Reclaiming wilderness in Wales

Another chilly night, slightly warmer by day, overcast with showers, definitely autumnal weather. I went to the Eucharist at St John's. There were seven of us, with Mthr Frances. I had to walk briskly afterwards to the pharmacy in King's road for my 'flu jab, before returning home and cooking lunch in the for Clare's return from school.

After lunch I took the 61 bus to town, to avoid the intermittent showers, to take photos of the Betty Campbell statue outside the HMRC building in Wood Street. It's an impressive piece of work, both in its overall concept and in the detail. See for yourself, my photos are here. 

We watched a wonderful half hour wildlife programme, with Iolo Williams looking for Wales' only golden eagle in the Cambrian Mountains north east of Tregaron. It seems the bird escaped from captivity a decade ago and has settled in this remote depopulated region, able to feed itself by hunting rabbits and other small mammals. There are also kites, buzzards and merlin in the area, but they are dwarfed by the two metre wingspan of the eagle. When the eagle shows up, other raptors back off. Iolo was saying that the region is no longer as rich in wildlife as it once was, but he suggested changes in land management and ecosystem conservation could reverse the decline. It was a gentle overture rather than a rousing campaign speech. I wonder if anyone is government was watching? Anyway, I've written to the First Minister this evening, as he's the Senedd member for my constituency.

Celebrating Butetown's diversity champion

The central heating fired up automatically early this morning for the first time since spring, as the ambient temperature of the house dropped below its threshold. It was cold yesterday and cold again today, bright and sunny, and thankfully no rain. After breakfast I drove Ann and Clare to the train station before driving to Saint Catherine's to celebrate St Michael and All Angels with six others plugging a gap at Mthr Frances' request. Fr Roy Doxsey agreed to cover St German's, although I was scheduled to be there. Clare stayed in town and went to see the Richard Burton biographical exhibition in the Museum.

After the Eucharist, I collected this week's veggie bag, and completed preparation for next Thursdays Morning Prayer and reflection, ready to record and edit when I got back from my walk around the park. On BBC Wales after supper was a programme about the making of a new statue celebrating the life and work of Butetown's Betty Campbell, Wales' first black head teacher and anti-racist campaigner who died four years ago. Her image was chosen by poll to represent heroic Welsh women in history. She lived, worked and died at the heart of the community she served, and was as proud to call herself a Cardiffian as she was to say she was black.

I was surprised to find when I looked on the Wales on-line website at five o'clock, that there was only a brief mention in the breaking news blog of the unveiling of the statue today, and not even a mention of its location outside the new HMRC building in Wood Street. Admittedly, photos were posted on a new page by six o'clock, but news of the statue unveiling had been run by the BBC on the Today programme in the morning, and on a BBC news web page. The statue itself was featured on Radio Four's 'Front Row' programme at seven fifteen in the evening, on top of the TV programme I saw. The Media Wales building is a hundred and fifty yards along Wood Street from HMRC, how come they were so slow to report on this? I should point out that new BBC Wales HQ is also on Wood Street directly opposite HMRC but why were Media Wales editorial team lagging behind the Beeb, when this was happening on their block?

I think we're in for some terminological wrangling. Wood Street is the main thoroughfare running though that part of the city centre designated as the Central Square Redevelopment. Actually, Central Square is the open paved space with Brunel's Cardiff railway station 1920s facade on the south side and the back entrance of the BBC on the north. On the west side are numbers one and two Central Square, the BBC is number three. The east side of the square is where the new bus station complex is under construction. So Betty's statue is within the Central Square development, though not in Central Square, but Wood Street. If all early news reports omit to mention Wood Street, we can look forward to confusion!

Still, it's a great day for the city. I'll be donw there with my camera taking photos tomorrow, under orders from my sister June.

Rainy birthday

Clare's birthday today, so I got up early and arranged a birthday table for her cards and present opening after breakfast in the dining room. A miserable change in the weather. It rained consistently all day until mid evening. It was most frustrating as we planned a birthday lunch for Clare and Ann (whose birthday is next week) at El Puerto restaurant in the old Cardiff Bay Customs House building, with a walk along the Barrage afterwards. It was too wet to do anything, so we returned home for tea and an improvised birthday cake, consisting of a single Danish vegan apple nut and toffee pastry bought earlier in the day with a single candle on top. Just a few mouthfuls, but that was all we could manage after a delicious meal with very generous portions of meat and fish.

Clare was surprised by the number of digital greetings and phone calls she received from colleagues and friends, and it kept her quite busy later in the day responding to them, while attempting ot turn the collar and cuffs of my summer jacket, so that I have a spare one, rather than throwing it away. Meanwhile, Ann and I watched this week's episodes of 'Silent Witness' back to back and struggled to figure out the plot yet again this week. 

As it had stopped raining, I went out for the third time in the day to get some birsk exercise before bed, this time without getting wet.

Monday closures

We all got up late after the the intensity of yesterday's musical experiences. The weather promised to be a mixture of sunshine and showers. Before going for a walk and lunch in Porthkerry Country Park, I made a bereavement call about the funeral I've been asked to take a week Tuesday

We intended to eat there at Mrs Marco's café, but found it was closed on a Monday. We walked for an hour in Cwm Ciddy woods and found the remnants of the ancient grain mill on the banks of the stream that runs down the valley, then drove to Cold Knap in Barry, where the Romilly's Coffee shop was open. We had a snack there in a pleasant eaterie, next to Mr Villa's fish restaurant which we thought might be open, but wasn't. Fortunately it didn't start to rain until we started out for home. We drove to the Bay Barrage at the Cardiff Marina end, to book a table for tomorrow's birthday lunch for Clare at la Marina. The receptionist said all booking was now done on-line, but helpfully produced his laptop and made a booking in situ. 

When we got home, I slept for half an hour, then went to Tesco's for a birthday card for Clare and some ingredients needed for the paella I cooked for supper. While cooking I also worked on next Sunday's Patronal Festival sermon for St German's, before settling down for a couple of hours in front of the telly with 'Secrets of the Museum' and this week's new episode of NCIS.

Driving around today, it took me a while to realise that some of the petrol stations I noticed had their fuel price displays set to zero, a sign they had no fuel to sell, even if they were open for other reasons. Fortunately I filled up last week before the new media began to report on the occasional fuel station that had to close for lack of delivery. This reportage sparked a round of panic fuel buying. exacerbating the recent fuel delivery problem prompted by delivery driver shortages. 

This crisis, in my opinion, has been stoked up by media reports, and pushed the government into doing what it should have done several weeks ago, to recognise the urgent need for temporary visas for drivers resident in the EU to return and work here until new ones can be trained, having been de-motivated by brexit to stay here and work as they have done for decades. A populist government, driven by mostly right wing media moguls. And this is modern democracy?

Taking liberties with Puccini

I was grateful for a good long sleep without a nose bleed. Clare and Ann went off to St Catherine's wrll before I was ready to leave for St German's where this morning, Lay Reader Mike Cook preached a wise and thoughtful sermon and I celebrated. 

This was a welcome respite for me, as there was a christening straight after the service, for a very tired and wriggly two year old toddler. His heavily pregnant mother had to hold him over the font for baptism which was risky for her climbing up two narrow steps in high heels. The child was too heavy for me to hold and pour water over and would have screamed even louder and wriggled if I tried to pick him up. Thankfully all went well without mishap.

It was twenty five to two when I reached home for lunch. At three we drove to the Millennium Centre for the matinée performance of Madam Butterfly, a new production. The singers and orchestra were under the direction of favourite conductor Carlo Rizzi. He was cheered when he arrive at the rostrum. 

The music was superbly sung as ever by all involved. The new stage set is strikingly modern and simple, making use of LED lighting technology, projecting video effects on to the white building to conjure an atmosphere. Centre stage on a turntable was a house consisting of two cubes on top of each other. linked with stairs. The upper cube was a glass box and in the lower cube a modern kitchen and laundry room. In these spaces and on the stairs much of the action took place.  The house rotated to effect scene changes, which would have been fine if the mechanism hadn't emitted mechanical noises that penetrated  orchestral interludes.

One main criticism all three of us had was of the costume. Cho Cho San's bridal dress looked like that of a Can-Can dancer. Admittedly she's a teen bride but if she was from a traditional culture did she have to resemble a bride from a reality TV show? Or was that a deliberate interpretative insinuation? She dies by stabbing herself with her father's suicide dagger in Puccini's plot, but her instrument is now a pistol, but there were no sound effects of shooting. 

