Getting ready to go

Up early, posting the link to today's Morning Prayer video, then after breakfast I walked to the surgery to hand in my prescription renewal form on the way to St John's for the Eucharist with nine others. After the customary post-service cup of coffee, I went to the Post Office to see if I could still get in International Drivers Permit, and was pleased to find that this counter facility was still offered. Although I thought there was a passport sized photo in my wallet there wasn't, so I had to go home and find one - there were still four left in my study desk drawer from the last time I obtained one in February 2000. 

Clare was still out, shopping in town, so I went back to the Post Office and got the permit straightaway. Then I cooked lunch in good time for Clare's return, and felt pleased with myself for starting the next stage of preparations for my Costa de Sol assignment. It's two weeks since I applied for my GHIC card. I wonder if it will arrive before I leave? Tomorrow morning I have the first of my two Safeguarding training sessions on Zoom. Then I must book myself some travel insurance.

While Clare had a siesta after lunch, I recorded and edited the audio for next week's Morning Prayer and Reflection. Then we went out for a walk in the park together. It started with a mishap. We reached the end of the street and I noticed that one of the lenses from Clare's sunglasses was missing. Moments before she realised something was wrong and took the sunglasses off and then put them back on without realising that the lens (a plain dark one) was missing until I pointed it out. We searched the pavement and went back into the house to look but to no avail. When she went to return them to their case, there she found the lens!

After supper, I binge watched several episodes of 'Coroner', which has several interesting story threads running through it across episodes as well as cases within episodes. The acting isn't noteworthy and much of the dialogue is mumbled. Set in Canada, the accents are different from those of the average US movie, a little closer to British discourse, but unfortunately this doesn't make for clarity.

Cataract op news

Another cool damp and cloudy day, but with no heavy rain. I went to the Eucharist at St Catherine's after breakfast. There were nine of us celebrating St Peter the Apostle in the church hall again as the decorators working in church haven't completed the job by the scheduled date. I chatted briefly with Mother Frances afterwards. It's confirmed that Mother Emma will serve both St Catherine's and St Peter's Fairwater in future, though we're unlikely to see her on Wednesdays as there's also a service at St Peter's. The prospect of exchanging weekdays with St John's so that Emma could be at St Catherine's on a Thursday hasn't been welcomed. Congregations are rather set in their routines it seems. 

It won't be easy to find substitute clergy for weeks when Mother Frances can't cover long term. While I'm always willing to plug the gap, sustainable arrangements have to be made that don't depend on retired clergy. Father Hugh at Fairwater will cover the weeks when Emma is at St. Catherine's, but like me he's retired. I suppose for now we'll just muddle along. 

I went straight from St Catherine's to pick up this week's veggie bag. By the time I got home, Clare had cooked a delicious pinto bean curry for lunch, using the other half of the can I opened yesterday. All I had to do was cook the brown rice to go with it.

I was delighted to receive a call from St Joseph's Hospital about arranging a cataract operation date. It has to be in the Autumn. I thought it wouldn't be a good idea to have it as soon as we return from Spain just in case I'm unlucky enough to contract another dose of covid on the return trip, so we agreed on the 22nd September, which would give me enough time to recover if the worst happened, and give the hospital more time to rearrange the booked slot if I did have to cancel.

We went to Beanfreaks together mid afternoon so that Clare could buy stocks of different kinds of flour and I could lug the heavy shopping trolley home. A strange sort of outing! Then I worked on next week's Morning Prayer and reflection before walking in the park for an hour. With nothing of interest on telly, I decided to use the time scanning negatives. There's still a pile of old photo wallets to get through, and no idea what they may contain until I start of them.

I spent an enjoyable evening scanning a packet ot really old negatives dating back to our time in St Paul's Bristol, including lovely black and white ones of baby Owain from 1979, some of our wedding and first visit to Clare's family home in Ewell with baby Owain and his sisters. Such happy memories!

Drama on screen and on court

Clare went to her study group after breakfast and I did the first of two shopping trips of the day, to refill a couple of bottles with laundry and cleaning fluids, which are available locally. The specialist shop in the Corp turned out to be closed, and not reopening until early next year. No idea why. Thankfully Beanfreaks also offers refills, so mission accomplished. I improvised a pasta sauce with aubergines, carrots, onions, mushrooms and pinto beans, as I found a can of them tucked away in the cupboard.

After lunch on impulse, I read a chapter of 'Invierno en Madrid', instead of reading in bed and nodding off. I'm nearly at the end now, and enjoying the climax of the story. It's taken more than a year to get through this six hundred page novel, but I have learned a lot from doing so. Then I walked in the park for an hour before dealing with emails and preparing supper, while Clare was out at meditation group.

I watched the last in Iolo Williams's series of wildlife programmes on Anglesey on catch-up while waiting for the last episode of 'Sherwood' to be broadcast live. It was superb, powerful in the way it focussed not on the ultimate arrest of the murderer, but on the community meeting which followed, in which the shared memory of divisions and wounds generated during the 1980's miners' strike were aired. A five minute long scene in the same room, with minimal changes in camera shots. You could have been looking at a film of a play on stage. Definitely the best piece of British crime drama I've seen in recent years. There was a lot in it that echoed the impact on community life of the loss of the pits in South Wales, persisting still today.

With nothing better to do just before and after this I dipped into the  tennis match between Harmony Tan and Serena Williams at Wimbledon with some exciting tennis played between a rising star and a veteran champion who eventually lost in what was only a first round match, Well, eventually the older must make way for the younger, no matter how we feel about that.

Valued visit

After breakfast, the usual Monday housework tasks. While Clare was out at her Pilates assessment session, I finished this week's Morning Prayer video and uploaded it to YouTube, before cooking lunch in time for her return. 

Owain arrived just after we'd eaten, and was happy to eat just a sandwich, as he prefers a cooked meal in the evening. Last week he had his induction into his new job with the Insolvency Commission. Thursday he's off to Geneva for a birthday long weekend, planned before the new job came up, so his new bosses had to honour the leave time he'd been granted. 

We went for a walk together over to Bute Park and had a drink at the Secret Garden Cafe on the way round. Then it was time to give him a lift to the station for his return to Bristol. A brief but much valued visit. He lives a full and busy life, and we're fortunate that he wants to visit us as often as he does.

After supper, I went for short walk in Llandaff Fields. There was a circle of fifteen people standing under the trees working with a yoga teacher. The sight of them all standing on one leg and bowing in salutation was quite striking. I felt a bit awkward about taking a photo of them, and wished I had done by the time I turned around and headed for home. They'd dispersed by the time I passed the place where they gathered. A missed opportunity.

I watched some of Andy Murray's first round match at Wimbledon while waiting for the fifth episode of 'Sherwood' whose plot continues to deliver surprises, even if its extended flashbacks to 1984 are a bit hard to follow on times. Sixth and final episode tomorrow night.

At least eighteen people were killed and dozens more unaccounted for in a missile attack on a shopping centre in Ukraine today, 80 miles away from the conflict in Donbass in a town where there were no military assets to target. It's not the first time civilians have been targeted. G7 summit leaders have branded it as a war crime. Putin's forces are acting in blatant disregard for the laws of war, as if they can never be punished. The aim seems to be to wear the Ukrainians down and force them to submit, regardless of the cost in lost lives and cities razed to the ground. It's causing outrage internationally, leading to an increase in the military support Ukraine gets, but will it be enough to create a situation where Putin realises he cannot win? Or will he be ousted by others who realise this but cannot convince him?

Dream come true

Less dramatic weather today, cloudy with sunshine, fairly warm and no rain. I had a night of broken sleep, perhaps on account of having to be out of the house an hour earlier than usual to drive to St Michael's to preside at their Parish Eucharist. I woke up out of a very anxious nightmare around six, in which I was just arriving at the church only to find it didn't look at all as I remembered it from twelve years ago, my last visit. It was surrounded by building sites, and I couldn't figure out how to gain access to the main entrance. I kept on rehearsing the familiar route as I dozed thereafter.

When I drove the route an hour and half later, I couldn't help laughing out loud in the last half mile. It was just how it had been in my nightmare! The length of Cathays terrace has a bike lane under construction, hemmed in by Heras fencing and big plastic blocks. The Carnegie Library at the junction with Whitchurch Road is swathed in scaffolding and plastic sheets. When I turned left on to Whitchurch Road itself, the entire campus containing St Monica's (VA) Primary and Gladstone Primary schools is also covered in scaffolding, as it has been for the past three years I was later told. Maybe my subconscious mind had noted this and fed it into my nightmare. St Michael's is dwarfed by the neighbouring scaffolding, but still stands out in traditional dark red brick. It's 25 years this year since the church was consecrated. It's testimony to the work of my predecessor Canon Mac Ellis when he was Rector of Central Cardiff.

Including children, we were thirty for the Eucharist, half a dozen of them I remember from my time as Rector, lovely hard working people, with strong confident commitment to growing a lively welcoming congregation of all ages. Edwina one of the team of Lay Readers preached nicely, others led prayers and read lessons. Thanks to a legacy it's been possible to mount a screen on the wall beside the altar where can be seen by all (except the president!) with a video projector out of the way high up on a balcony. Hymns and liturgical words are displayed on screen, and in the absence of an organist, the hymns are recordings from  YouTube with the words displayed. 

