Birding pleasures

I woke up to another day without covid symptoms. Clare is slowly improving, and we're hoping that she'll be clear by Saturday so we can go to the performance of the new Wriggledance show 'Squidge' in Bath. It was fifteen degrees yesterday, but today it's twelve and overcast, but feels like nine degrees. 

Before lunch, I wrote next week's biblical reflection on the seventh plague in the Exodus story. Interesting to examine the story with fresh eyes and see the catalogue of plagues as symptomatic of ecosystem changes triggered by big weather disturbances. North Africa was once a verdant sub-tropical environment. For a couple of millennia before the time of the Exodus story, Egypt had been populous and wealthy, engaging in big engineering projects to construct cities, temples, monuments pyramids and canal extensions to the Nile waterway. Making a built environment in a huge flood plain region would be bound to have an impact on its ecosystems and on local weather cycles in turn. 

What interests me is how the story tellers portray Moses taking advantage of rare natural occurrences to put pressure on Pharaoh to free the Israelites. The death of the first-born sons doesn't easily fit into this however, although an outbreak of some disease causing child deaths isn't out of the question. But we'll never know whether it was based on fact or is a narrative fiction.

Yesterday I bought a big pack of chicken legs for me to use, and rather than freeze them raw, they went into the oven for lunch today, along with roasted veggies, one of Clare's favourites, taking advantage of the oven's heat. When cooled down there'll be a place for them in the freezer and keep me fed for a week or two.

On my walk down to the Taff later in the afternoon, I spotted two pairs of Goosanders swimming in the pool below Blackweir Bridge, about five hundred metres upstream from their habitual roosting place on a rock outcrop in the river. They looked like Mum and Dad out with last year's daughter with a spare male in tow. They swam in an uneasy formation with Dad positioning himself to shield the females from the interloper's attention. Occasionally Dad would make an aggressive lunge at the interloper. Then the four headed back downstream, and the young female slipped past Mum and Dad and headed off to join the interloper. It made me laugh out loud. A hundred metres downstream, a cormorant was perched on a rock drying its wings by flapping them slowly. A great sight, very photogenic. 

Leaves are bursting out on many of the chestnut trees around the Fields at the moment. This waterside bush was bare when I passed by last week. Very beautiful and uplifting.

Now that many of the species of daffodil, crocuses and snowdrops are past their best. if not vanishing, I've noticed new different flowers in sheltered spots. I can't identify them yet as my botanical knowledge is very limited.

In news of the Ukraine peace negotiations the Russians are proposing to halt the stalled assault on Kyiv and concentrate on a deal regarding the Donbass. Putin will hardly admit the military failure, unless the real Russian casualty toll gets  out to the public. It's regarded as a pause to re-group forces for the next assault. Continued Kremlin reference to the 'denazification' of Ukraine is seen by observers as coded talk about regime change. Nobody trusts Putin or his negotiators anyway. Ukraine is willing to concede neutrality but how this could work without an external monitoring agency is unclear if not impossible to agree at this stage. 

Stranger than fiction

It's three days since Clare tested covid positive. She now has a nasty sore throat, and was up much earlier than me and made her own breakfast. I still don't have any symptoms. Annoyingly my left ear is so full of wax that I can hardly hear and the pressure increase on the ear drum affects my head. Days of lubricating with olive oil before anything can be done to clear the blockage.

Before cooking a lentil with mushroom dish for lunch I completed Thursday's Morning Prayer video and uploaded it to YouTube. A beautiful big bunch of Mothering Sunday flowers for Clare from the children  arrived at the door while I was working. Yesterday after church Sheila came by with a presentation gift box of fruit from the Parish to its mothers. Such a nice thought, and just at the right time, saving me a trip to the supermarket on Sunday, as we were about to run out of fruit.

I did our weekly grocery shopping this afternoon, then went for a walk down to the river. Our neighbour Miriam is looking after a friend's golden retriever for a few weeks and was also on her way to Blackweir. The dog enjoys fetching a ball thrown into the river, and as the water level is low at the moment it's quite safe to do this. 

We stood and chatted on the river bank for a while, and then I walked up the path along the river bank for the first time this year. During the really wet winter weather it was treacherously muddy to walk on most of the time. A lot of work has been done cutting back bramble bushes and taking away fallen trees and branches, as well as completing the construction of the riding school paddock's boundary fence. The path is now one and a half to two metres wide on average, twice what it used to be, but it'll still get very slippery when it rains.

As usual, being a Monday, I watched the newest NCIS season 18 episode, and watched the news before turning in. There are still talks about talks going on between Russia and Ukraine, but building sufficient trust for the process to bear fruit is not going to be easy. Breaking news was about negotiations in Belarus in which sanctioned billionaire Roman Abramovich, owner of Chelsea football club was taking part being targeted by a mild poison attack, causing alarming irritation not injury, but interpreted as a threat. There are some secret players in the power game wanting to sabotage any dialogue. But who? Is this true, and not a smokescreen invented to conceal what is really happening? At the moment, real life events are as full of bizarre and terrible surprises as any melodramatic spy novel. And thousands are still suffering and dying.

Voice from the past

Last night, I put the clocks on before going to bed an hour early, and woke up refreshed at the right time. No church today, quarantining with Clare. After doing breakfast for Clare and myself, I said Morning Prayer and the Eucharist texts of the day, as I did under lock-down in Ibiza, rather than watching on-line.

So far, no unwelcome covid symptoms to prompt a lateral flow test. I went out to get some Ibuprofen and vitamin C tablets for Clare before cooking lunch. I found her playing the piano when I returned, part of the cure she reckons. She's not sleeping long hours now, but still coughing. It was sunny and warm enough to serve her lunch in the garden. Also therapeutic.

When I left for my afternoon walk, I saw a few people returning home in their sports gear clutching their Marathon participant medallions. I was due to say Mass in St German's this morning a journey that would entail road closures and diversions, impossible to predict. At least I didn't have that  uncertainty to disturb my sleep with. I did a big circuit of Llandaff Fields, amazingly well used. Cricket was being played and family groups were picnicking. The newly refurbished children's playground was crowded and busy, and there were long queues outside Cafe Castan for drinks and pizza. I enjoy walking in the park at all times in the year in harsh weather that keeps crowds at home and I'm almost alone with the elements and the trees. It's perhaps loveliest when the Fields are full of people enjoying themselves in good weather and there's a murmur of happy voices in the air.

More speculation from the media commentariat today about Putin's intentions now that his invasion plan has failed to deliver. More rumours of staff changes in military and intelligence services. The breakaway republic of Donetz leader has announced a coming referendum to formalise its relationship to Russia, and the Ukrainian intelligence now alleges that Putin's new war aim is to partition Ukraine, seizing some of its best agricultural land assets in doing so. 

President Biden spoke out vehemently against Putin as a war criminal and went off script in a way that was taken to infer that American policy promotes regime change. Well, I guess he inadvertently gave voice what many in the world are wishing, but the only valid way for this to happen is by the Russian people rising up against their leadership. If only ...  Interesting to hear Kremlinologists try to identify someone in the upper echelons who could replace Putin.  All guesswork. It's so unpredictable.

There was nothing of interest to me on live TV this evening so I looked on iPlayer and found a programme showcasing neglected and abandoned heritage buildings in Wales which played a part in our social history but have fallen into ruin and in some cases it seems fallen out of history as well. An old Swansea Theatre, a remote farmhouse and a stately home dating from the 1550s, colliery buildings, a nineteenth century marine fort, several grand mansions built for the wealthy in Victorian times, and several chapels purchased by a retired pastor with a vision of restoring them to full use. 

A chapel in Maesycwmmer near my home town was featured and the person talking about it was Dr Elin Jones, prominent Welsh academic and lifelong non-conformist still active in the remnant of Wales' chapel going community. She was my first girl-friend when we were sixth formers. We parted company after we went to different Universities. She told the story of the beginnings of the Welsh revival of 1859, referring to the book about it written by her great grandfather who was a chapel minister at that time. It's a story I remember hearing her tell sixty years ago. It was fascinating to see and hear her talk after so many years. I was reminded of her father, a union activist, by her gestures and the way she spoke. It was quite a surprise, taking me on a brief trip down memory lane.

Covid limbo

Clare was up before me testing herself this morning, and announced that she'd woken up snuffling and had just tested positive for covid-19. No question of an outing to Llantwit Major for a singing workshop this morning. I did a test and had a negative result. We'll both have to quarantine for the coming week, and there's no question of me celebrating Mass at St German's tomorrow, so I contacted Fr Stewart immediately to give him the bad news. Fortunately, Fr Irving from St Martin's was able to step in, which is a relief for me.

