Then a documentary about the search for extra terrestrial life through 50 years of TV archive footage. Very interesting to watch the doyen of astronomical TV presenters go from being young middle aged to very old, but still there.

Monknash visit

I was lovely to share our Saturday pancake breakfast with Owain this morning. Clare packed up a picnic lunch and when the early morning cloud began to lift we headed west into the Vale of Glamorgan to visit Monknash with its vast beach and 70 metre high Jurassic cliffs, somewhat inappropriately named 'Smugglers' Cove'. as it's not in any sense enclosed, but an open expanse of coastline. 

The journey through narrow lanes with high hedges and small villages from the A48 to the coast is rather lovely, and we were fortunate not to need to stop to let on coming traffic pass too many times. There were a couple of dozen cars in the parking area a kilometre above the beach, down a narrow valley. Less than a hundred people bunched in groups were scattered on the vast expanse of grey flat bedrock and golden sand which stretches for miles at low tide, and we were there at low tide.

The upper part of the shore is a bank of large pebbles and bigger stones, tricky to negotiate before bedrock and sand is reached. The Jurassic limestone shows remnants of fossil shells, and occasionally dinosaur footprints appear in big slabs which have fallen from the often dangerous cliffs, or been exposed by the action of the sea. Although the rock is hard it has a tendency to fragment over time so the cliffs are subject to a considerable amount of erosion over decades. The Vale coast and inland is rich in bird and insect life. On the climb back up to the village, I recorded a song thrush hidden in a bush nearby. Exquisite!

We stopped for a drink in the garden of the Horseshoe Inn in the neighbouring village of Marcross on the way back, then drove to IKEA in Grangetown so that Owain could buy himself a summer duvet. My fit-bit told me that we walked the same distance around the store as we walked from the car park to the beach and had to queue for ten minutes to pay and get out. Waiting in a long zig-zag snake queue reminded me of going through airport security.

We bought takeaway fish and chips for supper, then watched Paddington 2, a delightful comic fantasy movie, which mocks Britishness in a whimsical way and makes superb use of computer generated imaging to tell its story. Over and above that the editing and production of the film used a vast array of sequences shot in crime drama or action movie, mocking every kind of filmic cliche - a masterpiece of cinematic parody. To finish the day I walked for three quarters of an hour while the sun was setting, and so did Owain, who decided to go out after I'd left. A lovely day all round.

Musical memories

Another overcast day, but at least it was warm. I made a couple of shopping trips before and after lunch and worked again on editing my Sunday sermon as I wasn't quite satisfied with it, Something wasn't quite right. I checked the Gospel reading - about the beheading of John the Baptist and realised that I'd made an error in identifying the text. The same story appears in Matthew, Mark and Luke. Mark's version which we read this year isn't prefaced by the story of John's disciples questioning Jesus. My sermon made reference to this as if it had just been read when it hadn't. That was the something which wasn't quite right. Once I realise this it was necessary to re-edit my text to avoid the confusion. It wasn't difficult thankfully, and I'm glad I spotted it in good time.

Owain came over this evening, and we celebrated his birthday with a mini cake baked by Clare covered with chocolate and strawberries, as requested. Then we watched the first in the second series of 'Arctic Murders' on More Four's Walter Presents. Nice clear north German dialogue, easy for Owain and Clare to follow, if not me, more in need of subtitles. Then there was a remarkable documentary on Sky Arts about the Trojan record label, under which West Indian music in the form of pop singles were imported straight from Jamaica on demand from the first generation of homesick expats. Popularity spread from black pop fans to white. Eventually UK ska and reggae recordings were made and distributed with a huge impact on the British pop scene from the late sixties onward. 

