Conflict preoccupations

Another dull and rainy day. Clare, undaunted was on her way out for a swim just after seven. I stayed in bed listening to news about the war in Ukraine. Slowly information about the historical background is being included in the news. Ukraine was a Republic of the USSR, but centuries ago was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of States, and thus more permeable to Western European influence. Old Slavonic is the basis of Ukrainian and Russian languages, as well as Polish. Ukrainian and Russian are both understood  and spoken in Ukraine, so language is not a political issue. Historically, monarchic rule characterised Russia but not Ukraine where Cossack democratic self-government was predominant.

UNHCR reports today that the number of refugees now exceeds half a million. Amazingly, Switzerland whose banks are a favourite hideaway place for rich Russians to keep their money has decided to impose the same sanctions on Russia as the EU, stating that such flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention is intolerable. 

Both BP and Shell have announced disinvestment of Russian gas field holdings, following pressure from the public and shareholders. Putin's actions have succeeded in uniting European and American nations and spurring them into decisive action in a way he cannot have predicted, or has he completely lost the plot?

Meanwhile Russian forces advance slowly and brutally in the face of continuing strong resistance, although the advance seems to have been impeded as much by Russian logistic inadequacies as military resistance. Also it seems that Ukrainian military drones which the Russians have failed to take out of action have contributed effectively. But, Kharkiv a northern Ukrainian city close to the Russian frontier, has seen heavy fighting today and multiple civilian deaths. Fighting has continued around the country despite talks between Russians and Ukrainians being held.

When not listening to the radio, I spent the morning finishing and uploading this week's Morning Prayer video, and preparing tomorrow's funeral service. After lunch I decided to brave the rain and take my daily walk, but it took me half an hour to find my rain trousers before I could go out. Later, I realised I couldn't find the Sony HX90 camera I took to Kenilworth to photograph Rhiannon's birthday party with. I wanted to upload and share the photos, but forgot over the weekend. I have the camera case but not the camera. I haven't a clue what I did with it after I got back, only I do recall noting that it needed to be recharged, and only got around to finding the charger today, but that's all. What have I done with it?

Clare's former colleague Jacquie arrived in time for supper. She's staying overnight and going with Clare and Fran to the Steiner School tomorrow to present Fran's icon of St David to the school in a St David's Day celebration. Pity I can't attend, but unfortunately I'm busy tomorrow.

Today, the last of the controls relating to the covid crisis are being lifted in Wales, made optional rather than mandatory, but face masks are still obligatory in shops, public transport, health and care settings. It doesn't seem to include churches. As far as many are concerned its already not obligatory, as many folk no longer bother with masks where they should. Don't ask don't tell seems to be operational around the issue of asking anyone if they are exempt from face mask wearing for health reasons, so it's all a bit of a fiasco in my opinion.

 

Solidarity Sunday

I was ready for church an hour earlier than usual this morning so I went out for a walk in Llandaff Fields. Several hundred people, mostly young families with children were gathered in one spot near the main road entrance, for what turned out to be a family Sunday 'Park Run' with prams, pushchairs, the lot. A notable number of children aged between four and seven were out with their parents - a cheering sight. I walked for three quarters of an hour and then drove to St German's to celebrate Mass for a congregation of thirty. We offered Mass with peace in Ukraine as our special intention.

After the service I got into conversation with a Slovakian man who occasionally attends, His homeland has a hundred mile stretch of border with Ukraine. Already he said, two thousand people from Ukraine had sought refuge there from the fighting. Overall numbers of refugees are estimated now to be 150,000, Poland bearing the brunt so far. There are many family connections across borders in Central and Eastern Europe which we may be hardly aware of, way out west. 

Fighting continues around major cities across Ukraine, but with no major aerial bombardment so far. The EU and UK have banned all Russian flights from their air space, and the SWIFT monetary transfer system on which all international monetary transactions relies is being closed to many major Russian financial institutions, though not all. The EU is approving the export of armaments to Ukraine, an unprecedented move, and there are calls to allow non-Ukrainian individuals to volunteer to fight with Ukrainian forces. 

Putin's military plan still hasn't delivered what it was expected to an provoked a global reaction which may have been a surprise to him. The trouble is, he is now making threats about using Russia's nuclear capability, a very serious escalation. Even if it leads to nothing, it suggests he may be losing his grip on the situation. Tonight there's talk of a meeting of Russian and Ukrainian government leaders on the border with Belarus, probably talks about talks to start with. Will witnesses be allowed? Will there be international mediators? Starting with trust so utterly violated, it's hard to see what can come out of this.

After lunch we drove to the Millennium Centre for the WNO's afternoon performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni. It was beautifully performed by a well chosen ensemble of leading singers, but what was most memorable about the occasion was having Don Giovanni played by Andrei Kimach, the Ukrainian baritone who won Cardiff Singer of the World in 2019, a fine performer with an international career already. When his presence in the cast was announced before curtain up, the audience clapped in support for a couple of minutes. The curtain call at the end turned into a standing ovation for him and the cast. I was moved to tears by this outpouring of sympathy. And we've seen the same at sports matches across the country as well today.

We got home in good time for supper and to watch the last episode of 'Trigger Point', with the inevitable surprise twist right at the end. We're promised another series next year.. More shock and awe I suppose.

Birthday Girl

Yesterday's news of the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces and reaction from the international community dominates every bulletin. As telecommunications have not been disrupted, reports from correspondents and interviews with government officials and ordinary citizens, hiding underground in Kyiv or on their way to border crossings bring what's happening right to where we are.

Fierce resistance encountered by the Russians, not only from the professional army but from hastily recruited citizen militia neighbourhood defence groups was being reported. It's said that Russian special forces groups in Ukrainian uniforms are infiltrating behind the front lines, targeting select government ministries for seizure. 

So far the Russian blitzkrieg type advance hasn't proceeded as expected according to plan. Possibly a heavy bombing campaign could be launched to subjugate Kyiv and force the government to surrender. A hundred thousand people are said to have fled to the border with neighbouring Poland already. The  number of displaced people could eventually run into several millions, according to UNHCR.

China has so far made little comment. It's presumed not to condemn Putin's initiative. Today, however a presidential spokesperson has said obliquely that violating national sovereignty isn't desirable. China has some investment projects in Ukraine it seems. Heaven knows what's happening behind the scenes in Moscow. What will happen when the true number of casualties is revealed?  There are deep historic and kinship ties between Russian and Ukraine. Nobody apart from the Kremlin leadership wanted this to happen. What will it take for Putin's government to lose public support?

In the Friday weekly news bulletin, Bishop June called for a peace prayer walk cum demonstration next Thursday, between St Mary's the Docks and St John's City Parish Church. A pity that it clashes with the licensing of Rufus to his new part time Ministry Area post in Blackwood. I'm already committed to attend that. West Cardiff Ministry Area is to be inaugurated at St Catherine's on St David's Day. I have a children's Mass and a funeral that day, so I don't think I'll be attending this either.