The whole service is streamed live. People all around the world watch regularly. I was told of a rural head teacher in Uganda who joins in remotely every Sunday. There's no regular pastoral ministry on the ground in his district. One of the reasons he watches regularly is to hear words of absolution and blessing spoken by a minister. He sent a message after the service to thank me for ministering to him in this way. There's also a separate Zoom live service in the afternoon with a regular congregation, many of whom are housebound. As a result of on-line ministry during the pandemic several new members have joined and attend in person. It's great to see how a familiar congregation has remained in good heart despite all the upheavals of Ministry Area impositions, and is continued to move on and develop.

I got back home at midday and for once in a while was able to cook Sunday lunch for Clare. WE went for a walk afterwards and harvested equisitum (horsetail) plants along the riverside woodland path. We got eight hundred grams between us, and there's pleny more out there. Clare is going to use them in applying a traditional herbal remedy to the problem of diminishing bone density. Some German research has shown that these are no less effective than today's 'innovative' treatments. It's good to be pro-active than it is to sit and worry. We washed all the plants and dried them using the kitchen salad spinner. Some are packaged up and stored in the freezer, others will be left to dessicate naturally and others boiled up for use in a therapeutic bath. Well, it makes a change from foraging for crab apples and blackberries!

Before supper, I watched a very interesting edition of 'Countryfile' on BBC One, all about the movement towards what's called regenerative farming, which aims to wear the crop growing industry off the use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers, which have a huge carbon footprint to manufacture and contribute to soil depletion and water course pollution in a way not properly understood until fairly recently. Ir's a move towards encouraging greater plant biodiversity to improve soil health, even down to growing different kinds of wheat in the same field avoiding a monoculture which can be advantageous to weeds and pests. 

As energy and grain seed prices spiral upwards, it may be possible to make savings to production costs by drastically reducing expenditure on artificial pest control and soul nutrition. Fertilizers manufactured from organic waste materials (from food manufacturing or sewage farms) which are even more effective can be produced at ten per cent of the cost of the chemical kind. A very interesting agricultural revolution is now taking place, it seems.

That was the only thing worth watching on telly tonight. Neither of us have had any interest in listening to all the performances broadcasted live or recorded from this year's Glastonbury festival of which much is being made on air this week. Glad the weather has been fairly decent, and not the news itself. A good time is had by all whatever the climate. Apparently the police are reporting a big drop in crime and it's being attributed to the phenomenal growth of cashless transactions. Far fewer people are carrying money around to get stolen, and there's only so many transactions you can make with an unreported stolen card before you're asked to confirm its PIN number. This is good news, even if I still lament the disuse of real money.

Looking forward to a visit from Owain tomorrow. He's not going to be here for his birthday as he's going to Geneva to see his friends and celebrate there instead, for the first time in a couple of years.

Donner und Blitzen!

I woke up in time for 'Thought for the Day', and listened to Boris Johnson being interviewed by Mishal Hussein on the BBC Radio Four Today programme, being bullishly defiant in the face of the slow trickle of new calls for his resignation from his fellow Tories. I couldn't help notice the way in which he persisted in talking over his interviewer's attempt to question him. A man who doesn't listen or stop to think, but just keeps going regardless of the negative impression this gives of his treatment of female interrogator. I don't think he'd have been able to get away with this if he was up against a man, willing to stand up to his awful boorishness. 

After rising late, we had waffles for breakfast again this morning. Then we decided to drive to Penarth for a walk on the cliff top before lunch in one of the restaurants on the promenade. Half an hour into our walk, it started to thunder and rain heavily, we were compelled to shelter in Cioni's Bistro, the gelateria and snack bar by the children's playground on the cliff top, so we had a snack brunch instead, watching the downpour and listening to rumbles of thunder as we dried out. The sun then returned and we walked down to the pier to meet with Mark and Fran, who told us about the icon presentation they gave in Stroud last weekend to an audience of seventy, while we had a drink together.

We returned home, and while Clare rested, I walked up to the Cathedral and back. Once more dark clouds gathered and just as I left the park, thunder and lightening announced the opening of the heavens, slowly at first, but by the time I reached the front door, pelting rain was joined by heavy hail and more thunder and lightening, persisting for half an hour before sunshine briefly broke through dark grey clouds again before disappearing with another spell of rain. Quite a spectacle! 

As I have an earlier start tomorrow to get to the service I'm leading over in Cathays, I thought it would be a good idea to get an early night, rather than watch the penultimate episode of Inspector Montalbano, which finishes as eleven. As it was already available on iPlayer, we sat and watched it at seven instead. Next week is the premiere of the last ever Montalbano story, according to the BBC (or is it really the latest?) published a year before the death of author Antonio Camillieri in 2019, and filmed in 2021. There are two more published novels, I've discovered, and these haven't yet been turned into movies. After thirty six episodes, the regular characters in the fictional town of Vigata are as familiar and vivid as the cast of 'The Archers'. I wouldn't know about Easternders or Coronation Street characters as we've never watched either series.

Going out in style

I woke up to news this morning of a thousand deaths from an earthquake in Afghanistan,, and there are thousands more left not only bereaved but homeless. Humanitarian aid is already on the way, and efforts are being made to find a way to release the country's assets held by international banks, frozen since the elected government was ousted by the Taliban. An agreement may be possible to transfer government funds in frozen accounts directly to humanitarian agencies. Let's hope so. There have been more calls for Boris Johnson to resign following the loss of two seats in by-elections this week. He's in Rwanda for a Commonwealth heads of state conference with Prince Charles, flatly refusing to yield. Shameless as ever.

I walked to St Luke's for this morning's funeral. About a hundred people attended, and the coffin of the deceased arrived in style in a an old fashioned hearse drawn by two jet black horses with pink plumes on their heads. As the coffin was processed in, a harpist played welcoming music, a church co-worker led the congregational singing of two hymns, both friends of the lady acting as next of kin. She read a lesson, as did her son. She delivered a superb eulogy friend witnessing to the faith they shared. 

The music played for the departure procession was Abba's 'Dancing Queen'. As soon as it started there were smiles, and many of the congregation began to move with the music, including me. I think that's the first time I've moved to the music in a funeral procession. At one moment I thought the bearers were going to catch up on me, and I had to had to do a double step to keep my distance. I was given a lift to Western Cemetery in a car. The return ride was in the back of the extra hearse that accompanied the horse drawn one to carry flowers rather than cram them all in the smaller horse drawn one. One of the drivers told me that the empty hearse travelling ahead of the horse drawn one also drew attention of other motorists to the coming cortege, a prudent message to avoid careless motorists spooking the horses.

I got home just in time for lunch. There was a call while I was out with an urgent request to celebrate the Eucharist at St Michael's Whitchurch Road on Sunday, as both Caroline and Meg, the priests there have gone down with covid. I won't have to prepare a sermon as one of the Parish readers is preaching. It will be the first time I've been there since I retired n 2010. St Michael's was one of the churches under my care in the Central Cardiff Team Ministry, though it normally had a priest of its own, and I'd go there on rotation a few times each quarter. Caroline's husband Glyn briefed me and wondered if covid had reached them through the church congregation. So much for returning to sharing the chalice.

Sarah, a neighbour living across the street asked for help to wipe an old computer so it could go to a specialised charity for re-homing old devices. It was Dell desktop machine, ten years old, running Windows 7, quite sprightly for its age, but then it wasn't connected to the internet, which in my experience tends to slow things down a bit, as the device is always checking, calling servers linked to programs in use, 

Sarah's MS Office 365 sub had run out, and she wanted to know if she could get by without it. I pointed her to the OneDrive web app version, which seems to be useable without payment. I suspect some of its more sophisticated features are missing, but it's OK to use for basic tasks. She has a new laptop that she's getting used to, and hadn't yet logged into her existing OneDrive account, so that it would sync with her laptop. I was able to help her with this. She was still a little puzzled by the device which had updated to Windows 11 and changed the look of the user interface. It seemed to be running a bit slow for a two year old machine with a solid state hard drive and eight gigs or RAM, and Ryzen chipset, just like mine. I learned that the house internet connection wasn't all that fast. It really shows, and affects the performance of an otherwise spritely device.

I  was left tired by the morning's ministrations, and found I needed a sleep again after lunch to freshen me up before a walk in the park. After supper I watched the first episode in a second series of 'Coroner', a Canadian production. Then the first in a new series called 'Rig 45 - Murder at Sea' a whodunnit on a North Sea oil rig, and Anglo-Norwegian production. In both cases, dialogue was mumbled and hard to follow, even with the sound turned up extra loud. It's a recipe for boredom if the storyline isn't that easy to follow.

Closure

I woke up at half past six but fell asleep again until half past eight this morning, when I posed today's link to Morning Prayer on WhatsApp. After breakfast I left early for church to shop for food bank items on my way to St John's for the Eucharist, together with nine others. 