When I was Curate in charge of St Andrews Penyrheol in the early seventies, the Tuesday night church disco often played the latest black records ska, reggae and American soul music, thanks to Ricky Dee, aka Richard Williams, whose brother was a leading pop musician and entrepreneur. This is why I found many of the songs played and talked about during the documentary familiar, although in those days this wasn't the kind of music I listened to. It was only when we lived in St Paul's Bristol that reggae become part of my daily musical soundscape. It was amazing to listen to people interviewed who had either been responsible for bringing the music to the British public, or actually made it. Most of them still had their untainted rural Jamaican accents and patois. It brought back good memories of a very formative time of my first decade in ministry.

A story from Birmingham days

After breakfast, a little later than usual, I walked to St John's to celebrate the Eucharist with eleven others. After the service I had a long catch-up phone call with a former St Mike's student while I was walking home. That's the second time a former student has been in touch this week. The other one was by email from a man who was an undergraduate in Birmingham while I was a chaplain there forty nine years ago. 

He came to see me after he'd met evangelists from Campus Crusade for Christ who were new to the scene in those days. He didn't have a church background but they'd got him thinking though not altogether clearly about religion and spiritual life. I don't think he was too sure about why he was in university either. I suggested he might take some time out at Hilfield Friary to sort himself out. 

For him this proved to be the start of his faith journey. He dropped out of University moved to London and started worshipping regularly at All Souls Langham Place at a time when John Stott a great evangelical apologist was Rector. This was where his commitment flourished and eventually he followed the path to ordination and ministry in the Church of England. Now he's retired and had decided to get in touch to tell me his story, as the last I heard was that he was quitting student life. He reflected that we're never aware of how seeds we sow bear fruit. He thought I'd like to know. I was delighted to say the least. 

A retreat at the Friary when I was a second year undergraduate seven years before him, had been a powerful influence in deepening my faith and moving me towards a life in ministry. I wonder how many people over the years have shared that experience after spending time with the Franciscans? More than ever join the community that's for sure. The advice I'd given was nothing more than one beggar telling another where to find bread.

When I got home I cooked lunch in time for Clare to arrive from her last school session of the term, then I worked on my Sunday sermon before walking over to Lidl's to stock up on wine, as Owain is coming over for a belated birthday weekend. Then I started work on next Thursday's Reflection and recorded the proper readings for Morning Prayer, to give myself a head start. Before turning in, I even found time to read a few pages of 'Invierno en Madrid' for the first time in months. All in all, a productive day, more so than usual. It's something to do with the healing that's nearing completion. It's easier to sit and concentrate with less physical distraction than at any time for the past three years. Thank God!

Soccer obsessed

Another day of mild weather, sunshine and occasional showers. The news of the day is dominated by pre- match feelgood hype over the Euro soccer semi final between England and Denmark. I find this tiresome when there's so much debate going on about the wisdom of easing covid restrictions early, plus reports of the assassination of the President of Haiti, and another on the total economic collapse of Lebanon in the wake of the catastrophic explosion last year which destroyed swathes of the bayside residential area.

I went to the Eucharist at St Catherine's this morning, collected this week's veggie bag on the way back, and then cooked lunch an afternoon walk around Llandaff Fields to Western Avenue and down the Taff Trail. The roads are noticeably busier lately the stench of vehicle exhaust fumes hang in the air in the vicinity.

Before and after supper I worked on making the video of tomorrow's Morning Prayer with a new selection of slides to go with the audio of the day. The task consumed the entire evening. I had to tune in at the end of the radio news to learn that the English team won its place in the final against Italy, and switch off again to avoid the drivel from the commentariat and vox pops. Sixty thousand people in Wembly stadium for the match. Will it be possible to know how many people catch covid from attending? And how many more who didn't attend will catch it by contact with them, or from watching the match in a social setting? We'll learn in due course I suppose.

