Sobering prospects

A day of changeable weather, sun and wind, clouds and rain. Clare went off on the train the Kenilworth to join Kath for a Carnival Choir concert rehearsal in Birmingham. There were two loads of washing to be finished off. The second one, I put out on the line to blow in the wind, but after a couple hours I had to bring it in and hang everything indoors when it began to rain. 

Details landed of another funeral for me to take in ten days time. Fr Dyfrig the Area Dean sent me the St German's December duty rota, confirming  my engagements there until the end of the year. If had an email too from Emma the diocese in Europe locum co-ordinator. It seems possible I'll be asked to do duties abroad next spring, once I get to the top of the Euro Safeguarding training queue. There are plenty of vacancies at the moment, that's for user.

I spent most of the morning editing the sound file and adding pictures to it for next Thursday's Morning Prayer video. After cooking and eating lunch, I walked in the park with intermittent gusts of wind and rain showers. The changing colours are lovely. I took one picture that to my mind summarises autumn.

               

With nothing also calling for my attention, I whiled away the entire evening relaxing in front of the telly, wondering what next year will bring my way, at home or abroad, maybe both. It will be two years since I last left the country next March, and covid has changed the world so much since then, even if efforts to return things to a semblance of normality abound everywhere in Europe. 

Effective treatments are being developed, and infection surges will happen, unless more effective means of controlling contagion are put into practice universally. At the moment the UK covid infection and death rate is falling back, but in some European countries it isn't. Each is different and the reasons are complex. The word 'pandemic' is used less frequently now, and replaced by the adjective 'endemic' meaning we're stuck with the risk of covid for the foreseeable future, just as we are with 'flu.

COP26 finishes today, with significant progress being made in commitments to glocal carbon reduction, though still not sufficient to reduce global heating to 1,5C, which was the key aim of the conference. All in all, it's a much greater threat to the health of planet, and our own future, than covid is.