Ashley and I arranged to meet following a appointment of his at St David's hospital. We met and walked to the Saffron Cafe at Canton Cross, where he had a very late breakfast after a fasting blood test, and I had a cup of coffee. It's the first time I've been in there. It was quite busy, but the lady in charge was very welcoming, and it didn't take long for Ashley to get served, so we had three quarters of an hour together to talk about finally clearing the CBS office, now the business is wound up and the place must be vacated. Then I returned home for lunch.

To my surprise, considering that I had a a full night's sleep, I slept for another hour in the chair after doing my DuoLingo Spanish exercise of the day. I suppose I must need the extra sleep to make up for nights when my sleep is more broken. Then, a walk around Llandaff Fields before supper. 

Later in the evening, after I'd finished and printed my service sheet for tomorrow's funeral, we watched 'The African Queen', that classic movie from 1951 with Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. I recalled from when I saw it in my teens that it was a drama set in colonial Africa, but had forgotten that it was essentially a romantic comedy adventure. Very much a period piece, but entertaining all the same.

Love song to Black Britons

I went to the Eucharist at St Catherine's this morning, celebrated again in the church hall. This time I was in the congregation of ten. After a chat over coffee, I returned home, worked on next week's reflection for Thursday Morning Prayer and cooked lunch. After lunch I took advantage of the quietness, which Clare was having a siesta to record the audio, as the written text preparation didn't take me long at all. That was pleasing. Then I went for a walk.

In the avenue of trees along the edge of Pontcanna Fields, I noticed that several large tree trunks, felled or fallen, cut into pieces and left in situ four years ago, have been removed, leaving only the imprint on the ground and shards of broken bark. I wonder why these select pieces for broken trees and not others. There's an abundance of them throughout our parkland.

After supper I watched the final episodes of 'Suspect' on catch-up, The ending was a disappointment, as was this week's  catch-up episode of 'Blacklist, although it was only part one of two, it was hard to figure out who was doing what to whom and why. Finally, an hour of illumination with Lenny Henry fronting a short documentary series on the Caribbean contribution to the evolution of British culture despite decades of racism and xenophobia towards black people. Tonight he covered the period from the fifties to the seventies, when we were young. It was a real journey down memory lane. It was great to see interviews with so many prominent black Britons who have distinguished themselves in the creative arts. I loved it as it reminded me of how much I own to the years we spent raising our kids in Bristol's St Paul's Area, where the black community was in many ways so open and trusting to their white parish priest, when he was more of an embarrassment to indigenous Brits.

Equinox

Nice to wake up to sunshine and warm air on Summer Equinox day. Most of the country's rail network is shut down by a big strike, due to an impasse after eighteen months of negotiation over pay and conditions. So much has changed during that time and railway finances have been hit hard by covid losses followed by the knock on inflationary effect of the war in Ukraine. 

Most railway workers haven't had a pay rise in three years and are now falling even further behind. The same is true for other groups of public sector employees. It seems to me that everybody's living standards are destined to fall, except for the relatively rich. We're still a long way from the kind of redistribution of wealth that would make life less miserable for the majority, but nobody who has more than their reasonable share of assets wants gives them up without a fight.

Clare's welcomed her Steiner study group at home the morning, so I made myself scarce for a while and then walked down to the river for an hour before returning to cook lunch. As I walked in Pontcanna Fields, I noticed along the path that runs beside the perimeter wall of the municipal allotments, raspberries were growing in among the bramble bushes. I guess birds at some time or another have helped themselves to fruit from the canes in someone's plot, and taken dispersed seeds beyond the boundary, through their poo. 

Park land management isn't as aggressive as it used to be. More areas are left un-mown for longer, or not cut back, and that really improves environmental for insects and birds alike. It's been a pleasure this last few years of confinement to Cardiff for most of the year, just to realise how much wildlife diversity there is, so close to the heart of the city.

I spotted a Tesco credit card, dropped in the grass at the side of the path from Blackweir Bridge to the main avenue, and decided the best thing I could do with it was to take it to the nearest Tesco branch and give it to the manager. I did this when I went out to do the weekly grocery shopping after lunch. Had it been missed? I wondered, or already reported lost and blocked/cancelled? No point in taking a risk of it being abused, as these day contactless payments can be made of £50 uf not £100 within verification.

When I'd unloaded the shopping and stowed it all away, I got to work preparing Friday's funeral service, and then went out for another walk around Thompson's Park. After supper, another evening with episodes of 'Suspect' and 'Sherwood', both dealing in different ways with the dark underside of British policing, interestingly enough.

Locum challenge

Another Monday, with housework to do after breakfast. Then, I completed and uploaded to YouTube the Morning Prayer video for Thursday, before cooking lunch. 

It occurred to me that if I'm going to do what I've done previously on a locum trip to Spain, and take my Chromebook with me, that I should check to see if there's a suitable app to use that will enable me to make the usual Morning Prayer video using the Chromebook while I'm there. I propose to continue my weekly offering, with reflections relating to issues of interest about the place where I minister. 

The first one is a real no brainer, as the chaplain's house is in San Pedro, a town and its surrounding area named after a sixteenth century Spanish ascetic, Pedro de Alcántara, a Catholic monastic reformer who encouraged Teresa of Avila to reform women's religious orders. I think she's better known than he. Nevertheless, an interesting man. I won't know what else there'll be to reflect on until I get there and immerse myself in a new environment.

Anyway there's no guarantee that the chaplaincy provides an up to date device with Windows 10, whose basic (and very useful) video editor is what I've learned to use with ease. I spent an hour looking at the on-line options that Chromebook can run, testing them with this week's file of pictures and audio, but didn't achieve anything that exactly matched its capability. An unproductive hour maybe, although I did learn a few new things in the process.

I walked in the park mid-afternoon, and caught sight of an egret on the east bank of the Taff a few hundred metres below Western Avenue bridge, much the same place as I saw one last, two years ago. It hopped about in the water near the edge, as if it was unsettled by something. Then a heron flew in and landed quite near, and the egret went into hiding, only emerging when there was a safe distance between them. A moment later, a cormorant appeared, diving for fish. I missed getting a photo of them together, thanks to the cormorant being very industrious. It occurred to me that they'd turned up in the same small location because it was a spot where elvers and small fish could still be found. The river level is very low at the moment.

Clare called me as I was on my way home to say that her telephone appointment with one of our GPs had revealed that she was advanced spinal osteoporosis. She's been urgently referred to a specialist for examination a a treatment plan. Under the circumstances, the doctor was impressed she'd made such a good recovery from her back injury twelve weeks ago, Her general fitness and physical mobility are a key factor in this, thankfully.

After supper I watched a couple of episodes of 'Suspect' as all are available on the channel four website, then watched 'Sherwood' live. Its portrayal of the conflict between NUM and UDM miners in the 1980's and its legacy of bitterness and broken relationships feels very authentic, written by one who knows the Nottinghamshire pit villages from first hand experience.

Invasion of Snoopies

Another overcast day. The town centre was busy when I drove through on my way to St German's, with people arriving at the castle for the second day of the Tafwyl festival. I celebrated the Mass of Corpus Christi, a real pleasure with a few moments during the Eucharstic prayer when the sun peeped through the clouds. 

I take the sacrament first to people in the congregation who cannot walk up to receive. A man was there with his carer, severely disabled by a stroke. When I reached him, he'd fallen asleep. A few minutes later, as I was communicating the last of the congregation, the carer joined the queue, and told me Peter was now awake, so I went down to him a second time. It's lovely to be in a church which is so relaxed in prayer, that nobody pays any attention when something unusual happens.

I talked with a lady afterwards whose husband died during the pandemic, but not of covid, but due to his unexpected reaction to the second dose of vaccine. He was diabetic, and receiving the injection seems to have coincided with rapid deterioration of his vascular system, requiring amputations and eventual heart failure, all in a couple of months. It sounded to me as if the trauma of those months left more of an impact on her than she might realise. It's good she's coming to church and finding a welcome and a place of peace where she can be carried by the prayer of others.

Home for lunch, and then, while Clare had a siesta, I recorded and edited next Thursday's Morning Prayer audio, ready to finish off tomorrow. We then walked to the National Museum, hoping to see the painting of Sir Tom Jones, but it's still on loan to the National Portrait gallery in London. I asked in the shop if any postcards of the painting were available, and was told they're not sold, as the copyright is owned by Sky Arts TV which hosts the Portrait Artist of the Year competition. What a shame!

Outside the museum, all forty of the Snoopy sculptures which proved so vulnerable when on open display in public spaces, are assembled and displayed for this weekend in a temporary enclosure, labelled 'Farewell to Snoopy'. 

It was a completely surreal sight, all these brightly coloured fibre glass pooch replicas in serried ranks. There was a charge of four quid each to get inside the enclosure and walk around among them, but I didn't see the point of that, when I could take a few photos from outside to mark this bizarre occasion.

We called in to the Tafwyl Festival at the castle - four stages and dozens of fast food vans and tents of other organisations showcasing Welsh language artistic endeavours. The festival has grown in size and popularity in recent years and is clearly no longer just a Cardiff thing with people travelling in for this fiesta of Welsh language music and snacks in the hand. While we were there I received phone calls from Owain and Rachel to wish me a happy Father's Day. This, plus a card from Kath leaves me feeling very blessed.