Banksy interpreted

I'm enjoying better nights of sleep these days, as my wound closes and heals. Less discomfort, pain and irritation, and I can sit properly for much longer as well. Somehow the change leaves me more relaxed, not so driven by the impulse to survive and cope with normal everyday living. This may sound odd, but it is what I have realised is a consequence of the easing of stress on the vagus nerve system that runs through the body from top to bottom and drives fight/flight reactions. With a wound so close to the core of this, it isn't surprising that that the body physically reacts to this as a threat. Ancient iconography portrays the devil poking his pitchfork into the backside of the condemned to drive them into hell. With good reason. Any impact on one of the most sensitive parts of the body is experienced as an evil threat,

I took the funeral of an ex-professional soldier this lunchtime at Thornhill Crem. Although the family hadn't given much attention to this aspect of his life, I asked if Elgar's Enigma variation 'Nimrod' could be played after the eulogy. Also I spoke the allocution 'They shall not grow old...', as I thought this was appropriate. Afterwards, the lady who provided the material for the eulogy expressed appreciation for this. It seems the deceased had mentioned this to his in his last days as something he'd like at his funeral, but she hadn't remembered this in the rush to prepare the service.

I arrived home to find that Clare had returned from her study group and had just put lunch on the table, although we'd agreed to have a snack and cook this evening. That was a nice surprise. Then I went to the bank and continued with a walk down to Blackweir where I took some more photos of the resident heron, standing fishing in the same place as yesterday.

Before supper, I recorded the components of Thursday's Morning Prayer and Reflection and edited them together afterwards. I can produce the final version with slides for upload to YouTube tomorrow.

An excellent two hour long documentary about street art on the Sky Arts channel later in the evening, much of it about the career of Banksy, though not exclusively. It's not often you can sit through a serious programme about art, and spend much of the time laughing at what you see. So much of Banksy's work is a humorous insightful commentary into the contemporary world and a critique of accepted values. As the early part of the programme charted his nurture in the alternative creative Bristol scene of graffiti and hip hop music, it portrayed a city we know well and lived in as students and when I was a Parish Priest in St Paul's. 

In those days I was more into reggae and black artistic development and hardly aware of what was emerging in the neighbouring inner city white working class barrio of Barton Hill. Owain was born in St Paul's, and now lives the other side of Barton Hill in Redfield, a rising gentrifying multi-cultural place, less deprived than his birthplace. It's fascinating to look back on our time there after forty years, and how everything has changed since.

It occurred to me that Banksy's work is challenging and critical of contemporary values in a way which prophets of ancient times would have understood. Although words and sentences often appear in his art, it's always in a visual framework juxtaposed with images that make you think. Prophecy is associated with declarations of God's Word in poetic oracles. Sometimes these oracles describe a visual metaphor. In Banksy's work the prophetic Word is expressed primarily in revelatory images. I'm trying to figure out if this is innovative, or if I've just missed something in my view of twenty centuries of art history.

Unwelcome mixed messages again

After breakfast this morning I prepared and printed all my material for the funeral I'm taking tomorrow, then in the afteroon I walked into town, and took photos of construction sites around Central Square, then called into John Lewis' out of curiosity to see what's on offer in the summer sale. It's troubling to see how many more empty shops there are in St David Centre, in the Arcades, and main streets. Restaurants and pubs are open and serving outdoors, but weren't that busy. I guess that the return to office work isn't really under way yet. 

Boris Johnston is promising to end all covid restrictions in England three weeks from now, making mask wearing optional in places where it is currently mandatory. Opinion polls are showing that over two thirds of people surveyed don't approve of this and will ignore this permission. Trades Unions and the Labour party have expressed criticism of his intention. Mark Drakeford isn't promising anything at the moment, sensibly cautious in the light of the spread of the covid delta variant, preferring to rely on a review of the latest Welsh evidence before announcing a lifting of the restrictions. 

People break the rules anyway, and act inconsiderately, putting others at risk. Abandoning mandatory regulations, leaving it to common sense by making safe behaviour optional is tempting providence to my mind. Whatever changes are made I'll maintain the habit to follow the existing rules as best I can for the sake of others. Even a compliant person forgets sometimes. Obligatory rules are a 'red line' challenge to us to stay alert, to avoid getting or transmitting infection.

