Lesson unlearned - Holy Innocents

After breakfast this morning on Radio 4 this year's four Reith Lecturers discussed the 'Four Freedoms' theme of the series, and were pleased to realise how much their ideas about freedom were shared. Like a choir part-singing in perfect harmony. I wonder if this years innovation of having four lecturers instead of one will catch on and be repeated next year. It introduces an additional dimension of dialogue on top of that provided by the fifteen minutes of Q&A after each lecture.

It rained for much of the night and continued until early afternoon. I ventured out in full rain gear to Saint Catherine's to celebrate the Eucharist of Holy Innocents' Day, reflecting with the congregation on  how child exploitation, abuse and slaughter in warfare has persisted in human history down to our own times, despite vain efforts to prevent and protect. To my surprise, despite the terrible weather, half a dozen regulars came to join me. No veggie bag this week, and no coffee after the service, so I went straight back home.

I cooked lunch, then had a snooze in the chair. Although I coped well with such difficult conditions last night, the effort of  driving it left me feeling pretty tired, and needing to take it easy with all the joints in my hands and fingers painful from the tension of holding on to the steering to wheel without respite for so long. That's what happens when you no longer do much distance driving I guess.

As it had stopped raining, I walked down to Blackweir Bridge and then around Pontcanna Fields. The Taff water level was high, covering the fish ladder completely and about to overspill on to the footpath. I took this little video.

As the sun set, I was walking under the avenue of trees the other side of the Fields when the local flocks of starlings began to convene noisily for the final stage of the journey to roost in trees along the east bank of the river, thousands of them, such a sight as you'll se here.

Before supper I recorded and edited the audio for next Thursday's Morning Prayer and after eating made them into a video slideshow for uploading to YouTube. Then I watched the last of Stanley Tucci's series on the regional food cultures of Italy, about Liguria. Genoa, capital of the region is the home of Pesto making. It was eye-opening to see how the basil leaves used in it were grown high up at 400 metres in an industrial greenhouse above the city, and then how a top expert chef made it by hand using a giant pestle and mortar.