An enraged believer

I felt better for going to bed an hour earlier and getting up at the usual time. After breakfast I was picked up and taken to Thornhill for the funeral I thought was yesterday. The funeral director and her team knew about it and laughed about it. I don't think I'm the first to have done that. My driver this morning was a woman whose previous career had been in retail management. It's interesting how people arrive in the funeral business and stay, from all walks of life. What may start as an occasional or part time job can end as full time employment if a person finds it gives them satisfaction. 

There were over a hundred and fifty mourners in the Wenallt Chapel. A big extended family, plus friends and neighbours from Ely, where the woman was born and bred and remained until her death. Two grandsons, young men in their twenties, delivered the eulogy between them prepared by the family, and did her proud. I was asked to read two poems on behalf of her daughters, and it all held together well.

On returning home, I cooked lunch, with a slowly stewed pork steak for me and a veggie burger for Clare. I still haven't perfected the cooking of a veggie burger from frozen or room temperature without it getting slightly singed. Not so the pork!

After lunch I had a siesta which was shortened by a phone call from Pidgeons about another funeral. Then I went into town on the bus to bank a couple of cheques, and get some cheap pairs of reading glasses. I found some fairly decent ones at Wilko's, two pairs for seven quid, I can leave them parked for use in different rooms, rather than having to hunt for a pair. I still need a new prescription pair however.

I went to see if there were any new bargains in John Lewis, and spotted a camera at an interesting 20% discount. Something to think about. Then I bumped into a man I knew from my time as Vicar of St John's City Parish church. He's now retired and lives up the Valleys, near where I was born and bred. Funnily enough, this was where we last met, a few years ago. He said that whenever he comes to town he still goes to the top floor cafeteria, as he used to when he worked in the city centre "My other office", he called it. 

Back in the day he was involved in Llandaff Cathedral, but left the church altogether for a while, because he was scandalised by the way Bishop June treated Dean Gerwyn. I wonder how many others there are who reacted to the dispute in the same way? Thankfully, he now attends church in his local village, but resists getting involved outside of that.

I regretted not being able to record his comments to use in the podcast I to make about reasons people have stopped coming to church, and what it would take to get them started again. Come to think, his comments were so charged with anger and resentment, he couldn't help being rudely uncharitable about certain prominent church leaders. Not very edifying, but the voice of someone estranged from what could still be active participation in church life.

Shortly after I got home, a large filling dislodged itself from the upper right hand side of my teeth. Funnily enough since last week I've been thinking about ringing the dentists' surgery for a checkup appointment, as it's over two years since my last. Previously I've had a booking reminder, but this seems to have lapsed. I do hope they've not dropped me from their register. I'll be on the phone tomorrow. I need to get this fixed pronto as the gap the filling occupied is adjacent to a tooth my denture relies on. The gap is where half a broken tooth was removed and the root taken out, if I remember rightly.  The remainder of the tooth needs to be kept healthy and protected with a filling, at least a temporary one.

After supper, I went for another walk as the sun was setting. The colour of the sky on the horizon, below a layer of grey cloud was unusual, worth a photo.

On return I watched part of an episode of 'Call the Midwife' with Clare for whom this has recently become a daily routine. It was quite long, being a Christmas special edition, so once it was finished it was time for bed. 

Fitbit Versa 3 after two weeks

The night sky was clear, and at sunrise it was somewhat chilly. I got ready to be taken to Thornhill for the funeral I was scheduled to take and stood outside in the still cool shadow of the house. When the car didn't turn up on time (as it did once before with this particular funeral company), I started to fret and phoned the office. I was told the funeral is tomorrow not today. Indeed, when I looked again, my diary confirmed this  was the case. How did it happen? I wondered. 

A bank holiday disrupts weekly routine. Nervousness about a repeat instance of un-punctuality. A careless glance at the diary. Not memory loss, but a loss of focus on what day of the week it actually is. As we're both pretty active, no day of the week is the same as another, so days don't normally merge into each other because each is the same as the other. This is what can lead to people living alone with uneventful lives to lose track of time.

Once I'd recovered from my bewilderment, I picked up on what usually happens on Tuesdays and went to the Coop to do the weekly grocery shopping. Clare had an acupuncture appointment, so I cooked the lunch and listened to a consumer phone-in programme about the technical challenges of making homes energy efficient, with listeners sharing their experience of solar panels and air source heat pump installation, both benefits and unforeseen problems. With energy prices so high, the question of saving money is more of a concern than carbon footprint. What's interesting is the finding that energy conservation by improving insulation standards is key to the success of any alternative heating system. The government has recently launched a campaign to promote and facilitate insulation improvement. Will it deliver significant change? It remains to be seen.

In the news, Moscow was hit by a drone attack last night, not the first in recent weeks, not causing much damage. Immediately the regime alleges this attack is of Ukrainian origin, which Ukraine denies. This was said when there was an attack on the Kremlin recently. This was followed by nightly drone attacks  on Kyiv. Is this a 'false flag' attack, giving an excuse for escalation?  There have also been a few cross border incursions allegedly by Russian militias opposed to Putin's regime. These have not been of much military significance but they send a signal to the Kremlin about government control over the population, by sowing seeds of doubt about how safely distanced from the war Russian people feel they are. Small uprisings and acts of resistance occur and get suppressed, but the more there are, the more it suggests dissatisfaction with the status quo.

It was nearly two by the time we finished lunch and had a siesta. Then another grocery shopping trip to Tesco's before walking in the park together enjoying the sunshine. After supper and putting out the rubbish I decided to sit and read Carlos Ruiz Zafon's novel 'La Sombra del Viento', while my Fitbit was on charge. I've had it now for sixteen days. It took me a while to figure out how to get what I want from the device. It tends to nag to to set up every facility it provides, on top of a link to my phone to record the few essentials I need and suppressing ones I don't want to use is still a minor annoyance. 

The touch screen on the watch is ingenious, but took several weeks to fathom out from scratch. I'm not sure I found the first use instructions, and most of these things are straightforward to get working. The most irritating thing about the phone app is how encourages you to set health goals, like or not, and if you don't it imposes a default set. Any goal it thinks you've achieved, it send you childish congratulatory messages, as if it were a grown-up coaching children. I detest this patronising intrusion. 

All I need is simple information about my daily walking habits plus date and time. At least it has a decent watch face with a minimal always on setting showing only the time. And the strap on it is decent and comfortable. It takes two hours to charge and a charge lasts ten days, but it starts nagging to recharge when it's still 20% full, in effect about two days left. That's a bit annoying too. 

I read thirteen packed pages of the book while waiting for a full charge, and was able to appreciate the humour and the atmosphere of story-line, again, despite the obscurity of some vocabulary which defeats Google Translate. On the other hand the app can be helpful in listing secondary meaning and contextual uses arising from colloquial turns of phrase and this can bring interesting little surprises to light. For example in English we'd say a very rich person was 'loaded', in Spanish it's 'lined' - in both cases with cash. Anyway, that's enough for tonight!

 then printed off a couple of poems I've been asked to read at tomorrow's funeral. Bed early tonight.

A creative Bank Holiday Monday

A pleasant warm spring day, feeling fresh after a fair night's sleep. After breakfast and prayers, I worked on next Sunday's Trinity Sunday sermon as ideas of what I wanted to say were already coming to me. I did a share of the weekly house cleaning next, and cooked lunch for us. After only a short siesta, I had another creative spurt and wrote a biblical reflection for Corpus Christi, then went out for a walk.

I met Diana and Pete enjoying the sunshine, sitting on a park bench in Llandaff Fields and sat and chatted to them. We walked back home together and I invited them in for a cup of tea with Clare. She went out for a walk earlier and was home before me, and I knew she'd enjoy the company. 

After supper, I made a video slide show of my photos of the 2018 Semana Santa processions in Málaga to send to Marion, as she was asking my about this after Mass yesterday. I made an audio soundtrack from a video I found, rather disappointed that I was unable to find and use the recordings I made back then. Here's a link to it on YouTube.

Finally printing off the order of service for tomorrow morning's funeral, and off to bed.

Unanswered questions at Pentecost

I woke up at a quarter to seven, not aware of having a particularly restless night, but when I checked my Fitbit record later in the day, I found that I'd lost an hour and a half sleep. No wonder the morning felt like an uphill experience. I was on my way to St Peter's to celebrate and preach just after nine. There was a congregation of nearly sixty, including fifteen children and forty communicants. By way of contrast, sad to say, there were nineteen adults at St Luke's almost all over fifty and no children. 

There was no organist and no server to assist, so no incense, although the sacristan did prepare the communion elements, and the customised service sheets for the day weren't given out, nor the individual candles this called for. The duty steward hadn't been briefed I guess, so we sang the usual service unaccompanied without embellishments, much to my relief, as I didn't think we needed this add-on anyway. It all worked the way it was intended to and despite initial nervousness, I think people went away in a good mood.

I chatted with Marion afterwards, widow of a missionary priest in Africa. She was concerned about the need to plan a 'back to church Sunday' initiative with individual churchgoers inviting lapsed members to return to an act of worship on a special Sunday. She's aware of people who stopped attending as they felt let down by the dearth of personal pastoral care from clergy, not to mention changes in timing and forms of worship, probably not aware that the biggest change is the shortage of parochial clergy, now obliged to spend an excessive amount of time on funerals and parish administration. 

