Recovering

I woke up late after an unpleasant night of fitful sleep. Gradually during the morning the flood of mucus abated along with the coughing, although it is painful to cough as every muscle in my rib cage is stressed and painfully stiff. I spent much of the day resting or sleeping, lacking in energy to go out or do anything else. Still no headache, sore throat, shivers or high temperature, so I'm convinced it was allergic reaction to something in the air or something I've eaten that I reacted to slowly to begin with. Bread, particularly the shop bought wheat kind frequently gives me a slightly runny nose, though not home baked bread for which we use a mixed variety of grains. 

Instinctively, I've steered clear of bread and just eaten fruit since yesterday, and this seems to have helped. It could be a cocktail of things unknown, in the air or in food, amplify the body's reaction. I wonder too, if the series of covid jabs boosted my immune system as designed, but to the extent that I get an over strong  immune response in defence to anything that's invasive. I may never know, but if reducing or eliminating manufactured bread makes a difference that's not hard to do. Home baked bread is best, and therapeutic to make. There's a bowl of mixed flour set aside for the next batch of loaves. I've not been able to work with it this past few days for reasons of hygiene. Tomorrow if I have the energy, I may be well enough to do so.

After supper I started watching a new series on iPlayer called 'Wolf' from the BBC Wales Cardiff studios, a nasty crime thriller about a home invasion in a rural Monmouthshire mansion. It's too slowly paced for maximum melodramatic effect, inviting you to use the fast forward button. The storyline also has a police procedural interlocking with it involving a disappearance and a cold case, which sustains interest more than the horror scenes in a posh house somewhere in the vicinity of Monmouth, but where isn't revealed.

Streaming, but not of the digital kind

A wet and overcast day until late afternoon. I slept even worse than the previous night with coughing and a very runny nose has gone from niggling to nightmare during the week. When I went print off my sermon before getting ready for bed, I discovered that I'd only half finished editing it. Earlier in the week I learned that the Old Testament lesson I was working on was incorrect and had to switch to the alternative one and graft it into the drafted sermon. What happened then I not sure. I may have accidentally deleted work I'd done on my laptop and not copied it to a Cloud drive. Easy enough to do with a work in progress if you're interrupted in full flow. Anyway, I had an extra half hour's work to do before printing off and turning in, so it too me a while to get into sleep mode, even though I was tired. So I've been tired all day as a result.

The progress of cold like symptoms is similar to when I was in Fuengirola back in March at a three hour open air dinner party. It didn't catch a cold but had an allergic reaction to something in the air which took me a couple of weeks to get through. I was glad not to have a service earlier than eleven o'clock today, as I had time to get myself completely functional before driving over to St German's. There were thirty three of us. Pretty good considering it's holiday time and a very wet morning.

Afterwards I chatted over coffee with an Iraqi woman applying for settled status with her daughter. She told me the rise of Da'esh in her homeland had driven the family to other countries. As her husband was wanting to force marriage on a fifteen year old, they left him and eventually came to Britain. They've been here five years, waiting to be granted settled status. There's no going back to islamic countries in the Middle East for them as they left without the husband's permission, and is wanted for this 'crime'. 

Finding out that St German's is the church nearest where she lives has proved a great blessing for her, as she's been warmly welcomed into the community. Today she brought a tray of savoury goodies to share over coffee, resembling spring rolls but with meat and cheese fillings. She was raised a muslim but as a questioning teenager twenty five years ago began surreptitiously to visit Christian churches in Iraq and learn about the Gospel, a very risky thing for her to do, but she fell in love with Jesus and his teachings and learned to pray the Jesus Prayer. 

She's loving the freedom she experiences here in Britain and being able to join with others in worship gives her a joy which shines out of her. Once they both have settled status she'll feel free to be baptized. If her asylum request was refused it would end in deportation to Iraq with possibly fatal consequences if she was known to be a Christian convert. For now, she is waiting patiently and in hope.

It was half past one again by the time I got home for lunch, coughing and exhausted. Siesta was out of the question as Mark came by at three to talk about wedding ceremonies. He and Fran are starting to make plans, and they want me to be involved somehow. The conversation has started!