We had a cup of tea, then listen to 'Brigyn' or at least, one half of the folksy duo, substituting for a band scheduled to appear which had to pull out at the last minute due to illness. After twenty minutes listening we caught a bus to Canton Cross, then walked home the last half mile.

After supper, another programme on BBC Four about the history of British music making in the 20th century with a feature on violinist Yehudi Menuin and sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, illustrating the impact of Indian music in the sixties, and the innovative fusion of different styles of music which began in that decade. Then there was a live concert from the Hoddinott Hall at the Millennium Centre from, with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, with Mendelssohn's violin concerto and Tchaikovski's Fourth symphony. 

At nine I switched over to watch the first double episode of 'Suspect', with some powerful acting and the tragic story about the death of a detective's estranged daughter. He's convinced it's murder when outwardly the evidence points to suicide. Who is right? We shall see.

A musical nation

Clouds and drizzle this morning, and it's ten degrees cooler than yesterday. When I went down to breakfast I was surprised to find that instead of Saturday pancakes, Clare had cooked waffles to a vegan recipe for a change. They were delicious, and destined to become a firm favourite, I think.

Later, we went for a walk through Bute Park and had a snack lunch at the Secret Garden cafe. Thankfully the drizzle held off, so we didn't get wet. There was a man with a lively dog in the cafe. The hound was dragging a large stick of dead wood around, which made a conspicuous noise when dropped. It stood by the doorway, occasionally picking up and dropping the stick. Then it would take a few steps back, looking eagerly for a response from its master, absorbed in his phone and drinking coffee. This attention seeking behaviour was reproduced at least half a dozen times in ten minutes, each time the hound took a few steps nearer until it reached its master's feet and started whimpering to get attention. An impressive fear of persistent nagging, even though it fell on deaf ears!

The cloud cover remained low, and though it threatened to rain again after morning showers, it didn't. We then went to the summer fayre in St Catherine's church grounds. All the usual stalls and activities, were there and the place was busy with a steady stream of visitors. An event that's a credit to the congregation. We had some strawberries without cream, and a go on the bottle staff. Clare won a can of coffee flavoured stout branded by Guinness. Neither of us fancied it, so I surreptitiously returned it for someone else to win and then won a can of quite strong IPA, but no lucky wine wins this time. I did buy a jar of plum jam and a fresh one of churchyard blackcurrant jam to replace the one I'm slowly savouring at the moment from last autumn's fayre. You can't have enough blackcurrant jam, in my estimation!

Clare then went down to the Castle for the annual Tafwyl festival, featuring some top Welsh language singers, including singer songwriter Meinyr Gwilym of whom she's a fan. I went home, and cooked us a pasta meal using the butter beans Clare cooked yesterday. I was pleased with the result, and only needed to cook the pasta when Clare arrived home after the performance. After supper we watched on S4C this year's Welsh national youth choir competition. There were some stunning performances from choirs up to fifty strong. Such vital energy, discipline, enthusiasm and musicianship. One of the judges, an Italian musical maestro I think, speaking in English, praised the uniqueness of Wales' choral music culture. All this with Sir Tom Jones and the Stereophonics singing tonight at the Principality Stadium. "Praise the Lord, we are a musical nation", as the Reverend Eli Jenkins said in Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood.

We have the first of three Inspector Montalbano episodes on BBC Four over the next fortnight. The first two are re-runs of the last available episodes. The third is the last ever Montalbano story, of the thirty six. It was made into a movie after the death of his creator Antonio Camillieri, who wouldn't let it be published while he was alive. That way the authentic character dies with him. A unique inimitable body of work. The mixture of sadness and humour, with vignettes exposing the poverty and corruption which still plague Sicilian life is portrayed in a most thought provoking way. The wait to see how it all ends for Montalbano will not be easy - like waiting for a friend to die. The story teller who can generate such a bond between his characters and audience is a true maestro with words.

Reflecting on the Annunciation

I stayed in bed until nine and caught up on lost sleep. After breakfast I worked on my Sunday sermon, then cooked lunch and went for a walk in the park. 

Fran and Mark came at three, and gave us a preview of their reflective presentation on the icon of the Annunciation, which they'll be offering to a live audience over in Stroud this weekend. We were privileged to have a preview, and offer comments. Fran talks about the meaning of the icon she painted and Mark plays interludes from a baroque passacaglica, with a full recital at the end of the forty minute talk. How they present words and music is still a work in progress for them. It's great to have been invited to be part of the process.

Early evening, Clare went out to Conway Road Methodist church for a concert by RWCMD students of excerpts from German operas. I had already reserved my place in front of the telly for the season finale of 'Usedom-Krimi'. Top class telly, and most of the German was easy enough to understand whether or not you looked at the sub-titles. If only it was so easy when travelling in the FDR. There's enough unfinished relational issues in this storyline (crimes notwithstanding), to ensure another season, maybe next year. 

This evening's episode centred on the domestic life of a trio of ageing hippies, and a tragic incident connected by chance to a failed suicide attempt by a terminally sick man, who then loses his memory. At the heart of it is the pastoral approach of the series heroine to engaging with people overtaken by events they fail to control, and not for the first time in this series. Clare got back from the concert in time to sit and watch the first half with me, and drink a glass of pinot noir. She's feeling better for sure, but still being careful with her back.

Blackcurrant jam on Corpus Christi

I woke up early and posted my Corpus Christi Morning Prayer link to WhatsApp  before 'Thought for the Day'.. It's a day that happily reminds me of occasions in Spain when I've witnessed or been part of a street procession with the \blessed Sacrament over the years; in Sta Pola, Nerja and Malaga.  

In the news, Lord Guite Boris Johnson's ethics advisor, has resigned, finally prompted by a request from the Prime Minister to give an opinion on modifying the existing ministerial code of conduct in a way that would neutralise its value. In the eyes of many Boris has done more than enough to flout the code of conduct regarding his own and his ministers' behaviour. Enough is enough for Lord Guite, but will Boris submit to calls for his resignation now? I don't suppose so. He's so self centred, seeing himself exclusively as able to steer the country through this time of change. It's creeping dictatorship, and high time the Tories got rid of him. New Boris scandals keep hitting the headlines, He's become as much of a contentious issue as his policies. Tory credibility sinks further towards un-electabiliy. As the late great Bob Marley once sang:  'Whosoever diggeth a pit; shall bury in it.'

I went to St John's this morning for the Corpus Christi Eucharist along with eight others. Again I wasn't in the rota to do this, but th rota seems to have unravelled a bit in recent weeks, with Fr Colin still recovering from covid, and Frances away, so I was ready to celebrate if needed. Clare had already started cooking when I arrived home, so I went into the garden and harvested a pound of blackcurrants from our small bush. It was just enough to make five small pots of delicious jam. I really know it's summer when the aroma of stewing blackcurrants is in the air. It reminds me of life as a child back home. Dad had several bushes yielding several more pounds of fruit for jam and/or crumble for pudding, and I used to pick them. It's still one of my all time favourite fruits.

After lunch I wrote next Thursday's reflection, ready for recording, then succumbed to sleep for an hour as I didn't sleep so well last night or the night before. Before supper I walked for an hour and a half, and saw the last episode of the season's 'Springwatch' programmes, and another documentary on Bradford's social problems and the people who del with them - PCSOs and the Council's homelessness team. 

It showed the industrial scale farming of illegal cannabis in derelict mill buildings and spoke about people trafficked and locked into a mill with rudimentary bedroom, kitchen and toilet facilities once the vast indoor greenhouses were set up, each at a cost of tens of thousands in equipment. West Yorkshire Police have found and destroyed over a thousand cannabis farms in the past year, we were told. It's a multi million pound business, tax free, completely outside the law. Legalising cannabis, one PCSO said, would change everything for the better. But what British government would be willing to do that?

Welsh and proud

This week, St Catherine's chancel is being redecorated, the service was held in the church hall instead and I celebrated with eight others. We agreed, chatting over coffee after that it had been a pleasant experience, sitting in a semi-circle closed by a table serving as an altar. Before the church was built in the 1880s the 'tin tabernacle' had been erected and used an an all purpose mission hall, for Sunday school, and various church groups as well as Sunday worship. 

Its roof has been replaced, not sure about the corrugated iron walls, though they have been re-painted a sympathetic green, with a modern kitchen and toilets added in the new century. The interior is still wooden panelled, and in good repair. It's a nice Victorian period piece of vernacular architecture, often used for location filming on top of its other parochial engagements. The acoustic is good, as well, which actually helps to make it a good worship space. We wondered how long it is since a service was last held in the hall instead of the church.

We chatted until quite late, so when Clare returned from a therapy session and a trip to town, I'd not been for this week's veggie bag, and lunch wasn't ready. She cooked while I went out to fetch it. After lunch I walked over the St Luke's to meet the lady I'd talked to on the phone yesterday, and continue preparations for the funeral of her friend next week. When I returned home I drafted and sent her an order of service to work on, and then we had supper early so we could get to the Royal Welsh College in time for a concert,

This afternoon, St John's City Parish Church hosted a civic service of thanksgiving for all that had been achieved in Wales by people serving together to combat the covid pandemic. The NHS, the military and police, and a host of voluntary organisations, with an emphasis on Wales's ethnic minority population which suffered disproportionately from covid, not least as so many work in the NHS in public service organisations, transport and food retailing. The concert which followed in RWCMD was organised by the Indian Consul in Wales, and was a celebration of good will and diversity. 