Will it ever be possible to get back to where we were when we were all much younger. So many people still say their prayers at home, but are lost to public worship. Covid is blamed for breaking the habit, but this trend developed long before, when telly, sports and Sunday leisure activities gave people a choice about what they do on the Lord's Day. How do we enable people to re-engage with the church when they don't understand how far reaching the changes of the past decade have been for Christian ministry and mission?

This conversation prompted me to think about how to raise a pastoral discussion about this by means of social media. How it is possible to enable the actual voices of estranged believers to be heard on their terms, before we attempt to respond to them, or invite them to a church social event or act of worship. Are the faithful remnant of churchgoers capable of listening and responding to what they're told and make the effort to change? An interesting question on Pentecost Sunday.

After lunch, I finished and uploaded this week's prayer video to YouTube, then slept for an hour before going for a walk. I was surprised to find that it was seven fifteen when I returned home for supper. Then we watched an interesting edition of Antiques Roadshow, followed by a tribute to Aussie satirist Barrie Humphreys and six sixty year career as his comic alter egos Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson in which he mocked bourgeoise pretensions and social values in a hilarious but edgy way, which could leave his audience on the verge of feeling unsettled. Very clever acid wit, unrivalled in modern theatre. A most interesting life.

Unexpected affirmation

We decided yesterday we'd go out to breakfast this morning (after a bowl of porridge and the daily round of pills) for a coffee and croissant at the recently opened Alex Gooch bakery café in the new housing area built on the old Laundry building in Llandaff Road. Then I returned and completed work on tomorrow's sermon. Rufus called and said he and Daria were coming over to Pontcanna and suggested we meet at the local Coffee #1, which we did, and had an enjoyable catch-up sitting in the sun at an outdoor table, until it was lunchtime. Clare prepared a fish pie while I was out and we ate under the sunshade on the patio.

We both had a longish siesta after lunch, still tired from yesterday's travel and exchange of abodes. I went out again then and walked again for an hour and a half before supper. There was nothing of interest on telly, so I spent the rest of the evening, preparing next Wednesday's funeral, interrupted by an exchange of emails from my old friend Richard Johnson who was our family GP when we were in Halesowen. We met over a deathbed ministry, and continued through a shared interest in the emerging world of Personal Computing, both of us being 'early adopters'. 

Tonight's exchange started by him reminding me of a time some thirty five years ago when he was finding difficulty accepting relationships between gay people when he and his wife were preparing for confirmation. I said a few things about the expression by Jesus of unconditional love towards others, and that helped him to come to terms with his misgivings. He's retired now and, like me reviewing his life, and decided to express to me his appreciation for this guidance. It was an unexpected affirmation, as I've got used to thinking over the years that nobody really listens to anything I say!

A cheering note on which to retire to bed.

Straight home to work

Our final sunny awakening in Burry Port. Up early, packing bags and the fridge contents so be ready to leave by ten. We left the place as we found it, but didn't need to empty the bins and give the place a full treatment, as cleaners were employed to come in before the next clients arrive. We left an appreciate note in the visitors book and were on our way. Rather than go straight up to the M4 from Llanelli, we drove all the way up the Llwchwr Estuary through suburban West Swansea and the city centre, and out on the east side Marine Parade to join the M4 to Cardiff. The journey took us half an hour longer, as traffic was much slower with many roundabouts and by-passes to negotiate, but it was a road we'd never taken before. We didn't stop on the way, as we decided not to prolong the return trip more than necessary.

When we got home, we started to unpack, and I cooked a lentil dish with veggies for lunch. After a siesta I recorded next week's Morning Prayer and Reflection before considering the best way to get to the family home where I was due for a bereavement visit at six. The house was a short walk from the number 18 bus route up Grand Avenue in Ely, so I went to Cowbridge Road and took the bus out there to the stop just above 'The Res', pleased to find that the number 13 as well as the 18 goes up Grand Avenue. I popped into the Vicarage for a brief chat with Jan and Peter, before my visit, and was delighted to find Fr Rhys there as well. He happens to be one of the area's GPs in his day job. 

We were meant to be doing a couple of services together this Sunday, but I was going to do both on my own so he could take a weekend off. Since we decided this, it's turned out that Fr Jesse is spending the weekend in hospital for medical tests, so Fr Rhys is covering for him at St David's Caerau, and unable to take time out. With such a shortage of clergy both the ministry areas I'm involved with are under heavy pressure to cover all routine services these days. But we do our best, as we know how much it matters to the faithful remnant.

I then walked the half mile to the bereavement visit, and got a lift back to Victoria Park by the elder son who is one of West Cardiff's park keepers, based at the Council depot on Thompson Avenue with gate locking duties to perform each evening. From there it was just a fifteen minute walk home to supper. I went out for another walked after supper, to enjoy the evening sunlight. I was appalled at the amount of fast food picnic litter and drinks cans overflowing from the bins, and discarded Co-op recyclable plastic bags on the grass. Doesn't anyone think of taking litter home with them any more? 

Admittedly the bins aren't big enough to avoid the problem, nor are there enough of them. Each bin could have a supply of green bags attached to it, the way in some parks there's a supply of dog-shit bags to help with on-site disposal. I know the Council are very good about clearing the litter day after day, but more resources to encourage park users to tidy up their mess properly is much needed. The present state turns a pleasant sunny evening stroll into a dismal dysfunctional experience.

There was nothing on prime time telly I fancied watching when I returned, so the rest of the evening was spent editing the audio recorded earlier.

Are you listening to yourself?

It's so good to wake up on a bright sunny morning. I went down to the harbour at nine thirty on my own with my Sony Alpha 68 and wide angled lens, interested in taking some photos with the tide reaching its highest point. In the few days we've been here there's been more silt visible than water within the harbour walls. It's a major problem for all the small leisure craft berthed here now, since the demise of industrial traffic in the last century, and there are treacherous sand banks off shore outside the harbour walls adding to the problem of access. Maintaining routine dredging is more costly than ever, and the Swiss owners of the port are not pulling their weight to ensure its modest viability. It was good to see all the craft and a pontoon boardwalk floating temporarily, though the water was half a metre deep in most places, instead of more than three.

When I returned, Clare was sitting out in the sun on the patio. We walked back down to the harbour and sat on the south beach beside it for a while then went to the Phoenix Italian Restaurant just down the street for an authentic Italian lunch. I don't much enjoy having to navigate multiple choice menus, serving the Italian equivalent of tapas, so I chose one big dish of spaghetti bolognese, which was delicious and plenty for me. Clare had some cooked greens grown around Naples, prawns in a parsley sauce, and aubergines pickled and served with a tomato sugo. All very tasty, as was the home made sourdough white bread with macadamia nut oil and thick balsamic vinegar. The bread was just like the pan campesino I discovered on the shelves of Mercadona's panaderia in Spain. The couple running the restaurant were a Swansea boy and enthusiastic Italiana I think from Milano. Certainly the best place we've eaten out in since we've been here.

After a siesta we walked the mile to Eglwys Santes Fair, the Victorian Parish Church. It was designed by a local industrialist George Elkington and its construction financed by his wife and daughters, probably after his death in 1865. A bilingual plaque on a west front buttress reads 'Built by his wife and children', leaving ample room for the imagination to run riot!

In the evening we watched a filmed interview by John Wilson on the BBC Radio Four programme 'This Cultural Life' with Whoopee Goldberg, speaking about her creative life as a storyteller, starting when she was young on theatre stages doing in-character monologues, through to her roles in an assortment of movies, over a hundred of them. An amazing conversation in which she shone with pleasure throughout. Really inspiring. 

She spoke about under the direction of Mike Nichols who introduced her to New York stages, with her solo show 'Spooks'. Giving her feedback on her performance in one monologue, he said it was too long, and that she's made her key point seven minutes before the end. Then he asked "Are you listening to yourself, when you perform?" It was a comment which really struck home with the preacher in me. How often do I find it difficult to conclude a sermon in a satisfactory why? If I succeed, it's because I'm not improvising but following a written and edited text. It can take far longer to produce than it takes to deliver. Writing and re-writing, I'm listening to myself before I speak, rehearsing my words. I've always felt safe and confident doing this. For better or for worse. t's typically introvert behaviour.

Spielberg's movie 'The Colour Purple' in which Whoopi starred followed on from the interview, but it went on too late for us to watch. We have to be packed and out of here by ten in the morning, so it's bed early tonight. Thankfully, we don't have to clean up after ourselves. That's all taken care of.

Discovering Pembrey's former harbour

A return to cloudless skies and gentle warmth today, and after breakfast a walk southwards on the beach as far as Pembrey's 19th century harbour wall. A vast expanse of fine sandy beach with a tide formed fringe of multi-coloured textured pebbles below the sand dunes. I was disturbed to see how much litter had been dropped, in the dunes more than the beach. As Clare had a free degradable plastic bag from the Co-op, I was able to start collecting rubbish. Most of it came from one campfire picnic site. Altogether I collected eighteen cans, seven plastic bottles, two plastic disposable lighters and large fragments of a couple of broken bottles, in twenty minutes. I parked the bag in a place I could remember and took it to the nearest bin a quarter of a mile away, when we returned.