Late afternoon the rain stopped, but I didn't have enough energy to go out for a walk. It's quite rare for me not to make the effort, but with the coughing and my nose running constantly, I felt the need to rest. Also my right ankle has been giving me trouble all day, and I didn't fancy limping around the park. After supper I watched a double episode of 'Silent Witness' I'd not seen before, and then went to bed.

Three pairs in a day

Up late for a pancake breakfast after another broken night's sleep. I spent the morning building an archive of the biblical Reflections I've posted on the WhatsApp Morning Prayer thread over the past two and a half years. I deleted many of them from my Google drive, to save space so it was a matter of downloading the entire thread and going through thousands of entires to delete everything else that wasn't one of my contributions. It took me over two hours to save a file with 2020-2021 entries. The rest will have to wait for the moment.

Clare cooked an excellent stir fry with mussels and rice for lunch. After we had our siesta we went out for a walk. It was cloudy with occasions glimpses of sun and gusts of wind. Still nothing like summer weather in the forecast for the net month, meanwhile southern Europe continues to swelter, though for the moment the incidence of wildfires is slowly diminishing. After one circuit of Llandaff Fields Clare returned home, but I continued walking for another hour and a half.

I was buzzed by low flying martins circling in an area where they were finding insects. There were swifts and swallows over the Taff, and a noticed a pair of egrets standing on the water's edge of the east bank just below Blackweir Bridge. Then two herons flew down-river, turning away to circle low together for a short while before splitting up and disappearing from sight. I also saw a pair of red admiral butterflies circling each other in their mating dance. Of the three pairs I only got a long distance photo of the egrets, but it was great to see, making a change from gulls, magpies, pidgeons and crows which predominate. 

When I got home, I had a large slice of the apple pie which Clare made yesterday. Just delicious. Half an hour later we had supper, then I settled down with the Chromebook to watch the last four episodes of 'Top Dog' before printing my sermon for tomorrow and turning in for the night

Milestone MOT

Up for breakfast at eight o'clock on a day of clouds and sunshine. When I was saying morning prayer later, I realised I'd made a mistake in selecting the lesson for next week's Morning Prayer video. Today's New Testament reading was what I thought was the one for next Thursday. As a result the reflection I'd written for the occasion was incorrect, so I reverted to the text for that day, amended it, then set about writing a different reflection. I can re-record the lesson and reflection, edit the sound recording and change the accompanying video slide show to suit. Fortunately, I keep handy backups of every recent project, there's no need to re-record the whole thing. When all the changes are made the new version can be uploaded to YouTube. That'll teach me to be more careful next time.

Clare went out for coffee with Diana mid-morning and I cooked lunch in time for her return. We couldn't eat and I had to got to the surgery for another blood pressure check. On this occasion it was deemed to be normal so I was 'discharged' i.e. don't need another.  Hopefully this information will percolate back to the hospital waiting list database containing my pre-op information, though I doubt it will make any difference to the amount of queuing time, already five years. From the surgery, I walked to Cowbridge Road to take a bus into town. As I reached the stop a C1 cross-city bus arrived, which took me to West Grove in Adamsdown, leaving me with just fifteen minutes walking to reach the N G Motors garage to collect the car, freshly serviced and MOT'd for another year, and still with only 50,000 miles on the clock instead of an average mileage of 200,000 miles for a car sixteen years old. I think we've only driven about 8,000 miles since we bought it. I called at Lidl's for some groceries before driving home.

I was listening to Radio Three on the way back, and just as I arrive home Beethoven's Ninth symphony was about to play, so after eating the lunch I cooked earlier, I sat and listened to it for an hour. Ashley rang after it finished. It's a month since we last talked. We chatted for half an hour, then I went out for another walk before supper.

I did the necessary work to amend next Thursday's prayer video after supper and post a new version to YouTube. It took me an hour. Then I watched this week's episode of 'Disturbing Disappearances' on More Four, about the abandonment of a new-born child and disappearance of its teenage mother. It was unconventional, both a police procedural and a family drama at the same time, touching both bases successfully, hitting the feelgood factor in its happy ending.