Worse still. CSI forensic investigators would have seen immediately it was staged - a neat blood stain on a shower curtain (hommage to Hitchcock's movie 'Psycho'), plus another on the bathroom door which was revealed on opening when Cho Cho San's bloody arm tumbles out from within. That may also be a cinematic reference. But, it doesn't portray the far messier horror of a scene when someone blows their brains out. This looked like two deaths not one. Its implausibility distracted from the tragic ending. Not so much a controversial interpretation of a death scene as sloppy thinking about its representation. Someone should have a word with the producer. 

After supper when we returned we watched the Leeds Piano Competition on BBC Four with five superb finalists delivering pianistic fireworks, playing with an orchestra. Then I went out for a late night walk in the park, as my knees were complaining after spending so much of the day sitting down, and not always comfortably.

Royal integrity

I woke up feeling exhausted this morning. Owain and I talked until well after midnight, and then as I was getting ready for bed I heard the sound of water dripping and a wet floor in the bathroom. It didn't take me long to find that the joint connecting the hot water pipe to the tap was leaking. I got some tools and made an attempt to tighten the joint, but another nose bleed started, due to the awkwardness of the position in which I was bending over to do this. 

Fortunately Owain took over and slowed the leak from one drop a second to three drops a minute, so it was safe to leave with a bucket underneath it to catch the drips. Fortunately too, the nose bleed didn't last for long, the lesion is closing progressively, I just have to be careful about bending over, and my sleeping position. I went to sleep sitting up, around one fifteen, and slept poorly. It was ten by the time we all surfaced for our Saturday pancake breakfast, and afterwards I returned to bed and dozed until lunchtime. I didn't fully recover until I'd walked in the park for an hour and a half.

Owain left us before lunch as he had engagements later in the day back in Bristol. After a chick pea curry for supper, we three watched 'The King's Decision' on BBC Four. I think the last time I watched it was on Channel Four. It's a powerful film, beautifully made about the Nazi occupation of Norway, and the refusal of King Haakon to deal with Hitler without consultation and the agreement of the legally elected government. 

He was the first monarch to be chosen by citizens after Norway regained its independence from Sweden in 1905. His sole sovereign intervention was a threat to abdicate if the cabinet agreed to negotiate with Quisling, the author of the Nazi coup d'etat in Norway. His role as king, he believed, was to uphold the democratic system which chose him as head of state. The royal family took refuge in the USA for the rest of the war, while the king and his entourage got to London and from there worked to support the Norwegian resistance campaign. It's an impressive royal story by any account, and interesting to set alongside recent revelations about the role of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. They had their own  network of relationships with Europe's royal families and made use of them independently of the British government to gather information from abroad and feed it back into the war effort. Because there were a few Nazi sympathisers in the royal family before the war, Hitler was convinced the King could be won over. The reality was different. The fool who thinks he's king is not the one who is called to be king

Unexpected chaos

This morning after breakfast I walked up to St Michael's College with a bag of books on Orthodoxy to leave there for Ross, who forgot to take them with him from St German's on Sunday last. I intended to go by bus from Llandaff straight into town to buy Clare's birthday present, but left without a face mask, so I had to return home to collect one, and then catch the 61 into town. The Tudor Street road works impose a one way system, and the buses have adopted this, entering the city centre from Fitzhamon embankment over the Wood Street Bridge, then continuing to a bus stop on one side of Westgate Street, where inbound and outbound passengers get on and off. It must get pretty crowded at peak times, and in these covid times that's not such a good thing.

Ann was due to arrive from Felixstowe at three thirty five this afternoon, but her train was delayed by just over an hour.  I left the house to collect her by car in what I thought was good time, but traffic in Canton was very heavy. I thought I would have to queue for ages at the Tudor Street junction, but this wasn't the case. I was only five minutes later than Ann's first ETA, then she texted me about an extension to the delay. The train arrived five minutes later than the delayed time advertised on the information panel and went to a different platform. The barrier operator let me through to look for Ann, but with no success. I phoned her and discovered she took a wrong turning from an unfamiliar platform and got lost. One of the station staff kindly escorted her to the other end of the station, and all was well.

Apparently the conductor on her train got off at Swindon, so it had to wait for a replacement conductor to arrive by car from Bristol, forty five minutes away on the M4. The added fifteen minutes was him needing to find a petrol station en route. Due to a shortage of trained fuel delivery drivers some petrol stations have none to sell, and others have queues as a result of motorists panic buying. How soon chaos spreads. 

The first thing Ann did on arrive was make an on-line compensation claim to the train operators. She may get some of her outbound fare refunded. The procedure was understandable enough once you understood what was required, but the web page layout was tricky to negotiate, and took two of us to figure out. It requires a photo of your ticket, and either a ticket number or a booking reference. Nothing on the ticket  indicates which is which of the three groups of numbers it contains. The long ticket number (presumably) seemed to be accepted, but the web application form crashed and had to be re-started. What seems to be the booking reference, a much smaller code of letters and numbers worked. Next time we won't need to guess. Anyway, within minutes of completion Ann had an acknowledgment of her refund application, so the system is functional, and will deliver compensation to her bank account, in a matter of weeks.

Owain arrived at seven, his train from Bristol was delayed twenty minutes, so I collected him from the station, so that we could assemble ourselves in good time to walk to Stefano's for supper at eight. It was an enjoyable way to spend the rest of the day, excellent food nicely served, no mishaps, a return to order after journey chaos.

Justice perverted

After breakfast and uploading this week's Morning Prayer video to YouTube, I walked to St John's to celebrate the Eucharist with ten others. I joined the congregation for a cup of coffee afterwards, the first time I've been free to to so recently. It's great to see people relaxed and laughing at funny stories, enjoying the company. As usual on a Thursday, I cooked lunch in good time for Clare's arrival from school.

I lost an hour's sleep in the middle of the night due to waking up with a nose bleed from a deep sleep. It's not happened for the best part of a year. As ever, it's due to sleeping with my neck not properly supported to avoid constricting blood vessels and it can happen when turning over in my sleep and not realising what I've done. Unfortunately there was blood on the carpet which needed cleaning up before I could get back to sleep. After lunch I slept soundly in the chair for an hour and ten minutes, which made up for the amount of sleep lost in the night, and then felt better when I went out for a walk.

Clare ordered three replacement fitbit straps for me using her little used Amazon account. Although they are a small item, I suspect their rarity determines a mailing delivery date between 4th and 14th October. In the meanwhile my fitbit remains tied on with elastic thread. Taking it off to charge will be a challenge.

This evening I completed next week's Thursday Morning Prayer video and uploaded it to YouTube ready. Sister in Law Ann arrives tomorrow afternoon for a good long weekend and Sunday matinee opera outing. Owain comes over to join us for a meal at Stefano's tomorrow, a few days ahead of his Mum's birthday but it's the only way he can organise a visit to celebrate with us. Ann will be pleased to see her nephew too.

We watched a BBC documentary this evening about the investigation by South Wales Police into the murder of Lynette White, a Butetown sex worker thirty years ago. Five men of colour were arrested and subjected to brutal interrogations which ended up in three of them being jailed when there was no evidence against them apart from false witness statements and confessions forced under interrogation - shades of America or South Africa. 

After a community campaign and a long legal battle an appeal quashed the convictions as the appeal judge ruled the evidence was unsound, and the process by which it was obtained. The men were freed after four years imprisonment. Thirteen years after the murder, a cold case review of evidence used new DNA analysis techniques that led to the arrest and conviction of the murderer, confirming what was to every one but the Police authority that the original arrests and convictions were a prime example of both corruption and the perversion of the course of justice. 

An internal investigation arrested thirty policemen including 19 serving officers. Eight came to trial and the case against them could not be pursued because key documentary evidence was not available to both sides beforehand, yet turned up subsequently. It's a very disturbing tale of persistent institutional police corruption and racism which damaged scores of lives of people involved. Contemporary police leadership claims things are different now. Maybe those at the top are less inclined to turn a bline eye and keen to implement new improved policies, but does such change penetrate right down to the grass roots of the force I wonder?

Value for money?

A drive to St German's for the midweek Mass after breakfast. There were ten of us celebrating St Matthew a day late. Afterwards some of  the congregation chatted with Robert about his appearance on the Antiques Road Show programme last Sunday. He told us that he didn't think his interview would be included in the show which went out, but then he received a text message a few days earlier to say that it would appear. It seems the show was filmed back in July, soon after re-opening to visitors. 