It included a College Jazz ensemble, another band of students led by a composer/songwriter of Welsh African, which played her compositions. Then, a wonderful display of classical Indian dancing by two dozen young woman, and to conclude, the Royal Welsh Regiment band's corps of drummers. Just three of them dressed in their traditional dark navy blue uniforms with helmets, pointed like a police helmet. At first I wondered if they were from a police band, but not so. Their drumsticks were illuminated with a red and a blue LED, and house lights were cut while they played, producing an amazing light-show that changed according to the rhythm they tapped out.

There were speeches of course, including one from First Minister Mark Drakeford, who was warmly received when he spoke, telling a few succint heart warming stories, and celebrating the way everyone in Wales, regardless of cultural background pulled together, thinking of others, working for the common good in ways great and small. He spoke about a government anti-racism policy which aims by 2030 to ensure that everyone in Wales has equal opportunities, regardless of their ethnicity. It seems we're the first nation in the world to formulate such a policy. 

We also heard from another speaker that measures taken to limit the spread of covid in Wales resulted in Wales having the lowest death rate, something remarkable considering levels of deprivation in post industrial areas. All attributed to careful monitoring and people making an effort to comply with public health requirements. Yes indeed, such a lot to give thanks for, and to be proud that we've had the extraordinary servant leadership exercised by our First Minister, who has continued undeterred on the government team's collaborative approach which has got us where we hope to go, and is now taking us into recovery, with a new vision for the future. I couldn't be any prouder than I am.

Good News amidst the grief

I didn't get up this morning until gone nine, after a broken night's sleep, so I had a slow start to the day. Clare was at her study group in Penarth this morning. She left me with a shopping list for the weekly visit to the Co-op for groceries so I did this before cooking lunch. 

While waiting for her to return, I phoned the person acting as next of kin for arrangements to make for next Friday's funeral at St Luke's. I learned that the woman who died had been, in effect, abandoned by her family to life in the old Ely Hospital, where people with a range of long term physical and mental disabilities were looked after before 'care in the community' dispersed them to sheltered accommodation units with carers. 

The lady I was speaking to had been a volunteer at Ely hospital before it closed and formed a close bond with the deceased, so much so that she took her into her own family and fostered her, an experience which changed the course of both lives. From incarceration in hospital subdued by drugs, to a place of her own and semi-independent living over the course of some, nourished by a sense of belonging to a family that had chosen to have her as one of their own. 

This experience led to her family fostering others during the years, and for her, a new career in counselling and disability advocacy. As a member of City Church, the Pentecostal congregation next to the old Westgate pub in town, she wants the funeral to be held close to where the deceased lived, and said she wants it to be a positive occasion of witness to neighbours and friends she made in the vicinity. A resurrection story, the way I heard it. She spoke with the warmth and affection of someone who really understands and lives the Gospel. I look forward to this service, aware that a couple of musicians from City Church want to contribute, and the lady herself wants to give the eulogy.

I went for a walk around Llandaff Fields mid-afternoon, returned for tea, uploaded photos taken in the past few days, prepared supper and ate alone, listening to the Archers, as Clare had gone to a meditation group. Then I went for another walk in Thompson's Park, and when I got back, Clare was eating supper, listening to the Archers on catch-up.

My sister June rang to tell me to watch a Sky Arts documentary about 2019 Portrait Artist of the year Duncan Shoosmith painting Sir Tom Jones for the National Museum of Wales portrait gallery. It's a very fine painting, though I've yet to see it in situ - somehow I missed it on my visit last month, I must go in there again and find out exactly where the painting is currently.

Then the second episode of 'Sherwood', with more surprises, and realistic authentic pit village dialogue from a community divided by its response the the miners' strike. It's getting excellent reviews in the press, well deserved.

Money - received and requested

Another Monday with sunshine poking through the clouds. It's starting to get warmer by night as well as day now. After breakfast, vacuuming the carpet, then tidying away a neglected pile of financial papers in my study. This was prompted by puzzlement over a deposit into my expenses account of three hundred and eighty pounds, labelled 'pension payment', not where it originated. I wonder if this is the government's promised subsidy of the soaring cost of energy? The only other government payment into this account is the Winter Fuel allowance. Ah well, gratefully received.

I had an email from Clare at St Catherine's asking for help in completing a request for information needed to fill in an application form for a grant from the Pantyfedwyn Trust to help pay for the repainting of the church chancel and south aisle, which is already under way. It turns out there's a deadline for handing it in, and as Mother Francis is on leave he asked me. It's a dozen years since I last did anything of this nature, involving a brief profile of the church and its mission, but it's  one of those bureaucratic things you don't forget how to do. I quite enjoyed the little challenge.

By the time I'd finished this, it was one o'clock and Clare had just arrived from her first ever Pilates class. I had to prepare a cooked lunch rather quicker than usual, but half an hour later we sat down and ate a dish of mackerel fillets and three veg. Then I walked for a couple of hours, up and down the river, and ended with a visit to Tesco's for a bottle of their quite acceptable bargain Chilean Pinot Noir. It's the first time that I've fancied a drink of wine since the cold started, so it seems like I'm now through the worst of it. But was it a cold? Strangely, Clare hasn't caught it from me. There are reports of this year's pollen conditions being unusually detrimental to anyone who is affected. At the outset I wondered if my symptoms were due to pollen rather than a cold. My strong reaction led me to think it was a cold. Now I'm not so sure.

After supper, I watched the second of the Iolo Williams nature programmes about  Anglesey wildlife on iPlayer, and then 'Springwatch' live. Most amazing was the sight of a reclusive Bittern, a waterfowl which hides in reed beds, heard but rarely seen. It was filmed on the wing with its unusual fluid graceful wing movements. What a treat! Finally, this week's new crimmie 'Sherwood', set in a Nottinghamshire ex-pit village over thirty years after a miners strike which divided workers and residents of some villages in a way which many involved still haven't forgotten and moved on from. It's an unusual setting for a murder mystery - superbly acted, even if on times subtitles would be useful, as the accents seem quite authentic.

Before switching off for the night, I visited the NHS website and submitted a digital application for both Clare and myself for the new GHIC card which post-Brexit replaces the EHIC card giving you access to basic medical treatement in EU countries. I was pleased to see how simple and straightforward the process is, as with the new generation of .gov websites. The cards are free, but money still needs spending on full travel and health insurance cover for my stint of locum duty and subsequent holidays abroad we decide we can afford. That's a chore for another day.

Jazz on Sunday

When I woke up the morning, catarrh congestion was particularly unpleasant, and in a fit of coughing my nose started to bleed, and continued to do so far about quarter of an hour. Then, strangely it stopped as a fresh load of phlegm descended from my sinuses into my nostril. My voice was rough and I wondered if it'd be able to get through the Mass at St Luke's audibly. Fortunately my throat wasn't sore and as long as I projected my voice without forcing it, I got through, even singing the priest's parts. I could have just said them and nobody would have minded, but I thought I'd give it a try, and succeeded, with a fair dose of sympathy from the congregation of fifteen.

I wasn't as organised as I needed to be for the service. Although the communion vessels had been laid out, the banns book, the Gospel book and the missal weren't in their proper place and needed to be hunted for. It's just as well I remembered to call the banns at the end of the service, although I then had to ask for someone to hunt down the book to read the names from. Each church needs someone paying attention to all details of preparation, and not rely on the celebrant to piece it all together, especially as the officiating clergy can vary from week to week. Of the three Canton churches, only St Catherine's has someone who is trained for this task. It's definitely the best organised of the three as well as the best attended.

When I got home, Clare was ready and we drove over to St German's for their Jubilee buffet lunch, or should I say banquet? Loads of different salads, salmon, Coronation chicken - the original 1953 recipe - with strawberries and cream plus a glass of prosecco. Father Stewart wasn't there as he had a christening to do, so I was asked to say the grace, although I was just one of four clergy among the two dozen who sat down to eat together. It's nice to be asked though. Father Roy turned up late as he's had to spend the morning searching for one of his dogs which had gone missing. All's well that ends well and he arrived with both half way through the meal, to cheers.

We walked together for an hour in Llandaff Fields when we got back. Four four cricket matches were going on at the same time, one of the on the newly refurbished astro turf pitch. In April, it was cordoned off with a big 'do not use' sign painted on the carpet, badly damaged at the crease on one end due to the zealous activities of fast bowlers I suspect. It's very pleasing to see it back in use after only two months out of action. An all weather wicket in an area that retains excess moisture for longer is an asset to those wanting to practice out of season. 

The other good news is that planning permission is being solicited to build a cricket pavilion at one end of the tennis courts which has been used to store cricket pitch covers and screens in recent years. It's a facility much needed, given the huge enthusiasm for cricket among our Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi citizens, greatly amplifying the voice of Welsh devotees of the game. I suspect the higher profile of the Sophia Gardens cricket ground in recent years has awakened both confidence and demand for the game. 