Owain is out of quarantine now, with no sign of having caught anything. He managed to work out with his 'pinged' social group that the infected person was a visitor without symptoms who only stayed for an hour, and he had no direct contact with them. So all's well that ends well. We look forward to seeing him on the weekend ahead.

We watched a lovely programme about Pembrokeshire wildlife with Iolo Williams. It showed a little of the Cleddau Estuary and Slebeck Park, which has awakened ideas of a visit there when we can. Then we watched a programme on Sky Arts about Iranian culture, which was of particular interest in its portrayal of Zoroastrianism, the religion of Persia before Islam. We were shown its temples, and some of the amazing massive bas-relief rock art of mythical figures dating from the third century CE. 

I was fascinated to learn that a quarter of the world's hundred thousand Zoroastrians still live and practice their faith in Iran, where the religion came into being. The majority are in India, some are in North America. The finally the last episode of season 16 of NCIS, rather odd in that it featured appearances of a ghost of the ex-wife of both Gibbs and Fornell, and an appearance by Ziva warning Gibbs of imminent danger to his life. She's not a ghost, despite being officially dead. Her death several years ago was faked to cover her disappearance.  Or so we were told.

Changing alliances

Another day clouds, sunshine and occasional bouts of rain. A later start for me, driving to St German's for the eleven o'clock Sung Mass, and today it really was sung. Although mask wearing is still obligatory if the risk assessment okays it, muffled singing is possible. It meant I could sing all the priest's parts of the Eucharist and be responded to. It was so therapeutic! The combination of a well spaced congregation of 25 and a building with a very high roof made it possible to celebrate safely  in the traditional way, and I also had support from the Parish ordinand as sub-deacon, a MC, thurifer and a boat boy. All beautifully done. I enjoyed it so much and look forward to returning during August to cover for Fr Phelim's final holiday leave, cover I would most likely have been asked to provide if he'd not been leaving.

It was quarter past one by the time I reached home afterwards, as socially distanced coffee and cake in the church hall followed the service. Fortunately, like the church it's big and has a high ceiling. In the eighteen months since I was last in the hall, the toilet facilities have received a splendid renovation. suitable for wider community usage. and it's being hired out to various community groups again, now that restrictions on class activities are being lifted. I just hope the interregnum isn't another long one. 

The formal separation of the Parishes of St German and St Saviour was agreed upon at a meeting today, paving the way for the incorporation of St German's into Roath Ministry Area and St Saviour's into the Cardiff Bay Ministry Area, from Splott to Grangetown. There's a strong case to be made for engaging another community minded successor to Fr Phelim as priest in charge of St German's. It's possible that whoever is appointed may have to be a specialist part time, either serving Roath Ministry Area or the Diocese. We'll see.

After lunch, a walk in Llandaff and Pontcanna Fields. For the first time in a month I saw a heron fishing off the shoal of stones below the weir, and caught a glimpse of silver as it caught and swallowed a fish too fast to aim my camera. I could hear the tiny sweet bubbly sound of a bird as I walked down Llanfair Road on my way home. It was a tiny bird too, which was hard to spot perched on one of the rooftop TV aerials. I took a few photos which revealed in post processing that it was a goldfinch. A few weeks back I snapped a female chaffinch on an aerial the same side of the road. That says something about the back gardens of those houses being rich in the kind of foods finches enjoy. They're rarely seen in Meadow Street back gardens facing a different stretch of Llanfair Road.

This evening Clare wanted to watch a film on live TV. I opted to finish watching the final episodes of the latest French thriller 'Just one look' on More Four. Quite a convoluted plot with dramatic twists thrown in, and an even bigger surprise last act which brought the thing to a totally implausible end. Why ruin a good story-line like this? 