I'm not surprised Robert's entry was included. It was a stitched sampler made by his great aunt, found discarded in coal cellar of her home when the house was being cleared after her death. It was a classic period piece of domestic craft work. but most importantly included an inscription in Welsh, which he read to camera. An interesting addition to an otherwise all English programme filmed in Dyffryn Gardens.

I collected this week's veggie bag and then cooked lunch when I returned home. My sister June emailed me a copy of a message from friend of hers complaining about the fact that the local clergy no longer visit or even phone up, and how hard it is for elderly people who are not computer literate if the can't make use of the church's offerings of on-line worship. Are clergy worth the amount of money the parish has to find to pay towards their costs? He asked. 

I sent her a lengthy detailed response, giving her a brief approximate account of the cost components in employing a cleric, and an account of what clergy have been up to during the months of the pandemic. I don't think that churchgoers who are now less actively involved in congregational affairs realise how rapidly the church at grass roots level is dying out, even though they will have lived long enough to see the same happening to chapel going communities forty years ago.

Then I went for my walk around the park, and listened to Evensong on my phone. I must remember to take headphones out with me when I go out. The sound is never quite loud enough to hear from my jacket pocket, and often phone conversations suffer from background noise interference. 

I had a message from Martin who is stopping over in Cairo for a few days on his way to St Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai for his second visit there. He said that he's booked a ticket for tonight's opera performance of Verdi's 'Aida' in an open air space at Cairo's opera house. According to the reviews I looked at, the entrance hall leading to the stage is decked out like the entrance to an Egyptian Temple. What an experience this must be!

After my walk, I whiled away the rest of the day watching episodes of 'Floodlands'. The story became even more complex as it developed with Chinese Triads attempting to take control over a cross border criminal fraternity claiming to have originated with seventeenth pirates based on the Meuse estuary, but it was primarily about law enforcement corruption and people trafficking. Complex enough for the first quarter of the seventh episode to consist of flashbacks from some story protagonists reprising elements of the narrative which the viewer would have guessed by watching in any case. 

In the end, almost all the baddies were arrested or shot, except the two arch-criminals and the good cops. That may mean there'll be another series eventually, though no sign of it on IMDB at the moment. The whole thing could have been compressed into six episodes if long night driving sequences and dramatic hallucination scenes  had been cut right back. Why do they bother?

Matthewtide

Fifty two years today since I was made Deacon and started serving my title in Caerphilly. A sunny Monday morning, with cleaning chores to be done before I could get started on preparations for next week's Thursday Office. After lunch, a walk around the park, feeling lethargic as I didn't sleep for long enough last night. I relaxed in front of the telly when I got back with another episode of 'Floodlands' before supper. I went to bed early to work on writing my play and to watch the newest episode of NCIS, featuring guest star Cote de Pablo which sees the closure of the Ziva David storyline, making possible a return to her daughter and her lover/former partner Tony diNozzo.

After twenty one months of almost continuous wearing my Samsung fitbit watch strap started to break up last week. It's an early model with an uncommon strap, whose design was subsequently changed. They are available on-line, mostly through Amazon. I don't have an Amazon account and laugh whenever I get one of those robotic scam calls telling me unusual sums of money have been charged to my Amazon account and that I should enquire about this with their security hotline. I want to keep it that way. Some vendors use PayPal. I tried that service but wasn't comfortable with it. Finding a vendor for this item from whom I can buy just using a credit card is proving difficult. I can find a store anywhere which any longer sells such a small ticket item. It's rather frustrating, to say the least. For the moment the wrist band is held on by pieces of thick elastic thread. It looks awful but it works.

The Feast of St Matthew the Apostle today - the one who has watched over my ministry since I was made Deacon on the eve of his fiesta. Another warmish sunny day. I stayed in all morning to take delivery of some parcels while Clare went to her study group. I did some more preparatory work on next week's Morning Prayer audio and then cooked lunch. A call came in asking me to do a funeral at Pidgeon's Chapel of Rest two weeks today The audio I eventually recorded and edited before going out for my daily walk. My route took me to Peacock's store on Cowbridge Road, where I was able to purchase a much needed black shirt. It's tailored to a slim fit and looks good on me now. Nine months ago, I couldn't have fitted into it. I also went to the pharmacy in King's Road and booked myself in for a 'flu jab. This will be done a week Thursday.

After supper, I watched both this week's episodes of 'Silent Witness' while doing my daily Duo Lingo drill. Maybe I didn't give it my full attention, but I'm not sure how well the threads of the complex investigation all fitted together in the final resolution. Much the same as last week.

Pastoral re-generation - natural or designed?

Today is the fifty first anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood, which a casually mentioned last week in St German's. After I celebrated the Eucharist this morning, Brian the organist played Bach's Toccata in D Minor in my honour, and there was choccy cake with coffee after the service. I was given a big slab of it to take home, plus a bottle of Prosecco. How lovely! 

Last year something similar happened at St Catherine's, at a time when I was celebrating infrequently, due to covid restrictions. I was most grateful to be able to do so. I wasn't as well then as I am now. I wondered how much longer, given the uncertainty with which we lived then, how much longer I might be able to continue in public ministry. 

Here I am, still at it, a year later, and since then not only have I got fitter, but calls upon me to plug gaps the ministry rota in Canton, and now in  St German's as well, mean I'm as active as I was pre-pandemic. So it's a particular year I have many things to give thanks for, and I told the congregation of thirty just that when I started this morning's Eucharist.

It was the last Sunday for St German's Parish ordinand on placement, Ross, to share in the service and take his leave of us. Members of the congregation are fond of him and sorry to see him go, but the powers that be insist that there has to be a full time priest in office to supervise his learning programme, so he is moving to St Mark's Gabalfa, an unashamedly evangelical Anglican church which doesn't advertise when a Eucharistic celebration is scheduled for those who wish to receive Communion. It wasn't like that in times past that I'm aware of. I'm surprised this is acceptable to the Bishop. 

It may be argued by the church council that there's no demand for this provision, and that other parishes nearby supply the need, but I'd not be convinced by such an explanation. Ross is troubled about having to attend a Sunday service and not receive Communion as it's been the foundation of his personal spirituality and vocation. There'll always be an eight o'clock at the Cathedral he can attend, and it's only a mile from there to Saint Mark's. Four months of abstinence from Communion during last year's lock-down was challenging for me and many others. By the grace of God we didn't lose faith, and neither will Ross. It's not unusual for evangelical congregations to celebrate the Eucharist infrequently, but at least publicising when it will happen is surely part of the church's welcome to all comers. What is happening to the Anglican via media of Word and Sacrament, I wonder?

It was twenty to two by the time I got home for lunch again this week, but then I did linger chatting for a long time again. I learned today that the regular Monday evening Mass is suspended for several months, as the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama is booking the church and hall five days a week, afternoons and evenings for rehearsals of musical and dramatic events that are part of the College's teaching year. It's excellent news for St German's, which is one of the best buildings acoustically for live performance, and used for broadcasts because of this. Good for the bank balance too!

In my time as Rector of Central Cardiff, St Teilo's Parish Church provided rehearsal space for the College around the year, especially when the College buildings underwent a major revovation. After completion, the arrangement lapsed as the College had enough space in-house for most of its programme. St Teilo's couldn't pay its way. A couple of years ago it was given over to a church planting group from Holy Trinity Brompton for work among un-churched young people and students in the city. It's been re-branded Citizen Church, which means its identity as a church been dissociated from its Parish territory. In effect, it's now an eclectic congregational church, competing with others of the same kind. I have no idea if it's successful or not, or how many genuinely un-churched people have joined its ranks, as opposed to religious consumers exchanging one brand of evangelical congregationalism for another. Time will tell I suppose. 

Meanwhile similar projects are happening in Anglican dioceses all over Britain, and this has led to the rise of a 'Save our Parishes' campaign from concerned churchgoers who see a tried and tested pastoral model being abandoned without justification in favour of an experimental kind of church organisation which may not always work as hoped for. Context is everything, and at present all churches are experiencing decline and seem to be facing extinction. A sign of the times we live in, but who knows if this is a permanent state of affairs or not? After all, it's happened before in church history.

Experiment by all means, but let old irrelevant institutions die their own death, as they do when the population is totally displaced, rather than kill them off by episcopal edict, so to speak. To kill them off could have unintended consequences. People may not attend a Parish church, but it may still remain part of their identity and sense of community in a populated place, something they look to, but take for granted until it disappears irrevocably. It's a difficult balancing act, but I can't say I'm happy. Dioceses are keen to appoint specialists and experts to manage every aspect of church life and missions. This happens while the numbers of parish clergy are being reduced. It doesn't make sense to me.