Advocating family meals

A mild cloudy day with no rain. I woke up at eight, posted the link on WhatsApp for Morning Prayer and then got up for breakfast. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Murvis spoke on Thought for the Day about the month of Av, fifth month of the year in the Jewish calendar. It's a month of sad memories when the destruction of the First and Second Temples is commemorated, also the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290 and from Spain in 1492. 

He went on to describe how the Babylonian exile led to the Temple being replaced by synagogues as community gathering places for worship and festive banquets, with the family meal table replacing the Temple altar as the place to offer the sacrifice of praise and feasting. Out of the catastrophe of exile a new way of celebrating Jewish identity emerged. He lamented the reduction of time spent eating together, and advocated making the effort to sustain the family with table talk, discussion, argument and even disagreement as essential for learning to live together in love despite differences. A very neat three minutes worth of thought provoking discourse.

I had a quiet morning, praying and thinking, then went for a walk before cooking lunch. Again I fell asleep for an hour after lunch. It seems that I need the extra hour if my night's sleep is disturbed as it often is. At least it means my afternoon walk in the park is a bit more energetic. I picked up a new empty plastic bag from the long grass beside the road on Western Avenue. In the course of the next hour I filled it with rubbish collected in my circuit of Pontcanna Fields and binned it. If my objective is to walk ten kilometres a day, my aim is to leave the park a little cleaner and tidier than I found it.

After supper I whiled away the evening watching episodes of Swedish crime drama 'Top Dog' on Walter Presents. It's about rivalries underhanded affairs in a big law firm with high value clients, and lawyers consorting with criminals. It makes a change from police procedural storylines.

The demise of cash

I was up early this morning driving the car to Splott by nine o'clock for its fifty thousand mile service and MOT. I walked back to the edge of the city centre and took the C1 bus which traverses the city from east to west, passing through Canton. I walked the rest of the way home, to collect the veggie bag and some foodbank items left with us to take to church, then called into the Coop to withdraw some cash from their ATM and buy more food bank items to take to St Catherine's. There were eleven of us for the Eucharist. 

It's the first time for months since I last had real currency in my wallet. I needed it on this occasion to pay Hilary for veggies from the churchyard garden bought from her last week. Tap and pay transactions are now common place wherever you are, it's rare to find a place where cash only is necessary. I don't know how Big Issue sellers and street beggars cope with this sea-change in the commercial economy. Gradually bank branches are closing and the number of ATMs is shrinking. Since the pandemic, we've been driven into on-line banking and the abandonment of cash, far too quickly to my mind. Admittedly is more secure than it used to be, but it hasn't prevented the rise of on-line bank fraud and scams, and the impact on older people who are not technologically literate is disturbing.

After the service I went to Chapter to collect this week's veggie bag, and cooked a meal for myself when I returned home. It began to rain while I was catching up on lost sleep after lunch. Then I went to the Coop under an umbrella to get this week's groceries, using a rucksack instead of the trolley, as Clare needed it to get another batch of organic groceries from Beanfreaks. The rain wasn't too heavy so I didn't get soaked. It continued until late in the evening, so I had no incentive to go out again.

The Fountain Choir had a meal together this evening and Clare went out to join the group, leaving me to my own devices. I couldn't find anything I was interested in watching so ended up reading 'La Sombra del Viento' until it was time for bed.

Transport questions

Sunshine today, warm, but nowhere near as hot as parts of Southern Europe. It's even hotter in Andalusia now than it was when I was in Estepona this time last year. Wild fires in Greece, Sicily and Spain. I don't understand how any government can fail to accelerate their programmes of de-carbonisation and other measures to defend against global heating. How much more tragic does the impact of destabilized weather systems have to be to concentrate minds? No amount of protest or appeal to reason or love of nature seems to make enough of a difference. Unlike last year, Britain is spared for the moment from a dangerously long heat wave, the future weather pattern is uncertain. The UK government drags its feet on abandoning reliance on fossil fuels instead of speeding up. Sleepwalking into danger.