We have to think about how we co-exist while I wait to see if I'm going to catch it.  Everything separate, towels dishes, bathrooms and lots of sanitizer - a special visit to stock up was necessary. I'll have to cook and serve all the meals - not a problem. If I catch it, there's just enough time to return a negative Lateral Flow test before I'm due to have my pre-op PCR test unless I am unlucky and recovery is prolonged. As long as I take proper precautions, I can go out to the shops and walk in the park. I have no assignments in the coming week other than tomorrow, so it's a question of riding it out, doing as little as possible and taking no risks for the sake of others.

When I went out to buy sanitizer I walked down Severn Road as I often do. There's a corner shop which was home to a heating boiler business which closed some years ago. For at least the past three years, the burglar alarm inside the property has sounded continuously around the clock. It's noticeable outside, but not terribly loud. The side gate to the property got kicked in years ago and the back part looks run down. When I passed by today, I noticed something different from previously. The front garden was filled with detritus, perhaps from from clearing the interior. As I walked away, I realised the alarm was no longer sounding. Were the inhabitants next door in the terrace not bothered by the noise coming through the party wall? A business probably collapsed, and whoever ran it may well have left without adding the alarm security code to the building's ownership documents. Amazing that it had taken so long to silence.

We encountered another building mystery yesterday. Number eleven has been empty since Liz moved to Minchinhampton six months ago. The house went on the market and was snapped up within days. Then it was put back on the market again, and again. A handyman was in the garden repairing the gate which had blown down. He told Clare that three purchasers had pulled out, due to structural concerns about the stability of the ground. 

Houses in this area were erected on the layer of ashlar and clay that formed the Cardiff flood plain. The building of the Barrage changed not only flooding risk, but also the water table, and that potentially affects ground stability. The Edwardian sewers in this area are not as stable as they once were and slowly collapse inwards on themselves, so the streets suffer from potholes which need to be filled in from time to time. Not sinkholes, thankfully! So what's happened next door I wonder? Is it something that could affect adjacent properties like ours? If so, I think we'd know by now. 

There are no significant cracks in any of our walls or floors, just a crack in a corner of the ceiling where the main wall meets the bay window. Not unusual, nothing to worry about. We have retained the original configuration of rooms in the house. The solid brick partition wall between front and middle rooms next to was removed to create a bigger space. It's got composite wooden floor panels running throughout. It seems the instability may be underneath this flooring. 

When they were built these houses had brick or flagstone floors laid on the clay. In the first round of post-war modernization, these were taken up and replaced by a layer of concrete in each room. What happened when the partition wall was demolished, I wonder? Was the entire length of the double room properly resurfaced, or just the area where the wall stood? The 'modernized' living room would not be as stable a structure as the original, with two concrete platforms jointed where the wall had been. The slightest subsoil movement in front or back would make the whole floor misaligned enough to de-stabilize its wooden surface. 

Just to confirm this would require a costly removal of the wooden floor and a suitable remedy, something not factored into the rather high selling price on which offers were to be made. I daresay it'll be bought by someone with the resources to get the job done for themselves, maybe someone in the building trade. We'll see eventually.

The mild weather this past few days has brought out many more blossoming trees and leaves on some of them. Our damson sapling in the garden has gone from having tiny buds to sprouting leaves, and the two crab apple trees in Llandaff Fields are covered in leaves now, and tiny pink blossoms are emerging. This photo was taken this afternoon.

With so much blossom around I'm more prone to sneezing and runny nose, though not full hay fever. It's a bit disconcerting when the same symptom could equally indicate the presence of covid. That's why the daily Lateral Flow test is important.

This evening I watched the last of the documentaries about the Arctic on BBC Four, and the second episode of 'Hidden'. It's slow going and I confess to finding it a little hard to follow. The Welsh dialogue has English sub-titles which are quite hard to read as the font is smaller than what is conventionally used in TV drama and the display design is different. I watch a lot of subtitled movies and the readability of this one is the exception. I wonder why?

Pinged

At half past seven this morning, I was awakened by the familiar telephone voice of a Microsoft scammer from the Indian sub-continent, I guess, from the accent. After breakfast or lunchtime scam calls are quite commonplace, but this early in the morning? Well, at least I was awake in time for 'Thought for the Day', and a lovely bright sunny start.

I walked to town half way and then took the bus for convenience, to optimise the time I had to get a new slimmer Casio watch strap from the Market stall - my existing one is too thick and catches on my sleeve when I am putting on a jacket. Then a quick visit to the camera shop to try out a 9-18mm wide angle zoom lens for my Olympus camera. I concluded that the one I have is far more satisfactory for my needs. Then I walked to St John's for a bread 'n soup Lent lunch. There were just eight of us present. Several regulars were away apparently. 

Clare was pinged by Track and Trace after lunch as a close contact of someone tested positive for covid. The contact tracer wouldn't say who but that it happened chez nous - in compliance with Data Protection regulations. It was infuriatingly difficult to work out who she might have been in contact with. We have so few contacts with people at home it took a while to work out that it was the piano tuner who visited on Wednesday afternoon. When she rang him, his wife confirmed that he'd tested positive. The Track and Trace operative contacted her but refused to confirm to her that it was her husband who was the infected close contact, and not someone else. Now, how surreal and bizarre is that? Like something from a Kafka novel.

Thankfully, Clare's lateral flow test turned out negative. I was at work upstairs throughout his visit, so I wasn't in contact with him. Let's hope nothing develops between now and 4th April when I have a PCR test at St Joseph's and self isolate three days before the cataract op.

I went to the local pharmacy, where we'd obtained supplies of Lateral Flow Test kits before, to ask for another batch, but was told they no long had any to give away, so we had to order on-line. I was about to do this once I reported back to Clare, but she was on the case quicker than I. Fortunately we still have a few from before, so we can test ourselves before going out to the Fountain Choir workshop in Llantwit Major tomorrow.

After supper we watched an hour of the recording of Queen's Budapest concert and ate choc ices, and that I watched series three opening episode of 'The Crimson Rivers' before turning in. Another bizarre plot, which unfolded fairly well to begin with then became convoluted and staggered to a puzzling end, which felt as if the film editor hadn't taken enough care with the narrative thread in the last quarter, losing a couple of scenes that made sense of the story rather than leaving the viewer to join the dots for themselves. Disappointing,

A Passiontide work in progress

A bright morning, but with the sky covered by a thin layer of cloud. It was gone eight thirty by the time I posted the link to today's Morning Prayer, as again I didn't wake up in time for Thought for the Day. After breakfast, I walked to St John's to celebrate the Eucharist with just four others this week. After coffee and a chat, I returned home and cooked lunch as Clare was out shopping in town

Surprising news from Ukraine about the sinking of a Russian warship capable of carrying troops and tanks to shore, as it did eight years ago when Crimea was annexed. The navy probably has others, but this will not be easy for Putin to explain, any more than the loss of six generals and many more ranking officers and over fifteen thousand soldiers in this offensive. Apparently the GRU Russia's military intelligence agency has someone senior leaking information abroad about disquiet in its ranks over Putin's campaign. If this isn't fake news, it could mean that his leadership is finally coming under internal scrutiny. Churches as well as governments around the world make continuing efforts to sustain communication and appeal for and end to fighting. There's little sign of change but nobody knows completely what is happening under the surface.

Clare wanted to visit a closing down sale of a store on Newport Road that sells outdoor leisure clothes, so I drove her there after lunch, but there was nothing she was interested in buying. After we got back, I walked over to Victoria Park to take photos as it has some spectacular blossoming trees. The wonderful pink flowers on the magnolia tree overlooking the pond in Thompson's Park have dropped most of their petals already. The leaf buds are still tight dark green spikes yet to unfold. The magnolia in next door's garden is slightly different, as it still has much of its blossom, and its leaves are already bursting out of the buds. Does this reflect adaptation to a different environment, or it is a different variety, I wonder?

Not much of interest on telly tonight, so I spent a couple of hours working on the script for the service on Good Friday that I propose issuing as a podcast while it happens live. An experiment and a challenge for which I hope I don't lose my nerve.

Digital weapons and defences

Intriguing news this morning that a senior Kremlin figure who had been a patron of Putin's leadership  has broken with him over the war in Ukraine and left the country. A small sign of hope. All we need now is several more to do likewise publicly, and that could trigger a change that will result in an end to the war. Putin cannot survive unless he has united support, methinks. Meanwhile this terribly cruel conflict continues. The Russians are said to have lost about fifteen thousand soldiers. There are no comparable figures for Ukrainiansoldiers or civilians killed.

I went to the Eucharist at St Catherine's this morning, with ten others, then fetched this week's veggie bag before lunch. When I got home there was a small package in the post for me from my sister June. It's a small protective wallet to house bank cards with a safety lining that prevents anyone with the right device from reading the data on one's cards and using the information to steal from your bank account. Up until now my card wallet has had an aluminium foil lining, which also works, but wears had needs to be replaced regularly to serve its purpose.

I made a draft of next Sunday's sermon, then worked on next week's Morning Prayer upload and recorded the audio in the afternoon, with a break while the tuner worked on Clare's piano. Rachel has sent us a lovely video of Jasmine playing jazz piano at a school concert. We knew she plays saxophone, but I wasn't aware that she's been learning the piano as well. Amazing!