At the end of our kitchen table, since last night, a muslin bag full of stewed blackberries and apples has been suspended from a stool, straining out liquid to be turned into jelly or syrup depending on how it turns out. Once the straining was finished, we took turns to press the residue through a special sieve to remove the pips and produce a paste Clare calls a 'cheese', which needs a little sweetening but has a lovely fruity flavour. It's good with ice cream, on bread, and can be used to fill tartlets. Altogether two lots of four jars of each product from four pounds of blackberries and crab apples. Very satisfying!

Much to our mutual delight, this evening's broadcast of 'Antiques Roadshow was from Dyffryn Gardens. One of the exhibitors of a family heirloom was Robert, one of the St German's choristers. That was a real surprise. I planned to do some more play writing, but ran out of hours in the day. I can have a good run at it tomorrow and Tuesday however, now that I have two days free at the beginning of the week.

Family homeland revisited

Yesterday was unremarkably routine, except that I walked into town in the afternoon to buy a new summer jacket. It's nearly time to switch to a warmer one and my existing jacket is worn out. Sure enough, as it's the end of the season, I found just was I was looking for at a forty percent discount. It'll keep now until next spring, unless there's extra warm weather and a special occasion. There was nothing of interest on telly so I spent evening working on the script I'm writing for the play abut St German. I'm quite pleased at the way it's working out so far.

This morning began with out late Saturday pancake breakfast, and by midday we set out to drive up the A470 to visit Parc Penallta on the mountain above the village where I was born. A large area of the former spoil heap (or coal tip as the locals call it) of Penallta Colliery was stabilized, given a forest makeover and landscaped with two big outdoor installations to mark the arrival of the Millennium. I've never been there before, and thought it was about time we did.

After twenty years the woodland has developed nicely not only with vegetation but birds and insects. We saw buzzards circulating, a greenfinch (I think) a big flock of sparrows, and a red bodied dragonfly - there are several ponds and a wetland area. In one open area there's a huge earth sculpture, best viewed from the air commemorating Sultan one of the Penallta pit ponies. There were dozens of dog walkers up there, and the majority of them seemed to be dachshund owners. I wondered if this was their club rally. There's also a large metal sculpture, a dome shaped frame with cast iron sheet panels at ground level, each one with a set of symbolic images representing valleys life, landscape and history cut out of them. Very effective.

The views from the top up and down the Rhymney Valley, east and west, from Maesycwmer to Treharris are lovely, even on an overcast day like today. I was struck by the black outline on the mountain ridge to the south west of the Llanbradach Colliery tip which grew like a scar on the landscape as I grew up. It was a sight I hated because it made a beautiful mountain look so ugly. Nothing has been done to remove it or clothe it with vegetation. I wonder if it ever will?

After walking up to the pit pony site, had lunch in the Rowan Tree pub on the road between Nelson and Ystrad Mynach close to the site entrance. It has a lovely view across farmland in the valley below and we were able to sit at a table in a conservatory on the terrace. Next to the pub is a butchers shop. Much of the pub grub makes use of fresh meat from the shop, supplied by local farms I imagine. I had faggots, mushy peas and pork chippolates with mashed potatoes, generous helpings of delicious traditional fare washed down with a pint of Stella Artois. The we drove to Penallta hill at the other end of the site, and climbed up to the highest point where the Observatory sculpture is located. On the way down we picked a kilo of blackberries and another kilo of crab apples, to turn into a delicious jelly in the next few days.

After supper, I completed next week's Thursday prayer video, and started watching a 'Walter Presents' crimmie called 'Floodlands' set on the section of Dutch Belgian border along the river Meuse. It's about people trafficking and features a black female detective, so it observes issues of institutional racism and sexism in the police and border forces. I find it interesting to watch partly because it is set on a border, since we lived altogether nine years in border territories in Geneva and Monaco.

RWCMD - persistence in pandemic

I walked to St John's after breakfast this morning to celebrate the Eucharist with just five others, half the usual congregation which is unusual. It was only when I was getting ready to leave that I realised that I'd not posted the link to my Thursday morning Prayer offering, as I usually do it after 'Thought for the Day', before eight. This morning I woke up well after eight, having gone to be rater late. I listened on catch-up and forgot my regular Thursday morning routine. I hope geriatric forgetfulness isn't going to plague me. Admittedly insufficient sleep may be the cause.

I returned and had lunch cooked well before Clare returned from school. After eating, I slept soundly for another hour and a half. Then we walked over the fields to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama for a special 'Welcome Back' meeting for College supporters and patrons at four in the Dora Stutzker Hall. This was made up of reports on the life of the College over the past eighteen months from the Principal and three senior staff members, interweaved with performances from three remarkable students. One was an award winning harpist, another was a talented singer from the Music Theatre course, and another was a virtuoso saxophonist from the Junior Conservatoire, just about to begin his first undergraduate year.

We were told that RWCMD continued working with students throughout the worst of the pandemic even when the College buildings were closed down, and as soon as it could open to receive students and staff again, it evolved a 'mixed learning' in-house and on-line arrangement. Making and performing shows, concerts and recitals went on throughout, via the internet, and whenever possible live with safely scaled down audiences in a variety of venues - dozens of production, plays, musical theatre and opera as well as recitals and concerts. Friday afternoon Jazz sessions continued throughout in the atrium of the building and were live streamed. 

Most impressive however is the fact that the 2021 academic year, despite all the restrictions, was completed in full, the only conservatoire in Britain, and maybe further afield, to do this. Such creative passion, thanks to inspirational leadership! Plans are afoot raise funds to develop in new ways all College educational programmes in the next three years, including a completely new approach to the BMus course. A great Welsh example of Boris's' build back better philosophy.

I know it's invidious to compare an institution like RWCMD with the Church in Wales, but the temptation is there. The College has not just fulfilled its mission to be a beacon of hope and creativity for the artistic life of Wales, but exceeded it in ways even those involved couldn't have imagined when the pandemic began and promises to continue to do so in the coming years. Can the same be said of our Province of the Anglican Church in the same period? 

At the grass roots level, in many if not most Parishes, the answer is yes - food banks, environmental and health projects, on-line worship, fellowship and discussion activities. But churches were also closed for long periods, and only slowly allowed to resume a semblance of normality. All was done conscientiously but in a totally risk averse way, avoiding the real challenge of encouraging disciplined responsibility in engaging socially to rebuild confidence in meeting face to face. 

Outdoor carol singing events socially distanced for example could have been planned and executed safely with creative forethought, but anything real world social was discouraged. Some have discovered that on-line religion works for them and is more convenient. Will congregations already in decline before the pandemic recover, if people have lost the habit of meeting, after such a long time being discouraged actively from doing so in and around church, apart from the strictly controlled environment of liturgical worship under covid compliant conditions?

Clearly RWCMD has worked hard at communicating in a way that has not only nourished relationships between teachers and students, but also with College supporters throughout, likewise the Welsh National Opera company. Building back better is going to be pursued with zeal not desperation. Our creative people longed for audiences and have made the effort to reach out and stay connected with them. The church as an institution - can we really say that it has done this with conviction? Or confidence? Has the church lost the ability to seize public attention in any meaningful or fruitful way? Where do we go from here?

All these thoughts came to the surface this evening while was was working on recording and editing next week's Morning Prayer audio. I'm finding it easier to do this with the passage of time, but wondering as I do it, who is listening and whether anyone is thinking about what we're saying. I believe a splendid effort was made throughout the worst of the crisis months to translate the traditional status quo of worship and outreach into the digital world, but where do we go from here. Do we have any idea what a re-think looks like or what direction it would take us in? I don;t have any answers. I hope someone does.

Bereavement impacts

After breakfast this morning I drove to St German's to celebrate the Mass of our Lady of Sorrows with six others. I'm enjoying using the Lady Chapel now that I know where the light switches are. Actually the sun lights up most of the chapel in the morning but not the sanctuary and altar. My cataracts make it hard to read if the book is in shadow, so this makes a difference. 

Co-incidentally when I arrived home there was a letter from the University Ophthalmology department informing me that my application for eye surgery has been added to the waiting list! Optometrist Ceri told me at my last appointment two months ago that I could expect to hear if I'd been put on to the list in three months, so that's an improvement. I may still have to wait more than a year for treatment, however, unless I pay for private surgery, which I'm reluctant to do. Meanwhile, I have to go on-line and complete a questionnaire about my sight condition, which presumes I can see to use a computer.