Just off the beach edge there's an enormous bank of sand, deposited there in recent decades due to coastal erosion. Shallow waters separate beach from sand bank. The tide comes in stealthily at speed making a return to shore difficult and dangerous. Warning signs are posted everywhere but rescue emergencies still occur. Just as well Burry Port has its of lifeboat station nearby.

Why there should be a huge flat tidal plain area about a quarter of a mile square in dimensions adjacent to the old port wall, with a tidal watercourse snaking across it, was a puzzle. We returned to the harbour in Burry Port, and had a sandwich lunch in the delightful and traditional Harbour View tea room. It was very well appointed with paintings and art photography pictures on the walls. The toilet walls with decorated with a framed compendium of photos taken by our host on her youthful travels in North America and Australia. A lovely homely touch.

After a siesta back at the house, Clare went down to Burry Port harbour, and I returned by a different route to explore the Pembrey Harbour entrance, to try and identify what purpose was served by the remains of nineteenth century maritime trade. I found a history board which stated that the quarter mile flat area next to Pembrey's port wall was a tidal pond with gates, built early in the 19th century. Its waters were fed though channels in the harbour wall to flush encroaching estuary silt from the harbour mouth to keep it free for navigation. 

The tidal gates, lighthouse and buildings on the harbour wall are long gone. The flushing pond is now a tidal water meadow. The watercourse snaking over it seems to have been created by a freshwater stream entering at the pond's inland extremity. The pond's semi saline waters help create a localised eco-system. It must be very interesting for any environmentalist to study.

On returning to the house along the edge of the dunes, a skylark rose from cover and ascended thirty anf then fifty feet, singing loudly. I got a couple of photos of the bird singing loudly. They weren't much good, as my Olympus long zoom lens was at the limit of its reach, but it's a moment I'll treasure anyway.

I cooked supper for us, then enjoyed looking at uploaded photos, confirming as far as possible without recourse to the written historical record what I'd deduced from observation. What a stimulating day!

 

Troubled streets, old memories awakened

A disappointingly cloudy day today, but mild with no wind. After breakfast, we set out to walk north east along the shore, forsaking the tarmac'd section of coast path for a track along the sand dunes and then on the beach itself as the tide was a long way out. There are remains of concrete structures in the first half mile of beach from the harbour, but it's hard to identify what they were part of. 

A history board at the edge of the harbour told of blast furnaces extracting zinc, copper, silver and lead from ore imported in the 18th-19th centuries from Cornwall, and then as demand increased, from South America and Australia into the 20th century. As metal separating and refining technologies evolved, so the industry expanded, also with a variety of other products derived from these metals. The last of the smelters closed in 1910.

Coal from mines in the nearby Gwendraith valley was mined to feed refinery furnaces along the coast as far as Neath, but steam coal exports, generated most income and larger scale metal refineries developed further afield closer to where mineral ore and coal were found near each other.

After world war two, new energy demands let to an electrical power generating station being built on the coastal plain, but this lasted only from 1954 to 2004, by which time it relied on imported coal, as Cynheidre colliery, Europe's largest and last anthracite producing mine had closed in 1989. Industrial sites were cleared and natural ecosystems restored. It's only when you look at nineteenth century photos and engravings that you get some idea of how industrialised the Carmarthenshire coastal plain was back in those days.

Further along the beach, a mile and a half from the harbour we came across a couple of hundred metres of rocky outcrop, rising from sand-dunes along the shore. The rocks were hard carboniferous structures and the sea had hollowed out the layers of coal sandwiched between layers of harder shale. This is the western extremity of the South Wales Coal Field, which is tilted at an angle and its upper layers surface here, whereas the Eastern Valleys these layers are hundreds of metres underground. Alongside this modest five metre cliff, a strange circular structure on stilts made of concrete stands in the sand on the shoreline. Was it the remains of a military coastal defence installation? Its design and construction didn't seem quite so ancient. I googled a suitably worded enquiry and found an article explaining everything.

The platform housed an experimental wind turbine built in the 1980s, subsequently demolished. At that time it wasn't on the shore but some distance behind the tide line. Since then, about six metres depth of sand has been washed away and the shore line has moved inland, to just behind where the rocky outcrop stands. It too has eroded over the years. I guess that much of that sand has been washed further down the estuary, constituting the flat sand banks visible at low tide, contributing the silting up of Burry Port harbour's entry. Sea defences were built up in the last century with residual furnace slag, making up banks of coloured pebbles on some stretches of nearby beach, but much heavier blocks of stone are now needed to keep the shore line stable, and more again will be needed with coming sea level rises. The seaside landscape will change again in the century to come.

We walked back to the town and decided to have lunch at Nik the Greek's restaurant. It wasn't terribly busy, except for one large party ahead of us, and it took more than three quarters of an hour for our meal order to be delivered. I asked for a glass of Greek Merlot, and when I sniffed before drinking it smelled of mould and tasted disgusting, undrinkable. I don't recall when I last sent back a glass of wine like that. The waiter evidently knew nothing of about wine and thought it was simply a matter of taste, even when Clare tasted it and grimaced with disgust. My guess it that an opened bottle was stored incorrectly and got contaminated. The replacement glass tasted the way it should. Apart from that the food was good and went down well, as by nearly two o'clock, after walking, we were really hungry.

Later in the afternoon we went for another walk along streets running inland. Then we searched for a tea room or café for a drink, but by six, all were shut and the pubs were opening, so we went back to the house for supper, and a quiet evening. Ruth's weekly Morning Prayer text email arrived, so I spent the rest of the evening preparing it and a reflection ready for recording tomorrow.

In last night's late news, reports of rioting after a fatal collision between car and electric scooter on a street at the top end of the Parish of the Resurrection Glanely, where I stood in for Parish Priest Jan at the midweek Mass last Wednesday. As damage to police cars was involved, I wondered how much their presence contributed to an escalation of a tragic incident to serious public disorder, as happened in Saint Paul's Bristol on April 2nd 1980. 

Police are highly trained and experienced in handling every kind of difficult situation, but the unexpected can happen which is outside the bounds of what officers on the scene are able to manage well. They can't cope and things go wrong. I thought of Jan, fresh back from holiday this week, and emailed her straight away.

Detailed investigation of the incident has yet to be carried out officially but a Sky news reporter got an interview with a someone close to the bereaved families which suggested that they way they were dealt with at the scene was what sparked off resentment against the police. Whether or not this is corroborated in due course remains to be seen, but I do know that shock waves from this incident will impair police community relations for some time to come. 

Two teenagers were killed larking about on a scooter, both young enough to have been christened by Jan, if they were christened at all. She's been interviewed on radio and TV today. There'll be more to come and the attention will make life harder for her, on top of the superb work she does on top of her conventional ministerial work of running a community youth orchestra. I feel for her and wish there was something I could do to help.

Traces of industrial heritage

We both woke up after comfortable night's sleep away from home, to a cloudless sky and sunshine. After breakfast we walked down to the west side of the harbour, hoping for a coffee at a newly built café on the quay painted and furnished outdoors entirely in dark pink but it was closed, as are other restaurants on a Monday. We'd hoped to eat lunch out, but ended up buying freshly cooked cod and chips in Joseph's Fish Shop on the corner of the street leading back to our holiday home. Clare made coleslaw to go with it, and soon hungers were satisfied.

I had an email from Rufus containing the draft of a business plan he's been formulating for a not for profit enterprise he's setting up, inviting comment. When I read it I realised that I could work on it to clarify the expression of some key ideas, though not change anything they sought to convey, so I edited it, waiting for Clare to have her siesta. 

Then we drove down to the harbour car park and walked along the Coast Path in the direction of Pembrey Nature reserve. It runs parallel to the shore some distance inland alongside a watercourse which is all that remains of an 19th century tramway and canal system between Kidwelly and Llanelly. Water still flows the length of a much narrower canal  overgrown with trees and vegetation, serving as a wildlife corridor, and a leisure trail for walkers and cyclists. 

There's little left of its former industrial glory. Once there were drift coal mines along the escarpment behind the coastal plain whose workings extended under the Llwchwr estuary. The demand for anthracite steam coal was very high and led to the creation of transport infrastructure that would take coal efficiently from the mines to coastal shipping ports, which themselves were developing.  Even so it's a vital asset in nature conservation. It reminded me of the Washford Mineral Line running from Quantock coal and iron mines down to Watchet Harbour.

We walked for three quarters of an hour before turning to arrive back at the house in time for supper. Not quite far enough to reach Pembrey's wetland nature reserve, but that can keep for another occasion. I spent the evening uploading and editing the day's photos until it was bed time.

Llwchwr Estuary sojourn

Woke up to a lovely warm and sunny morning. After breakfast I made a call to the bereaved daughter of the woman whose funeral I'm doing in ten days time, to introduce myself and arrange to meet her and her sibling when we get back on Friday. Then an unhurried start for St German's, so it didn't matter that I had red traffic lights at every junction. The church was filled with bright sunlight and the Eucharist was filled with pregnant pauses to savour every moment. Heavenly indeed, and during the sermon I sang the opening verse of Irving Berlin's 'Dancing cheek to cheek, as it speaks of heavenly intimacy, something the St German's congregation knows about.