When Clare went shopping for some vegan products at Beanfreaks, she found out the shop had suffered an expensive loss of fresh stock due to a fridge breakdown or power outage, not sure which, so she asked me to go over to the Tesco supermarket on Western Avenue and see what suitable products I could find there. It wasn't easy to locate what I needed, but I was successful in finding all she wanted.

After supper, I watched more episodes of the Finnish crimmie 'All the sins', which did turn out just be be a prequel to series one. It turned out to be quite a complex essay on the turn of the new millennium, as a moment of change challenging traditional religious and social values, and the impact of the emergence of female leadership on community life in a remote rural area. It made me realise how much has changed in the past twenty one years and how much we've become accustomed to since the rise of the internet and the smartphone. Who could have thought back then that they'd become weapons of war in the struggle to control the information required to rule the world?

Spring scenes

Another glorious sunny day and quite warm for this time of year too at fifteen degrees. Clare's study group arrived mid morning. I spent an hour scanning the opera tickets for the next season,which Clare received in the post, to store for convenience in my phone. Then I went out to walk for an hour before lunch. First, I caught the bus to the end of Cathedral Road, then walked into Bute Park to take pictures of the flowing trees on the east side of a Gorsedd Circle - a spectacular sight at this time of year.

I wasn't able to take as many photos that I hoped for, as my camera battery ran out of charge. After lunch I started work on next week's biblical reflection, now focusing on the Exodus story. It made me look again at the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt and notice something I hadn't seen before. 

Joseph's policy for managing the famine involved selling the wheat surplus rather than giving it away, a prudent way to cover the cost involved in building and maintaining storage facilities. It was successful enough to enable Egypt and surrounding territory to survive the food crisis. As a result, Egypt saw a return on its investment. It was reasonable enough when people could afford to pay, but as the famine continued, impoverishment led needy people to sell their land and physical labour to the Egyptian state for the price of grain - economic enslavement. Time passed, after the death of Joseph, the privileged position of the Hebrews in Goshen was gradually forgotten. They too became economically entrapped. An ironic instance of the unintended consequences of Joseph's creative management plans.

It also occurred to me that unlike Joseph, who acquired dual identity by virtue of making the most of being enslaved, Moses the liberator from slavery acquired his dual identity by being rescued from the Nile and raised in the household of an Egyptian princess, while being care for by his Hebrew mother. The ability of both men in different situations relies on being able to bridge the culture gap in their own lived experience. Both know the importance of patience, humility and persistence to achieve anything worthwhile. 

I walked in Llandaff Fields before supper, enjoying the fact that it's mild enough not to need a top coat. The children's playground is busy and lots of people are out walking their dogs, or sitting on the grass making the most of their time after work or school. A big grass mowing machine towed by a tractors was out and about, tidying the playing fields reading for cricketers to practice before their first matches.

In the evening I watched several more episodes of Finnish crimmie 'All the sins', which I didn't realise until now has a second series, which strangely tells about events relating to some of the first series characters fifteen years earlier. It's intriguing. So far the reason for this isn't apparent.

Mistaken or not?

Another day of beautiful weather, with some cleaning to do after breakfast, then completing this week's Morning Prayer video, the longest one I've done so far, because of the length of the Genesis reading used. I walked over to Pidgeon's for a ride in the hearse to the funeral I was taking at lunchtime. We visited the house in Cathays where the lady who'd died lived for over sixty years, then drove from there to the crem on a back street route, which seemed to take ages. It's a long time since I did this,

After the service, a lady who had attended the service approached me and said she recognised me as the priest who had christened a couple of her children twenty five years ago at St Teilo's Church. At that time I was still in Geneva, so I think she may have been mistaken, unless she got the timing of the years wrong, since my ministry in Central Cardiff Benefice didn't start until the autumn of 2001.

I cooked a chicken dish for lunch when I returned, to go with the veggies Clare prepared, conveniently enough to last two days. After a visit to the bank, I sat with Clare for a while and joined in a Facetime call with Saralee in Seattle. Then I made my way to St German's with two buses, and got there just in time for Stations of the Cross and Mass. Heather gave me a lift as far as Canton Cross on the way back after the service, so I got back in time to listen to 'The Archers' on catch-up and then watched this week's NCIS series 18 new episode before turning in for the night.

Still no breakthrough in halting the terrible Ukraine conflict, though there is speculation on preparations for direct negotiations between Zelensky and Putin, although speculation seems to be about both parties modifying their established positions or their willingness to do so. Pigs might fly too.

Equinox Sunday

Another beautiful blue sky sunny day for the Spring Equinox. More daylight than darkness for the next six months. Perhaps it's the impact of the cataracts that has made this winter taxing on my morale. Well, we'll see what difference the operation makes in two weeks time. 

I walked to St Luke's to celebrate the Eucharist after breakfast. There were fourteen of us, nearly half of the regular congregation was missing, including the thurifer and the intercessor. The organist was meant to be reading and didn't arrive until the last minute which caused a minor panic. I had to hunt for the relevant liturgy books as they'd been put away. As I'm not at Saint Luke's very often I didn't know where they were kept, but by the end of the first hymn, everything was under control.

There was a young man in the congregation who told me afterwards that it was his first time to attend a  service years, after dropping out of a church on the other side of the city. He said he found it moving and powerful. The friend who brought him arrived with a bag of superb sticky buns to share from Alex Gooch the artisanal baker in Pontcanna Mews. It was unfortunate that the lady meant to serve coffee after Mass wasn't there - self isolating I think. But it was a very nice surprise anyway!

After lunch, I sat down to relax and do my daily Spanish drill, and when I finished, fell asleep for two and three quarter hours, although I had been in bed eight hours and didn't feel particularly tired. What I notice however, is that I felt quite relaxed after my siesta and enjoyed my late afternoon walk in the Spring sunshine. A heron was on watch close to the bank near the weir, fishing for eels  in the shallows. 

Twice I heard a splash mid-river further down, but could see nobody within stone throwing range, was this the sound of salmon jumping, making its way up into the Beacons to spawn? The time is right, so I believe. 

Nothing much of interest on telly tonight, so I started watching 'All the sins', a  Finnish crimmie set in a rural region dominated by a puritanical Lutheran sect I'd never heard of before, portraying the impact its behaviour has on the wider society it is a part of.

UN observers are saying that the war in Ukraine has displaced a quarter of the population, ten million people from their homes. Three and a half million have fled the country, and there's no sign of Russia curbing its murderous onslaught on Ukrainian cities. President Zelensky has called on Israel to consider its 'neutral' position in relation to the conflict. As a Jew he has the moral authority to talk to him about the genocide of Ukrainian people and culture. Israel has a convenient understanding with Russia about not hindering the Israeli pursuit of Hezbollah insurgents in Syria, which has  resulted in Israel refraining from judgement about the invasion of Ukraine. I wonder what Isaiah or Jeremiah would make of this?

On the beach

With buds bursting into early leaf, a clear sunny sky, and a mild morning after the night of the full moon, it felt like spring when we sat down to our pancake breakfast today. In the news, a report that Joe Biden has been in conversation with Zhi Jinping about the situation in Ukraine, just a day after speaking with Putin. China is playing the enigmatic game at the moment. 

There are unofficial reports that Putin is not just re-shuffling about purging his intelligence services, arresting some of his top people. This may be his way of shifting the blame for his error of judgement in thinking Ukraine could be blitzkrieged in order for him to install a new regime. 

Russian armies are in a stalemate situation in Ukraine with heavy casualty and equipment losses, destroying cities by indiscriminate bombing and missile attacks is the alternative strategy terrorizing the country into submission. Putin scapegoating his advisors is his lame attempt to divert attention from his own inability to grasp the reality of a world that has changed deeply since the Cold War ended. He was succeeded so far in uniting the free world against his regime, and economically punishing the Russian people. How long can he get away with this?

At the end of the morning, we drove to Cold Knap in Barry for another fish and chip lunch, though sadly no fish soup this week. I guess it depends on the supply of fresh ingredients available. After lunch, we climbed up the clifftop path and set out for Porthkerry, but by the time we got to the woods Clare's hip joint was giving her too much pain, so we retraced our steps to beach level. Again the tide was far out and on a whim, I made the precarious descent of the massive pebble bank to where bedrock and a thin layer of sand is exposed at low tide, and took photographs. 

There's nothing much to hold millions of tons of rounded stones in place apart from gravity, inertia and their irregular shapes. Each step down you take, you're likely to slip a little as stones move underfoot. Superficially it looks as if nothing grows. The occasional bunch of seaweed on the surface washes in and out with the tide. No doubt there are micro-organisms and plants in between the pebbles. The power of the tide moves the surface levels of stones around day by day, and sand gets washed in and out from between the stones. Only at the deepest level beyond reach of being moved by the most powerful of storms would it be possible for sub-soil to develop. 