I spent the morning revising my Sunday sermon in the light of current affairs, and printing it off ready, so that I having nothing to prepare when we return from Kenilworth tomorrow night. We set off after lunch. There were a few traffic delays and a short stop. The journey took us nearly three hours. I'm not driving so fast these days, economising as best I can on fuel, as it costs £1.50 a litre. It's bound to rise more in coming months as a consequence of the Ukrainian affair. We checked into Kenilworth's Peacock Townhouse Hotel, as we did before, put on our party clothes and walked to Kath and Anto's for a family and friends' celebration of Rhiannon's eighteenth birthday. Her boyfriend Connor was there, being introduced to those who have known her all her life. His parents came over too. It was a lovely evening, with great buffet food and drink. We were pretty tired when we reached the hotel, gone half past eleven.

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We were both awake listening to the news at seven this morning, and couldn't get back to sleep. Foreign broadcasters and are being withdrawn from Ukraine now and fierce fighting is going on in suburbs around Kyiv, but the city hasn't yet been overrun. It seems that few other cities have yet fallen, not that they won't when even more Russian troops and heavier weapons are brought in, but this is proving more costly that Putin was gambling on. At what point will he decide to stop and return to negotiations? When he invaded Georgia, he only stopped the country's military capacity had been disabled, then he withdrew is troops. It seems his mindset is dominated by fear of western invaders, represented by NATO. Is he driven by the need to create a neutralised buffer zone of states incapable of threatening Russia, or is he genuinely ambitious to re-create a Russian empire? These are the questions occupying observers of the situation it seems. This and the fear of events spiralling out of control into a third world war. 

We'd eaten a cooked breakfast in the hotel by nine and knowing nobody would be up early in Albion Street, stayed in our room until gone ten thirty, when the cleaner arrived. In fact we both fell asleep on the bed. Rhiannon had kept present opening until this morning, so we went up to watch and have a cup of coffee. It was nearly one by the time we left for home. The roads were quiet but the return journey in good conditions still took us nearly three hours of leisurely motoring.

After supper I watched last night's episode of Rocco Schiavone, which was rather difficult to fathom, as solving a crime successfully only led to the killer not being arrested because he was a valued anti-mafia informer, whom the state couldn't risk losing to an assassin in the course of justice being done. Really?

Outbreak

As I was posting my Morning Prayer YouTube link to WhatsApp this morning, just in time to listen to 'Thought for the Day', I was surprised when I switched on the radio to hear it had been postponed, as the Archbishop of Canterbury was going to speak later in the programme. I soon gathered that Ukraine was now being invaded by Russia in a concerted show of force from all points of the compass. It wasn't that the Queen had died, the only other piece of breaking news that I could think of which would disrupt the routine of the Today programme . A succession of world leaders reacted, pronouncing condemnation on Putin's action. This and sanctions against Russia have dominated the news ever since, all day. 

War again in Europe, a couple of months short of seventy seven years since it last ended. How long it will last, and what follows from this dreadful moment, we can only wait and see with trepidation. Ordinary Russians and Ukranians didn't ask for this, nor did any other country. It's been imposed by Putin and his supporting criminal mafia in pursuit of his perverse vision of a 'Greater Russia'. It will have punitive repercussions at least for the economies of western nations. How the Chinese dictatorship will react to this global disruption is anybody's guess. God help us all.

A chill wind blew all day. Clouds and sunshine, rain alternating with hail. I joined four others at St John's for the Eucharist, where we kept a few minutes of silent prayer about the crisis. After the service, I went home, wrote next week's biblical reflection on the passage from the Joseph saga to be read next Thursday, then recorded and edited the Office and reflection in record time, with only a fifteen minute break for a bowl of salmon and vegetable soup. Clare bought a month's supply of fresh fish yesterday and the soup was made from the bones left over after cutting fillets from the salmon.

I had a cheque to bank, and started my afternoon walk with a trip to the bank, then went on to the Castle grounds, and back through Bute Park to the Millennium Bridge, up the footpath to Pontcanna Fields and then home. Two big trees near the gate house entrance had been uprooted by the storms of the past few days. It was interesting to observe how shallow their root systems were, no evidence of tap roots going deep, as the entire floor plain area in the vicinity of the Taff is densely packed with alluvial stone, hard for roots to penetrate below a top soil surface about half a metre thick. 

Those trees would have been half a century old I imagine, from their size but they may not have had to face such strong winds in that time, plus the topsoil layer has been waterlogged, also flooded for weeks by heavy rain and river water in recent years preventing the layer from hardening to anchor the roots against such strong wind. The Bute Park arboretum was established in the 19th century in terrain which for millennia was tidal wetland. Only trees which are native to that kind of environment would be expected to thrive naturally. Species introduced would inevitably need careful long term management and protection. Not impossible, but maybe it's always going to be an imperfect work in progress. 

This evening, after supper, we watched the classic movie of Graham Greene's novel 'The Third Man'. It's the second time I've seen it in the past couple of years. It really is a work of art worth revisiting, evoking life in a divided and occupied Europe at the end of the second world war when I was born. The outbreak of war in Ukraine may not impact on Britain as the war did back then, but lovely cities like Kyiv, Karkhiv, Lviv and Odessa could face destruction if fought over, along with masses of their citizens. Oh God I hope not.

Clouds of war over Eastern Europe?

Another mild day of cloud and sunshine, down south but colder weather is on its way down from Scotland by the weekend. The Russian government, driven by President Putin has made a move to acknowledge the independent republics of Donbass and Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine and it looks as if they are about to send 'peace-keeping' forces to support insurgents already unofficially sustained by Russia in an eight year long separatist campaign in these two Russian speaking regions of Ukraine. The Ukranian president has now declared a state of emergency and called up army reservists.

Western governments are imposing economic sanctions in response to the violation of Ukranian borders and the abandonment of a cease-fire treaty. The German's have stopped work on a new gas pipeline for conveying Russian gas to Europe. Gas and oil prices will rise even further now than is expected - we've just been notified of a nearly 50% rise in our energy bills, there'll be more to come. 

Putin is confident that Russia has enough of a 'war chest' in financial reserves to carry out his strategic aims regardless of economic sanctions imposed by the international community. His actions threaten the stability of the global economy already stressed by the pandemic. He is gambling that everyone else will pull back as he steadily and persistently encroaches on neighbouring states. It's a very disturbing affair.

There were eight of us at the St Catherine's Eucharist this morning. Ann, Marlene and Paul were absent as Paul caught covid so Ann and Marlene have left him to look after himself until he's over it. What bad luck! Paul is a keen cyclist, out in all kinds of weather. Hopefully, fitness and vaccinations will get him through this without too much distress.

After church I went and collected this week's veggie bag, then cooked a veggie pasta dish for lunch. It turned out just right for both of us with different ingredients, and a mixture of ordinary and gluten free pasta whose difference in cooking times I wasn't sure of, but my best guess timing was satisfactory.

I needed a siesta again after lunch. I don't know why I seem to need so much sleep, when I'm feeling quite well. Even if I'm not bursting with energy currently, and walking a bit slower, I'm not exactly dragging my feet. I suppose I can always blame it on the changeable weather.

Ruth's weekly email briefing about the material for Morning Prayer came in, and flagging up a change in selection of readings from an New Testament to an Old Testament passage. We'll follow the Joseph saga for the next few weeks, as is traditional in the Daily Office readings for Lent. It will make quite a difference to the reflections I write! The change will do me good. Other people too I hope.