I had to dash home afterwards for as punctual a lunch as is possible, as the car needed packing. I was also anxious to complete next Thursday's Morning Prayer upload, as I'd only got half way through recording and editing it a few days ago, and not found time to complete it. While Clare had a siesta, I completed the recording and editing in twenty minutes and then did the video slideshow, but ran out of time to upload it to YouTube, so I had to leave it and cross my fingers that the broadband in our holiday house will be up to scratch. In the end we left just after three, half an hour later than planned, but the journey time, including a traffic queue due to roadworks outside Burry Port was only an hour and a half, so no need for a stop on the way there.

Our holiday home hosts are Brian and Jill. Brian met us and gave us a full briefing about the house, which is set in a quiet cul-de-sac near the police station a few hundred yards from the main street and Burry Port railway station. It's a three bedroom mid twentieth century terraced house recently restored in immaculate condition and very well equipped indeed. I needn't have worried about connectivity. There's EE superfast broadband downloading at over 100mbs and uploading at 20mbs. First task, to attach all four of our digital devices to the router's wifi - always a fiddly process, which I rarely get right first time round with a ten digit passcode jumble of numbers and letters to type in properly.

Then a fifteen minute walk down to the harbour to look around and take in the landscape. Gentle rolling wooded hills and valleys behind the coastal plain, the Llwchwr Estuary to the north and east of us, and to the south, the west flank of the Gower peninsula with Cefn Bryn rising and falling away gently down towards Rhossili beach, which its hidden behind the headland from here, but what you can see beyond it on the horizon is Worm's Head and reached by a tidal causeway from it Ynys Weryn, aka Devil's Bridge.

The local RNLI HQ out by the harbour was hosting a barbecue, and people were out on neighbouring beaches enjoying the sun while they could. The tide was turning and starting to come in. There comes a critical moment after which people can get stranded offshore or the sea covers all the sand right up to the sea defences. Then a warning klaxon sounds. Teenagers on bikes, scooters or skateboards were larking about on the jetty, playing music from their phones on portable bluetooth speakers, all enjoying a lovely warm afternoon.

Just outside the harbour there's a commemorative plaque to aviator Amelia Earhart's plane landing in the Llwchwr Estuary near Burry Port on 18th June 1928, a first transatlantic flight direct from Newfoundland, by a woman, even if she was one of three pilots on board. Their destination was a public reception at Southampton but the pilots lost their way due to cloud cover and landed their float plane on water to find out where they were. A fisherman rowed out in a coracle to greet them, but when they asked their way they couldn't understand his Carmarthenshire English accent!

By the time we got back to the main street, the chippie were closed, likewise the restaurants and we didn't fancy trying the pubs, so when we got back I cooked some veggies to go with smoked mackerel warmed up in a pan with hot water. All this an a complementary mini bottle of Chilean Merlot went down a treat. As the sun was setting I went for a walk to check out where other shops were located and found a pharmacy, a Chinese, an Indian and Balti takeway, all three open. As I walked back to the house a saw several couples walking back tipsy from one of the busy pubs, but no rowdy youth. Maybe it's different in high season, but quiet streets were reminiscent of village life on Sundays long gone. 

Late by accident

On this lovely sunny morning Clare was collected at ten by taxi to go to the School of Optometry for one of the occasional voluntary sessions in which students in training use state of the art equipment to examine her glaucoma afflicted eyes. She gets paid a fee for this which she donates to the St John's Eye Hospital in Jerusalem. I was going to join the congregation at St Woolos Cathedral Newport to celebrate the centenary of the Ty Mawr Sisters (aka Society of the Sacred Cross). I was due to park at Martin's house and he was going to accompany me to the service. I planned to leave at ten, but Clare asked me to hang out a fresh load of washing and I was sure I had plenty of time. Martin and I both thought the service was at twelve. This was what he learned when he googled the event. The note in my Google Calendar said twelve. I didn't notice that the actual time was set for eleven, and we arrived not at the beginning of the service but the offertory, three quarters of an hour late. What had happened?

It first I thought it was because I'd entered this when I was in Spain on Central European time, and hadn't made the right adjustment on returning. Then I remembered that the original emailed invite said twelve, and was followed by another correcting the start time to eleven. The web page entry Martin found hadn't been updated. I had corrected half on my calendar entry but not the other half in the Notes section. That's how we came to be late. We might have arrived earlier but driving out of Cardiff, I accidentally cut my thumb on the exposed metal edge of my specs case while trying to open it. A small cut, which bled, but I was able to manage it with a tissue without needing an emergency stop. Martin hunted a plaster for me, and helped me put it on. and this lost us time. We weren't hurried as he didn't yet realise we had the time wrong. It felt very strange arriving half was through, and I didn't feel able to receive Communion after missing the entire Ministry of the Word. Nevertheless, it was good to be there to savour the atmosphere and meet a few people who recognised me from my USPG days or visits to Ty Mawr.

We stayed for half an hour then went back to Martin's for a bite to eat that I could be sure was dairy free. Then we chatted all afternoon, drinking tea, Martin sharing his enthusiasm for items in his collection of Japanese decorative pottery made by a Japanese Master craftsman and painter. He has over a hundred pieces, and is working on curation of his collection with a view to displaying and selling them in due course to raise funds for a charitable enterprise which creates small businesses around the skills and enterprise experience of refugees with settled status. He's already established one successful business, run entirely by Afghan refugees, buying premises and setting up a supply chain, and it's already paid back its initial costs, without recourse to a bank loan. An amazing original initiative. The best I could do was tell him about my developing interest in Spanish history and literature.

It was seven by the time I reached home, and joined Clare for supper. Afterwards I packed one of the two crates we use to take food with us on a self catering holiday. Fresh and frozen stuff can wait until tomorrow, when we'll finish packing and have a snack lunch after church, and heading for Burry Port.

 

Spec's lost and lost again

On Wednesday afternoon, I left my favourite pair of spec's in the sacristy at 'The Res'. I took them off to remove my alb afer the service, and forgot to put them back in my pocket. Fortunately Carol found them and contacted me to say she'd bring them to last night's Eucharist, which she did, and I used them during the service. I thought I'd done exactly the same thing again last night, as I couldn't find them when I got home. This morning I had a funeral to take at Pidgeon's Chapel of Rest, and on my way there I called in to St Luke's to get them, but they weren't where I last recall using them. I couldn't spend time searching before the funeral, and had to use my newest pair instead of my working pair, which I much prefer.

The funeral concluded with burial in Radyr Cemetery, and then I returned for an early lunch. I was due to go to Llandough Hospital for a cardio scan just before three, so I left early and re-visited St Luke's to do a more thorough search, but still couldn't find them. I went back to the Victoria Park pub as I might have dropped them there when we were having a drink after the service, but no spec's had been handed in. They may have fallen out of my top pocket at some stage without me noticing going from church to pub. I'm really upset about this. Finding an exact replacement will take time as well as money.

I was admitted early for my scan and was home again by half past three. After a rest, I went out for a walk around Llandaff Fields. Friday evening is cricket practice night, and classes are held for the kids, and it's mainly Asians who turn up. I was struck by the number of young women and girls among the men, some were wearing team kit of their own. It's a sign that enthusiasm for playing cricket among women is growing internationally these days.

Following our monthly fish delivery from Ashton's, we had laver bread for supper. We're holidaying in Burry Port next week on the Llwchwr Estuary, and we may be lucky enough to have seafood and laver bread from the locality which produces them. After supper we watched an episode of the Welsh Travel series called 'Weatherman Walking' by the BBC Wales weather presenter Derek Brockaway. It was about a ten mile walk he did down the Gwendraith Valley, along a path which used to be a coal mining railway line from the area pits to Llanelli's docks, next to Burry Port on the coast. In the nineteenth century the line down the Valley also went into the docks at Burry Port. It was quite an industrial area with smelting industries too. Since South Wales pits closed in the eighties land occupied by mines has been cleared, landscaped and reforested, so there's little to show of its industrial past.

After this, the last episode of the second series of 'Astrid - Murders in Paris'. A different series will be aired from next Friday, and some time later the third and fourth series will be shown with another dozen episodes remaining. It seems likely the break is necessary for subtitling them to be completed, as these episodes came out in France only last year. It's enjoyable entertaining stuff

Improvised Asencion Day fiesta

Awake early, posting today's YouTube Morning Prayer link to WhatsApp  at seven, although I didn't get up until gone eight. After breakfast I paid the latest water rates bill which arrived a few days ago, on hearing a discussion on the BBC Radio Four Today programme about the alarming extent of sewage polluted rivers and the plan to upgrade sewage network infrastructure. It was interesting to see how much our bill was reduced by my three month sojourn in Spain.

Then, I went to Tesco's to shop for this week's Foodbank donation and took it to St John's to celebrate the first Eucharist of this almost sunny Ascension Day. There were eleven of us, with Fr Huw and Beryl from St Peter's Fairwater, plus Clive, Stephen and Hilary from St Catherine's joining the five regulars, as services in their churches can't be offered today. Good to see a few people willing to cross former Parish boundaries to celebrate one of the church's great festivals together.

Before having lunch I prepared the service for tomorrow's funeral. While I was doing this, a call came in from the cardiology team offering me an appointment tomorrow afternoon for a cardiology scan, as there had been a cancellation. Amazing luck! The report will be sent to pre-op for assessment, and on that basis I will be inserted into the operation queue. When that will happen is anyone's guess. I just hope the call doesn't come while we're booked to be away. Maybe I'll be able to feed the surgeon's secretary my unavailability dates.

