By accident or design?

I slept for nine and a half hours last night and woke up refreshed. All thanks to Kay's osteo work on my legs yesterday. There was an email from Pidgeon's confirming a funeral booking for two week's time, and a message from Frances asking me if I'd take tomorrow morning's Eucharist at St Peter's Fairwater. Clare and I then worked through the music we're singing for next month's Early Music concert and she cooked lunch while I uploaded and edited some photos from the past few days. 

For the first time I also made use of Microsoft's Clipchamp Video Editor for a clip taken yesterday of a golden leaved tree by Blackweir Bridge, to find out how easy it would be to learn. I've made slideshows using a few different apps, but relied on old school Movie Maker for years on odd occasions when I needed to edit video, as this could be used without internet. The revised version had too many features to make it worth re-learning how to use it, so I didn't bother with it, found and installed the Windows 7 version on previous devices instead. I've not needed to tinker with video footage in the past few years, so I'm pleased to find something simple and handy for my limited needs.

It rained most of the morning, but had stopped when I went out for a walk after lunch, and looked as if the sky was clearing. Appearances were deceptive however, as more rain clouds swept in from the west. Ten minutes into my walk, the rain started again and didn't stop for more than a hour. It wasn't very heavy so I kept going and just got wet slowly. 

We had an early supper before a choir rehearsal. I thought it was going to be in St Catherine's and I had to open up the church and put the chairs out. But we got the week wrong, it was in the Rectory instead. The choir WhatsApp message board has a great many messages to read in a busy spell, so it's easy to become overwhelmed with excess detail and

I got to church at six, opened up and put some chairs out in a semi-circle for the choir to use. Clare came a little later, then when nobody turned up at six thirty, she rang a choir member and discovered our joint diary error. Then I had to put away the chairs, lock up and then we walked to the Rectory at Victoria Park, and were half an hour late joining the others.

Kim offered us a lift home in her car, as she lives nearby. We were amazed to discover that she runs a classic Morris Minor, in excellent working condition fifty three years old. Brother in Law Eddy ran the estate car version of this when we were all a lot younger, inherited from their father Francis. As David and Anneke grew up and needed more space, he traded it in for an Astra. It's probably forty years since we last rode in any Morris Minor. It's the sight and sound of a bygone era.

We returned home to news of missiles hitting a rural area 8km inside Poland's border with Ukraine. Russia denies it was theirs although the nearby Ukrainian city of Lviv was among the places hit with a hundred missile strikes on energy infrastructure targets today, as has happened daily this week. 

Missile guidance systems rely on satellite navigation, but any missile can malfunction mechanically. It's also possible this was an Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile colliding with a Russian missile. It seems that both sides use the same basic weapon, adapted for different purposes. Only thorough forensic investigation of airspace surveillance records will reveal the truth of the matter.

If it was a Russian missile, this strike could be a random failure, or be aimed at provoking a reaction, since Poland is a NATO member country. Putin could well be testing NATO's willingness to take action  collectively given that 'an attack on one is an attack on all' is a founding principal of the charter. I don't imagine NATO member government defence ministry staff will get much sleep tonight, with a meeting to review the situation tomorrow.