A beautiful sunny morning, but I slept through until after eight before posting the link for today's Morning Prayer. After breakfast I called the dental surgery and was lucky to get the last appointment for tomorrow at ten to nine for a preliminary assessment of the repair needed for my broken tooth. Then I went to St John's for the Eucharist. There were eight of us present. After coffee I went to shop for Foodbank groceries in nearby Tesco's and then returned them to church, thanks to my set of keys. I wasn't out of the house early enough to visit Tesco's on my way to church.
Clare cooked two large chunks of coley for lunch, and we had beetroot tops (leaves and stems) fried with garlic plus mangetout peas and spuds to accompany the fish - the tops are as delicious as spinach but a bit sweeter I think. Afterwards I visited the City Council's' Waste Management website, to book a visit to their Bessemer Close re-cycling centre, and was lucky enough to obtain one for two o'clock today. This was to dispose of the Kenwood Chef. Its motor isn't burned out, but the gears that drive the dough hook are badly worn, so that it doesn't knead correctly with a bowl full of bread dough. It could be repaired and find a new life in some other household. Anyway, it means I've taken to kneading dough recently, a pleasurable activity. Clare's arthritic wrists hurt too much to allow her to do this. It's too painful for her to wield the garlic press at the moment. I wish we could find a remedy for this other than the usual anti-inflammatories and analgaesics.
I left the house just after half past one for the journey to the recycling centre in the Leckwith Industrial estate. The traffic build up started a quarter of a mile from home, and extended for a mile across four road junctions, due to a lane closure outside Lidl's in Leckwith. A ten minute journey took twenty five, but I arrived dead on time fortunately.
My errand at the re-cycling centre didn't take long, except for some confusion about how to enter the site. It's in Bessemer Close, at the far end of Bessemer Road. There's a one way system, so you enter via Bessemer Road, and exit from Bessemer Close. Bessemer Close has a street sign, but it's no entry to the recycling centre named after it. You have to drive a quarter of a mile to the Bessemer Road entrance to get in. There are several large municipal signs pointing to the way to the centre from Hadfield Road, the main thoroughfare. Fair enough, but the very fact of it being named after Bessemer Close, when for other reasons a Bessemer Close street sign is needed is a recipe for confusion for first time users or forgetful people who don't go there often! Not everyone relies on satnav devices to get them to their destination!
On the way there, while queuing on the road outside Ninian Park railway station, I noticed a cul-de-sac to the right whose name rang a bell. It was in the address of the man whose son died suddenly at home back in March. The funeral is next week. I'd tried ringing him to make contact and arrange a visit, or at least a chat before the funeral, but to no avail. On the way home, I drove into the cu-de-sac and knocked on his door, but got no answer. The front garden had run wild, neglected paintwork looked as if it hadn't been touched since the last century, but there were signs the house was occupied, with bereavement cards displayed in the bay window. It's possible the occupant, who must be in his eighties, is being looked after somewhere else at the moment. I hope so anyway.
I had an exchange of emails with Fr Stewart about summer duties in Roath Ministry Area, and he's taken all I had to offer. He still has no prospect of an additional colleague, and is struggling on, waiting for his knee replacement job. It's now three months since he had his knee replacement pre-op assessment, and has no idea when he'll be called. Like me.
When I returned home, Clare and I went out for a walk around Pontcanna Fields. In the northernmost corner where there are two football pitches, bounded by a paddock belonging to the riding school, there had been a party. It's the most secluded part the open area along the side of the Taff. Thanks to Clare having a spare bag with her, I collected three glass bottle, plus a mix of twenty three plastic bottles and cider cans discarded in the area, plus an empty industrial standard 660 gram nitrous oxide gas bottle, equipped with a nozzle for filling balloons with the intoxicant. Who on earth is supplying stuff like this to young people partying outdoors in the evening? Twenty five quid's worth of cider is one thin, but how much for that gas cylinder? It seems that getting high socially is what some people live for nowadays, quite apart from full time addicts. How sad to be so divorced from the reality of life's richest experiences.
We had supper after we returned from our walk, then I recorded and edited the audio for next week's Morning prayer, and headed to bed early, to be sure I can be out of the house at half past eight tomorrow for my dentist's appointment.
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