Walking in the park this afternoon, and St Catherine's churchyard this morning, I noticed snowdrops and masses of crocuses are starting to fade away. Big patches of daffodils have appeared and are flowering where only a few were present from mid January. Several different varieties are now flourishing. It's something to do with the milder weather and longer days I suppose. Winter flowering trees are looking spectacular now, and in a short while the fat buds of the Magnolia trees in next door's garden and in Thompson's Park will burst into flower.

Another fascinating 'Digging for Britain' programme on BBC Four this evening, the only thing worth watching. I spent time beforehand reading my novel in Spanish again. The more I do the easier it gets, even though there's still lots of vocabulary I have to guess rather than look up to maintain a reasonable reading pace.

Special gift

After a somewhat tense night's sleep, we were up and out of the house at twenty past eight to drive to St Joseph's hospital in Malpas, Newport for my eye appointment with Andrew. After an assortment of tests and scans he explained the cataract removal procedure, and even showed me the kind of tiny prosthetic lens that is used in the procedure after removal of the home grown one with cataract. It will be done as soon as St Jo's can fit me into his schedule, before or after he goes to Malawi in April to work for a month there, on behalf of the eye surgery charity he set up years ago. I feel humbled that he wants to do this for me pro bono. As a committed Christian he sees this as ministering to the ministers. What else can I say except thank you and thank God.

Clare drove back as the eye drops made my vision very blurry. It was mid afternoon before my sight was fully back to normal, and the sensation I had going for a walk around Thompson's Park before lunch was quite unsettling. Even so, the experience gave me a different approach to thinking about the mystery of the Transfiguration. After a brief siesta, I wrote my Transfiguration Sunday sermon, sitting in bed, although my eyes were still a bit blurry. An email came in from Fr Stewart assigning me Lenten duties in St German's, including the Easter Vigil Mass, which I'm pleased about, as I don't have a celebration on Easter Sunday at the moment. It means I'll be able to sing with Clare in the choir at St Catherine's instead.

There wasn't anything I wanted to watch on telly after supper, so I went to bed and read another chapter of 'Invierno en Madrid' instead.

After the weekend storms

Clare went to town for a swim early this morning again. She had to walk back as bus services from outside the gym in Greyfriars Road had been suspended. I went out after breakfast to inspect the river. The water is still flowing over the top of the fish ladder, but along the footpath by the bridge was a tide mark of sand and pieces of broken branches showing how much water level dropped in the past fifteen hours. Work on clearing river banks and river bed last year has certainly paid off.

On the return walk past the newly refurbished playground on Llandaff Fields it was good to see how busy it was with children enjoying the newly installed apparatus on their half term school holiday, despite the blustery cold weather. Then I noticed the sound of a chainsaw buzzing somewhere in the distance. When I walked down towards Cafe Castan, I found the road into the car park was blocked by huge branches torn from two of the roadside trees. The area was cordoned off and a team of tree surgeons was busy at work. One very tall tree had lost a major tall branch, which fell on to another tree and torn branches from it. In spite of the cold wind, I hung around for ten minutes and got some interesting photos of work in progress.

A tree surgeon was interviewed earlier on the Radio Four's Today programme and spoke about how safe tree removal called for people experienced in tackling dangerously unstable heavy pieces of timber. This made it particularly interesting to observe how the man with the chainsaw went about dislodging the huge fallen branch  from its precarious position. I caught it as it was dropping, just before it hit the ground.

Back home then, to do my weekly share of the cleaning and cook mussels with rice and veg for lunch. I needed to go to the shops in Canton in the afternoon, so completed my daily round of walking in the street for a change.

In the evening I did some more negative scanning. This time the photos were of a big family gathering for Eddy's 60th birthday in 2000. Eddy and Ann were only recently grandparents at that time, we had to wait another two years before Rhiannon was born, and this week we go up to Kenilworth to celebrate her eighteenth. Last week I found and digitized Owain's 18th and 21 birthday photos. So much to enjoy looking back on over the years.

I finished in time for another season 18 episode of NCIS tonight, another made in covid times, notably with references to being double jabbed, and some contemptuous references to conspiracy theorists. Well 'on message' as they say. Bed early tonight, for an early start tomorrow with a nine o'clock appointment in the eye clinic of St Joseph's hospital in Malpas, with eye surgeon Andrew.

Watery Sunday

Another day of continuous rain and strong gusts of wind. I preached at St Catherine's parish Eucharist this morning and Fr Rhys celebrated. Coincidentally, the Gospel for this Creation Sunday was about Jesus stilling the storm. We sang amongst other things '... Those in peril on the sea', an anthem on the text 'Save me O God for the waters have come up unto my soul' and Colin's recessional voluntary was from Handel's Water music.

It rained so much that I didn't go out for a walk until the sun had set and weather seemed to be changing with the rain and wind starting and stopping a few times. I walked down to the Taff in the dark and for the first time saw the water had risen up on to the footpath along the bank by Blackweir bridge. There was an obstruction, maybe a tree in the middle below the weir and the water was shooting up four to five metres from the river bed into the air. I was made at myself for not taking a camera. My Blackbery camera isn't sophisticated enough to take night shots. What a spectacle!

Confined to the house most of the day, I got out the scanner and did another batch of nineties negatives - Owain's 21st birthday, a Geneva visit by Rachel on back of her boyfriend's motorbike, some of the holiday Rachel and Clare had in the Cyclades in 1999, while I was viting Mongolia on an eco-tourism project assessment, pictures of Eddy and Ann in Geneva and East Anglia. Lovely memories.

To tried installing the scanner on the new desktop machine but failed as the only driver update was going to cost me nearly as much as a new scanner. But it still works with my old  2009 Vista workstation. I found that I could connect it up to the old Sony TV sitting in the attic doing nothing. I used a HDMI cable I didn't know I had until today. More convenient than using my regular PC monitor. I stopped scanning at nine to watch another tense episode of 'Trigger Point', then spent an hour sorting and sharing files of digitised photos before turning in for the night.

Convenience or Necessity?

Around seven this morning, Clare left to go for a swim. I got up nearly two hours later and started making a cooked breakfast for both of us: scrambled eggs and smoked salmon for Clare, bacon for me, toast and mushrooms for both of us, all ready by the time she came through the door at nine thirty. It made a change from habitual Saturday pancakes. I don't know how she manages to be up and out of the house so early!

I worked on my sermon for tomorrow until lunchtime, and in the afternoon we walked to Llandaff village to a visit to Jasper's Tea Room. A few more trees had big branches torn off by strong gusts of wind, and one was wrenched from the ground, exposing its roots - a tree still carrying enough withered foliage for it to succumb more easily to the force of high wind, and probably half alive, as some dead branches had broken off, as is commonly the case elsewhere. 

The Council's tree management team have been busy this past few days removing big branches and even trunks from park roads, but much of the timber will wait to be collected if not left to rot in situ.

Before supper I spent an hour or so updating my hard drive archive of photos first posted and edited on-line over the past month or so, a necessary chore, when my free on-line storage space is half to two thirds full. On-line is a convenience, home storage a necessity as far as I'm concerned, but too often convenience prevails over necessity, because I don't have time for it.

Talking of time, I found myself getting annoyed by the refusal of Windows 10 to display clock time in the 24 hours format, and my failure to find out how to tweak this in the established 'Settings' menu. Also getting Libre Office to display metric which I habitually prefer to imperial measure. Funny how some of the settings are remembered by default but not others. I googled the issue and came up with a response that was half correct. Only when I went under the skin of the Windows 10 Settings menu to the legacy settings menu that has been there since Windows XP, did I find the correct menu to effect the change. So many aspects of Windows ten are still cosmetic. It not properly integrated at all. I don't know why I put up with it, when there's Linux, except that, as ever Convenience prevails over necessity.