Radical change will be painful for us all one way or another, but necessary. Like others, I can't afford to buy an electric car. The VW Polo is likely to be the last car I own. Fifty thousand miles on the clock after twenty years, a fifth of the presumed average mileage for a car of its age, so a relatively small carbon footprint. The manufacture of any new electric car entails a large initial carbon footprint, even if energy consumption thereafter is very low. In old age, I'm a low mileage car user. It's only a matter of time before I give up driving and rely entirely not just partly on public transport. The car is due for MOT and re-taxing in September. Should I continue with it or not? Could we manage with taxis locally if needed? These are questions we need to mull over and to be fair, soon if we decide to sell.

Clare's study group came for their meeting mid-morning. I sat in the front room and started work on next Sunday's sermon, then cooked lunch after the group departed. I went to Cafe Castan afterwards and meet with surgeon Andrew for a chat. It's the first time for us to meet since my cataract surgery last year. Then I drove the car to Splott for its MOT and 50k servicing. When I arrived, I found the garage had closed early. Although I'd arranged to take it to N G Motors for them to work on ad lib for the rest of the working week, I didn't check before I departed if it was OK to deliver it at half past four. Serves me right. I'll have to take it back in the morning. So much for my carbon footprint!

A walk through the park down to the river when I returned from Splott. Clare had left for her meditation group and I ate supper on my own listening to 'The Archers'. After browsing unsuccessfully for something new to watch, I ended up with a couple more quirky episodes of 'Anneke', and then bed.

Scandi gris?

After breakfast this morning the four of us walked into town to visit M&S so Owain could change a pack of oversized shorts he'd bought, then to John Lewis' for a drink and a bite to eat. I bought a Owain a wireless keyboard as his Windows laptop wouldn't work with the Apple Bluetooth keyboard he uses with his Mac, despite updating the laptop's drivers. It's a nice piece of kit and I may buy one for myself to save space on my workstation desk, and retire my USB cabled full sized keyboard, to get rid of the trailing wire on my desktop.

We returned home by bus, then  Kath and Owain took their leave of us. Kath drove Owain to Bristol on her way back to Kenilworth. After a siesta we did our weekly housekeeping chores. Then, an hour's walk in the park before I cooked pasta with a butter bean and veggie sugo for supper.

Kath recommended a new police procedural series called 'Anneke' on BBC iPlayer, so I spent the evening watching several episodes.  It's set in the beguiling scenic coastal waters of West Scotland, and the key protagonist is the eponymous detective from a Norwegian family. There are lots of references to Norse mythology plus stories in her intimate stand-up musings to camera, rather than done as voice overs. It works in a quirky sort of way, thanks to the engaging performance of Nicola Walker. 

The plots, one per episode, are plausible enough as investigations, but are somewhat lightened by her soliloquies rather than darkened by over-dramatization as is often the case in story-lines of this type.  Not Nordic noir, more like Scandi gris. As ever these days, beautifully photographed scenery plays a starring role. More entertaining than observational of the ways of the modern world, so far that is. Interesting to highlight the Scandinavian cultural influence on coastal Scotland. A relaxing evening's viewing after a weekend busy with visitors.

Treasured early years memories

Thankfully the rain clouds were moving eastwards overnight, and by the time I got up at seven thirty a drier day seemed possible. I ate breakfast in haste before Kath, Adrian and Kate came down to join Clare. By twenty to nine I was on my way to Caerphilly to celebrate the Eucharist at St Catherine's, and arrived just after nine. It's forty years since I last visited the church and wondered if I'd recognise its exact location as the old 1905 building was demolished and rebuilt in 2000. 

It's situated in the middle of a long road of Victorian terraced houses, so fortunately its red brick exterior stands out and looks new and was easy to find. The church entrance and adjacent hall are now in a side street and there's space for half a dozen cars to park outside. The whole building is almost square with a rectangular worship area that has the altar on the longer east side wall. It's quite simple, with icons and an image of our Lady in the south corner. 