I did the weekly grocery shopping trip to the Co-op and got lucky this week as it wasn't nearly as busy as last week and there was no queue at the till. Then I collected this week's veggie bag before sitting down to lunch which Clare had prepared while I was out.

We were saddened to hear from Owain that there will be an even longer delay to his apartment purchase as the owner whose share in a co-ownership property has died before exchange of contract. He will now have to wait until probate is granted on the estate of the deceased. A niece who is an executor of the estate called Owain to establish he's still in the process of purchasing preliminaries, and reassured him the executors are happy with his offer and wish to continue selling to him. It just means another wait of four to six months to complete the sale. 

What is most unfortunate for Owain is that his motivation to get on with buying a place of his own was due to the death of his landlord six months ago. He doesn't know exactly when his deceased landlord's estate will be settled, who will inherit and what their intentions will be about existing tenants. He doesn't know if or when he might be given notice, but unlikely it'll happen until the New Year. On the positive side, the landlord was living abroad, and this complicates the settlement of the estate in especially in pandemic times, so his tenancy may be secure for long enough for his purchase to go through.

Marc came over after lunch to rehearse tomorrow's kindergarten eurythmy class with Clare. He brought with him his favourite violin, a three hundred year old German instrument, a real treasure lovely to look at. I didn't fall asleep in the chair after lunch as I usually do while they worked together, it was enjoyable listening to them performing and discussing in the next room. Then I went out for a walk, and thought I'd listen to Choral Evensong outdoors with BBC Sounds on my phone. That was when I discovered that Wednesday's service has been re-scheduled to four o'clock, which is a good thing in my opinion. To my mind, evening begins as the sun is setting. Only in deep midwinter does it set at four. I'm often taking a siesta at three and have to listen on catch-up if I remember it's Wednesday. 

Anyway, I reached home as it was starting with the Latin Litany of the Saints in procession at a service in Edington Priory Wiltshire, part of the annual Edington Festival of Music in the Liturgy now in its 65th year. I remember visiting Edington on a chaplaincy 'church crawl' when I was a student in Bristol. I have a vague recollection of attending a choral service there, but can't remember whether it was in the festival week or not.

In the evening I watched a marvellous wildlife programme set in Brazil and for once it wasn't all about the Amazon tropical rain forests, but about semi arid regions where the seasonal rains play a vital part. An amazing  looking at unique biodiversity and ecosystems.

Creative flow returns

Monday morning alongside domestic chores and cooking lunch, I set my mind to work on a new piece of creative writing. For some weeks I have been reflecting on the life and times of St German and looking for a way of showing how stories about him relate to some of our contemporary issues and concerns. I began with thinking about a series of talks and seminars, but decided that would involve too much organising and recruiting, thinks I no longer have to contacts to make happen. 

Then it occurred to me that a sequence of playlets around scenes from his life could be a good way of conveying ideas and getting them discussed especially if I could turn them into a podcast. So I started writing in free moments in between jobs and a afternoon walk, then again after going over to St German's to celebrate the Vigil Mass of Holy Cross Day, which is tomorrow. I was surprised  at how easily dialogue came to mind, and how quickly time passed. 

Imaginative exercise has raised my spirits. I don't suffer from writers' block, but I've imposed limits on my imagination this past year or so, putting much of my effort into following scientific developments from day to day, putting as much energy into reasoning and understanding what's going on as an antidote to fear and despair. I feel as if I've been let out of my walled garden and set free to roam the world, even if it is the rather ancient world of fifth century Gaul my mind is exploring at the moment!

This morning I drove to Thornhill to officiate at a funeral followed by a burial in the cemetery. Rain was expected but none came thankfully. The chapel seating capacity has new returned to what it was before the pandemic, and people are free to sing hymns, though not to remove their masks indoors. A grand daughter of the deceased gave the tearful eulogy. Her father died suddenly as lock-down began and only ten could be at his funeral. Fifty family and friends turned out today and instinctively spread themselves out in the chapel, many of them would have been mourners at her father funeral as well, so it was a kind of catch-up in recognising their double loss, which I was keen to do. Several present expressed their appreciation for this afterwards.

After lunch, I did my daily exercise then continued writing until after supper. again this week I watched last night's episode of 'Silent Witness' on iPlayer and then tonight's episode live. This introduced a new character a bright teenager who was profoundly deaf and communicated brilliantly with sign language and mobile phone text messaging. It really gave a lift to the proceedings. One story thread seemed to develop and then vanish inconclusively, unless it's going to return as part of another story next week of course.

More writing, then bed.

A Sunday Parish Feast

This morning I joined Clare in the choir for the Sung Eucharist at St Catherine's, with Fr Colin celebrating and a congregation of about thirty. It was the first day for the resumption of Sunday School and there were half a dozen children in church with their parents at the end when we sang a whacky tongue twisting take on the Benedicite Omnia Opera canticle called 'O ye badgers and hedgehogs bless the Lord.' I think the adults enjoyed it even more than the kids judging by the round of applause we got.

Straight after the service I drove to St German's and arrived just in time for the recitation of the Angelus. Fr Stewart had celebrated and preached, and we had a chat afterwards about interregnum arrangements. I then joined the congregation in the church hall for a three course parish lunch with wine, laid on simply to celebrate the end of restrictions on such social activities. I think there were about forty of us present, all very happy about this return to normality. 

I was on the retired clerics table with Fr Roy Doxsey and Fr Paul Bigmore, who was telling us about the launch next month of the fourth compendium of hymns he's written and published. Roy has been retired eight years, but Paul had to take early retirement after a stroke greatly limited his mobility. He's mostly confined to his apartment on Fitzhamon Embankment nowadays and unable to minister publicly, so he pours all his creative energy into hymn writing. It's so good that he was able to come.

Choral Evensong from St David's Cathedral started on the radio as I was driving home. The Collect for Peace and the Blessing were said in Welsh, which was very pleasing. I would have liked to hear a bit more in Welsh, but suppose the BBC barons would be averse to this as it's nationally networked. At least we in the Church in Wales have this expression of ancient diversity, being constitutionally bi-lingual, and with our first translation of the Book of Common Prayer dating from shortly after 1662, along with the French version, the earliest renderings of reformation vernacular liturgy.

I listened to the first half in the car and the second half at home. It was gone five by the time I went out to walk off that generous lunch, as I fell asleep for an hour in the chair after the service finished. After supper, there was a two hour programme on BBC Four about the history of artist's self-portraiture from the Renaissance to present times. It was absorbing watching for the range of paintings shown, described and interpreted by art historian Laura Cummings. 

I was glad to spend time looking and listening to an expert whose insight in the personalities and spirit of an era in which personal individuality evolved and flourished was most worthwhile. Clare thought the content could have been packed into an hour long programme, but she was conflicted about such a long watch as she'd just embarked on a tricky sewing project to turn a set of four armchair covers inside out to improve the colour match.

After the programme, I completed and uploaded to YouTube this week's Thursday Office and Reflection. The time taken to put visuals together with the completed audio is reducing thankfully, the more I do this. The habit of regular video production is improving my ability to judge timings between the visual elements. Sure, I could plan properly by doing a paper time-line and stop-watch components of the audio, but that seems like such an effort. Real life event timing is not nearly as mechanical. It has a feel to it, just like playing something on a musical instrument. Now I get all the components roughly in place and play with what I see and hear until it feels right. Somehow that's much more rewarding than trying to engineer the product.

Sombre times

It was ten o'clock on a sunny morning by the time we sat down to our Saturday pancake breakfast, having slept even longer than usual after last night's operatic uplift. I did some DuoLingo exercises and then walked to Tesco's for exercise and a couple of bottles of wine before lunch. 

Just before I went out there was a phone call from the next of kin arranging next Tuesday's funeral. His niece is doing the eulogy. She lost her father a few days before lockdown last year. It was many weeks before he could be laid to rest in such constrained circumstances, so this will be a significant moment for her, and I think we'll be remembering and praying for her Dad as well as her Gran at this time for family mourning.

Clare made a delicious fava bean and vegetable stew with brown rice for lunch. We're both agreed that we now prefer brown rice to the white kind, perhaps because we've both mastered the art of cooking it perfectly.

Then I prepared and printed next Tuesday's funeral service. These days I'm getting into the habit of advance preparation and avoiding the pressure of doing things at the last minute. I used to be good at working under pressure but now I find it debilitating. An annoying factor of old age, I'm afraid.

We walked in the woods along the side of the Taff in Bute Park. The first autumn leaves are starting to carpet the ground with golden brown, very beautiful in the afternoon sun. We stopped for a drink with some cake at the Secret Garden Cafe. The cake was nice but far too rich for me and upset my stomch - probably dairy fats which I'm no longer used to.  