This evening I enjoyed reading another chapter of 'Invierno en Madrid' as there was nothing on telly to watch, having worked my way through all the episodes of 'La Promesse' this week, rather than stay up late for a double episode finishing just after eleven. I'd rather turn in earlier on a Saturday night these days, to make a fresh start to Sunday.

Viewing promise and pleasure

Today we were advised to stay indoors, and although it was pretty windy in the morning, it was no worse than it had been for days. There was also sunshine and clouds constantly changing shape moving at speed, driven by westerly gale force winds, and after lunch I ventured out for a walk to see what damage had been done. I'm sure that down on the coast it would indeed have been dangerous to go out, but the Cardiff coastal flood plain sits beneath a 70 metre ridge on the west side, enough to deflect the full force of any wind from the west.

I started writing and recording uninterruptedly next week's Morning Prayer video after breakfast, and had uploaded it to YouTube before we had lunch. It was pleasing to achieve that in a spell of down-time with nothing else to do. 

I walked over to Tesco's to look for a replacement steam mop, but they didn't stock one. B&M, the bargain supermarket did however. I bought one, and then went to Aldi's supermarket for some wine, lugging the box with the mop in it. With a bit more planning I would have gone to Aldi first and not B&M. How silly of me. While I was in the store there was a shower of hailstones and then rain, the wind blowing cold and hot in turn. It didn't last long. The setting sun poked through dark storm clouds. It was quite spectacular and in five minutes I was walking home again, with the wind dying down and no more rain or hail. I felt quite exhilarated.

I've had confirmation today from eye surgeon Andrew that the forthcoming cataract operation he plans to organise for me will be pro bono. How amazing is that! It's strange that the visual impairment I have is hardly noticeable in bright sunny weather, only in some low light conditions and when using a camera viewfinder. When the sun is low in the sky, no matter how bright, it tends to trigger a migraine aura, and that's a real worry. Night driving isn't too bad, although I get double vision in the worst eye. Funnily enough with a phone or computer screen, although I'm aware of slightly misty vision, it doesn't hinder reading, as long as I wear reading specs'. It's low light that really makes me aware of the problem that now seems within reach of being resolved. I'm amazed and thanking God.

This evening, I finished watching 'La Promesse' with its unusual denouement and family reconciliation as a happy ending. Interesting - this is the second serialised French crime drama in a row I've watched in which there's a happy family ending in the face of an embedded tragedy. The last one - 'Beyond Appearances' also featured a female led storyline, but was about a TV show presenter and her twin.

Job done, I spent and hour writing and then watched another Rocco Schiavone episode, weaving his back story with that of an investigation into a double patricide. Rocco is a rough cut version of Salvo Montalbano. Working out which sibling was the perpetrator was a long unexpected journey, with more moments of ribald Italian humour. And the views of the Val d'Aosta are so gorgeous!

Stormy weather ahead

A cold and windy day today, but nearly as bad as it has been in Scotland and the North of England where storm force winds have played havoc with power lines. Another big storm front is expected to hit further south tomorrow, bad enough for flood alerts in the Bristol Channel and recommendations for people to stay home and not travel unless they have to in order to minimise the impact on emergency services. This is the shape of things to come thanks to increased violence and frequency of storms as a result of global heating. In effect, government agencies are making an effort to build national resilience in the face of such a change by developing early warning measures.

I went to the Eucharist at St John's this morning. There were just six of us present. I did some writing when I got back, then cooked lunch for us, then went for a walk down to the river. It was very cold again and the water was running high. The wind was strong enough to push me around in between bouts of calm. I heard a Great Tit calling high up in a tree, with another one answering in the distance, I spotted it among the bare branches and took a few photos like this one. 

Then some preparatory work for next week's Morning Prayer upload, and after supper an evening of binge watching Saturday's BBC Four French crimmie, 'La Promesse' since all six episodes are available on iPlayer. It has developed into a tragic family drama, thrown into crisis by a policeman father's over involvement in a case of abduction in his local village, which he promises to solve and fails. His elder daughter becomes a cop and takes up the cold case while investigating another child abduction twenty years later. You have to get used to the story flashing between past and present, a favourite device with French cinéastes I think.

London tech' trip

Yesterday morning was wet and windy. I had a bereavement visit to make out in Wenvoe, and finding the house, outside the village on the way to St Andrew's Major, in the driving rain, was rather difficult, but learning about the life of a 95 year old, who like my brother in law Geoff had done his National Service in Palestine just after the war, was most interesting. His elder brother had served with the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. After Palestine, he attended to two Universities and lived in Canada and Australia before returning the Britain, marrying only in his forties. One of his many retirement projects was to curate and see re-published the work of his late father Huw Menai a Welsh poet who wrote in English, though he was a Welsh speaker. He was an avid photographer. I wonder if his daughter will one day curate his legacy of images?

After this, I went home, had an early lunch, then headed out for London, getting lucky with a 61bus to the station to get the 14.18 to Paddington, an hour earlier than planned. The two hour train rise at 125mph on the straight bits was thrilling, just like being back in Switzerland, with the equally quick inter-regional trains from Geneva to Brig. Crossing London to Wandsworth Common took an hour, but was hassle free, with a total off peak return with senior travel discount card price of just over sixty seven quid. With petrol at its current peak price and almost double travel time, I could have saved ten quid, plus the extra carbon footprint, but why bother, with train travel now such an super experience - good coffee on board too.

After supper and catch-up time with sister June, I checked out her existing computer and copied all her data from it to a USB drive ready for transfer tomorrow to her new computer. That was another for one evening. After four months of hell with dysfunctional central heating and then a new boiler installation whose Hive timer was not properly programmed despite her pleas to an assortment of engineers called upon at her expense, to fix the problem, finally one came who listened and responded competently to her request. The new generation of digital wi-fi devices are beyond the competence of the majority of 87 year olds to program correctly - a generation raised on physical switching devices, that is - and it seems beyond the ability of most gas engineers to manage properly,

Ashley and I had a conversation about this problem when I was getting ready to go to London, and he said that gas engineers he knew of were trained and certificated on boiler installation, but not trained to work on new digital control mechanisms, so if they had to deal with them, unreliable guesswork was what got them through. I wonder how many more people like June have had this kind of trouble and paid British Gas and other installers to do a job they cannot deliver competently? At least it's fixed now and the heating works as desired.

This morning, after a sound, warm night's sleep and breakfast, I unpacked and got to work on setting up June's new Acer laptop. All went reasonably well, including data transfer, though its was configured to run under Windows S, which is a restricted, simpler user version of  Windows 10, not allowing you to use anything other than Microsoft products. You can fortunately, convert the system so it runs properly on Windows 10 Home edition, and then you can install any software you want. Once done, I could get Chrome and Firefox to install, and after further effort, synchronise between old and new machines, all the passwords and favourite URLs. Things fell apart however when it came to adding the Canon Pixma all in one printer/scanner. 