Coming back up the steepest shoal closest to the top, it was safer to crawl with hands and feet spreading my weight to avoid slipping backwards and falling. The exertion was worth the risk though, as you get a different perspective on the pebble bank down there, fifty feet below promenade level.

On the return trip we visited Pugh's garden centre in Wenvoe for Clare to select a variety of bedding plants to bring fresh seasonal colour to her flower beds. We had a drink in the cafe's sunny outdoor area. There was a young couple with two small infants at a table nearby. The dad spoke Italian to one child and English to his wife. Co-incidentally the Wales v Italy rugby international was in Cardiff today, making roads busier than usual. As we drove home, news came through that Italy had narrowly beaten Wales, thus ending their losing streak of 36 games in a row. The city will be in a state of shock tonight.

There were a couple of interesting documentaries on tonight, one about the history of the Normans and another about life in Yukon the Canadian province nearest the Arctic circle, one of the few places in the world where some indigenous people still live as subsistence hunters. Inevitably, the impact of global heating on the seasonal cycle is bringing to an end a way of life in close relationship with nature which has persisted for several millennia.

For the second time this week the Cymru Du crimmie 'Hidden' was shown on BBC Four tonight, having been premiered Wednesday night on BBC 2 Wales. No point in watching it twice, but used the time to complete a few tasks and get to bed earler for a change.

The cleaner sound

A cold clear night followed by a bright sunny day with clear skies and quite mild for this time of year. The only significant development in Ukraine is a two hour video conference between Presidents Biden and Putin. Meanwhile the bombed theatre in Mariupol whose basement is said to have been sheltering 800-1000 people is slowly being evacuated while the area is under continuous fire from Russian forces. 130 have been rescued alive so far. Over a hundred empty prams and baby buggies have been assembled in the city of Lviv, representing the number of children killed so far in this onslaught. Meanwhile Putin, his regime and most of his citizens are in denial about the responsibility of their forces for such crimes. Every day we ask ourselves, how much longer can this go on?

I went by bus over to St German's for today's Lent lunch. The first bus I took was ten minutes late and it took me a while to find a bus for the second leg of the journey, so I arrived half a hour late, in time to eat but was annoyed to miss Malcolm's talk. There were about fifteen of us, several came from other churches in the Roath Ministry Area,including Mike and Geraldine Payne, whom I knew as members of Saint Michael's Church in my days as Rector of Central Cardiff. Mike is now the Ministry Area lay co-chair. Mike's now retired from being a full time Trades Union Official and brings to his new role a wealth of experience on social justice concerns which the churches will really value.

I caught a forty nine bus from Newport Road to return to the city centre and walked home from there. The brightly painted new bus was an all electric vehicle, one of a number bought since last autumn by Cardiff Bus. Part of their fleet is low emission fuelled vehicles, in a different livery, plus the remainder which is now slowly being phased out, in the old Cardiff dark green livery. 

The sound of an electric bus took me back to Geneva days where electric trolley buses have run since they were invented after trams, as the city had a convenient source of hydro power. It also took me back to the sounds of my youth when Cardiff also had electric double decker trolley buses. How much quieter and less malodorous the air of the city centre will be in a few years from now. The air is improving with more electric cars on the road, as it also improved thirty years ago as catalytic exhausts were introduced. The smell of diesel car exhaust is still noticeable, as is that from central heating systems whose boilers haven't been serviced.

When I got back home, I prepared Monday's funeral service and eulogy, and then got ready to leave early for the Millennium Centre for tonight's WNO performance of Janaczek's opera Jenufa. We were invited to a 'Friends' drinks reception before it started with a helpful brief introductory talk from WNO's musical director Aidan Lang. It's a beautiful work, dating from the turn of the 20th century, and the cast of singers was superb and evenly matched for their different roles. It's a sad story which highlights the power of forgiveness to redeem a tragic situation, while portraying powerful men as morally weak and powerless women as morally strong. Very thought provoking, with exquisite music.

No end in sight yet

Sunshine to start the day and I was awake early and posting my Morning Prayer link before 'Thought for the Day' for a change. I walked to St John's to celebrate the Eucharist in honour of St Patrick along with six others. When I returned I got on with preparing next week's Morning Prayer reflection, as I had some ideas to work with. about the content of text from the end of the Joseph saga. 

After lunch I recorded and edited the audio. It was an unusually long and slightly repetitive passage which needed a little redaction. It was only when I'd recorded it that I realised that I'd not picked up correctly a few crucial details from the text and this introduced errors into my commentary on it, so this needed editing and re-recording to make sense. 

Funny, that's not the sort of mistake I normally make, but to be honest the last chapter of the story was dauntingly long, although it did have a couple of relevant points to make use of. I do enjoy the task of explaining a text to an audience and making it interesting and worthwhile paying attention to, even if on times it can be daunting.

It's lovely to have longer afternoons again, and not having to go out quite to early to avoid walking in the dark. Sunset is twenty past six now. I had a reminder from Frank's wife Carmen that my friend from our days in Bristol University is 79 today. They retired to live in Puerto Rico on the edge of sub tropical jungle a decade ago. They'd love to welcome us there, but we can't afford to travel so far afield any longer. So we exchange messages in Spanish instead.

With the war in Ukraine pushing up commodity prices, we'll need to be very careful with our money in the next few years, and our European travel ambitions will be very restricted, if at all. We're fortunate to live in such a beautiful country that's relatively small and diverse geographically. A lot to be thankful for.

Nothing much of interest on telly tonight, which gave me an opportunity to practice Spanish and write to Frank. The news from Ukraine after three weeks of onslaught continues to be distressing, outrageous. The Russian ground offensive has made no progress, so cities are being bombarded and destroyed by guided missiles instead, and the loss of life on both sides continues to mount. 

Preliminaries for peace negotiations continue, details of the agenda for face to face talks are beginning to emerge - neutrality, no affiliation with NATO, as expected, protection for the Russian language, a crackdown on neo-nazis in the country, and inevitably, formal recognition for the breakaway republics of Donetz and Lugansk in Donbass. The destructive brutal siege of the port city of Mariupol continues to take thousands of civilian lives. It's key to the Russians driving a land corridor between the two areas to unite them. If Odessa is also captured, Ukraine will be landlocked, and that will change its economic and fortunes significantly. No wonder citizens are fighting so fiercely.

The language issue on the peace agenda is interesting. Ukrainian is an older iteration of Russian, with regional variations. Under the USSR it was suppressed in favour of modern Russian, but since Ukraine got back its independence after the break up of the USSR, a resurgence of traditional Ukrainian language has taken place, suffice it to say, many if not most Ukrainians are bi-lingual, and there's no question of Russian being suppressed. It's about what Putin thinks happened beyond his control, not the reality. 

Two key actors in mediation between Russia and Ukraine at the moment are revealed to be Erduan, the Turkish President and Bennett, Prime Minister of Israel. Both countries have interesting if questionable relationships with Putin's regime, from which undoubtedly they benefit. But in the end are they no more than 'useful idiots' in Putin's cynical playbook. Putin is determined to get where he wants by force, but he didn't bargain for such resistance and near stalemate in conquering cities. He could run out of time and resources to finish what he started. If he were to be toppled, who would succeed him. There's no obvious successor, and there's no end in sight for this bloddy conflict yet.

Turmoil in Orthodox lands

Our Spanish neighbour Miriam called for Clare this morning at nine when I was having breakfast, and the two of them went for a swim together. I received a second email from my friend Valdo within a few days of the last one, which I hadn't yet got around to reading. This one told me something surprising about a previous colleague of ours from my time in Geneva. Père Jean Renneteau an Orthodox priest of the Russian Exarchate Archdiocese of Western Europe was a member of our local ministers fraternal. He hailed from Bordeaux and had trained for the Orthodox priesthood in the renowned St Sergius Institute in Paris. 

Jean was then pastor to the French speaking congregation at the international Orthodox centre in nearby Chambésy, which had two dozen nationalities among its membership. Attending the Easter Liturgy there was a wonderful multi-lingual experience with Russian liturgical music I learned to sing in English as a young student, sung there in French. Since then, Jean's responsibilities had widened considerably, both among the Orthodox in Switzerland, internationally and ecumenically. He was ordained Bishop in 2016, elected by the Oecumenical Patriarchal Synod in Istanbul, then consecrated in the church at Chambésy. I don't think I was aware of this, but it doesn't surprise me that it happened. He was then appointed Exarch - in effect, leading Bishop of the Oecumenical Patriarchate's Russian Orthodox congregations in Western Europe.