Overheard again

A Saturday lie-in and pancake breakfast to start the day, then we watched on-line the launch of the new Wriggledance Theatre show 'Squidge', which Kath Anto and Lucy have been working on over the past year. The innovative production is hosted Birmingham Hippodrome, and can be played to a live audience of parents and young children, or watched on line, with a pack of sensory resource material that enables children to play along in their own homes for schools. It plays with the texture and sensation of different substances - slime, feathers, bubbles, stretchy string using dancers and stunning visual effects, accompanied by Anto's musical creation. It's very beautiful and I'm in awe of the creative imagination and sheer hard work that's gone into making this. I hope and pray it will prove to be successful far and wide

Then, a brisk walk around Llandaff Fields before lunch. I had another one of those 'overheard' moments that stuck with me. One smartphone toting team saying to another smartphone toting teen "You should try this one, it's addictive!" I'm pretty sure he was speaking about an app or a game on his device, but what made me think was the use of the word 'addictive'. It's a word which often crops up in relation to games or box set movie series. The implication is that once you start you cannot stop using it.

Addiction to drugs, alcohol, pornography, sex, gambling, are recognised as pathological forms of dependency which are damaging to relationships and to personal health. Internet / smartphone addiction is also starting to be seen in the same category. I wonder if those who market products of any kind this way really think about how their promotions are damaging to the mindset of the susceptible, seducing users into trading their freedom for a dependency which seems exciting but detaches them from reality. We have to be so careful about our use of language, St James was right to speak of the dangerous power of one of the body's smallest members - the tongue.

After lunch we went to the first Parish post-lockdown social gathering, a tea and cake party at the Rectory. It had been warm with sunshine and clouds all morning, but rain threatened for the afternoon. There was only a brief shower while we were there fortunately. We went on from there at four, to a second tea party, a farewell one at Jacquie's. She moves to Stroud to live this coming Wednesday. The garden which her husband Russell tended carefully for forty years was looking lovely. I took thirty photos, and will turn the best of them into a photo book she can take with her to remember the place in times to come.

After supper, I finally got around to fitting the new cartridge bought last Saturday for the HP lazer printer. I works OK, although the printer software tells me that it's a non-standard one. I just hope the software doesn't impose sanctions and stop the think from working in future. At least tonight it printed my sermon for tomorrow without complaint.

I watched an episode of Swedish crimmie series  called 'Beck' on BBC Four The Chief Inspector of this name is now near retirement age but keeps working, though in the more recent series he's taken a back seat and the stories have played far more around the members of the team he heads. An interesting take I guess, but I found it slightly dull. Afterwards I went for a walk around Pontcanna Fields in the dark, in need of fresh air and exercise before turning in. Earlier there had been heavyish rain for a while, but it was drying up and the air smelled fresh and clean. I hoped I might hear an owl, but apart from murmured conversation far a away, it was blissfully quiet and traffic free.

Things kids say

A warm and sunny day today. Clare's garden is flourishing with lots of red and yellow roses, honeysuckle, and many other flowers. All our watched over French bean  plants have grown over two metres tall and are now in flower, such a pleasure to see.

After breakfast I drafted my Sunday sermon, then went for a walk around Llandaff Fields before lunch. The new trees planted below the houses being built on the corner of Penhill are growing healthily and the ground area they cover isn't being mown. Its long grass is rich with white clover and daisies. I wonder if it going to be left to go wild, and bushes allowed to create undergrowth to shield the ground floor level of the terrace above?

After lunch in the garden, I walked around Thompson's Park several times. There were scores of children with their parents, fresh from the end of an afternoon session at day nursery, enjoying the wild spaces, and populating them with their imaginations. Two little girls climbed the steps ahead of dad with the toddler. I heard him shout out to them "I told you not to go down Death Valley come back now." A small voice further along the path I was on shouted in protest. "But I'm not in Death Valley Dad!" I think this is what the kids call the wooded area behind the railings along the edge of the escarpment above the duck pond, several child sized paths run through the thicket under the trees, ideal for adventures. Not Fairy Dell, but Death Valley - the mind boggles.