Finding the official Canon printer driver download site among all the commercialised dross Google puts first was a matter of trial and error. Third time lucky. I rand the 45 minute installation routine five times without succeeding in attaching the printer to the system. The software stalled at the last post each time, without error message. Then Windows 10 decided to impose a system update, which took another half hour, but after this the installation routine no longer crashed. Not that the printer worked. I had to run its repair software to complete the job and finally see the printer work properly. What on earth is wrong to make these massive money making tech companies to be unable to co-ordinate their efforts in service of their users? Or is there a secret hope that if the user can't make the hardware to work easily, they'll just go out and buy a replacement? And consume more precious resources and add to the carbon footprint of all these devices which now rule our lives?

Somehow, I managed to get both the old and new computers working as intended by the time I was ready to leave, more by luck than planning. So many unforeseen obstacles.

Thankfully, a very smooth trip back, arriving home at ten to ten. On the westbound platform of the Underground the platform supervisor was there among the commuters with a wireless microphone in his hand linked into the overhead Tannoy system. The routine announcements were interspersed with his mellifluous black voice, calling out the incoming trains, telling people to mind the gap and squeeze down the carriage in the most entertaining way.  He was more of a compère than a train announcer. I think he'd taken a leaf out of the stadium front man at this year's Los Angeles Superbowl game. I could see the eyes of masked travellers light up with amusement as they listened, and it inspired me to start a round of applause as he finished. To my great pleasure, dozens of people on the platform joined in. What a lovely moment, after a day under heavy pressure.

Choose your cultural hero

After breakfast I rang the School of Optometry to request an email copy of my eye surgery referral letter from Ceri the senior optician. Unfortunately, she has contracted covid and is off work this week. I was promised someone would investigate and see if it's possible to respond to my request. I wonder if anyone will?

Disappointing that today, such emphasis is given to the Roman priest martyr Valentine for religious and romantic reasons, when today is also the feast of Saints Kyril and Methodius, apostles to the Slavs whose work rendered the Slavonic language into a written form with an alphabet invented by Kyril, to form the basis of a translation of the bible and then the Byzantine LIturgy in the ninth century. For this reason, the two are regarded as cultural heroes in Russia and Eastern Europe. As their careers started in Rome, their memorial if not their actual tombs is in the Roman basilica of San Clemente. Russia and Ukraine both use cyrillic script yet here these countries are at the moment, on the brink of war, if geopolitical news reports are true. Ukraine may well look as much to the West as it does to Russia, but historically and spiritually a common language, literature and spirituality binds them together. Yet there seems to be little recognition of this in the way things ae viewed by the watching world.

At least today we had some breaks in the cloud and sunny periods in a week of promised deluges. While starting the weekly rounf of housework, Clare discovered that the steam mop for floor cleaning had died and needs replacement. After doing my stint of carpet hoovering I walked into town to buy a replacement, but had no success. I also bought a train ticket for a trip to London tomorrow to see my sister June. An off peak ticket in both directions plus tube fares costs only ten quid more than the price of petrol for the trip, as fuel prices have risen so steeply of late. It's worth paying extra for the speed and comfort of travel. I can't remember when I last drove to London to see June, maybe it was more than a decade ago. Amazing to think that thirty five years ago I'd commute to USPG HQ once a month.

I was late back for lunch, but Clare kept me a generous portion of lentil curry with brown rice. Afterward, I went out and bought some Valentine's day tulips for Clare, half of them still in bud, so they should last until the weekend. I had an email from Mthr Frances assigning me to a Good Friday midday service at St John's. It will be with a congregation but may also be live streamed, subject to Andrew's availability. He's the parish video streaming wizard. I need to check with him. If he's unable to be there, I have the idea of rendering the full service as an audio slide video scheduled to appear on social media at the time the church service takes place. 

Some ideas about a sequence of Passiontide biblical reflections was already been brewing in my mind from a few notes made the other day. When I started writing, the whole structure of the service emerged to go with the theme. Now I can enjoy taking my time to develop it to fruition.

After supper, a wonderful hour of Winter Olymic ice dancing and ski aerobatics to watch on telly before this week's new NCIS episode. It's the first one made during the pandemic years to reflect the ethos of the pandemic, and it is revealed that in the early days, Jimmy the NCIS Medical Examiner has lost his wife to covid without being able to say goodbye to her in person. There's an interesting  crime detection story told, but the sensitively shared experience of bereavement is what distinguishes this episode, and one in which Gibbs speaks in a new way about his own experience of bearing grief over the past thirty years, something he has hardly ever done before. Timely and impressive as fictional realism goes.

Wet Sunday

It rained all night and only slowed to a stop about four this afternoon. The city centre was deserted when I drove to St German's to celebrate Mass. There were only twenty two of us present, and we were short of an altar server or two. The nine year old who acts as boat boy showed his mettle, holding the Gospel book for me to read from, and then ringing the Sanctus bell at exactly when needed, for the first time without needing to be prompted. It's lovely to see a shy youngster growing in confidence and happy to work with a couple of old guys in church. It does my heart good to see this. 

After the service I was chatting with Andrew, a consultant eye surgeon in the congregation. He's a really interesting guy who in his free time runs a medical charity which supports eye clinics and offers surgery to people in West Africa. He's asked me to go and see him in his private clinic in Newport, as he thinks he can deal with my cataract problem pro bono. This came about due to a casual remark I made about finding difficulty reading in church when there's thick low cloud like today and light contrast isn't strong enough, making text on paper hard to read. I might feel a little guilty about queue jumping with a two year waiting list for NHS operations, but I'd be so very grateful to see clearly again. Apart from this, my eyesight is quite good. I have specs to read, and for safer night driving, but don't need them for outdoors that much, apart from when I'm taking photographs, one of my great pleasures in my latter years.

Clare went off to her study group in Bristol after lunch, and when the rain slowed to a drizzle, I went out and walked for an hour and a half. The Taff was higher than I've seen it since last spring, right up over the fish trap and only a few inches from the footpath. There's more heavy rain to come this week. Will we see Pontcanna Fields flooded again? I wonder.

After supper we watched this week's 'Antiques Roadshow' from Portchester Castle near Portsmouth. It was interesting because of family treasures shown, artefacts with second World War stories behind them. Later I watched this week's gripping episode of 'Trigger Point' about terrorism in London and a police bomb disposal team. I hope it doesn't give me nightmares!

International day

We slept late and then enjoyed our usual Saturday pancake breakfast. I pottered around with my new PC for much of the morning, trying to figure out why it seemed not to accept my Microsoft account identity. Then I stumbled across the correct sequence, calling for the account PIN number after entering a blank enter key press. There's no indication this is what is required to complete the process. I seem to recall that I stumbled across this before when setting up the new laptop, and had forgotten.

After one last check of the little HP mini, I initiated the reset process, a clean wipe and re-installation of Windows 10 from the Cloud. I thought this would be OK to do as we have a faster broadband connection, and thee weren't any glitches downloading and getting started. Even so, the reset process took five hours to complete. How different from a Chromebook Power Wash, which resets the device in two minutes.

Owain arrived at two for a late lunch, and then we watched the Wales v Scotland rugby match on telly. It was an exciting game which Wales just won, thanks to a drop goal. It finished just after the day's Winter Olympic broadcast began - spectacular aerobatic half-pipe snowboarding and down hill racing. We then went out for a walk in the park for an hour before dark, on a drab afternoon, perhaps accentuated by seeing all that snow and blue sky on telly. Then Owain left us to visit friends before returning to Bristol.  