What surprised me however, was to learn that in 2019 he was received into communion with the Patriarch in Moscow, and made Archbishop of all its Russian Orthodox congregations of Western Europe. This happened a year after the Ukrainian Orthodox church unilaterally declared itself independent of Moscow. It was formally recognised by the Oecumenical Patriarchate Père Jean had been ordained to serve. The Ukrainian church initiative resulted in Moscow breaking off communion with the Oecumenical Patriarch (not that this hasn't happened before in the strained history of Orthodox international relations), but was this of sufficient concern to lead Père Jean to change allegiance? After all Père Jean isn't a native Russian speaker. Moscow lays claim to all Russian Orthodox congregations of the Exarchate in Europe whether they are Russian speaking or not. Many Exarchate congregations refuse this claim however. Is Père Jean ministering now to all the congregations or just those loyal to Moscow? It's a right puzzle, and I'm not sure how I can get any satisfactory answer.

Even more remarkable Père Jean is among the group of Orthodox theologians that has recently spoken out against the war in Ukraine and being deeply critical of the presumptions behind Putin's justification for his actions. Patriarch Kyril of Moscow has been notably silent thus far. Is Père Jean acting as his voice, or just voicing the views of the Russian Orthodox diaspora in Western Europe? It's an amazing turn of events. Père Jean is a remarkable Orthodox pastor, ecumenist, internationalist. It could be that he has the trust of each party in this ecclesiastical dispute with serious political repercussions. And to think that thirty years ago we used to have lunch together every few months in an ordinary Suisse auberge in Versoix!

I went to St Catherine's at ten, my head trying to take in these intriguing thoughts, to celebrate the Eucharist, with the usual group of ten that regularly attend. We chatted long over coffee after church and on the way back. By the time I returned home Clare was cooking lunch. Afterwards, I walked around Llandaff Fields, and then returned to see what else I could find out about the situation with the Russian Exarchate congregations in Europe. 

Curiosity then led me to see if there was any new news about Mar Johanna Ibrahim, the Archbishop of Aleppo, kidnapped with a Roman Greek Catholic Bishop, both on a hostage negotiating mission, when Aleppo was being fought over and destroyed. A couple of articles allege that both were murdered by their abductors in 2013, but neither of their bodies have been found, and the researcher's findings are unsubstantiated. Will the truth ever be known, I wonder? It's heart breaking to think that the population of indigenous Oriental Orthodox Christians in Middle Eastern Countries is a tenth of what it was at the turn of the century, due to war of islamist persecution, after one and a half millennia of co-existence.

This evening we watched 'The Repair Shop' and then the first episode of the third series of bilingual Welsh (Cymru Du) crimmie 'Hidden'. Another slow burner, I'm afraid, but atmospheric and beautifully produced.

Technological presumption

After breakfast, Clare went off to her study group. I walked around the park for an hour and then made lunch for when she returned. Admittedly we've listened to a lot of news lately. The new DAB radio bought for the kitchen last week has gone through a set of batteries already, so I've re-introduced the mains lead adaptor. I've had my appointment letter for cataract surgery at St Joseph's hospital on 7th April. I have to self isolate for three days beforehand and test negative for covid, but what a lovely birthday present!

The most remarkable news from Ukraine today is of a visit to President Zelensky by the Prime Ministers of Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic. They travelled by rail to avoid the risks of air travel. It was a gesture of solidarity from former Communist bloc countries witnessing to their concern about the threat which Putin's Russia poses to Europe. With bombardment of Kyiv suburbs becoming more brutal in targeting civilians day by day, this is remarkably bold. The journalist who protested on live Russian TV news yesterday has just been fined £220, and not, as was feared, imprisoned for 15 years. The number of refugees is up to three million. Peace negotiations continue and are said to have made a little progress but without significant breakthrough. 

My sister June is still having troubles with heating in her apartment after having a new gas boiler installed with a Hive thermostat. It's all bee tested but so far nobody has been able to work out what the problem is. It's been worrying me, trying to figure out remotely what could be going wrong. Today I found a YouTube installation guide which told me the Hive has four AA batteries - nobody had told my sister this, so she could check and replace them if needs be. It also told me that the device relies not on a direct wireless signal to the boiler but on one which is relayed via the router. Then I remembered that she switches off the router along with the computer at night. 

It's presumed everyone leaves their router permanently on, but what if they don't? We switch off ours at night. Could this be source of June's heating problem? Tonight she's leaving the router on, so tomorrow we'll see if this is the issue. But nobody ever told her not to switch off the router. Nobody ever took time to explain in words she understood how the system works. The complexity of modern technologies are hard to grasp at the best of times, and people who are not familiar with the terminology as disadvantaged as a result. "It's like saying that can't make use of something you've bought unless you speak Welsh." She said.

I made a bereavement visit to man and his wife in Cathays this afternoon, whose father I'd done the funeral of when I was Rector of Central Cardiff Team Ministry eighteen and a half years ago. His mother has now died. I caught the bus into town, and walked out from there, and on the return trip walked due west to reach Bute Park, and crossed Blackweir Bridge to reach home just before sunset. A second day in a row when my daily walk is more than forty percent over target.

The one thing a weatched on telly tonight apart from the news was about the restoration of the great East window of York Minster, explaining the artistic techniques involved and telling about the designer and maker or the window itself. Most of the master craftsmen who made stained glass windows are unknown, but there's enough documentation to name John Thornton, who worked not only in York, but in Coventry. It was a remarkable insight into processes devised six or seven centuries ago, and still used today.

Subversive protest

It was a bright sunny morning, and while Clare went for her swim, I went out and walked in the park for an hour. Then when she got back I did my share of the cleaning, made lunch and did the week's grocery shopping at the Co-op. At tea time, I took the bus into town and walked the rest of the way to St German's to lead Stations of the Cross, and celebrate Mass this evening. 

There were about twenty of us present, including three youngsters who came out of the blue asking if they could attend the service. I don't know why. I answered a few of the questions they asked, but Hilary took an interest in them and gave them books to follow. They were in the first year at Willows High School. I think their visit may have had something to do with their R.E. class. They were well behaved and stayed for both services. People from other Ministry Area churches joined St German's regulars, and expressed their appreciation for the shared experience. Geraldine was able to give me a lift back to Canton on her way home. 

I was surprised to find that I'd walked fifteen kilometres today instead of ten, and yet I didn't feel unduly tired. I don't understand why some days I lack energy and it's an effort to keep up my daily exercise, then other days I don't feel tired at all.  I'm very grateful for those days when I don't feel quite so old.

It's been more of the same in the violent onslaught on Ukraine today. Almost three million people are refugees now. There's more speculation in the media about what role Chinese President Zhi Jinping will play. China isn't currently answering questions about sending military aid to Russia allegedly requested by Putin. At the opening of the Winter Olympics, the two dictators were together rejoicing in their new measure of partnership. I wonder if Zhi is starting to regret that now?

Despite the suppression of any news about the conflict in Russia which differs from the official version, today has seen the most remarkable piece of subversion on a live TV news channel. A member of the news editor walked into the live studio news broadcast carrying an improvised 'Stop the War' placard and showing it to camera. She had just recorded and uploaded a brief video of herself explaining why she felt compelled to make this protest. For her it's professional suicide and will result in imprisonment, no doubt. Such courage! Slowly, the truth is seeping out, and Russian casualties keep mounting.

Disturbing news - home and abroad

I woke up this morning to hear the news that the Russians had bombarded a Ukrainian military base just ten kilometres from the Polish border, a place where Ukraine has hosted meetings and training exercises with visiting army personnel from other European countries. Putin warned yesterday that armaments that come in from other countries would be regarded as legitimate targets, but this attack simply killed thirty five people, civilian and military personnel. The conflict threat level rises significantly with the chance of a cross border incident occurring accidentally, as this would constitute an attack on a EU country and NATO member. 

Two point seven million people have now fled Ukraine, and one point seven million are in Poland. The way its citizens have risen to the challenge of welcoming refugees unconditionally is truly admirable, but being unable to move enough of them on to other countries, faster than new refugees arrive is putting huge pressure on Poland's resources. Britain has been slow to scale up its response to allowing refugees into the country, despite the government's stated intentions. Given the circumstances, there's no controversy among the public about the substantial numbers involved, which could rise to over a hundred thousand people, but the government has done its utmost to curb inward migration from the outset. Old habits die hard.

When I arrived to celebrate Mass at St German's this morning I was greeted with the news that Father Roy Doxsey, former Vicar of the Parish was seriously injured last night, hit by a car crossing Newport Road on his way home from a meeting in Splott. He has a fractured skull as well as broken bones. He's unconscious and his condition is serious. Everyone was distressed to learn this, as if dreadful news from Ukraine wasn't already a heavy enough burden to bring to the altar of the Lord. Another congregation member is absent at the moment, also in hospital awaiting a life changing operation. We can only watch and pray and wait for whatever news can be gleaned from enquiries about his condition. 

Unfortunately he has no next of kin locally, but hopefully, a close friend will be able to obtain some information about his condition. A priest colleague has taken the initiative of visiting the intensive care unit to anoint him, but whether he's be allowed access through the UHW covid security cordon remains to be seen. When Angela heard the news, she went around to his place to collect his two dogs. She often looks after them for him. Fortunately she remembered that Roy was due to take services in Pentyrch today and called Dyfrig the Area Dean to alert him to this, in order to alert the Parish. She didn't know initially whom to call, as the Ministry Area which Pentyrch is part of has just seen the resignation of the Vicar of Radyr its leader. 

