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.