I had a snooze in the chair after lunch, then went out and did the week's grocery shopping in the Coop, and had an early supper. I needed to be on my way to St Luke's by six thirty to celebrate the evening's Eucharist. I was there just before seven and thankfully I had my church keys with me, and could open up and start getting things ready for the service. I had prepared my sermon, but nothing else. It was to be a sung Eucharist, but I had no idea if the choir or organist had been recruited for the occasion.

Father Chris turned up so I asked him to read the Gospel, then a succession of lay people from Caerau, St Catherine's, Glanely as well as St Luke's. Father Jesse arrived. I asked him to read the Gospel, and then Archbishop Rowan. I asked him to give the chalice. When the service started we were altogether twenty two people. I had envisaged a third of that number turning up. It was rather special to have people from four of seven churches in the Ministry Area worshipping together at the same time. 

I decided when preparing to celebrate not to use nave or chancel altars. A handful of people in a space designed for two hundred is a quite a demoralising experience, so I arranged the service to happen in the Lady Chapel, which accommodates about fifteen. The fact that we were full to overflowing was a real blessing. We sang hymns, and some parts of the service unaccompanied, and it was a lovely experience, outside everyone's expectations. With such diminished numbers, we need different ways of celebrating together to uplift us. Somehow at the last minute it came together, with seven different people taking an active role. I felt exhilarated to be part of it.

Four of us went to the Victoria Park pub nearby afterwards to celebrate the Ascension socially, and chat for an hour before parting company. I walked home feeling grateful to have had the opportunity to take the lead on such a special feast day in the church's year. And so to bed.

Just in time - with Cardiff bus

Up and breakfasted in time to drive to St Peter's Fairwater to celebrate the Eucharist at ten fifteen with twenty two others. During the coffee morning after the service, Fr Colin the former Vicar came around to get some plants from the community garden, looking well and relaxed, enjoying his retirement. He'd come over from celebrating Mass at St Augustine's in Llanrumney. It's what we do, use retired clergy, fill in the gaps, when incumbent clerics are overloaded with demands.

I drove home again, to collect the empty veggie bag and then went to exchange it for a full one at the new veggie bag depot in the courtyard of Chapter Arts, as it used to be before covid. For the past three years the pickup place was in the front garden of a house in Eton Place, but the woman who hosted it there is now moving elsewhere, and Chapter has agreed to host the depot once more. Clare was already in the throes of cooking prawns with veggies and rice for lunch when I returned, nice and early, as I needed to go to 'The Res' in Ely to celebrate their midweek Mass at two fifteen.

I decided not to go by car, for fear of losing our street parking place. This often happens when there's a big event in town, as people driving in from elsewhere for major sporting events, tend to park away from the immediate city centre and hi-jack neighbourhood parking spaces and walk into town. Beyonce was starting her latest world concert tour in Cardiff this evening at the stadium. Clare feared our parking space might be nabbed, so I resolved to take to 18 bus up to Grand Avenue where the church is instead.

I walked to the nearest Cowbridge Road East bus stop for an eighteen bus and was there by just after one thirty. A succession of four westbound buses passed me, none of which was an eighteen, the only one to go the length of Grand Avenue, past the church. In town, because of the concert, there was traffic chaos, with people from all over Europe, let alone Britain arriving for the concert, and the buses having to make their ways through heavier than usual traffic.

Last in the procession of westbound buses, nearly twenty minutes after I reached to bus stop, came two number 18s, nose to tail! I had no clear idea of how long the journey would take so I found the email address of Carol, one of the steadfast long standing members of the congregation, and sent a message to warn her I might be delayed. We had an eccentric bus driver who sang silly songs and made lame jokes all the way there. It certainly cheered up an otherwise tense journey! Carol was looking out for me at the gate when I arrived. I actually ran a hundred yards from the bus stop down to the church, the first time I have been able to do that since I sprained my ankle last December, with no ill effect. By leg behaved itself surprisingly well today, and I arrived with couple of minutes to spare.

I joined the congregation of nine for coffee and a chat afterwards, and we had a great laugh together recalling the days of our young. Almost all were in their late seventies or eighties, and talked about the places they frequented in their youth in Cardiff. We talked about first experiences of foreign imported food, and a man and his wife told the story of how he turned up the collect his wife for their first date in a red London bus whose brakes he'd just serviced. He'd gone to collect her from home driving the bus to pick her up and take her to town. Unfortunately her parents weren't impressed, but there they were some sixty years later, anyway.

Back home on the 18 bus to Canton once more, realising on the way that I'd taken off my spec's in the sacristy and left them there. Carol will bring them to the Ascension Day Mass at St Luke's which I will be celebrating tomorrow night. Our Basque neighbour Miriam was on the bus. We walked home talking in a mixture of Spanish and English. She works in a special needs school with severely disable kids the other side of Ely Vale from 'The Res'. That was a nice surprise.

After arriving home, I did some shopping, then went for a walk around the park, getting back just in time for the Archers. Afterwards, I spent the evening writing a sermon for tomorrow evening. All in all, a busy but enjoyable day.

Things going right for once

After breakfast this morning, Clare's study group arrived, so I went out for a small amount of shopping, and then went for a walk until the group finished. We had an early lunch so I could drive over the the Heath hospital for a General Surgery appointment. The letter wasn't informative, so I presumed it would be to evaluate my need for gall bladder surgery.

At the reception desk, I found I wasn't on the list of people to be seen. The appointment for today was cancelled on 13th February. That was when Clare rang up to cancel an appointment made for me on a date March which arrived when I was still in Fuengirola. Another appointment letter for today's date arrived while I was away, but instead of adding me anew to their database my case was taken off unintentionally. The new letter revealed the mistake, so I was inserted into today's appointment list and n ot turned away. I only had to wait twenty minutes, and then called in to see one of the Consultant's deputies. While I waited I worked on next week's Morning Prayer text using my phone, and got two thirds of the job done, which I then don't have to do at home.

He asked me if I was in pain, and I explained that my dairy free diet had kept me trouble free since it was discovered that I had one big gallstone, rather than a collection of tiny bits which can leak out painfully one after another. It was the size of the stone that attracted his stone, and he said it was better to get it done sooner rather than later at my age, and take advantage from the fact that I'm still pretty fit and well.

He sent me off with a form in hand to the new pre-op assessment clinic where I filled in my part of the form, marked 'Urgent level 2', then interviewed by a nurse and given a full health 'MOT' as it's known. ECG, blood pressure, blood test etc. I'll need to have a cardiac fitness review to see if my small heart murmur is any better or worse than it was last time, before one of my bum surgery ops. I should hear in the next week or so. Then there'll be a wait time until there's a slot for keyhole surgery. How long that'll be we'll just have to see.

I was delighted at this burst of progress. I didn't expect to get priority treatment, but it's an easy win for the surgical team if I'm healthy and there's no inflammation or infection to deal with, so here's hoping.

I drove home, then took the bus, then took a 61 bus to Pentrebane for a bereavement visit. Fortunately I didn't have to wait long for a bus coming and going, so I was back by half past seven, but before Clare came in from her meditation group. I spent the rest of the evening after supper writing, recording and editing a reflection for next week's Morning Prayer. One way and another, a fruitful day.

More digital hassles

Another dull Monday morning, with house cleaning after breakfast. I had to do Clare's share as her wrist was hurting, a product of rheumatoid athritus. I contacted the family of the woman whose funeral I'll be doing this Friday, and heard from Archbishop Rowan that he'd be unable to take the Wednesday service at St Catherines, due to an urgent meeting called at short notice. I couldn't help as I'm at St Peter's for their midweek Communion and could only make a few suggestions. Then I cooked lunch.

My new Samsung Fitbit Versa 3 Smartwatch is proving more difficult to master than I anticipated. It's a mini computer on your wrist with sixteen options, very few of which I need or wanted, all of them are on by default and need checking and eliminating. A few steps in the installation routine I seem to have missed out on. If I'm resting, it switches from displaying the time to a watch screen reminder telling me to finish  a process to connect to a digital wallet applet which I have no interest in using as the only financial app I have on my phone is that of the Post Office Travel Money card. 

Once this notification is displayed I can't see the watch face. I wasted an hour finding out how dismiss it. The watch face isn't a normal touch screen and what I didn't know was how to control it and what it did. The instructions useless, though there is a user manual on-line. Being stubborn, I believe user friendliness means that controls are simple and self evident. User manuals tend to contain too much information in very small print written in poor English, so for me they are a last resort, as a matter of principle. Eventually, by fiddling about I found that a light queeze on the two edges of the watch face in between the straps restored the watch display. It may do other things as well, but that can wait for now.

Talk of controls being user friendly and self evident. When my sister's laptop was screeching loudly a virus warning message, my automatic reaction was to use the hardware function switch to switch it off. But, I forgot to switch it on again before leaving. In fact, it was a bit risky doing it in case the Chrome re-set process failed and the screeching resumed. Tim did the re-set the following evening and I didn't even think about the sound being switched off. No wonder my sister was disconcerted when she tried to play some music from YouTube. 