After supper, Clare watched young tennis virtuoso Emma Raducanu delight the country by winning the US Open championship. I wasn't in the mood for sporting emotions, having absorbed myself in watching the Eastern European crimmie 'The Pleasure Principle' on Walter Presents, on and off in the past week, and now reaching the conclusion with a long binge watch. 

A complex tale spanning four countries, serial killings, a secret elite circle of abusers, police corruption and international arms smuggling, all touching upon each other, the murder investigation incidentally exposing the other crimes. The acting and character development were remarkably good. The pace was slow, but thoughtfully so. Somewhat different from the usual Western European offering.

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Twin Towers massacre in New York, cause for sombre reflection all around the world, but also questioning in the light of the USA's army withdrawal from Afghanistan in recent weeks, leaving the country in the hands of the Taliban again. Spy-catchers foresee more activity on the part of islamist terrorists in relation to soft targets in Western world cities. In the past few years there have been major shifts of power going on in geo-politics, and the pandemic. The world is not the same as it was twenty years ago, but terrorism like organised crime is as endemic as any deadly virus, and remain a cause for concern as serious as global warming.

WNO's triumphant return to normality

A walk in Thompson's Park after breakfast to wake me up and clear my head so that I could concentrate better on recording next week's Morning Prayer and the Reflection I quickly wrote yesterday. The job was done by lunchtime, with fewer editing corrections needed. Perhaps I should discipline myself to prepare for creative tasks by doing this more often.

In the afternoon, a short siesta and another walk around Thompson's Park before an early supper ready to drive to the Millennium Centre for this evening's landmark performance of Rossine's opera 'The Barber of Seville'. A landmark because it's the first full length opera in front of a live audience in eighteen months. To celebrate the occasion, Clare donned a lovely blue and white frock and I my white suit plus blue shirt, and we wore of WNO 'Partners' badges. I was surprised to find that our names are printed in tiny print in the supporters list at the back of the programme for the night. Amazing!!

This is the same English language production as we've seen twice before, brilliantly theatrical and funny, and well worth repeating, as a kind of signature work in the hands of a great opera company. The singing was superb and the pace at which it was taken was breathtaking, if anything to my mind a bit too fast for one to read the surtitles. Reading them was necessary when the speed of singing began to lose the sense of the libretto. Now and then it was impossible to speed read them. There were also occasions when the connection between singers and orchestra became a little ragged, and that's very unusual for WNO chorus and orchestra. Tomas Hanusch drove them all a little too hard to my mind, un-necessarily so. Perhaps the sheer excitement of the occasion, getting back to live performance accounts for this. After all, it was a very different kind of first night to remember.

The arrangement of the entrance area of the Millennium Centre has been significantly modified, hopefully for the time being and not forever. All the ticket desks are boarded off, no longer in use. Ticketing is being done on-line only at the moment, so you can't just walk in and book things. You can have tickets posted to you or emailed, including discounted car park tickets. Each one contains a QR code which is scanned by one of the stewards on entry to the auditorium. This automatically reports your identity and contact details for track and trace reporting.

The car park barrier has a scanner which operates the barrier in and out. I had misgivings about the size of the coded tickets embedded in the confirmatory email, and the quality of the printout possible, so I took a computer screen grab of each instead and saved them to my Blackberry, producing a full screen image of the coded ticket, just as it's been possible to do with airline tickets for the past five years. It works a treat, as long as you remember to take your phone with you! It really would have been better if the tickets were attached as .pdf files to the email. More people know how to handle these than know how to take a screen grab. To be fair, the email does contain a live link to Apple Wallet, but what good is that if you don't have an iPhone?

Nevertheless, all steps in the right direction I suppose. It's so good that the Millennium Centre is working again, with its wonderfully welcoming staff and outstanding musical offering. Rossini is resounding in my ears as I go to bed a happier man tonight.

What is a timely death?

While I was posting this morning's video upload to WhatsApp just before 'Thought for the Day', it started to rain heavily. It didn't continue like that all day, showers came and went, giving way to sunshine late afternoon, freshening the air, prompting the birds to sing. We haven't heard much from them recently.

Archbishop George Carey is in the news today together with Rabbi Jonathan Romaine spearheading a debate as part of a campaign to permit assisted dying in certain controlled circumstances. It seems there is a growing tide of opinion in favour of this in Britain, although the majority of religious leaders are opposed to it. It will be interesting to see how Parliament responds to draft bill proposals. 

There are countries where voluntary euthanasia is allowed - Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Switzerland, some Australian states, New Zealand and Canada. We have an increasing problem due to medical success in keeping people alive when they might have died earlier naturally. This can so easily prolong someone's helplessness and suffering, so matter how good palliative care can be if available. We have plenty of ideas about what a good life consists of, but don't readily consider what a good death may look like.

I attended the Eucharist at St John's taking the shopping trolley with me, avoiding puddles. Archbishop Rowan celebrated with a dozen of us. On the way back I called at Beanfreaks and collected the groceries Clare ordered yesterday and then forgot to collect. She was in school this morning, fitting the kindergarten class with eurythmy shoes. She brought the entire stock of tiny shoes back home with her for a machine wash. They made a cute sight drying outdoors between showers.

While I was out walking in the park after lunch, the piano tuner came for the first time since the pandemic. The piano wasn't badly out of tune, but it has benefited from some TLC, so Clare is pleased, playing and singing happily in preparation for choir practice at St Catherine's. We had supper early, then went to choir practice together and sang for an hour and a half. I was surprised how tired my voice was by the end, not to mention the rest of me. Early to bed now.

Marriage certificate upheaval

I drove to St German's at ten to celebrate Mass for Our Lady's birthday with five others. It seem that the couple who came last Sunday to enquire about a wedding may have been motivated to return after many years by the baptism of one of their children here long ago. The procedure for arranging the wedding of non-UK citizens was complex enough in times past but this has changed altogether recently. Thanks to Brexit, unless a couple have 'Settled Status' they can't be married in church either by Banns or Common License. A church wedding is now authorised by Superintendent Registrar's Marriage Schedule (SMRS) once they can show they have fulfilled the qualifying requirements if they don't live in the parish. 

If only the church would stick to its essential role of blessing people's marriages after civil registration and surrender its traditional status of registrar of church marriages. The erosion of the traditional priest's role is already advanced by the digitization of marriage registers. Since July this year, an officiating cleric now has to fill just one wedding register for the church's archive, plus a form with the details copied to send to the civil registrar's office for entry into the national database. Once digital registration is confirmed, a marriage certificate can be issued. 

The couple must collect their certificate from the civil register office a few days later, not from the priest. I wonder if there are any arrangements for express delivery in the case of needing proof of marriage in an emergency? A priest can no longer issue a legal marriage certificate at the end of the wedding service. So why not break the spell, and go all the way to celebrating and blessing marriage after a civil ceremony? It would mean one less stressful piece of bureaucracy for a parish priest to cope with.

As I arrived home Clare was heading out for the shops in town, so I cooked lunch ready for her return. I then walked around the edge of Bute Park and back. On my way to the museum yesterday I took photos of the remnants of a summer exhibition of replica dinosaur sculptures behind a large fenced off enclosure on Cooper's Field, fenced because there was an entrance fee. The Ice Age mini-theme park finished last week, so the theme park 'take-down' is now well under way. Most of the large life size sculptures have been dismantled into component parts and gathered at collection points for transporting elsewhere. The visual impact is surreal if not comic. I took a dozen photos yesterday and another half a dozen today. The results are here

Yesterday I chatted with a Zimbabwean woman taking photos of the scene with her phone. Today a man in my age group was doing likewise. He noticed the cross I wear and asked if I believed this exhibition represented our ancient pre-history. Of course, I replied. I've never been a denialist. Awe and wonder in science gave me the foundation of faith in God after all. He said you didn't have to believe in God to experience awe and wonder. I agreed. His childhood experience of Sunday School interpretation of scripture literally led him away from faith. It never captured my imagination, but then I didn't go that much to any Sunday School when I was a kid.

I watched a couple of episodes of an Eastern European international crimmie after supper, called 'The Pleasure Principle'. It's shot on location in Odessa, Prague and Warsaw, and switches between Ukranian, Czech and Polish, three Slav languages but when the separate investigations cross borders, the common language is English, and it's spoken with the respective accents of each country, slowly and deliberately. It's well produced and active, though the plot is very dark and bizarre, as well as complex. Despite being interested in Orthodoxy for nearly sixty years, and singing in a Russian Orthodox choir as a student, I've never really felt drawn to explore Slavic countries. Eastern Mediterranean and Greek expressions of Orthodoxy have been of much greater interest to me over the years.