I walked for another spell on my own taking photos in Thompson's park before supper. Clare had been told of a Jazz session at Chapter Arts Centre on the second Sunday of the month, and wanted to go and check it out, so I went with her. It turns out there's a resident band called 'Chapter Four' - keyboard, alto sax, acoustic bass and drums, and they play swing jazz in the style of the fifties and sixties. We weren't disappointed. They were very good. 

A tight, high octane performance by middle aged guys who clearly know and love their music, an hour and a quarter's live music, sheer pleasure. We'll be back next month, a couple of days before I leave for Spain, and then again in September, hopefully. It's a free ticketless event. The group play in a corner of the big bar restaurant, which can be noisy when full, but tonight wasn't even half full. The instruments were amplified, but not too loud, they didn't need to be, and importantly they were perfectly balanced for an audience gathered in this corner of a huge high ceiling room, so you could hear each player well. Now that makes a change!

Home by ten, and getting ready for be by eleven.

Off course

I didn't think that I could get myself functional early enough to drive Clare to the singing workshop at Ewenny Priory by ten, and singing is out of the question with my vocal cords so congested with catarrh, so she secured a lift with another singer instead. I woke up feeling somewhat better, but grateful that I didn't need to get up and go quite so early. After breakfast, I took the bus into town to see if the photo exhibition was open. Apparently it did open last evening, and the vernissage seems to have been a success, from the talk I overheard about sales of photobooks yesterday.

The exhibition was quirkily entitled 'Packed Lunch' a reference to the choices individual artists make to sustain them in their work - I think. Two dozen documentary photographers  exhibiting a selection of work on their chosen final year project theme. You were meant to figure out from an artist's collection title what story each was telling. In some cases the subject matter made this clear, in others it was too obscure for me to figure out. There's a Packed Lunch website introducing the artists and their ideas with a 20 minute video of interviews in which many of them mumble nervously to camera. A full gallery of photos will appear at the end of the week for which the exhibition runs.

I returned home and set off just at the right time for Ewenny, to rendezvous with Clare. Unfortunately in haste I failed to confirm to myself that I knew the route, took a wrong turning, and ended up in Llantwit Major, so I had to back track across country and arrived very late indeed, arriving three quarters of an hour late. The phone signal deep in the Vale of Glamorgan is poor in some places, and the satnav app on my phone seemed unable to update properly, causing even more confusion. 

Needless to say, Clare was upset as the delay made her worry that I might have had an accident. I still can't figure out why my mental map of the Vale let me down so badly. It's not as if I haven't been to Ewenny before, but even when I go there I took a wrong turning for the Priory. The brown tourist signs are there, but small and discreet not easy to spot. It was three by the time we reached home and had lunch.

After a short late siesta and a walk in the park, taking photos of the cricket matches being played, we had savoury pancakes for supper for a change, rather than sweet ones for breakfast. Then I watched a film on BBC Four about Tove Janssen, creator of the cartoon characters The Moomins and their surreal world. The woman who played her part looked remarkably like Tove did in her youth. 

She was an immensely gifted person, painter, cartoonist, children's story teller and playwright, and the story told was about her inspirations and intense love life as a woman for whom guilt free sex with women or men didn't bring the stability of mutual loving devotion she craved until relatively late in life. She struggled with the question of which of her talents to concentrate on, until she was finally able to give herself permission to be good at several things.

Re-booked, relaxed

I woke up to sunshine, but the catarrh flow continues. The sore throat is almost gone and the thick head is subsiding. It's been a long congested week of feeling poorly.

Before lunch I walked for an hour around the park, and after lunch fell asleep in the chair for an hour.

Then, recorded and edited the rest of next week's Corpus Christi Morning Prayer, then made the slide video and uploaded it.

A trip into town later, in search of the Photography exhibition by final year students of the University of South Wales, being held in the now vacant store once occupied by Zara. It was meant to start today, but when I arrived, a team was still putting the finishing touches to the 'popup gallery', so maybe it was meant to open this evening? A wasted journey after a long wait for a bus.

Fiddling with my phone to find a bus timetable, I came across a Vueling ad, which prompted me to think about getting on with changing my outbound flight to Malaga. The Tuesday one I thought was full showed just one seat left. Then the bus arrived, so I resolved to check again when I got home. 

After supper, I checked the site again and there was still one seat going. It took me a while to figure out how to change the booking, and I had to pay fifty quid to do so, but it was easier than I feared. Now I can worry less, even if there are delays or a cancellation, I have five days to arrive by any other means. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

We watched the first in the nature series 'Iolo on Anglesey' on catch up, as we were late getting to the telly after supper. It was wonderful, with footage of Marsh Harriers flying a food relay - the male carrying fresh prey and dropping it for the female to catch in the air to take it to the nest. He also showed a pair of adders going through their mating ritual, and a stoat running along a railway track. All in a half hour programme.

Then I went to bed early and watched this week's Usedom-Krimi on my Chromebook, as Clare wanted to watch something else on telly. With her sight slowly failing, watching anything with subtitles is becoming too much of an effort to relax and watch. Tonight's episode an unusual multi faceted family drama. Very good value, again.

Familiar face from the past

Rain again today. I had a slightly better night but woke up terribly congested with thick catarrh, settled on my vocal cords, and this took hours to clear away. I didn't lose my voice, but it became quite crackly and the strangest thing of all was that my speaking voice dropped into the bass register so deeply that I found I could sustain a note three notes below what's normally possible for me. I have no idea why I should have woken up with a voice that sounded like a Siberian basso profundo - that's not happened before.

I uploaded the link for today's Morning Prayer half an hour later than usual. When I looked at my phone a message came in from Fr Rhys to ask if I could celebrate the Sunday Mass at St Lukes, as Fr Colin who was scheduled to celebrate there while Mother Frances is on leave has got covid. Clare and I were going to attend St German's together before their Parish lunch, as I had a duty-free Sunday until this moment, but I didn't feel I could say no at such short notice.

With a graveside funeral to take at eleven thirty this morning, I asked if the Pidgeon's driver could pick me up from St John's at eleven so that I could attend Mass. I think Fr Colin was also asked to take this service, so on arrival, I stood in for him instead. The funeral was in Thornhill's new cemetery section, with just six mourners. When I'd finished the service and invited the mourners to come and throw their yellow roses on to the coffin (no more token earth sprinkling), I turned to leave and noticed a familiar face on a headstone nearest me. 

It was a vignette of Father Mac Ellis, the priest I succeeded as Rector of St John's City Parish Church, who died at a great age three years ago. I'd been standing on his grave. Impulsively I wondered if he minded - not so much being trodden on, as the service I'd devised, Mac was an old school traditional Anglo-Catholic, organist and choir trainer. He wouldn't have approved of no earth being sprinkled, tolerant of the flowers, but not as a substitute.

We had Clare's tasty fish and vegetable soup for lunch. Then I went into town, partly by bus, to bank a cheque and then walk back through along the Taff. I was grateful the rain had stopped for the funeral, but it re-started on the way home, leaving me with a coat to hang and dry out. There were emails from Costa del Sol West to answer, and then I got started on a sermon for Trinity Sunday at St Luke's. It's only the second time this year I've taken a service there. Before that it was Trinity Sunday last year when Archbishop Rowan preached beautifully and without notes, a biblically rooted trinitarian sermon with no esoteric theological terminology in it. That's what I call expertise. I wish I could do as well.

Another amazing Springwatch edition this evening, followed by a documentary following community nurses and Police Community Support Officers going about their business in Bradford, one of the most deprived and polluted UK cities. The city has been hit hard by changes to regional rail infrastructure government 'Northern Powerhouse' cities agenda, leaving it as the only city without a station on either east-west or north-south main lines. Converting a branch line into a main line station would have eased chronic travel problems and brought economic uplift to the region. It's been on the local structure plan for the past decade. The proposal now is just to tinker with the problem with improvements to what is already there rather than add to the existing national network. Government marketing rhetoric doesn't match the reality. People are feeling let down by Westminster yet again.

On track again

I woke up late in sunshine after going to bed early, and reading for an hour, then losing sleep due to coughing when eventually I lay down. The sore throat has gone, replaced by disgusting heavy catarrh which will probably last for days, I was slow getting started for church and arrived a couple of minutes late for the St Catherine's Eucharist. There were eleven of us. I stayed for coffee and chatted with Clive and David until it was time to return for lunch. Fortunately, Clare was in the last stage of cooking lunch, happy not to rely on me, now her back is improving except for when heavy shopping bags from the Coop were delivered and needed bringing in. Sensible precaution.

After eating I started work on next week's Thursday prayer video upload with the texts Ruth provided for the purpose. It's Corpus Christin next week, sparking an idea about a reflection, which I wrote, recorded and edited in an hour. Then I went looking for a replacement fit-bit in shops I didn't visit yesterday. Sadly, no luck, but I did find a Huawei Band 4 activity tracker which does all the same things in W H Smith's of all places. It costs half the amount of a replacement fit-bit and as I had £1.50 left on a gift card to make use of, I got it for even less.