I didn't know which function key on her computer keyboard served as an on/off loudspeaker switch, and told her where to look, not realising that she didn't know that the top row of keys contains an assortment of hardware controlling function keys. The layout is different on different makes of keyboard too, so I had to tell her to try all of them in turn with some music playing and find out by trial and error which one would restore the sound. 

Meanwhile I googled images of Acer laptop keyboards, but they were too small to see clearly which key was which, so June took photos and emailed them to me. By the time I'd seen these, she'd found out which key switched the sound back on, and I able to confirm to her which was which from the pictures she sent. It was a rather convoluted and fraught process, but in the end we got there. It made me realise that she gets by using a computer for her purposes with very little technical vocabulary, or understanding of how it works. My knowledge and experience is rather subjective. I can get jobs done, but explaining what's what in simple language isn't something I'm good at. I might as well be speaking Esperanto to her.

After lunch I met Simon, an old friend from city centre ministry days at Cafe Castan. We sat outside and talked for an hour and a half before parting company. Then I needed to return to the house for a top coast as the cold wind still persisted, despite the sun breaking through the clouds. Then I walked around the fields for an hour, and took a few bird photos, a goosander couple and a really large male cormorant. There was a flock of about two dozen starlings foraging in the fields just above the river. It's lovely to watch them move as a group from time to time. I succeeded in getting one pleasing closeup.

After supper, we made bread again, for which I did the kneading. It's such a satisfying task to perform and the scent of baking bread throughout the house is heavenly, like coffee freshly made. Such a lovely domestic joy. Then I watched the first episode of a spy drama series about Kim Philby on ITVX called 'A Spy among Friends', an interesting Cold War period piece, exploring issues of loyalty and betrayal. And so to bed.

Cathedral broadcast tech'

Last night I set the alarm for seven, as I needed to be up and running extra early to get to St Catherine's to take the once a month eight o'clock Communion service. Normally there are five or six present but today there were only four of us. I went home for breakfast, then returned for the ten thirty service. As I was approaching the church Archbishop Rowan caught me up. He'd walked from St John's only to find that he had mistaken the start time and the Eucharist there was half over. He was rota'd to preach while Fr Rhys celebrated. 

Unfortunately the layout of the bi-monthly rota sheet isn't a model of clarity. I always need to double check before entering assignments into my diary, as I too have got confused and nearly missed services in times past. As I'd already presided at eight o'clock, I asked if he'd like to preside instead of me, then I would just read the Gospel and preach. I enjoyed ministering together with him, it was relaxing and less demanding than being responsible for everything. It's not so often clergy are in a position to do things together nowadays as the demand for services taken is greater than the clergy supply.

Home for lunch afterwards, and a snooze in the chair before walking up to Llandaff Cathedral for Choral Evensong. The singing was sublimely beautiful, and there was in the congregation a visiting group of clerics and parishioners from three different ministry areas of Margam Archdeaconry. I know few people in the west of the diocese, so didn't recognise anyone to chat with at the end apart from Fr Mark, now Vice Dean of the Cathedral, also known as the Precentor, our former Rector in Canton. We haven't seen each other since late last year. 

He told me proudly that his son, who one of the Cathedral's vergers, was responsible for the new CCTV system which is used to relay services on the internet and on an array of large video screens in the nave. All the cameras are remotely controlled from a mixing console to display who is praying or preaching, or even playing the organ at any time, a cut above the average CCTV security system. Because the video feed reaches the screens via the internet there's a tiny gap between the live sound you hear and the image you see, so lip-sync is a permanent problem that cannot be overcome with this system, but it's only noticeable if you look at a screen carefully. I'd prefer not to have the screens at all. It's hard to find a place to sit where none of them can be seen.

On my return, I put together a slide-show to go with the audio I recorded for Ascension Day, which is this Thursday, and uploaded it to YouTube after supper. Then I caught up on Friday's episode of 'Astrid - Murders in Paris' and the last two episodes of 'All the sins', in which a rather complex story over eighteen episodes was more or less happily resolved in the last half hour, with a video cum still slideshow set against a homily and a reading of 1 Corinthians 13, as the whole storyline involved the Finnish Laestadian Lutheran sect, dark secrets of sinning and being sinned against. It was rather confusing, as there were sub plots involving so many protagonists that it was hard to recall who was who. Ah well, at least there won't be a fourth series as no room was left for another. I hope.

It's not over until it's over

A slightly warmer pleasant day of clouds and sun. I woke up feeling that I still hadn't got to the bottom of what had caught the problem June had with her computer. We went for a walk for an hour around the park after breakfast and then cooked lunch. I rang to check if all was well, and learned that when June switched on her laptop, another Yahoo notification popped up. I thought I'd eliminated this possibility but had not been successful as I'd omitted to clear the browser cache containing a contaminated cookie.  I googled to find out if others had experienced the same issue, and discovered the Yahoo search engine is used to transmit an actual virus via Chrome hiding in a Yahoo search tab, not necessarily detected by the Windows Defender anti-virus system. Heaven knows why. I told her to switch off until I found a work-around solution.

The web provided instructions for removing this virus from Chrome, involving a reset of the browser removing all cookies and the full browsing record, then it re-starts as if from new after a few first use steps. If only I'd found this yesterday! I phoned June and told her this, realising it was too much to expect her to reset her Chrome browser, but maybe Tim from the Boys Club could oblige when he got in contact with her, but I had another idea. 

As guardian of her Gmail account I created a user with her details on my Chromebook. The browser will synchronise its settings across all devices with the same Gmail account. I could then perform a Chrome browser reset that would reproduce itself on her computer and leave her free of this pernicious vulnerability. In preparing, I discovered that switching between search engines in the top search window is effected by pressing the space bar before typing. Thursday morning she did ten searches and in just one had touched the space bar accidentally causing Yahoo to be used, with distressing consequences. Changing the internal setting from space bar to Tab key reduces the risk of this accident. So I did this as part of re-setting Chrome. All this I did after lunch and then told June she could switch on again. 

The synchronisation process worked but required completion as if from new on her laptop. Meanwhile, the virus laden cookie was still throwing up a notification. This was so disconcerting, she couldn't face completing the Chrome set up process, so I emailed Tim the director of the Boys' Club and explained all that I'd done in detail, and asked him to visit of finish the job in person. It was clear he didn't need to run any diagnostic tests if my instructions were correct. A few hours later, he made a brief visit, and in a few minutes the job I started was completed. And the nightmare was over.

Meanwhile, Clare and I went into town for a free drink and a piece of cake in John Lewis', as Clare has occasional free treats with her JLP loyalty card scheme. Then I bought  a Samsung Fitbit Versa 3 smart watch. Since the demise of my classic ancient Casio watch last week, and the strap breaking on my Huwaei step counter device whose display is hard to read without spec's I felt it was time to get something new to combine both functions with a decent readable display. It was eight times more expensive offering more features than I'd ever need, but could be configured to serve the purpose, so it doesn't attempt to run my life for me, and the fees from doing two funerals paid for it. It was fiddly to set up but I got what I wanted from it and nothing more, eventually. The package even includes a spare strap!

Before the Eurovision song contest we spent an enjoyable hour watching a 1980's Simon and Garfunkel life concert. It was so pleasant to the ear in contrast to the two hours that followed. The performances were brilliantly executed from a technical standpoint, but the use of such bright flashing coloured lights and strobe effects I found so distressing I couldn't watch for long, and listened to two thirds of it from the middle room while I finished my sermon for tomorrow. So many songs which sounded similar and derivative, little that was ear catching and original. I liked Spain's entry because it was original and so Andaluz in character.  I doubt it will win, as it wasn't catchy run of the mill pop ear candy. I wish we'd stayed listening to the second hour of Simon and Garfunkel;s concert. But then I may not have finished tomorrow's sermon. An early start in the morning.

Troubleshooting done

I woke up at the usual time under a grey sky, just before 'Thought for the Day', wondering how June's computer disruption had occurred. When I got up and switched it on again, I went back into Chrome's record of sites visited and found one search from yesterday was not via Google but using Yahoo's search engine. June doesn't know anything about Yahoo, so it must have been used accidentally. Google search engine is the default one, but there are four other options, of which Yahoo is one. 

I learned that she tends to use the top of page search bar rather than the default Google one in the middle of the new tab page. Somehow in making a query yesterday, she'd done so in the top search bar and had used Yahoo which has a reputation for being a bit dodgy and susceptible to 'bad actors'. Maybe this was how this alarm warning got through. Whether it was a fake warning to trick you into making an expensive call to the USA from a scam intrusion or a genuine operating system alert doesn't matter. Deleting optional search engines reduces the risk. And that's what I did.

With this sorted out after breakfast, I was able to do some shopping and post letters, then fix a few small phone issues on mobile and landline devices, and pop across to the Opus Dei Boys Club to have a team member there witness my signature on June's Power of Attorney document. 

My only failure of the day was to get June's mobile phone topped up. I went through the Tesco mobile account registration and payment process on the laptop, and despite pressing the £10 top-up button, the payment registering through the bank security protocol was £1. Tesco minimum top-up is £10, so the  payment was rejected as insufficient and I was unable to register her account. I called the IRC help line and was sent a SMS on the mobile phone where I repeated the procedure and got the same result. No further response to my reporting of a faulty web page. Tesco Mobile is in denial about it. I wonder how long it's been like that? I was unable to buy a paper top-up code as there's no local Tesco store within a mile's walk. That was a time wasting frustration.