There were thirteen of us, all past retirement age. The usual congregation is around twenty, but with the school holidays just starting, and some parishioners on pilgrimage to Walsingham, numbers were reduced. It was the same at St Andrew's with twelve in the congregation, of whom four were under retirement age. In both churches a couple of people remembered when I served my first curacy there, all others of that generation have long since died. 

I enquired after Mary, a young mum in my day with a little daughter called Amanda, and was told that she died fifteen years ago, but Amanda I learned, was ordained to the priesthood in Llandaff Cathedral a month ago. That was amazingly good news. Over its sixty years of existence as a mission church on a former miners' council housing estate, St Andrew's has produced half a dozen ordinands, a remarkable record.

Clare and I with baby Kath were the first family to live in St Andrew's Church House at the other end of the plot of land on which the church stands. It was newly built during my diaconal year. Sadly, It's been sold recently, as there are no longer enough clergy to warrant holding on to the asset. Very much a sign of the times. The plot of land around the church has been developed as a colourful garden with shrubs and flowers, with a modestly sized tree outside. So different to how it looked when we lived here over fifty ago. 

The interior of the church has been renovated with the stage area converted into a meeting room, new toilets and a refurbished kitchen, and glass entrance doors. It all looks lovingly cared for. Being there awakened memories of a different era in my life's journey, when the threat of declining support for the church was no more than a shadow and much effort went into community outreach and pastoral care. As I began in ministry the numbers of men training for ministry (men only in those days) was starting to drop. Church attendance was already diminishing gradually, and the rate of decline increased decade upon decade, and no new initiative seemed able to change the trend. 

For those of us who studied social change, we could see this happening from early on in our lives of ministerial service, but soon realised we were helpless to do anything about it. It was never a reason to give up, but rather to try and understand what God calls us to be and to do in different ways, and recognise that we're no in charge of the number of faithful people. It's God who gives the increase as and when we're ready. And not on our terms. As long as there are people to minister to, no matter how few, there's work to be done.

By the time I'd chatted with people after the service, drank a coffee and driven home, it was half past one. Kath was just driving out of the street as I arrived, going to fetch Owain from the station. We had a light lunch and then went out to walk for a couple of hours. Clare cooked us fish pie for supper, and afterwards we sat around and chatted. Jasmine emailed over sixty photos of her European road trip with her dad after she left us. We looked at them, and at Kath's photos of their Norwegian coastal cruise. A lovely family evening together, with lots to share. 

When Kath arrived yesterday she told us of her latest news - two Arts Council grants for performance projects she's working on currently. It's amazing to see how her creative and organisational skills come together. Being at St Andrew's today brought back memories of returning from hospital with her, a few days old to the church house we'd just moved into. None of this we can remember as we were only there eighteen months before moving to Birmingham. The first of a dozen moves and different experiences in our family life.

Non stop rainy day

When I woke up in the middle of the night it was raining, and it continued to rain until mid afternoon. It was nearly nine when Clare woke me up and said breakfast was on the table. She'd already cooked Saturday pancakes, Adrian and Kate were up and ready to eat, so I had to dress in haste and arrive at table still half awake. Nine hours in bed but my sleep tracker recorded that I was only asleep for seven and a half, which is enough, but how I wish I could enjoy unbroken sleep for longer. It's a rarity nowadays, and I do suffer if I get less than six and a half hours. Perhaps it's one of those 'old age' things.

Mid-morning, Adrian and Kate went into town after a briefing on what to visit, and how to enjoy shopping and browsing in Cardiff's delightful century old arcades. We stayed at home, and pottered about until lunchtime, waiting for Kath to arrive for a couple of nights. Owain arrives tomorrow, then we can have a belated 45th birthday celebration. He's been too busy with weekend gigs to come over and spent his actual birthday down in Cornwall, camping with friends.

Kath arrived at half past two and we had a late lunch together. Then I ventured out into the rain and walked for a couple of hours. The rain didn't stop at three, the forecast changed and although it wasn't heavy it persisted until well into the evening. My brolly and rain jacket prented me from getting soaked through, but I couldn't dind my rain trousers, so my bottom half got soaked and I had to change when I got back. