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.