Clare had her monthly study session this afternoon, so I went out for a damp walk straight after lunch. Clouds and showers yet again. I got back before Clare's guests arrived and confined myself to my study and spent a couple  of hours scanning another batch of five dozen negatives - Christmas 2000, and an assortment of photos from Holy Trinity Geneva in the same year, taken at Confirmation and Baptism services. Some negatives scanned seem to have had other origins, mixed in from other sets, It was quite a challenge re-assigning the odd ones out to the correct folders after supper. The real mystery was a few photos of Kath juggling with a fire-stick in a garden which wasn't ours. When I sent the photo to her, she was amazed to learn it was in our collection. I wonder where it was taken?

There wasn't much on telly that I wanted to watch when I'd finished with photos for the night, but I sat with Clare to watch a comedy news quiz programme from the year before last on one of those repeat TV channels. I managed about ten minutes of today's news before calling it a day. All very bleak and grim, except for the amazing response of countries around the world closing ranks against Russian aggression, and reaching out in compassion and solidarity to Ukrainians. So far Beijing, although an ally of Russia, hasn't said anything that makes a difference to the situation. The repercussions of this war on the global economy is going to affect the Chinese economy sooner or later. So how long before Beijing makes it clear to Moscow that its interests are not being served by continuing to invade a country it cannot hope to occupy and rule, as resistance is so strong? 

Pain and Glory

Yesterday was so grey and wet, it was such a delight to wake up at sunrise to a bright clear blue sky. Just right to put me into a good mood. We didn't linger late in bed, but got up to enjoy our Saturday pancakes with sunlight streaming into the kitchen. A special pleasure, almost like being on holiday.

Before lunch, we went for a walk around Thomson's Park. Clare's arthritic hip has been playing her up, and I wanted to take it a bit easier today after long walks in the past two days, so we weren't ambitious to go on a long hike today. Sometimes it feels as if old age is biting chunks out of us. But we're not being shot at, bombed and harassed like Ukraine's septuagenarians. How would we cope if we were driven from our homes in a freezing winter?

I had another short walk in the afternoon, then uploaded photos taken over the past few days, and finished off tomorrow's sermon. Gusts of wind sprang up from the west driving in clouds that covered the sky, and then bouts of rain again. It looks as if it's going to be changeable like this for a few days more, but at least it's not wintry cold now.

BBC Four showed Pedro Almodóvar's 2019 movie 'Dolor y Gloria' this evening. Another masterpiece of story telling about an ageing film maker, reconnecting with old friends and remembering his childhood after a long spell of creative dryness and confidence loss due to his physical ailments. It was beautifully made and very moving in the relationships it portrayed. I was amazed at the extent that I understood the Spanish. The accent was Castilian. I've been learning with the Duo Lingo Spanish app for the past seven years, and I believe its lessons use Latin American Spanish pronunciation. So this was the first time for me to listen at length to European Spanish dialogue, with its slightly different rhythms of speech and nuances. It's the first time I've heard the 's' in words pronounced 'sh'. Fascinating.

River revived

It rained all day until four in the afternoon, so I spent the morning after breakfast working on my Sunday sermon. I decided to continue exploring the Ely river trail, starting from Leckwith hill and walking down river to where it crosses Penarth Road. It's quite a long way back home from there, so I didn't carry on down river to the Bay. I'll keep that for another occasion when I can take the bus out to the same point, as the walk back was on noisy urban roads lined with industrial depots. 

Actually the Ely Trail runs next to the busy A4232, and there's a strip of land covered with briar patches and young trees running down to the water. The construction of the A4232, just fifty metres from the river in places  may have led to the destruction of much of the old flood plain natural landscape. In one place by the river's edge I found a small cast iron object protruding from the river bank, which may have been a mooring post in a previous era, when the river was tidal and navigable to some extent. 

For a century and a half it was heavily polluted and biologically dead, but with the demise of industry in the Rhondda and in the coastal plain, and the advent of modern sewage plants, the Ely, like the Taff has seen the revival of its natural ecosystem ad repopulation with fish and wildfowl. Nobody wanted to own fishing rights to tracts of land along its river banks and nowadays public notices announce that fishing is allowed, something unthinkable in this region when I was young.

On the west bank of the river the trees lining the escarpment down to the water are much older. From where the river runs out of Glanely parish through the coastal plain, it flows more slowly, as meets the water behind the Barrage. Like the Taff, the Ely ceased to be a tidal river at the turn of this century. Perhaps for this reason, reed beds have sprung up along the banks, a great haven for wildfowl. A few of the colony of Swans from the barrage waters make their way upstream here, just as they do on the Taff. It's also desirable habitat for canoeists as well.

So for the second day in a row my daily walk topped twelve kilometres. My feet were really tired when I got back home, and I spent the evening binge watching the rest of the episodes of the German crimmie '23 Murders'. It ends in a way that leaves no uncertainty about the need for a second series, except that there hasn't been one. It was made in 2015, but didn't get screened until 2019. The central story-line is just too implausible to start with, and sub-plots convoluted and hard to follow. Quite bad really, but not in a comic way, as it takes itself too seriously as 'psychological drama'. Quite amusing to watch a really bad crimmie for a change. The fact that it was in German was at least good for my basic language comprehension.

There's been no breakthrough in Ukraine negotiations, but more Russian attacks on cities, with civilian casualties mounting. Three Russian generals have been killed in action so far, plus between two and four thousand troops. With a similar estimate for Ukrainian military losses. The Ukrainian government says that up to two thousand civilians have been killed. Over ten thousand lives lost in two weeks, with signs that things can only get worse, with no respite. How long before the Russians decide that continuing this aggression is unsustainable economically and politically. And what happens then?

Ely Trail discovered

I posted the Morning Prayer link to WhatsApp before 'Thought for the Day' this morning and then fell asleep listening to the news. Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine are getting nowhere. It's thought that Russia will try to break the stalemate by using chemical weapons as it did in Syria, and even heavier weapons. What more can western allies safely do to avoid all out war? Is it unavoidable, as long as Putin won't back down? The Russian people are being lied to and protest extinguished forcibly and the true situation covered with lies. Going to sleep during the news is getting to be a habit, perhaps because it's so hard to listen to. 

After breakfast I joined ten others at St John's for the Eucharist plus a cuppa and a chat afterwards. While Clare cooked our favourite fish pie dish for lunch, I worked on next week's Morning Prayer upload, and completed it after we'd eaten. Then I went for a walk to Sanitorium Park, somewhere I've not explored before, but I learned from another walker some time ago that a footpath starts there that runs alongside the river Ely.

Finding the way into the park wasn't easy as there were no signposts to it from the main road. Google Maps directions were unclear to the point of being misleading. To find the entrance gates it was necessary to go to the far end of a newish housing estate. There's a circular children's playground inside a large circle of grass fringed with trees. Beyond the trees, the river Ely and the woodland of the Leckwith escarpment. 

I walked down to the river and followed the footpath down to the bottom of Leckwith Hill, then headed for home alone the road that connects the Leckwith trading estate with Canton. Beneath the concrete flyover bridge dating from 1935 that takes the Leckwith hill road over the river, there's a narrow stone bridge crossing the Ely dating back to 1536. Although a grade two listed building, it needs repair. Some parapet stones have suffered damage from vehicles crossing over to reach small industrial buildings on the west bank. The juxtaposition of these two bridges built four centuries apart reminded me of similar sites I seen in in Spain, ancient stone bridges of similar design overshadowed by concrete ones dating from the thirties. It's the crossing place itself which has an even longer history. 

Clare went out to RWCMD for a Welsh language play. There wasn't much of interest to watch on telly, so I found a rather quirky German crimmie series called '23 Murders' to watch on More Four.

Investigative delight

I was awake at first light again and listening to the ever disturbing news from Ukraine. There's been no let up in the fighting, except for a few respites for civilians to leave cities in conflict zones. Mariupol is still besieged, much of the city razed to the ground. A maternity hospital was shelled causing many deaths of both adults and children, as happened previously with the Russian intervention in Syria on behalf of the Assad regime. Why Putin was not challenged more vigorously over its conduct at that time amazes me. Sure the Russians were fighting against the Islamic state like everyone else, but with their own agenda.

On the economic sanctions front line, Macdonalds has shut down its eight hundred fast food outlets in Russia following the lead taken by other western branded retailer. In Russia, two eminent musical conductors quit their jobs in protest at the war. Outside Russia, some musicians and sportsmen are finding themselves boycotted whether or not they've disassociated themselves from Putin's regime. Nothing encouraging to wake up to, a fortnight after this awful war began.

Ruth called for Clare after breakfast and they went swimming together in town. I went to the Eucharist at St Catherine's, taking the week's foodbank offering with me, as Clare had already done this week's grocery shopping. There were a dozen of us present, and most stayed for coffee afterwards. I fetched the veggie bag, and by the time I returned, Clare was home and finishing cooking lunch, which I'd started preparing before going out. Yet again I fell asleep for nearly two hours after lunch, making up for waking early. One way or another I need eight hours sleep in twenty four, and fortunately it's not too much of a disruption to get it whenever I can. When I was fully awake again, I went out for a few items of grocery we were still lacking, and then did a short circuit of the park.

I watched the last episode of Swedish crimmie 'Truth will out' after supper, then a wonderful interview given by the Dali Lama and Desmond Tutu, and another edition the archaeology magazine programme of 'Digging for Britain'. All sorts of investigative programmes I find fascinating. Last night there was one in the 'Britain's Lost Masterpieces series with art historians Bendor Grosvenor and Emma Dabiri finding pictures of interest in obscure galleries or country houses about which little or nothing is known, and then doing the detective work to identify their origin. It certainly makes a change from crime scene investigations!

Unprecedented hearing in Parliament

I woke up at half past six this morning. The sun was already shining and I couldn't doze off again without first posting to WhatsApp today's YouTube link to Morning Prayer. Eventually, I dozed off again listening to the news, and got up late, just as Clare was off to her study group in Penarth. After breakfast, I spent an hour writing next week's biblical reflection before driving to Penarth to collect Clare for an early lunch, as she had an eye hospital appointment at two. We had just enough time to cook and eat together before I drove her to UHW.

Then I went for my daily walk and bumped into Fran and Mark, just as they were entering the park for an afternoon stroll, so we walked and chatted together. We then bumped into Mike, a mutual acquaintance who kept us at a distance, as he said was nearly at the end of a spell of self-isolation, having caught covid, most likely on a family trip to Sweden. Just as I was leaving the park, I bumped into eye surgeon Andrew, masked up and keeping me at a distance. He caught covid at work last week. By co-incidence I have been in the vicinity of three different people with covid in the past five days, having got through the last two years with hardly any encounter with a covid infected person. Is this what the virus becoming endemic means now? 

It's not life threatening, no worse to get over than ordinary 'flu, so no need to be so vigilant and worried about catching it. Can't say I'm comfortable with this casualness. To our social and economic benefit winter covid restrictions have helped to bring about a reduction in 'flu illnesses and related deaths. I'd be in favour of maintaining social habits which help maintain reduction in contagious sicknesses of any kind. Already the number of people wearing masks on public transport and in indoor entertainment and retail settings, not to mention churches, diminished remarkably even before it became optional. I don't see how this is publicly beneficial. Why tolerate contagion of any kind when it could be reduced?

President Zelensky of Ukraine gave a speech in Kyiv broadcasted live to members of Parliament and relayed by the BBC on the PM programme at five this afternoon. The first time this has ever happened. It was a powerful account of the war on a day by day basis. Ukrainians are still begging for a no-fly zone over their territory, but the risk of this escalating into a world war is too great for NATO or any other country to take. Western nations are pouring 'lethal military aid' into Ukraine to make up for this, to equip the people to keep fighting for themselves. The number of refugees is now over two million. Early estimates of the number rising to four million have now been revised upwardly to seven million, though the basis on which such a prediction is made is not explained.

It seems two Russian army generals may have been casualties of the invasion as well as several thousand troops. Remarkably, the innovative use of state-of the-art smartphone technology is helping to make a difference. With thousands of people able to take geo-located photos of conflict zones and post them to website aggregators, real time military intelligence can be harvested and applied to defending the country in an unexpected new way. The skilful use of drone weaponry is in the hands of a generation that grew up honing its skills on computer games and flight simulators. This is something the invaders can't have bargained for.  The Russian army still has a frightening amount of fire-power, and it's using it ruthlessly to empty and conquer targeted cities. They have underestimated those they expected to overwhelm. The anti-war tide of protest in Russia is rising in the absence of success. Already this  is undermining Putin's hold on power. How much more damage will his army do to Ukraine before the army turns against him and scapegoats his failure of leadership? We can but watch and pray.

A new question to ponder

Clare went out early again to swim. I didn't hear her leave and again I got up late having dozed through the early news. I did the vacuuming and cooked a paella with prawns for lunch. Then, into town to meet with Rufus at 'Coffee Heaven' for a chat. 

Yesterday evening he messaged me to say that Cherry his Bishop had returned from his licensing service Thursday evening last and then tested positive for covid. As she was greeting people un-masked and shaking hands after the service with forty people present, it's not so surprising. Rufus had tested negative, but in the light of the fact that she had proffered her hand to me and I'd shook it, albeit with misgivings, I took a Lateral Flow Test before going to meet him. Thankfully, mine too was negative.

I thought I should report the result, though not sure how usefully Track and Trace is monitoring church gatherings - I noticed there was a check-in list at the back of church on Thursday night and signed  it dutifully. Nobody had put contact numbers next to their names. Did they all know each other I wondered? A bit shambolic really, now that the Great Fear has subsided, or switched to Moscow instead.

We chatted for two hours until the cafe closed for the day, then I walked home through Bute Park, where many of the trees are now blossoming, and carpets of daffodils spreading under the trees. It looked lovely under a bright blue sky. It was sunny but pretty cold, still more wintry than spring-like, but it's still early in March.

News from Ukraine is grim. Another humanitarian ceasefire breakdown. The invaders seem to be stalled on several fronts, not achieving their objectives and forcing surrender. Tonight there was a news item on the successful use of Turkish made lightweight military drones that can fire guided missiles at ground targets, and are hard to pick up on ground radar. The Ukrainians are having more success at using these than their Russian counterparts are in deploying their home built drones. NATO declines to implement a no-fly zone for fear of this triggering conflict escalation, but partner nations are about to supply missiles and other armaments for Ukrainians to deploy. I could all so easily go dangerously wrong. One point seven million Ukrainians are now refugees. Civilians are getting killed trying to flee cities under devastating fire, in some instances deliberately targeted according to one journalist eye witness. It's all so distressing.

Tonight's new series eighteen episode of NCIS contained an incident that results in Gibbs' suspension from duty. He's been in almost all of the three hundred plus episode so far, and has progressively aged into playing the older man's role, phasing himself out. It's quite instructive to see, and reminds me of the succession of characters in 'The Archers' who have grown up, grown old and died during its seventy years of radio soap opera. 

Interesting that Rufus and I were talking about later years in ministry, as he'd observed older clerics whose lives had centred around their ministry finding it hard to find a new sense of purpose and identity once it was no longer possible to continue in active ministry. Keeping going while I was sick helped me to cope with the psychological impact of the peculiar physical distress I had to live with over the past two years. How will I be when I can't continue to make myself useful as a minister, I wonder? Actually, it's not something that I've really thought about before, perhaps I should.

It's funny to think that jobs came towards me when I was open to new possibilities, rather than having to hunt for one. In my thirties I trained as a teacher with the thought of having a non-stipendiary ministry, but it never happened as I thought it might. Only in the past twelve years of voluntary ministry in retirement have I felt in my element. I was never very comfortable in the conventional clerical role, just as my father feared, though for different reasons. I was always happy vested as a priest at the altar or in pastoral offices, but not really comfortable in clerical garb (despite my liking for black attire, owing more to the Beat Generation of poets than clericalism). I haven't owned a clerical shirt since I retired, and didn't wear one much in the last fifteen years in full time ministry. I found identifying myself with the stereotypical uniform difficult. But the question is, what will I do with myself when my services are no longer required? Walk, write, pray, cook, take pictures, like now. Will I be able to divert creative energy into doing something artistically new and different? Something to look forward to doing when I have time on my hands, and no excuse not to make the adventure? Let's see.

Hindsight

A cold night and a grey morning to wake up to. I preached at the St Catherine's Parish Eucharist. There were about two dozen present. A retiring collection was taken for Ukraine and over £300 was raised. USPG is acting as a channel for aid donations on behalf of the diocese in Europe, which has a chaplaincy in Kyiv. I'll make my donation through them. Clare tried giving on-line through Disasters Emergency Committee channel, but was puzzled when it didn't go through properly. I suspect their banking channel was being overwhelmed at the time.

More than one and a half million Ukrainians have left the country since the invasion started. Despite the clampdown on mentioning the war, let alone protesting, there are been anti-war demonstrations in cities all over Russia, and thirteen thousand people have been arrested for protesting, four thousand of them today in Moscow, so clearly news about the war is getting out and slowly a wave of indignation is rising among the ordinary people. What would be the critical mass of numbers that would bring pressure to bear on the regime to abandon their plans, I wonder?