It's slightly larger with a different user interface, and more flexible in that it can be worn on the writ band provided, or in a clamp which can be attached to a laced up shoe, or an ankle strap. A useful addition. Setting it up wasn't  straightforward. A user guide which needed a powerful magnifying glass to read, was equipped with a set of QR codes sending you to app installations on Huawei's own cloud service. 

The Blackberry wasn't happy about the security of this and refused to install anything with dire 'be it on your own head' threats. Fortunately Google Play Store provides the necessary apps for phone and tracker cleared by its own Play Protect software, so after much trial and error I got the thing running with one minor annoyance. App update notifications, directing me to the Huawei cloud service which the Blackberry doesn't like, with no updates available on Play Store. As the device user interface is different, it will take some getting used to. It remains to be seen whether or not its strap is as durable as the Samsung one I had to replace.

After supper, another edition of 'Springwatch', all about nesting birds and badgers under surveillance by webcam, This was followed by a nature documentary on More Four about the river Clyde. Another tale of a river which for more than a century couldn't sustain a fish population returning to life with the demise of polluting industries, just like the Taff. There were some remarkable pictures of a century old hydro-electric power station under a sixty metre waterfall, still going strong, house in a white painted industrial building with huge windows letting in natural light, and a big panel of dials monitoring the generator output, a classic design. All for show nowadays, as the plant is now watched over by digital devices from a laptop. Worthwhile watching.

The risk from being too big to fail

Another dull day, waking up to news that 40% of the Tory MPs voted in favour of a no confidence. He's not likely to take the hint and resign however, and there's no clear contender to replace him yet. Recent letters of resignation from government posts by disaffected MPs, plus some very public renunciations by others saying in advance how they intend to vote, and vocal criticism in the House of Commons all seem to wash over him like water off a duck's back. And next month two by-elections in Tory help seats whose outcome will also express the mood of voters. All very damaging for the reputation of the party. 

Ministers point out all his achievements over the past two years as testimony to his leadership, as if these were due to him alone, and not to civil servants and government ministers doing their best in response to crisis. Any party in power would do the same, and its civil servants, perhaps even better, and not so wastefully or in a way that is indifferent to reality of suffering Boris' leadership and team players have caused.

Clare went out early for her study group in Penarth, leaving me to receive our monthly deliver of fish from Ashton's. Another day with the aroma of salmon soup being cooked for tomorrow. I made lunch, right on time for Clare's return, having spent time writing emails, finishing and uploading Thursday's prayer video. Mother Francis rang me about a funeral on her day off in two weeks time, and after eating I prepared the order of service for a graveside funeral I'm doing this week.

I went into town on the bus after lunch to see if I could find a replacement for my lost fitbit but was unsuccessful. The model has been superceded by others more sophisticated with a different design. All I really want is to to replace the one I lost. I think I'll have to take my chances with an internet purchase, though I'd much rather buy from a real life store. However convenient it can be to buy everything you want on line, it is creating a social and economic mono-culture reducing the variety of ways in which trade is conducted. As we know from nature mono-cultures reduce biodiversity and put the world at risk of catastrophe when food crops on which we depend fail. As we're seeing with the impact of the war in Ukraine on the world wide distribution of grain.

This evening, another improbable episode of 'Blacklist' on telly, and part six of the latest series of 'Silent Witness'. Co-incidentally both had underlying innovative medical science themes, indicative of concern if not fascination with paradigm shifting discoveries in all sorts of fields, the fears and suspicions these can arouse. It annoys me that story lines often give the illusion of speed and effectiveness in running forensic tests, for the sake of compressing the narrative. Investigative tools appear to deliver results like magic, effortlessly done, not reliant on expense or availability of resources. More like magic that real world research. So easy to awaken false hopes in the needy and scientifically illiterate. Not a good idea, even if it is only entertainment.

Safeguarding revisited

I couldn't decide if soreness at the back of my throat over the weekend was due to mild hay fever or a cold developing. When I woke up this morning I had a thick head which felt just like a cold. I can't imagine how I picked this up. It's the first I've had for over a year.

After breakfast I called the daughter whose mother's funeral I'm taking on Thursday. Then I had an email to respond to about wedding blessing arrangements for the service in Sotogrande in the week after I arrive in Estepona. 

Job done, I got as far as vacuuming the carpets and was then distracted from washing the floor by an email offering me a place on a Eurodiocese safeguarding training course in the first week of July. I've waited fifteen months to take the course after having missed the previous one due to a mix up over the time the first Zoom conference started. I noticed the date notification on the confirmation email now has all three time zones covered by Diocese in Europe chaplaincies, clearly labelled, so you have to think about which is your local time when adding it to the diary. 

Last time round, I did the preparatory course work writing a response to four standard questions about safeguarding. It took me a while to track down the archived file, and when I re-read it, saw a number of points which needed to be added or modified. It will be good to complete this course before my next spell of locum ministry starts. Things will have changed over the past two years. 

By the time I'd finished it, was ten to one. Clare was washing the floors, while I got on with cooking pasta with stir fried veg and mussels for lunch. It took me thirty five minutes. Delicious, quite fast food!

The loss of my fit-bit was still bugging me, as I miss it already, and have to carry my phone around with me all the time and use its built in pedometer, not as accurate as having one strapped to the wrist. Why it should matter to me to keep track is really to do with knowing if I've done more or less the right amount of activity in a day, to learn why some days I feel much more tired than others, whether it's natural physical tiredness, stress or maybe a cold, or lacking sleep. It's also about understanding the impact of ageing on my body, and what constitutes a sustainable daily activity level, adequacy not super fitness.

Anyway, after lunch I went over to St German's by bus to search the sacristy and retrace my steps from Sunday, but after half an hour's searching I still couldn't find it. Sad. I'll have to buy another.

This evening, I watched a delightful episode of Springwatch with webcam footage of birds hatchng and chicks growing, plus the birth of some badger cubs, possibly the first time this has been observed and recorded. The programme also showed several warblers being ringed - reed, sedge and Cetti's, all found on a Northumbrian nature reserve. It was lovely to have live close ups pictures of the three different kinds being held briefly after ringing was completed. The differences between them were much easier to see than on the page of a book. Then, the fifth episode of Silent Witness, with more intrigue, deaths and disappearances. Dark dealings between medical researchers and big data companies. The last episode of this new series tomorrow. It's spot the villain time again!

Pluralism on parade

A damp and cloudy day here in Wales, but the weather was decent enough for the last day of the Queen's Jubilee celebration, with a three hour long multi cultural carnival procession to Buckingham Palace down the Mall to come, and Wales playing Ukraine a mile away from here this afternoon for a qualifying place in the football World Cup. The BBC radio Four 'Sunday' religious news programme reflected on the lively faith of the Queen, and her slow careful transformation of the understanding of her 'Fid Def' role as it says on the coins, from being Defender of the Faith (understood as protestant religion, to Defender of Faith, affirming and protecting the freedoms and equality of all religious belief communities in Britain. 

Prince Charles spoke of this paradigm shift a couple of decades ago, in terms of his understanding of what the Monarch should be. Then he was castigated by media for not toeing the traditional line. By the time he becomes king this shift will be reflected in what it now means to be head of the Established Church, a role he inherits from his mother. The Anglican church may still have some way to go to be acknowledged as fully diverse and inclusive, but it has made a substantial start during my lifetime, thanks to the influence of the Queen and her clergy. 

The roads were very quiet when I drove to St German's to celebrate Mass with just two dozen others this morning. Eye surgeon Andrew was in church, just back from a stint in Malawi. We talked briefly about when I might be booked in after the three month delay thanks to covid. My spell of locum duty intervenes with the possibility of getting it done this summer. After the op apparently, one must use special eye drops daily for a month. If it were possible to fit in the surgery before I go, I'd have to self administer without Clare's support in an environment different from home, and a lot hotter. This could complicate the recovery process, so it's better to plan for early autumn surgery.

I think I may have gone on too long about the Queen in my Pentecost Sunday sermon. It was a quarter past one when I got back home for lunch, and the roads weren't especially crowded despite the football match this afternoon. After lunch I discovered that I'd lost my fitbit. I search the house but there was no sign. It must have popped out of its wristband, possibly when I was vesting or divesting myself in the sacristy, before or after Mass. I think I may need to go over there tomorrow and hunt for it. Until I find it or buy a replacement, I'll have to rely on my phone's pedometer, and be sure to carry it around with me. I've come to rely on it to maintain a consistent degree of physical activity daily, even if I don't feel like it. Clare thinks I'm obsessional.

We went for a walk along the Taff after lunch. I saw swifts and swallows foraging over the river. About a six weeks ago I saw a solitary swift, but none since. To see half a dozen passerines, to give swallows, swifts and martins their generic ornithological name, we gratifying, almost I might say, a relief, as the numbers making the journey from southern Africa is in steep decline.