Several notices have gone up in the park asking dog walkers frequenting the park not to let their animals run free in the lower section, but keep them on the lead, to safeguard the children. Already one notice had been uprooted and lay on the grass, so I took a photo, posted it on Instagram tagging the Council, hoping someone in the Comms department is awake on Friday afternoon. The notices in question are mounted on a wooden post secured in the ground with a metal mounting that can easily be knocked into the turf with a sledgehammer. And just as easily pulled out again. 

The notice is printed on a sheet of white plasticised cardboard, not exactly designed for longevity. One of the panels still standing had stray coats draped over it. Such a notice is needed. In the old days a metal or wooden one would be fixed to all three park gates. What's the point of erecting notices which by nature look temporary when a permanent solution is needed, now our parks get so much more regular use, thanks to changes in social habit wrought by the pandemic.

After supper we watched an art programme by Andrew Marr on Channel 5 about Picasso's powerful portrsit masterpiece 'The Weeping Woman', painted after his Guernica masterpiece, which also features a vignette of a woman weeping. Taken together both are a profound statement about the horror and cruelty of war. It was an excellent thoughtful production, like the others in the series watched so far.

Tech troubleshooting

Last night, before going to bed, I google my problem with the Windows 10 Video Editor, and found a few reports indicating that there was a solution, albeit a convoluted one that involved reconfiguring the app in a convoluted way. I needed information about the location of the app in the operating system and had to dig around a bit inside the Settings page information on the app. Here by chance I discovered there was an automatic repair button - maybe a more recent innovation than the articles I googled. I tested this out and found that the default app setup was restored. What a relief! Simple efficient video editing was one of the reasons behind buying a new laptop. The other was audio editing.

I was an early adopter of the Open Source audio editor 'Audacity' over fifteen years ago and have used it on both Linux and several different Windows platforms. It's an app I know well and use with confidence. My only sticking point with it is when I'm installing it on a new device. Audacity makes use of a special software library of code which enables it to import and export key commonly used sound format files. 

This library, called FFMPEG isn't Open Source Software, but Audacity is allowed to use it. You just have to download and install it. The authentic download site is information rich not ignorant user friendly. In fact, I didn't think it's changed much in a decade. I've rarely been successful in obtaining it and getting it to work first time. Invariably it seems I forget how I did it last time, which, if my memory serves me right was in my early days in Ibiza, as I was getting myself into gear for recording audio versions of services. 

As I have Audacity working properly on my desktop machine, I thought I'd take a look at its Programs file containing Audacity. That's where I saw a unique FFMPEG folder, as part of the setup. I copied and pasted this into exactly the place on laptop's filesystem, linked the library to Audacity, and it worked perfectly. It's not nearly so difficult to install Audacity plus FFMPEG on Linux.

I woke up early and posted Morning Prayer to the parish WhatsApp group. After breakfast, I went to St John's for the Eucharist, then after a brief visit to Tesco's, returned and cooked lunch. I intended to sleep after lunch but my mind was mulling on next week's Morning Prayer video. The more time I give to it in advance, the less pressure I feel I'm under to deliver to a deadline. Looking at the reading set for the office, ideas began to flow/ I lay on the bed with my Chromebook, and drafted a reflection based on it. 

I did my daily walk around the park before supper. I ate alone, as Clare went out to the Steiner School to watch final year students perform a Goldoni farce, their end of year school play, and returned much impressed with their comedic skills, including live improvisation on stage. Impressive for seventeen year olds! After supper I made a bereavement call to arrange next Tuesday's funeral, and with nothing better to do, having done enough work for the day, I watched three episodes of  'Just one look' a French thriller on Walter Presents. More plausible that what I binge watched yesterday and the day before.