What's in a name?

A slow start to the day. The morning just seemed to disappear, although I succeeded in recording the audio for next week's Morning Prayer video before lunch. 

In the afternoon, I walked into town through Bute Park for a look around. The park illuminations, skating rink in the Castle grounds and the Winter Wonderland attractions are all closed now and being dismantled. There weren't great crowds of sale shoppers around. Covid nervousness I suspect is keeping people away. I popped into John Lewis' to have a look at what was on offer in the sales but saw nothing of interest.

Before supper, I completed the Morning Prayer video and uploaded it to YouTube. This time I had to think about labelling it differently for the future. Previously it's been tagged 'From the Benefice of Canton', but at midnight tonight the Benefice as a legal pastoral entity is abolished. It's three Parish churches are going to be constituents in the new West Cardiff Ministry Area. The same is also true of St German's, merged into the Roath Ministry Area. It's not a move that I'm at all happy about, but must live with. 

Our group of three churches will continue to work together as they have done before. Relationships forged over the twenty five years the Team Ministry and Rectorial Benefice has existed will continue. I decided in future to label my contributions 'From Canton Parish in the West Cardiff Ministry Area. Although the ecclesiastical Parish is abolished, the civil parish, an area with its own historical record, continues to exist. That'll serve to prevent further erosion of the identity of the local churches planted here over a hundred and fifty years ago.

Unimpressed by the New Year's eve selection of TV viewing. We ended up watching the prequel movie to 'Star Trek' with its convoluted time shifting plot, excessively noisy special effects, and vaguely amusing dialogue recycling phrases from the vintage movie series. Seen it before. Then on Sky Arts, a Vienna New Year's Eve promenade popular orchestral concert from Vienna by André Rieu. A huge exuberant audience of not young enthusiasts behaving as if they were at a rock concert.  A recording from 2002. Another sort of time shifting I guess. The streets are quiet. No noticeable sound of parties. There will be fireworks but there's nothing to stay up for, to toast the New Year in. It's not really worth it until there's no more covid threat to inhibit traditional exuberance.