I watched an hour and a half of this afternoon's Jubilee parade with Clare on BBC iPlayer - mercifully with no commentary, just the stunning images of thousands of participants all dressed up imaginatively in carnival costume reflecting the culture of their places of Commonwealth origin. An immense creative enterprise, a masterpiece of a showcase for Britain's cultural diversity, as well as tell the story of social and technical development over the past seventy years. The footage shown was unedited and required a certain amount of fast forwarding with the zapper in hand, as the procession was so slow moving. There will be edited highlights with people wittering on in the background, no doubt, but the raw visuals of the occasion were a true feast for the eye.

Best of all, as the event drew to a close, Her Majesty appeared with other royals on the balcony of the Palace, for the singing of the national anthem and to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd. I couldn't have sat through the whole thing live anyway when needing exercise, but this re-run gave me an hour of the three to enjoy, before being diverted to the laptop to watch last Monday's episode of 'The Blacklist' on 5USA. Why am I still watching this series? Each episode is rather predictable, but there is a linking spy story narrative thread between crime solving episodes. I'm waiting to see when the improbable turns into the ridiculously impossible. Daft really.

Royal spectacular

A cloudy start to the day, but the clouds were driven away by a strong cold east wind in the middle of the day. After a pancake breakfast, I started the preparatory work for a wedding blessing in Sotogrande in my first week there by writing an email to ask the bride what I needed to know to help them prepare an order of service leaflet. Then I went for an hour's walk while Clare made lunch. We went for a walk together after we'd eaten for a cup of tea at the Secret Garden cafe. A lot of walking for one day over fourteen kilometres. On the way back Clare bought some strawberries in the Co-op and made several pots of jam, as last year's strawberry jam is almost finished.

I also bought a bereavement card to send to Jill Robinson, whose husband David died recently. Both were in the Holy Trinity Geneva choir when we there there, and he retired from the World Health Organisation around the time we left for Monaco. David had a life changing car accident after they settled in Devon, which disabled him. I'm amazed he's lasted into his eighties. 

I'll never forget David arriving at church one Sunday morning having just arrived from a visit to the Goma refugee camp in Eastern Zaire, one of several in the Great Lakes region sheltering two million refugees fleeing the Rwandan genocide. Rwandan soldiers came over the border to attack and loot the camp, killing many. The inability of the UN to protect camps it set up was regarded as a monumental humanitarian failure at the time. Churchgoers learned about it in the news. I can't remember if David was scheduled to preach that morning, or if he was offered a chance to speak instead of the sermon, but I recall the sense of shock and outrage he conveyed. He dared pose the question - where is God in all this? But at that moment was unable to propose an answer. 

In that same period of our time in Geneva the war in Bosnia was also going on, with the siege of Sarajevo, and the massacre of 8,000 at Srebrenica. Some of the peace negotiations took place in Geneva and for a couple of years the city's security measures were ramped up, with barbed wire and soldiers on guard outside key international organisation buildings - a surreal experience, so far from the horrendous violence which blighted both Africa and Europe at that time. Until that time in my life I think I could call myself a liberal optimist about the world as I knew it. These events troubled me greatly, and made me more pessimistic about human progress in the face of Islamist fundamentalism and the steep decline of western Christianity, not to mention the environmental crisis of which I was aware, creeping up on the world, largely unheeded.

We watched the Jubilee concert from Buckingham Palace this evening, thankfully from the very start, so we we joined the nation enjoying the complete surprise of an opening comic sequence featuring Paddington Bear taking tea with the Queen, in which he produces a marmalade sandwich from his hat, and she produces one from her royal handbag. It don't know how this was done, but it was hilarious as it was playful. 

I had to spend a lot of time googling to find out about the multitude of performers appearing in a fast moving amazingly produced spectacle, celebrating the diversity of British life and culture as it has evolved over the past seventy years. Half of the performers I'd never heard of. Diana Ross and Nile Rodgers were among the star American imports, but it seemed to me that all other contributors were English, nobody Welsh, Scottish or Irish. Each of the Celtic fringe nations may have had a local concert equivalent of their own, but really was this a conscious policy decision or just unconscious bias?

Prince William and Prince Charles spoke eloquently about the Queen and both with a strong accent on conservation as a passionate concern inspired by her and Prince Philip's environmental interest. This is an important moment, making it clear the Queen's legacy will be found in continuing royal advocacy over the health of the planet.

As darkness fell much was made of innovative powerful lighting technology to project video on to the entire facade of the Palace, featuring the Queen's reign and the natural world. There was what I believe to have been an aerial display using a swarm of small drones carrying LED lights serving as pixels to build up colourful pictures in the sky. That's only a guess. This new tech' was used during the Tokyo Olympic and Chinese Winter Olympic ceremonies. I can't imagine how else it could have been done, 

A good time was surely had by all involved including a global TV audience. How long before someone does the sums and works out the total carbon footprint of mounting this spectacle, its performers and 22,000 strong audience included? That million trees pledged for planting as a royal Jubilee project are certainly going to be needed for carbon offset.

Thanksgiving

Another sunny start to the day, but with a layer of high cloud coming and going throughout the morning. Clare was having trouble locating the archive of digital books on her Kindle. She failed to find the long list of books purchased and archived, only the ones downloaded into the memory of the device. The archive search option is there, but it's useless if you can't remember the name of a book or its author. She reads a great deal and has grown accustomed to recognising a book first by the visual impact of its cover. Not being able to access a display of covers in her archive, since an update a while back, is unhelpful. 

I had a look at the device and was mystified by its user interface, different from anything I'm familiar with. When plugged into her Linux laptop, the Kindle's file system was visible, but no sign of an archive list. On accessing her Amazon account in a browser, however, it was possible to see icons of all the digital book files she's purchased in the past. If she wants to search for a title in the archive at the moment, she has to check its name and author on her computer first. There must be a work-around, but where? The only useful thing I was able to do was a full update of Mint 20. It must be half a year since I last did that. Updated or not, it works perfectly, every time.

Last night, Clare baked bread and kept back enough dough for pizza making this morning. This we did while listening to the Platinum Jubilee Thanksgiving Service from St Paul's Cathedral on the radio. As ever, a majestically beautiful musical celebration, with diverse contributors doing readings, prayers and an an act of commitment to service, plus a fine Gospel sermon from Archbishop Stephen of York, standing in in for Archbishop Justin who, like Prince Andrew is self isolating with covid at the moment. 

While the country has resumed normality with vigour, almost to the point of forgetting the past two years of living with the fear of runaway contagion, the pandemic hasn't gone away. People are still getting infected with the omicron variant. Wearing masks in enclosed crowded public places is now largely ignored. While the infection rate has slowed down, infections aren't yet reduced to being a rarity. There are still people dying from covid related sickness, and the uptake of top-up vaccines has slowed down. When two known public figures are self isolating, it's a reminder the pandemic isn't over yet.

Our pizzas turned out perfectly. We ate them for lunch out in the garden with a glass of wine. It's no wonder I fell asleep in the chair for an hour afterwards. Then we walked up to Llandaff Village for tea, by the tea shop was closed, so we walked back down the Taff Trail on the East side of the river, and had a coffee from the mobile barista before heading home for supper. Another episode of 'Usedom krimi' afterwards, which was about child abduction, but also looked back to relationships made and broken at the time the DDR ended.  The island of Usedom on the Polish border was at that time in the old East Germany.

Long to reign over us

A day of brilliant sunshine all over the country starting the celebration of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee with an extra day's Bank Holiday. I posted today's Morning Prayer link to WhatsApp at half past seven, but didn't get up for breakfast until an hour later. Before going out to church, I drafted my Sunday sermon, not ashamed to include a few insights from Lucy Winket's well crafted Jubilee 'Thought for the Day'. The streets were as quiet as a Sunday morning when I walked to St John's for the Eucharist. There were only five of us, and I think I may have been the only one old enough to remember the Queen's coronation.

We didn't watch the Jubilee celebrations broadcast live from London at midday. I had a video editing job to finish and send to Rachel, and audio to record and edit for next week's Morning Prayer video. After lunch we took the bus into town to see if the Central Market was open to buy some stocks of fish, but inevitably as a City Council run enterprise, it was closed for the holiday. The streets were quite busy with shoppers taking advantage of a day off. There were events down in Cardiff Bay as well, with HMS Severn, a Navy coastal patrol vessel in port, and the Royal Welch Regimental band giving a concert  outside the Millennium Centre.

We had a drink in John Lewis' top floor restaurant, and then walked home along the Taff, I got some lovely photos of a heron fishing and pair of swans with their brood of five cygnets swimming quite close to the river bank. Spot the fifth one in shadow!

In the evening we watched recorded highlights of the day's events and then the Jubilee beacon lighting ceremonies around the country and the Commonwealth interspersed with archive footage of the Queen's visits to the four nations of the U.K. Interesting to note the number of places going in for electrical or gas fired beacons rather than consuming wood. As a beacon is a signalling device using light, the means of producing light isn't bound by traditional custom, romantic though it may be.

Everything seems to have gone perfectly with nothing to mar the occasion, so many people old and young alike,  expressing their appreciation, for the inspiring life of service Her Majesty has led. People share a sense of the uniqueness of this celebration in our national history, tinged as it is with sadness at the thought that the second Elizabethan era is gently coming to an end