Mystifying mumbling

After breakfast this morning, I walked to the Co-op to do the week's grocery shopping live, to spare Clare the hassle of doing it on-line as she's done since lockdown started. A little bit of the old normality resumed for pleasure. There was quite a queue at the checkout after I'd gathered my purchases. Just on of the five tills was working. I noticed a Deliveroo rider leaving with a heavy pack, someone's on-line order. It occurred to me that several of the counter staff were out in the store behind the store picking and packing ol-line orders. The regular staff must still be under a lot of pressure.

After cooking and eating lunch with Clare I walked over to the museum, my first visit since I met Laura Ciobanu for a coffee there on her visit from Romania three years ago. The museum re-opened a couple of months ago with all the necessary safety procedures in place but with several exhibition galleries out of action, as major roof repairs are still in progress. I didn't realise you still had to pre-book on-line, until I reached there, but the stewards on the door kindly registered my contact details on the spot, since they weren't all that busy and had room for more visitors. 

The main feature at the moment is a biographical exhibition about the life of Welsh actor Richard Burton, with photos and artifacts as well as texts telling of his up-bringing in the Afan Valley and his career as a Shakesperian actor and film star. In later life he lived and died a resident of Celigny (GE) where my friend Valdo was pastor when I was Chaplain in Geneva eight years after Burton's demise. I remember being shown his modern house at the edge of the village which he named 'Pays de Galles'.

I took my Sony HX300 with me into town and took some photos before visiting Cardiff Camera Centre to see if it would be worthwhile having it repaired, as it has developed a permanent error message, and the manual ring which alters telephoto length no longer works. For the time being, with a simple workaround it still takes good photos, but I think it's days are numbered as my HX50 developed the same fault and died on me three years ago. It turns out the cost of fixing it is more than the camera is now worth, so I'll just have to keep using it as it is until it packs in. It's a shame I can't repair it myself but it requires specialist tools to dismantle it.

After supper I watched yesterday's first part of a new story in a new series of 'Silent Witness' on BBC iPlayer, then the second one live. A complex plot with a confused crisis type ending, made unintelligible by mumbled dialogue. I'll have to watch the last five minutes again with sub-titles to understand how it actually finished. I've had the same trouble also with newer episodes of NCIS, reduced to guessing what's being said, even with the volume turned up. Am I that deaf or is this some new style of acting aiming to keep the audience in the dark?

Blessing true commitment

A lovely hot and sunny start to the week, good for washing bed linen as well as the regular house cleaning tasks. Before cooking lunch I completed this week's Morning Prayer video and uploaded it to YouTube ready for Thursday. In the afternoon we went foraging for blackberries in Pontcanna Fields. It looks as if a lot of picking went on over the weekend, as there were fewer large ripe blackberries to be found, but we came home with nearly a kilo between us.

It was good to hear that the Governing Body of the Church in Wales has approved a proposal by a large and healthy majority of clergy and laity to add a service of blessing the civil partnerships of gay couples to the church's liturgical library. About time too. Next step, the full wedding service for gay couples. If any couple, regardless of gender want to dedicate their lives to each other in lifelong union before God, I see no reason why it can't be seen as marriage. 

The traditionalist view of marriage as the unique hallowed context for procreation doesn't oblige couples to have children. Some exercise the freedom to choose not to. This is also the same for gay couples who may choose to have children or not to have children. Every couple has to think about their role in family and community life, and this is rooted in the loving commitment they make to each other. Faithfulness in all its manifestations is something to give thanks for, and that is the purpose of a blessing service. It celebrates the grace that God has already given the couple. As is true for all of us - by their fruit they shall be known.

I was surprised and not a little troubled to learn that the electoral college came away from their three days of meeting to elect a new Bishop for Swansea and Brecon diocese without a consensus on any candidate. Heaven only knows what's going on here. Will the Welsh Bishops now select and present a candidate for the electoral college to approve? If they choose another from the Church of England, what will that say about their confidence in the Church in Wales to raise its own next generation leadership?

Another fascinating programme this evening about the work of conservators at the Victoria and Albert museum in London. It not only reveals the secrets of restoring worn and broken objects, but also the kind of detective work that sometimes goes into establishing the provenance of particular objects. In the first of the first series, shown again tonight on BBC Four, a seventeenth century snuff box with a lid containing an enamel portrait of a noble lady was examined, to try and identify who she was. 

It contained no inscription, so one of the team set about looking through catalogues of portraits of noble ladies of the period - none of this information was in a digital database - and eventually found a match to a portrait in a stately home. The portrait painter or someone of their workshop was most likely responsible for the enamel, which was remarkably similar in likeness. It was not uncommon for gentlemen obliged to travel away from home for long periods to take a miniature portrait of their beloved on their travels with them, just as we may do with a photo on the home screen of the mobile phone. 

Lost and Found

I have to admit that an eleven o'clock service start at St German's compensates for the twenty minute drive to get there. There's not the same pressure to get started, even if I am still leaving the house by ten fifteen. I have the quiet relaxed time in the car, listening to Radio 3, and this morning Mozart's Mass in C Minor was just ending with the Sanctus as I arrived at church. There were twenty eight of us for Mass, with Ross the ordinand arriving just in time, after running late at St Saviour's - Father Chris telling too many stories, he said. I was glad to have a chat with him about the books on Orthodoxy I'm bequeathing him from my library of (almost ancient) texts. Unfortuantely I too got into story telling with him after coffee and it was twenty to two instead of one o'clock by the time I reached home.

There was another reason for being late home however. There had been a call to the church warden about a wedding in October, rather short notice, so the couple were told to come at the end of Mass to talk to me as priest of the day, to get them started. All I could do was refer them to the Area Dean Fr Dyfrig who has to deal with these matters in the absence of a priest in charge but it wasn't as straightforward as it seemed. 

The couple were middle aged and from the Czech Republic, accompanied by a woman who said she was their daughter, although there was no obvious family resemblance. She acted as interpreter for them. The need for haste seemed to have something to do with them leaving the country. Perhaps going home for good? Who knows. The last time I had pastoral dealings with a Czech family was over the christening of a child at Christmas 2005, the penultimate Christmas in St James' church before it closed. They were Roma, who'd come here to work in menial jobs to improve their life prospects. Czech society treated them with hostility and suspicion. The short Christmas break was the only time they had for family rites of passage. Perhaps the family today was also Roma. Fr Dyfrig is celebrating Mass at St German's tomorrow night and they will meet him and get a proper briefing. No doubt I will hear more in due course.

After a late lunch, I listened to Choral Evensong on Radio 3, then went for a walk around Llandaff Fields, and down to the river, then returned after an hour and a half to change my shoes as my feet were giving me trouble. Then I went out again went out again, down to St John's, to see if I'd left my reading glasses there. I've been hunting for them high and low since Thursday. They weren't in St Germans, nor St John's. It's a complete mystery. Maybe I dropped them. I have lots of pairs of cheap reading glasses, including a most powerful pair sent to me by my sister June, but the problem is that my prescription pair are designed to let me read at arm's length, from altar and Gospel books during the Liturgy. I had to use my computer glasses at St German's this morning, which was just about OK, but not quite right. Heaven knows how much I will have to pay for a new pair.

This evening I had to revisit and correct for a second time the video slideshow I made of Kath's birthday weekend. Ninety nine percent OK, then one laughable mistake, the wrong month in the birthday date. Silly stuff, so annoying. Thankfully it wasn't hard to do as the component files were still in place on my workstation, but it still took me more than an hour. I finished by nine, in time to watch a superb music documentary on BBC Four about the life of Antonio Vivaldi, centred on the interpretation of his Four Seasons Concerto Grosso.

When it was over, on impulse I got down on the floor of the lounge to hunt again for my missing spec's, and spotted them right at the back beneath one of the new armchairs, the one I don't tend to sit on. What a relief after two days of worry and hunting!

Foraging in Porthkerry

We had a lie in, followed by our Saturday pancake breakfast this morning, then we drove to under a blue sky to visit Porthkerry Country Park for a walk along the coast path. We've walked there from Cold Knap in Barry several times, but I'm not sure if we've driven there before. A wooded valley with a broad grassy meadow runs down to pebbled beach through a saline marshy area, with different vegetation, albeit dried out at this time of year. A nice new boardwalk has been constructed running from the cafe to the beach, about three hundred metres, excellent for wheelchair users. I don't think it was there when we last visited three years ago. 