I finished tomorrow's sermon, and delayed printing it out until I we'd watched this evening's new French crimmie on BBC Four, called 'The Promise' set around Bayonne near Biarritz in the beautiful French Basque Country. When it came to printing it out, I had to find and re-install the printer drivers. The operating system had correctly identified the printer and automatically downloaded the right management software to go with it, but didn't automatically look for the drivers to make it work. 

Fortunately the HP desktop app was easy to use and linked to the official download page, from whence it was possible to install the relevant drivers. Installation took ages to complete, so that I wondered if the machine had stalled. It was nearly midnight by the time I could print. At least it's still working well at least ten years since bought it. I should have anticipated this earlier in the day. I could do without this kind of annoyance before bed.

New kit and a favourite returns

After I good night's sleep I woke up feeling full of energy, which showed itself when I went out for a walk before lunch, covering ground at a faster pace than I have for a long time. It was the same again when I went out after lunch, totalling ten kilometres in under two hours instead of the more usual nine to nine and a half. Strange, I don't know where the energy came from. I still can't walk as fast as others younger than me. Some folk in their sixties set a fair pace when out on their daily stroll.

Overheard on the street after school, a mum talking to her four year old - "No darling the tiny bug can't hurt you, it's been caught inside the stone for thousands of years..." I wonder what she was being shown in nursery school today?

I've been getting rather frustrated with the slowness of my desktop workstation since I bought the laptop with a SSD drive and a quick modern processor. It takes far too long to start up, access apps and files, it's getting in the way of workflow. The same old story of built in redundancy. So, I gave in and visited our local tech shop to buy a cheap used Dell server running Windows 10 Pro. I chatted with Davey, the guy who runs TouroTech about old devices and he showed me a laptop brought in for repair to a hinge that was about thirty years old, one of the original small Compaq portables with a seven inch screen. It's about that amount of time since I bought my first laptop, as we were about to move to Switzerland. It's so long ago I can't remember what make it was. Nor for that matter, how many I've had since then.

The new workstation is a couple of years old, but as it has a SSD it boots as fast as my laptop. Getting started and synchronised took less time than I thought it would, perhaps because of our much faster internet connection, so it was useable in half an hour, rather than half a day, as happened when I bought my last desktop PC about six years ago. The only problem I had was setting it up to work with my trusty Swiss French keyboard which gives me all the accents and umlauts when I need them. This task used to be fairly straightforward, but now the keyboard language setup module is very hard to find, buried among a plethora of other options for things you can do either with a physical or an on-screen keyboard. One of the many frustrating features of Windows 10.

A special treat on telly tonight, the second series on More Four Walter Presents of the remarkable Italian crimmie 'Ice Cold Murders - Rocco Schiavone'. Now the Valdostano police have the full tragic story of why the maverick Roman detective inspector has been exiled in the Alps, with him getting on the wrong side of gang leaders in the Eternal City. The lust for revenge has followed him five hundred miles from home, costing the life of his wife and the wife of a close friend. The portrayal of the impact of violence on some of the police officers is thoughtfully done.  

The Buskers' Guide re-invented

Today's Morning Prayer video link got posted to WhatsApp a bit later than usual, as I fell soundly asleep again at seven when I woke up at eight fifteen. Clare had already left for an early swim, and I didn't hear her go. My erratic sleep pattern is something of a puzzle. I get as much as I need but not in any predictably routine way. I should be grateful for that, I suppose. 

There were nine of us at the Eucharist I celebrated at St John's. Over coffee afterwards mention was made of a big funeral procession from Splott causing a big traffic hold-up across town. I wondered if it was for a funeral at St Germans. but the local news report side it took place at Splott Catholic church. It seems that it was a Traveller funeral and these are often attended by large crowds of mourners, as I know from my own experience. Only today did I receive the fee cheque from the last one I took a fortnight ago, when the Funeral Conductor arrived without the church cheques, customarily handed over at the service. Talking of funerals, a request to do one on St David's day came in at lunchtime, nearly three weeks from now. Quite a contrast from such a busy January.

I cooked stir-fry veg with mussels and rice for lunch. Then, after we'd eaten drove to Penarth to get the 'Real Book' of lead sheets (jazz melodies plus chords) from the musical instrument store where Owain's sax was given a service. It's the modern equivalent of what Geoff my late brother-in-law used to call the Busker's Guide. Finally delivered Clare's belated Christmas present. I bought her the wrong kind of jazz tune book at Christmas, and she gave them to Kath who has started learning to play the piano. This book hits the spot, and gives her an even bigger range of jazz melodies to discover that ones she has already got to know, working her way through the family CD collection/ 

Mission accomplished, I went for a walk along the cliff-top before driving home. It was quite breezy with a rain cloud promising rain or even hail, but the wind seemed to blow mild and then cold gusts, as if two different masses of air were mixing. Anyway nothing developed, and I had a pleasant outing with even the hint of a rainbow among the clouds out across the Bristol Channel.

Just out of curiosity, I transferred the installation software for the negative scanner to a USB drive, and ran it on my desktop workstation. It worked OK up to a point, but needed a driver upgrade to complete the interface between scanner and computer, so it didn't work. I un-installed the software, as I couldn't find a way to obtain the driver upgrade, but maybe I'll have another go when I have nothing better to do. Meanwhile, the scanner works as well now on a thirteen year old desktop PC running Windows Vista as it did when I bought it. It's the only reason I keep the old machine, but it's be better if I could retire it completely, as it takes up space I could use better.

There wasn't much of interest on telly apart from the final ever episode of 'New Tricks' on Dave, which we watched together before turning in for the night.

Lost watch found

I was in bed just after eleven last night, reading for three quarters of an hour before lights out, and didn't wake up until a quarter to nine this morning. I don't understand why I seem to need such a lot of sleep, nowadays. At least I didn't feel the need for a siesta after lunch. One way or another eight and a half hours a day seems to be what I need at the moment, no matter when I get it.

After breakfast Eucharist at St Catherine's with a dozen of us present. We're all of retirement age, but that is good in itself, showing confidence in resuming normal activity is returning. Getting back to normal on Sundays is happening more slowly, perhaps because less mobile people are happy to stay with on-line services. Mother Frances says that Canton on-line services have a far better than average attendance.  What this really means for the church in the diocese and its future in the face of catastrophic decline is too early to know or predict.

Several of us chatted at length over coffee after the service. Part of it was a discussion about the origins of the Pastoral Epistles in the New Testament. We've just begun to read them in the on-line Morning Prayer daily offering from the Parish. This made me think about the reflection I prepared last weekend for posting tomorrow. When I got back home I looked at it again, and decided to revise and re-record it. Easy, given the work done on audio and video components is still there on my laptop. It meant another hour's of revising and recording, but I was satisfied the reflection worked much better for doing this. Next week's texts arrived while working, so when one was finished I started writing another reflection on a 2 Timothy passage fitting well with the revision just made. By the evening I had next week's full audio track completed too. It felt like time well spent.

Clare cooked the last of Mr Berry's Christmas purchase of sausages for lunch which I worked. After I'd eaten I went and collected this week's organic veggie bag, and then went for a walk in the park before resuming recording next week's offering. Then a couple of favourite telly programmes after supper. The Repair Shop and Digging for Britain to inspire and amaze. 