After lunch I sat down to relax, and was surprised to wake up two hours later. I didn't even feel tired, that's the puzzle. Then took a brisk walk up to Llandaff Cathedral, to take advantage of the climb up the Dean's Steps. I realised yesterday that I need to be climbing more steps every day, as it was hard work climbing up the steep path from shore level to cliff top, an ascent of about seventy metres. Back in the day when the CBS office was on the top floor of the Motorpoint Arena office suite, I would climb the eighty odd steps of the back stair office entrance on every visit, three or four times a week. There are a few short steep slopes around this district but nothing to compare with the Motorpoint back stairs. No wonder I find long climbs hard work these days - not breathlessness, but leg muscles stiffening.

Nothing of interest on telly this evening, so I continued work on a project for Good Friday. I am doing a midday service at St John's, and want to produce an on-line equivalent to go out at the same time. The idea is to look back from the perspective of the 'darkness at noon' enveloping Calvary to the weeks that led up to our Lord's crucifion. So many warnings given by Jesus that went unheeded, not understood by his followers. 

The present situation with Putin's brutal assault on Ukraine is posing the question - how did we not see this coming? The west is in a relationship of mutual dependency with Russia on some key trading issues as well as energy. This has developed without due heed for his mindset which was formed by the KGB in the era of soviet tyranny. How could this have not been fully taken into account in the scramble to do business? We see what we'd prefer to see, today as two thousand years ago.

Clifftop walk

How lovely to wake up to a bright sunny day after a dull and mostly wet week. After our usual Saturday pancake breakfast, I finished off and printed my Sunday sermon, and then we drove to Cold Knap in Barry for lunch at Mister Villa's fish restaurant. It serves the most delicious fish soup, even better than the one at La Marina by Cardiff Barrage. What a treat. I also had cod and Clare had hake, perfectly cooked. 

While we were there, restaurant owner Christine arrived for lunch. Clare knows her through Steiner study groups but not seen her since before the pandemic, so after we'd eaten they had a catch-up chat before we went for our clifftop walk to Porthkerry for a cup of tea. I don't think I've ever seen the tide so far out, exposing bedrock a couple of hundred metres from the vast bank of pebbles forming the beach.

Fighting continues in Ukraine with more than a million feeling the country altogether so far. Attempts to create a humanitarian corridor to let civilians to leave Mariupol failed in the first hour of implementation due to a breakdown in trust between invaders and defenders. Russia and Belarus have been banned from the World Cup, and the Russian Formula One Grand Prix  cancelled. Paralympic athletes have been barred from the Winter games, the day before it started and more banking sanctions imposed, hitting the global economy as well as the Russian economy even harder. There's no sign of a halt in fighting though it seems Ukranian forces are still slowing down the Russian advance remarkably. What next?

There wasn't much of interest on telly after supper, apart from a French satirical comedy called 'La Belle Epoque'. It was hilarious in parts, poking fun a digital modernity but the plot was rather confusing to follow and over reliant on simulated oral sex scenes to represent boredom in jaded relationships. Totally pointless and time wasting. The movie run time could have been ten minutes short without them. I don't know why the BBC bothered with it.

Truth suppression

I got to bed very late last night and rose just after nine having switched on the radio at half past seven and then fallen asleep again. The battle for control of one of Ukraine's nuclear power stations led to an office building being set alight. but none of the nuclear reactors were damaged thankfully. This has sent a frisson of anxiety around the world, given the likelihood of the conflict escalating even more dangerously. 

Putin's government has imposed a complete ban on all independent news gathering organisations in Russia in the hope of suppressing all news except that from officially sanctioned government sources. Officially, all news not propagated by the Russian government is deemed fake news and communicating it is an offence punishable by years in prison. Mobile phones can still be used to relay news across borders on a one to one basis. Russians are used to keeping up to date by word of mouth, however, and foreign websites can still be accessed by tech savvy VPN users which hide the true location and identity of users. One hopes that this kind of news leakage will alert people at grass roots level to what is being done in their name and lead them to act eventually, hopefully not too late for the world..

Clare had her piano lesson after breakfast, and I had to wait for the house to fall silent again before I could start making recordings, both video and audio. I cooked a veggie pasta sauce for lunch while she was having her lesson, then recorded a short video introduction for next Tuesday's extra prayer video assignment. I wanted to incorporate a video clip introduction with the slides and audio, but the software I used didn't do what I assumed it would, but once the slide show video was complete it was easy to join it with the other clip, and all turned out well. There must be other ways of doing this. I'm amazed some folk manage to record and edit video on their phones with ease. I don't like viewing myself talking to camera, let alone editing the result. I find it embarrassing to look at myself while I talk.

It was four o'clock by the time I went out for a long walk at a brisk pace, much needed after all that digital wrestling. Clare went off to the Royal Welsh College for this week's Amser Jazz. Highlight of the evening was another two hour episode of Rocco Schiavone on More Four. I moves slowly and stories are complex, but full of marvellous character portrayals. Each week's story stands on its own, but there are linked threads running through the series, the characters and relationships it explores.

Fully disestablished at last

I posted my Morning Prayer video link to the Parish WhatsApp group a bit later than usual, having fallen asleep again listening to the news about Ukraine. Rain again all day today. I got quite wet walking to and from St John's to celebrate the Eucharist with four others, and then got wet again walking in the park after lunch. In between times I recorded, edited and posted next Thursday's video, then responded to a request from Paula to cover her Tuesday Morning Prayer slot next week, and started work on that as well.

I had intended to leave early for the drive to Blackwood for Rufus' induction, so that I could explore the area and a town where I occasionally went to the cinema or to a dance at the 'Stewt', but the rain didn't clear enough to make it worthwhile, so it was going dark by the time I left. That was a mistake. The road markings and signage in the Valleys are poorly illuminated - white lines fading, and often no 'cats eyes' to mark the verges or lanes. The glare of headlamps reflected off rainy surfaces adds to the difficulty. Worst of all, not being able to see the outline of the valleys through which I drove, to enable me to work out exactly where I was. 

I took wrong turns at a roundabout several times, surprisingly, outside my home town of Ystrad Mynach where the road layout and my geographical memory didn't connect, so I took the road up to Bargoed instead of Maesycwmmer and had to turn back at Hengoed to correct my course. It wasn't necessary to return to Ystrad however as remembered there's a connecting lane crossing the Rhymney river beneath the viaduct. I'd forgotten quite how steep and twisted the lane is, but at least the surface is good and  safe enough in the dark. I should have gone to Blackwood via Pontllanffraith but didn't, and had to negotiate a very unfamiliar ring road by-pass to find my way to Blackwood's once familiar High Street.

One small consolation was the sight of the old Maxime cinema, still standing, still showing movies, and now a multiplex theatre. I don;t know what goes on at the 'Stewt' but believe it's still a local community venue. I don't ever recall going to St Margaret's Blackwood before. It's slightly set back from the road in poorly lit grounds of its own, opposite a brightly lit branch of Kentucky Fried Chicken. I missed the turn first pass, and needed to consult Google Maps to be sure of what I couldn't easily see in the darkness and rain. Fortunately I was very close. And that was the only time I consulted Google about a route which was familiar in theory but not in practice. So much has changed since I left the South Wales Valleys for Birmingham fifty years ago.

There were about forty people present for Rufus' licensing by Bishop Cherry. He sermon was clear and straightforward, generic for the occasion but without reference to any social context other than that of the new born Ministry Area. No representative present of any local government or civil society bodies were officially present, no outsiders to welcome Rufus as a pastor into their community, not even from other churches. 

Since the removal of Common Tenure, which historically has geo-located parish clergy - you used to be appointed to minister to a community in a specific place with one or more churches to take charge of. You were licensed, then inducted (shown around your new church), handed its keys and placed formally in your choir stall after tolling the church bell. You took possession of the responsibilities of a place, not ownership in a literal but moral sense. It was a witness to commitment and stability in ministry. This was the way an established Anglicanism signalled its commitment to serve all citizens whether or not they belonged. The Church in Wales, disestablished a century ago, retained this pastoral dimension of what it meant to be part of the establishment, until recently. Something has been lost.

At last we're fully disestablished you could say, but the disappearance of these antique social rituals as a response to the need to reform the way ministry and mission is done can also be seen as symptomatic of a disconnection between the Anglican church and those it's called to serve. Sure disconnection is already a reality with so many people abandoning Christian faith and organised religion, but did the church need to move away in the opposite direction as well? For what purpose? Was it just to be able to move clergy around in an area ad libitum? Can a team guarantee to be equally acquainted with everything about the area they have in common? What are the criteria for effectiveness? I think I've been out of this debate on ministry for far too long to make any sense of it, sad to say.

Bishop Cherry shook my hand as I headed for the door. I said good evening, but didn't know what to say after that apart from goodbye, as a slipped into the night. The rain was slackening off during the drive home, and I arrived in time to watch most of 'The King's Speech' on BBC4 - an admirable uplifting movie, which in an amazing way is all about the painful demand of the calling to serve a nation which is at the heart of our established monarchy. Very much about flourishing where you're planted no matter how costly that may prove.