The entire domain is very well managed and litter free. The cafe is run Italian style with a wide range of usual snacks, but also offering a range of canoli worthy of a Montalbano story. The car park has Pay and Display machines, a pound for two hours. These incorporate contact-less pay devices linked to the mobile phone network I think. It worked fine, although the payment signal sent to the banking network took about a minute for verification to be transmitted. I stood peering at the rather dim black and white screen waiting for my ticket to be produced, and a kind lady stopped and asked if I needed help. I wondered if she'd often seen older people peering at the device trying to figure out how it works.

The coast path heads up from the beach, a stiff climb of about 70 metres. As the tide was at its lowest, we could have walked along the beach, but big pebbles make for a slow ankle twisting trudge, so the climb was the lesser of two evils. I say this as two years of park walking on the flat have reduced my climbing fitness, so my legs feel very stiff and take ages to loosen up. Clare went up faster than me, as she uses her exercise cycle several times a week. I wish we lived nearer some really steep hills for daily walking.

The Coast Path route takes you through Porthkerry Leisure Park, with over a hundred chalets owned if not rented on the clifftop and in a quarry cut into the cliff facing the sea. We walked to a headland on the far side of the Park and ate out picnic lunch there. Considering how close the coast is here to the flight path from Rhoose it was fairly quiet. I noted only two planes taking off, one Vueling and one KLM. It would be much busier in a normal summer season. I saw three different butterflies,white brown and blue. There were swallows and swifts in the air. A big black furry bumble bee was browsing the undergrowth at my feet and then I watched it take off. One of several passing swifts snatched it before my eyes. Something I've never seen before.

We didn't go much further on the coast path as we'd already walked for an hour, but we stopped to pick blackberries, from the abundance of bushes along the way, a pound and a quarter. On the way back to the car we stopped for coffee and canoli. There was a ten minute queue to be served, but it was worthwhile. I had to go and sit down and leave Clare in the queue as my feet were hurting more than usual, perhaps the wrong choice of walking shoes? Anyway, it didn't stop us from calling at Lidl's for groceries and wine on the way home.

We had a wonderful salmon soup for supper, from the bones of the filleted fish which arrived yesterday. The blackberries plus some apples we bought went on to cook, and then left overnight in the filtering bag used to make fruit jelly. Wonderful seasonal stuff! Then we watched a recording of Elin Fflur on S4C performing superbly before an audience in Bangor. Her show featured Eden, a trio of clog dancers, with an original way of dialoguing with the rock band, like a second drummer. The sound is different from the Irish folk style, in which musicians are more of a backing group for the dancers, an element of Welsh pop which isn't an echo of other genres of pop music.

Birthday video

I slept nine and a half hours and woke up refreshed. Normally Clare is up well before me, but she slept late so I got breakfast ready. I had a call about a funeral mid morning, and an email from Area Dean Fr Dyfrig finalising the duty rota for St German's for the next three months. I finally got around to unpacking the LED ring lamp I bought in the Cribbs Causeway Mall on Tuesday. It's meant to be used with a mobile phone to illuminate a person being videoed, but I need illumination on my workstation keyboard, as I now find it hard to see it clearly, since the top light and window cast shadows over it. I think it's going to be useful, although positioning it where it can't get knocked and broken was a problem that could only be solved with a help of some gaffer table to stick to the chest of drawers. Not very elegant, but functional until I can think of something better.

We took delivery of a whole salmon and lots of fillets of different kinds of fish, all for the freezer enough to feed us for a couple of months. Clare cooked some fresh hake fillets for lunch. Fish soup tomorrow. Afterwards I walked around the parks and down the river bank from the Western Avenue bridge to the cricket ground. Twice I saw a small brown bird flying low over the water moving in an erratic aerobatic way. I'm sure it wasn't a wagtail. I think it was a dipper. I was told by a fellow birdwatcher a few years ago that there was a dipper's nest in the fish ladder tunnel, but I've never seen any activity there. It's the first time I've noticed this flight behaviour. so maybe ... must check.

After my walk I got around to converting photos I took at Kath's birthday last weekend into a slideshow video to the accompaniment of Stevie Wonder singing 'Happy birthday to you'. I whittled down the 98 pictures to 80 and used the old Picasa app to create a WML file to upload to YouTube. 

We listened to the News Quiz on the radio at supper time, hilariously satirical as ever. Then I watched the two part fourth episode of 'Crimson Rivers', another well made flic movie ruined by an implausible ending involving a secret hi-tech laboratory at the heart of the crime. Scriptwriters don't seem to understand how impossible it is to construct such a facility without anyone noticing the evidence this generates, not least in supplies and maintenance once it's up and running. Science doesn;t happen by magic.

Annoyingly my slideshow video showed the wrong birthday date, as Kath pointed out and I was unable to edit it. Then she sent me a couple more of her photos, plus a video clip, so I had a second go, using the Windows 10 video making app incorporating these, and wrote a title screen to use that I knew was what it meant to say. Second time successful and that much easier in this app, as it's now what I use regularly.

Room for repentance?

Just after posting the link today's video offering of Morning Prayer, I had a call to stand in for Mother Frances at the St John's Eucharist, as she'd fallen and bruised herself badly. There were eight of us for the celebration, and all were concerned to hear of this misfortune, following on from the loss of her partner last month. 

The Gospel of the day contained the Publican's prayer - Lord have mercy on me a sinner - which prompted me to reflect how little penitence finds a place in the church's engagement with society these days. There's now an overlay on the Sunday lectionary and calendar of saints days of worthy themes for celebration and reflection but outside of Lent calls to collective repentance and liturgical expressions of penitence no longer feature, as they did in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries/ Not even Cranmer's Litany. which in former centuries preceded the Sunday Eucharist gets used often these days. I think we're missing something. Are we that uncomfortable with mourning the sorry state affairs the world is in, and beseeching God's mercy?

I learned that the Church in Wales electoral college is meeting at the moment to choose a new Bishop for the diocese of Swansea and Brecon. Who will it be, I wonder? I'm so out of touch with mainstream church affairs that I have no idea who the likely candidates might be. Did the electoral college pray the Litany before starting their deliberations?

After the service I returned home and worked on the audio recording for next Thursday's Morning Prayer, and after cooking lunch, completed the job. I didn't need a siesta, and went for a walk around the park earlier than usual. This meant I had time before supper to watch a French flic movie on More Four. 

I went to choir practice at St Catherine's, although I'm not going to be around to sing very much in the coming months, but wanted to sing anyway. It seems that special kind of energy to make music which I didn't have over the past three years is returning. I'm very glad about this very special sign of healing.

Welsh waterway revival

I drove to St German's to celebrate Mass with five others this morning. On my way out of church I was accosted by a man who rode into the churchyard on a bike. He begged me to let him use my phone for an urgent call, as he'd run out out credit on his. He started telling me about himself, saying he was a Catholic and showed me the rosary he wore around his neck. Then he lifted up his tee shirt to show me the tattoos on his back, representing two prison sentences for thieving he'd served, and put behind him in an effort to go straight. He made the call to his sister, apparently thanked me, then left.

I reached home at eleven. Clare had gone into school for an INSET session, and arrived home just before midday to be ready for a visit from the British Heart Foundation's furniture collection van, booked to take one of our two lounge sofas away. Three months ago we ordered a couple of armchairs from John Lewis' to replace one of them, as I found it wasn't comfortable enough for someone of my size and weight. The delivery van arrived at one. The crew unpacked and installed the chairs, which fit nicely in the space left by the sofa. They are very comfortable and supportive for the back. After lunch, I sat sown to do my daily Duo Lingo drill, and fell soundly asleep for an hour and a half. A worthwhile purchase indeed.

Then I made a start on composing a reflection for next Thursday's morning prayer, before taking a walk down to the Taff listening to the news on my phone. The rest of the reflection got completed after supper. There was an interesting programme on BBC Wales in the evening hosted by rugby legend Gareth Edwards and his wife Maureen, the last in a series exploring Welsh canals. This one was about canals in the Swansea and Neath Valleys, now undergoing the slow process of restoration after half a century of dereliction and neglect. The Vale of Neath is home territory for them both. Having lived and work in the area for thirty years, both were surprised to discover hidden treasures in a place they thought they knew well. There's some beautiful scenery and even a wetland nature reserve through which a canal runs. There's such potential for leisure and tourism here, and wonderful stories of the industrial history of the region around Swansea. These are places which I'm hoping we can explore in times to come.