The big amazement of the day however, was that my lost Casio digital watch re-surfaced. Ten days ago I realised it was missing and could only recall wearing it on a shopping visit to Aldi when I presumed it went missing, but not so! This morning I turned the mattress on my bed. Later when putting fresh linen on it once more, Clare found the watch on the floor by the wall. From this, I can only deduce that I took it off when on the bed, put it down on the duvet instead of  the usual tray. Then when I flipped the duvet it fell on the floor, but exactly when this happened will remain a mystery. Another instance of how the memory can play tricks on you.

Negative Anomaly

Clare went off to her study group after breakfast and I worked on some ideas for a series of Passiontide meditations on Jesus' last journey to Jerusalem prior to the events celebrated in the celebration of the Holy Week Triduum. Then I collected Clare's prescription and did some shopping, with a trip to R J Berry the butcher, to thank him for our exceptional Christmas turkey. I came away with some super sausages and chicken thighs for the freezer, two of which I cooked for lunch as I didn't fancy chickpeas today.

Afterwards, I sat down to do my daily Duo Lingo Spanish drill and then slept for over an hour, before my walk around the park. I had a Holy Week planning email to respond to before supper. We watched the days spectacular Winter Olympics reports on BBC catch-up, plus a classic edition of 'Yes Prime Minister'. Then I tidied up family holiday photos scanned yesterday from the late eighties and uploaded them to share. It's been good to rediscover them and savour them after so many years.

One small technical thing I observed scanning negatives yesterday was the minute difference in the size of negatives produced from the two latest packs of film, such that scanning produced a consistent black edge on two sides of the frame. The images are a few millimetres smaller than in other later film rolls scanned. Given these rolls of film date from 1985 and 1986, and all other scans are from later rolls, it  conclude this was when I switched cameras. 

My trusty old SLR Praktica with Zeiss lenses produced fine images, but the shutter became less reliable after my Jamaica visit in 1982. I acquired an Olympus Trip pocket camera, which had simple autofocus and exposure regulation. It was more convenient to use, even if the quality of the images wasn't quite as good as the Praktica. The Olympus images on film occupy the full 35mm frame, whereas the Practica images fit just inside the frame, producing that dark edge. At least, that's the only explanation I can find for this curious anomaly.

Welcome catch-up

I heard the front door close at eight this morning, Clare making an early start for the swimming pool in town. That prompted me to get up and get moving too. I was out of the house walking just after ten. When I passed under a tall tree I heard a couple of un-natural metallic sounds over my head, a deep groan then a short high pitched wail. I looked up and there were two crows side by side, one preening the other. I don't recall ever hearing such a strange bird noise. A mating ritual call?

I returned and absent-mindedly started preparing lunch, having forgotten we planned to eat a cooked meal later, as Clare had a colleague around for a handover briefing after school. Just as well I remembered before actually starting cooking, thereby avoiding a domestic crisis. 

Mother Frances came around for a cuppa at tea time. It's the first opportunity we've had for a decent face to face chat since she first arrived. It's great to see her in such positive form after her annus horribilis last year. Afterr she left, I resumed the seemingly endless chore of scanning old film negatives. Back to 1987 today, pictures of a family holiday in Brittany, with a visit to Chartres on Kath's sixteenth birthday.

When I found pictures taken when we visited Vannes during a Jazz festival, they made me realise I'd been imagining Vannes town centre when I was writing about Dai Mandolin's sojourn there in my 'Troubador' novel. It reminded me that I have yet to complete the first revision of the draft. It's slipped off my to-do list for the past year.

After supper, the pleasure of watching astounding snowboarding performances at the Winter Olympics, before another new season 18 episode of NCIS. Then some duty diary updates before calling it a day.

Accession Day seventy

Another Sunday on the receiving end, sitting in a pew at St Catherine's for the Parish Eucharist, and by the looks of it, another week ahead without a funeral to take. Archbishop Rowan was also in the congregation, and afterwards we both said what a relief it was, not to be on duty. There were eighteen Sunday School children in church and over three dozen adults as well. Let's hope that attendance will continue to grow, now that Wales has gone back to Alert Level 0.

Today is the 70th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne on the death of King George VI, her father. I remember hearing about it from my mother as a nearly seven year old, after it was announced on the BBC Home Service. Fr Rhys preached about the call to discipleship, but I don't understand how he could have failed fail to mention the Queen's ministry by example as the head lay person of the Church of England, especially when she has so often made it clear that her commitment to service is rooted in her Christian  faith. He did, however mention mention the Jubilee in the intercessions, and Colin played 'God save the Queen' as people got up to leave after the Dismissal, and many of the congregation (especially the older ones) stood and sang, albeit informally. I felt that somehow this was not thought through beforehand.

When I got home afterwards, I resumed working on scanning negatives of Clare's winter journey to North Sweden with Owain in 1987. Half the negatives were actually of their stop-over in Itzehoe, near Hamburg. They'd taken the ferry there from the U.K. and flown to Stockholm before flying up to the Arctic Circle, but the travel details are a little hazy. I continued after lunch until I had nearly seventy digital photos, with just a few discarded because the camera used hadn't worked properly, maybe a flash issue. It's funny that I don't recall seeing any of them before. I may have seen them, but they're not rooted in my memory as I wasn't there and didn't take the pictures.

Though the weather had been fine thought cloudy, I didn't go out for a walk until four. When I stepped out of the house it began to rain, but didn't persist for long. A chill north wind blew, driving the clouds away as I walked. There must have been a lot of rain in the night as the water level in the Taff had risen by half a metre since yesterday.

Clare called Kath for the first time since she caught covid. She's been afflicted with a painful sore throat for days, and while it's subsiding now, the question is how long will it be before she tests negative and can return to work, having been obliged to cancel classes and stay away from show rehearsals all last week.

After supper, we watched the day's reports from the Winter Olympics and a historically fascinating edition of Antiques Roadshow together. Then I watched tonight's episode of the new ITV drama 'Trigger point'. Half way through its six episodes, and still the air of mystery and dramatic tension is being sustained, though some of the dialogue is mumbled and far from clear, and this sabotages the plot development. Such a shame.

Snow scenes past and present

After our Saturday lie-in and pancake breakfast we walked into town as Clare had a clothes purchase she wanted to return to H&M. Then we went to John Lewis' for a soup and sandwich lunch and a browse of the tech bargains for me, and clothes for Clare. Nothing of interest, so we headed for home. The streets were very quiet but the pubs were full of rugby emitting groans of anguish as the Irish team proceeded to thrash Wales in Dublin. Ten - nil as we arrived at the bus stop, twenty nine - nil by the time I switched on the telly when we reached home. Never mind, consolation was at hand in the form of Winter Olympics coverage on a neighbouring channel, showing the most astounding performances in skateboarding, mogul downhill skiing and the ski jump. How these sports have advanced in recent decades! A perfect antidote to a dull, cold windy day in Cardiff.

Recently I learned that most of the snow on which the Winter Olympics takes place is now artificial due to climate change. You could hear it in the sound of skis moving on what is in effect crushed ice. Resorting to this calls into question future Winter Olympics, as snow production is energy consuming with a huge carbon footprint, skiing is that much more unsafe in permanently icy conditions as opposed to neige poudreuse. I fondly recall my time cross country skiing when we lived in Geneva, and for a few years after we settled in Cardiff, on January holiday breaks with Valdo in the Jura. I may never ski again not just because of advancing age, but because of the lack of snow in places we are most likely to return to visit friends. I didn't hear from Valdo at Christmas. I wonder how he is?