June cooked me a very nice spicy chicken dish for lunch, and I set off for Victoria Coach station by bus, as there's a rail strike on today. I got a bus from the corner of the Common which took me as far as the Thames at Battersea Bridge, then I walked the last mile and a half to the bus station to get some exercise before traveling. 

I had an open ticket as I had no idea what time of day I'd be returning and had to queue twenty minutes to swap my open return for a booked ticket. I could have done it quicker on my phone but it was too much of a fiddle, and I couldn't print it out, or display it digitally without having another app installed on my phone. I had an hour and a half to wait for a five thirty coach, as I couldn't get a ticket quick enough for the four o'clock, but never mind. Traffic congestion was worse than usual due to the train strike. It took an hour and fifteen minutes to get from the coach station to the A40 traffic queue en route to the M4. The first forty minutes were taken up crawling 1.3 miles down to the Thames Embankment. Thanks to the rail strike.

I dozed for a short while, then read Soldados de Salamina all the way home, finishing as we passed Cardiff Castle. We arrived at ten fifteen, three quarters of an hour later than the outward journey time. Time passed quickly reading in Spanish and making sense of it as I went along with as few dictionary look-ups as was necessary. It was an interesting book about an investigation into a story partially told by others, about people during the Spanish Civil war, and one of its forgotten key ideologues. An epilogue about interviewing an elderly veteran, was in many ways was the most powerful part of a book that dwelt on the question of how different people remember and tell stories about significant events. It's something which stories compiled in the New Testament have a lot to tell us about.

Digital emergency

Awake and posting this week' Morning Prayer link at the usual time before breakfast. Then a walk to St John's to celebrate the Eucharist with four others, then back for an early lunch to enable us to drive across town for hairdressing appointments with Chris.

As we were about to leave I had a phone call from my sister June in distress because her computer was emitting a loud warning noise and Microsoft 'messages' were flashing full screen, saying that her internet access had been blocked due to malicious software, and were uncontrollable, and she should call  a Microsoft helpline on a US number.

  

What to do? It sounded suspicious to me, as I don't believe any outside agent can do such blocking. The best thing to do, I thought was switch off the router first and put the laptop into suspend mode by closing the lid.

As there was nobody around to help her I decided to travel up to London once I'd taken Clare home. The earliest train was. 18.45, but fortunately there was a coach at 18.00. i walked to Sophia  gardens in good time to buy a ticket, and although the trip was slower, I arrived at Wexford Lodge at ten. The erratic front door catch release didn't work so June had to come downstairs and let me in. After a drink and a snack, I got to work. 

The noisy flashing screen persisted. Pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del took me out of the desktop window into the menu which features Task Manager so I could see what processes were running. Once the two main active ones were stopped, a return to the desktop without the scary nags was possible. As ever there was a string of updates to let run and a virus scan to run. No infections found. Peace of mind  panic over. But what had happened? Very late by then. Time for bed.

No late banking

Sunshine and clouds all day today, but still cold of this time of year. I walked to St Catherine's to celebrate the Eucharist with six others, one of whom was a young mother with a small child. It was, I think, her first visit, having just moved into the area. Clive welcomed her, but she slipped away quietly and didn't join us for coffee after the service. We chatted until midday, then I returned home for lunch.

Afterwards, I did the main grocery shopping trip to the Co-op, then went into town to bank a couple of fee cheques and half the cash from exchanging euros after my locum trip. I wanted to put money into our joint account with Santander, but found it closed at three, whereas HSBC stays open until four thirty, so I was able to deposit the lot in my expenses account. For the first time I had to use the cash deposit machine, so I asked one of staff to show me how. It was much easier than I thought, so if I need to deposit cash another time, I'll know how. 

Cheques are more of a problem. Often fee cheques are different sizes and the cheque deposit machines don't work so well. In fact on this occasion none were working, so the cheques had to be deposited manually by a staff member. It's not the first time this has happened. Either there are problems with keeping the machines well maintained, or they're waiting to upgrade them and can't be bothered to pay for machines that soon will be permanently out of use. It's strange to end up once again being served by a bank clerk after old fashioned counter service was done away with five years ago here in Cardiff.

On returning home I sat in the garden with Clare in the sunshine, drank tea and ate a chocolate croissant from the Alex Gooch bakery. An interesting confection, though not as good as their Chelsea buns or the fruit bread. When I was taking photos with my Olympus camera in the garden I noticed the battery was nearly out of charge. When it gets low, the voltage output drops just enough to affect the colour display on the viewfinder, making the sky look orange, and small patches of shadow blue. I think the battery is reasonably good. I can't remember when I recharged it last, but this will give me a reminder when next I have to recharge it, which will give me some idea of whether or not it needs replacing. It's about nine years old, after all. I'd like to replace it with a newer second hand Olympus OMD E-M10 model if I could, Mark II or III if possible as I like the way it  works, and it takes good photos.

I had another long phone conversation with Ashley until just before supper, and afterwards recorded and edited the Ascension Day Morning Prayer and Reflection. Just as well I wasn't in a hurry as my laptop had a succession of updates to perform which took longer than the four minutes Microsoft promised, with several restarts. Then, another couple of episodes of Finnish crimmie 'All the Sins' before bed.

Timing error

Cloudy again today, but at least it was mild with no rain. I walked for an hour in Llandaff Fields before cooking lunch a little earlier than usual. I had to leave for St John's by one thirty to take a funeral, and had time to call into Tesco's and buy this week's Foodbank contribution to leave at church. I arrived at church before the caretaker and organist, and several of the funeral attendants were waiting to be let in, and the first members of the congregation were gathering. 

Fortunately I had my keys on me to let everyone in. Eileen the caretaker who is usually there well ahead of time didn't arrive until ten minutes before. She was troubled to discover she'd been given the wrong start time, likewise Monica the organist, who arrived after we'd sung the first hymn unaccompanied, had the scripture readings and a eulogy admirably delivered by the four children of the deceased. It seems they were given the time for the Committal, not the church service. If only one of them had contacted me to confirm the details, as I was the one who'd received written confirmation from the funeral directors. It was an occasion to muddle through and improvise a little, and thankfully it was well received by family and congregation members.

I was driven to the crem by a young lady in her mid twenties, who looked much younger in her formal funereal attire. She told me she'd done a degree in forensic science and worked as a police crime scene investigator for three years before joining Coles' Funeral Directors last year. She declared how delighted she was to be working with people in many varied ways, rather than scientifically gathering data for evidence day in day out. I meet some interesting people in this kind of ministry, ex-cops and soldiers, retired civil servants, business executives, even an ex-EasyJet pilot once. The twenty minute drive to and from Thornhill can lead to some enjoyable conversations and story telling.

I'd left my glasses case in church and asked my driver to drop me off near St John's so I could retrieve it. On the way back, I spotted Clare walking in the the newly opened Alex Gooch Artisan Bakery, so we had a coffee together there after buying bread, and walked home together.

After supper, Clare wanted to watch a movie on TV, I prepared the texts for next week's Morning Prayer recording, wrote a Reflection on the mystery of the Ascension and had a long phone conversation with Ashley, discussing what might have caused my older shaver to become un-chargeable. Next time we meet, he'll take it away for a hands on electrical diagnosis, to see if it's repairable.

Holiday in view

An overcast damp bank holiday Monday, but there's still housework to be done to ruin a lazy morning. We thought of going out to breakfast, but arriving in a café in damp rain gear is a strong disincentive for me, so it was porridge and toast as usual to start the day. Much to my surprise, while checking for a pack of hair ties in a wash kitbag I thought I'd emptied, I found the shaver charger I thought I'd left in Fuengirola. I connected it to the old shaver, its charging light light flashed a few times, the same behaviour as when I connected it via the USB cable I bought, but it wouldn't re-charge. Just as well I bought a replacement shaver last week.

We were out of coffee, so a visit to the Co-op was a vital necessity after the cleaning was done. I couldn't help noticing when buying a few items that the price of coffee and Fairtrade chocolate has risen by thirty percent in recent months.

After lunch I needed a sleep in the chair before reading through a confidential document I'd received. Then I went out for a walk with Clare in the park. After she turned for home, I walked for another three quarters of an hour, but fine drizzle turned into rain and my legs were quite wet by the time I got home. I was wearing the pair of trousers I bought last week, made of some new lightweight material which dries quickly. I have older pairs made of the same fabric. They are meant to be for summer wear, but are good for outdoor walking all year round except in the coldest weather as they're windproof.

This evening I found and started watching the third set of episodes of a Finnish crimmie called 'All the sins'. The first two sets were interesting in portraying crimes in a rural community where a revivalist Laestidinian Lutheran sect hold influence. This set of episodes continues the storyline of the first two.

Last week I made enquiries about staying for the inside of a week at the Trigonos centre in the Nantlle valley on the western flank of Snowdon, where we've stayed many times before. We were hoping for full board but that didn't work out so Clare started looking elsewhere, and came up with a place in Burry Port, on the west coast of Carmarthenshire with the Gower peninsula on the eastern horizon. We've been there once before, on the way to somewhere else or to home. I can't remember. 

My father may have lived there as a small child before moving to Taff's well, as his father was working in the area with a team of mineshaft diggers developing a coal mine. Burry Port was a busy industrial town with a railhead to the port for shipping coal out of the Gwendraith Valley. The old port is now a leisure marina, and the village itself gentrified, but its mining history started in the sixteenth an ended in the twentieth century. Its story reminds me of the port cum holiday resort of Garrucha on the Costa Almeria, whose industrial archaeology was of interest to me on locum duty in Mojácar seven years ago. I look forward to exploring the area!

Memorable weekend

A slightly warmer day today with clouds giving way to sunshine as the day went on. It was good to hear positive feedback about the marvellous range of traditional and new music composed for the Coronation on this morning's 'Sunday' religious affairs programme. I also learned that for the first time since the reformation a Papal Legate attended the service as well as the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster who played a small part in the ceremonial along with other faith leaders. It was a gesture of mutual goodwill after centuries of antipathy persecution and antipathy. 

It seems that church and other faith leaders all stayed at St James' Palace the night before, so it wasn't just the Chief Rabbi who was able to walk together to the Abbey beforehand. Ecumenical and inter-faith encounter and engagement has been part of my life in ministry from the start, and it's wonderful to have witnessed such a marvellous and gracious transformation of relationships between religious believers of every kind over the years.

I went early to St German's as I'd been asked to hear someone's confession before the service, and had to sit in the car saying Morning Prayer from my phone before the doors were unlocked. There were twenty nine of us in church. Afterwards there was a Coronation cake to share with glasses of Prosecco to wash it down with. The cake was decorated with a large coloured medallion of the King made of icing sugar. It's amazing what can be produced that's safe to eat these days.

I drove straight to Conway Road to meet with Owain and Clare who were waiting for me in the pub of the same name for lunch. It wasn't a great meal from my point of view. Yorkshire pudding that was tough and leathery and roast spuds that were drying out, but the huge piece of chicken fortunately was perfectly cooked. Afterwards I drove Owain to the station for his train back to Bristol, then slept for the nearly two hours before going for a walk in the park. 

Swimming in the pool below Blackweir bridge was a Mallard mother duck with four chicks with only the remnants of the yellow down feathers, they had on hatching, so they're probably a week old already, if not more.  There were two herons as well, a younger one perched at the bottom of the overflow channel of the weir and an older one on the bank two hundred yards downstream.

After supper we watched the Coronation Concert from the grounds of Windsor Castle. It was an action packed variety of entertainment, reflecting the King's love of creative arts and culture. His son William, now Prince of Wales gave a lovely tribute, honouring his father's achievements over the past sixty years. The twenty thousand strong crowd was enthusiastic about every every performance. It was a brilliantly executed production from start to finish, with an amazing light show throughout, projected on Windsor and enhanced by a fleet of LED drones programmed to paint the night sky with the shapes of animals and flowers. There were similar light shows in cities around the country, all different but demonstrating how effective the use of programmable drones can be. There must have been thousands of them in use at the same time around the country, showing how far such technology has evolved in the past decade of Cloud computing. And a good time was had by all.

Crowning glory

It was completely overcast and raining when I woke up at half past seven, in good time to hear 'Thought for the Day' with the Archbishop of Canterbury on this most auspicious occasion for the United Kingdom. Rain destined to sweep across the whole of southern Britain and make this a damp if not wet Coronation Day, just as it was on 6th June 1953, when Queen Elizabeth was crowned. 

We didn't have telly. but were able to listen to the service on the radio, with the sonorous voice of ex war correspondent Richard Dimbleby narrating the event from Westminster Abbey. Amazing to think that his broadcaster son David, now 84 years old, is a friend of King Charles. It's such a blessing to be alive to watch the day's events unfold from the comfort of my own home seventy years on. 

We had to wait several weeks to watch a black and white film of the Coronation at Ystrad Mynach cinema back in 1953. I was just eight years old. In school in the weeks beforehand, we were taught about the regalia used in the ceremony. I don't recall learning much about the ceremony or how to understand it when the school went out to see the film, but it did make an impression on me, of great seriousness and sacredness surrounding this state church ritual. Come to think of it, that was my introduction to the special terms used by church sacristans to describe sacred objects. I wasn't introduced to serving at the altar and extending my sacristy vocabulary for another ten years, when I was a student in Bristol. 

Clare cooked waffles for breakfast. Then we switched on the telly and saw the arrival of heads of state and some celebrity guests at Westminster Abbey, though by ten o'clock the majority of the 2000 guests were already in place. The radio commentary had mentioned the arrival of Archbishop Rowan to take his place in the congregation at around half past eight - such a long wait! Around a quarter to eleven the King and Queen left Buckingham Palace for the Abbey accompanied by the Foot Guards of the Royal Household Division and the service started on time at eleven and finished at one. 

It was rich with beautiful liturgical music. Bryn Terfel sang a Kyrie Eleison in Welsh with the choir. Later a Greek Orthodox choir sang a Psalm in Greek. There was a Latin Gloria in Excelsis, an Alleluia sung by an African choir, and a plainsong Veni Creator Spiritus with verses in English, Welsh, Scots Gaelic and Irish. The Coronation ritual was largely unchanged, except for some inclusive texts which made clear the King's intention to be the defender of all faith communities, and the servant of all the nation's people. The anointing rite was shielded from view for privacy behind beautifully decorated cloth screens one of which bore an image of the Tree of Life. A lovely creative touch. 

Archbishop Justin's homily was concise and remarkable as it was clearly addressed to the whole nation and not just that congregation of church people. For him a rare if not unique occasion to speak of the meaning of the King's ministry to the country. Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and Buddhist faith leaders took part in presenting him with symbols of office during the Coronation rite, and at the end of the service they greeted him on his way out with their own declaration of loyalty. A significant and worthwhile innovation. The whole occasion was deeply thought through and superbly executed, as was the 5000 strong military parade that followed. The whole event made a statement about what British identity means in the twenty first century. It sets the tone for life together in this new Carolingian era. There are many aspects of life under today's government which make me feel ashamed, but today's celebration makes me proud to be British in equal measure. Just about.

Although there had been rain early on, it slackened to a drizzle then stopped. By the time we had a snack lunch it dry enough to go for a walk in the park while waiting for Owain to come over and spend the night with us. We ate supper together and whiled away the evening chatting and watching telly.

Coronation Eve

A day of clouds and rain, sometimes just a drizzle and others a fierce downpour. After breakfast I worked on my sermon for Coronation Sunday and responded to an email about the Q3 service rota from Mother Frances after entering dates I can do into my diary. I shared lunch cooking with Clare as I had chicken which I curried, and she had a fish to fry. Afterwards I chatted on the phone with my sister for over an hour, then went to Tesco Metro to get re-stock our supply of plant based milks ready for the weekend. Then I went for a walk around the park accompanied by occasional showers, and called in the Coop on my way home to get some things I'd been unable to carry earlier.

After supper there was a programme on BBC1 about the formation of a special 300 strong Coronation Choir to sing at the Coronation concert on Sunday evening. Select singing groups drawn from a variety of community voluntary service groups have been rehearsed separately from all over Britain and brought to Windsor Castle for a single rehearsal prior to the big event. One group taking part is Cardiff's Oasis choir made of refugees from 25 countries. They were filmed being interviewed when rehearsing in St German's during Lent. It's an inspired project with some great amateur singers, and an event that really celebrates unity in diversity through singing together. 

Tonight, even the punishing outcome of English local elections for the Tories is being overshadowed on news media by reports about the build-up to tomorrow's Coronation. Interviews with people camping out on the processional route or with some sort of role contributing to the event.

There was one detail which particularly touched me, a report that arrangements have been made for the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Murvis, to stay close to Westminster Abbey and walk to the service, as it's being held on the Sabbath. An Orthodox Jew wouldn't use transport but can walk up to three quarters of a mile for pleasure on the Sabbath. It's a measure of respect for his religious tradition and high public office that security provisions have been made to enable him to do this. Other guests have to arrive by car or bus with their security escort! It's an expression of what it means to the King to be 'defender of faiths'.  As head of the Church of England he's defender of Christian faith dutifully protecting the freedom of everyone to follow their own faith in pursuit of the common good. To act exclusively about our beliefs is a sign of insecurity and weakness, ultimately a manifestation of a lack of faith.

Tonight's episode of  'Astrid - Murders in Paris' was about the assassination of a hi-tech entrepreneur, an innovator in developing artificial intelligence making use of a human avatar modelled on the attributes of a particular woman whose death had been unexplained and untimely. The complexity of the plot isn't as important as the notion that sophistication in the humanoid interface to a computer was so realistic it was hard to tell it wasn't a real person conversing with an enquirer through a video screen. This was used for deception and incitement to murder. The rapid acceleration of AI capability in recent months is now provoking concern about its controllability, and what happens if it fall into the hands of 'bad actors', the latest piece of jargon for criminals, villains, baddies etc. 

This storyline was written about the time the pandemic started, filmed and broadcasted early after lock-down. It wasn't quite science fiction at the time. Meanwhile we've seen the rise of fake news and 'false flag' operations in the Russian war over Ukraine, so fiction and reality are already meeting each other in unfolding events. AI computing is very energy intensive and has a big carbon footprint, but will this new wonder tool be an asset or a liability in the battle to save humankind from the catastrophic effects of global warming? I can't say I'm optimistic.