Sister June, frustrated with her slow Acer ES1 laptop. She's had it for about six years, and it's now under equipped to run Windows 10 at a normal speed, just like my desktop PC, which is almost as old. So, she has ordered a replacement Acer from Amazon, which should be adequate for her purposes, with a SSD and 8GB of RAM - the new standard specification for useful basic equipment running Windows 10. I think it uses Windows S, which may mean having to pay to install Libre Office, which is what she is used to, rather than subscribe to MS Word, which is far more than she would ever need to use. One of the team at the Boys' Club across the road from her place has promised to help her set it up. I hope this'll work out OK, and not leave her in a position where yet again changes in user interface cause more grief than any 87 year old needs.

I spent the evening scanning a batch of photo negatives of the trip to Umeå Clare made with Owain at Christmas in 1987 (I think). It was one of those experiences of a lifetime, and introduction for the both of them to cross country skiing on rural wooden skis. I stayed home with Kath and Rachel and the three of us did Christmas with the occasional landline call to the Arctic circle. We were living in Chepstow then and I was working for USPG. My ministerial services weren't in strong demand at major festivals so I could take time out with my two teenage girls. The photos aren't great, shot on a pocket camera with films that weren't fast enough. Even so, it's a lovely souvenir of those days, half a lifetime away.

Photographic memories

Clare has renewed her spa membership for the first time since the pandemic outbreak, and after breakfast she went off to town for a swim. Hopefully it will help with containing hip joint pain. As the weather was bright, if cold, I made myself go out early and not to start any jobs until I'd taken my usual walk around the park. I think that did me good too. I cooked lunch when I returned, while finishing next Thursday's prayer video production. 

Then I switched to backing up the output of my recent spate of photographic activity, so that content is consistent on the web, my PC and a separate hard drive. I got lazy, uploading to Google Photos and using the quite decent on-line editor, then forgetting to copy them to physical devices. My free on-line storage getting rather full, and I've never believed it is right to rely entirely on a storage system you borrow freely but don't own. Now I have things in order again - for a while at least.

After supper I watched last Sunday's tense episode of 'Trigger Point' on ITV Hub, which I missed live. Then I responded to an email from Peta Tracey from Geneva days when she and her husband John were lay leaders of the Gingins congregation which grew into the La Cote Chaplaincy. Their daughter Ann was a toddler when I first met them. Now she's a young married woman, living in Australia. It's lovely to be around long enough to see generations come as well as depart. It's a great bonus, having a personal archive of photos reaching back two decades beyond the 21 years I've been taking digital photos (thanks to digitzing negatives), it keeps all kinds of memories alive.

Musical Mastery

Up early, posting my weekly prayer and reflection upload after 'Thought for the Day' on the radio. Then, after breakfast, down to St John's to celebrate the Eucharist, before returning to cook lunch for Clare, and work on recording and editing the audio for next week's upload.

I needed a siesta after lunch before going for a walk. That's what happens when I wake up early and can't get back to sleep. After an early supper, we took the bus into town and walked to the Royal Welsh College for a piano recital by Llyr Williams, another in his series performing Chopin's piano music. Another wonderful experience. His approach to playing is deeply reflective, like a Zen master at work. It's almost as if he sits at the keyboard and waits for the music to arrive from above and beyond. After a moment of stillness at the end of a piece his attention rests on the keyboard and then he raises his left arm into the air above his head, in a gesture that suggests he's offering the music back to heaven. When he stands up to acknowledge applause with a warm smile, he looks as if he's expressing enjoyment in hearing the music he has played, as much as the appreciation. A moment of shared delight perhaps? What a treat.

We caught a bus home just after ten, just too late for the news. Four of Boris Johnston's top aides have resigned in the past day, one of them fiercely critical of his refusal to apologise for slandering Keir Starmer in the House of Commons. What next in this insane political soap opera?

Lethal ambition

I attended the Eucharist at St Catherine's this morning. There were eight of us altogether. We had coffee and a chat afterwards about the Old Testament lesson in the service, which was the story of King David, the census and the plague. To a modern audience it seems rather bizarre and cruel and needs explanation. I remember reflecting on it when it arose in the scripture readings two years ago during my sojourn in Ibiza as the epidemic turned into a pandemic. 

King David finds out the hard way that God thinks he has no business counting the number of able bodied fighting men to organise for his army. This shepherd king of Israel's big idea encroaches on God's unique role as protector and defender of Israel, and the deadly plague people must survive is a harsh lesson about not getting ideas above your station. It's not obvious until you look at other stories in which God instructs his people to reduce rather than increase an armed force to tackle an enemy invader, so victory is secured against the odds, by God's grace. Sometimes hysterical panic causes an enemy to flee, or else it's inspired ingenuity and surprise tactics that win the day. All the Israelites need is courage and confidence that victory belongs to God, regardless of numbers. Beware of ambition!

After lunch, a trip to the shops then a walk in the park. The first few daffodils are now in full flower. also crocuses, and the carpet of snowdrops under the trees in the avenue down to the stables has grown ten fold in under a week, thanks to relatively mild weather. Then, writing a biblical reflection for next Thursday. The lectionary has switched now so that we're no longer reading a passage of a Gospel, but a passage from one of Paul's Pastoral Epistles.. It's a different kind of challenge from working on passages from a story. An interesting one too, as Paul's world is in so many ways different from ours.

This evening we watched 'The Repair Shop' and 'Digging for Britain' once again, two specially appealing telly programmes we both enjoy. Then a call from Owain, just back from doing an internet radio techno music programme from a studio over in the St Paul's Area - half a mile from where he was born. 

Impromptu lunch

After breakfast I drove to St German's for the school 'class Mass', standing in for Fr Stewart, summoned to a meeting with the Bishop. Clare was preparing to welcome her Tuesday study group as I left. I celebrated the feast of Candlemass with the children, and we sang a few songs. One teacher attending expressed her appreciation for the chance to sing as singing is still thought to be too risky for gathering in school. After the service I drank coffee and chatted with Angela, Hilary and Peter, whiling away the time until Clare's group left. 

Clare invited Fran and Mark to an impromptu lunch, so I improvised a veggie pasta dish for the four of us, while Clare tidied up and laid the table. Thankfully the sauce turned out just right, and also was just the right amount for four. Then we went for a walk in the park before parting company, and I kept walking for another hour to complete my daily quota.

Much to my bewilderment, my lost sock from two days ago turned up on the shoe stand in the hall. When I returned from walking on Sunday afternoon, I must have taken the stray sock, stuffed in an inside pocket and put it on the rack while I took the other one off, but the act was completely automatic and immediately forgotten, like when you lock the door on auto-pilot and need to go back and check because the memory of doing so didn't register as your mind was on other things already. As it write about the day almost every day, I have noticed that I can usually recall everything I have done but not necessarily in order. Sometimes I wake up remembering something I didn't add the night before - like this sock episode!

After supper, I returned to scanning negatives of family photos taken in the nineties, a whole roll of James shortly after his birth, at a family gathering, and half a dozen of Owain's eighteenth birthday. Yet another pleasant trip down memory lane.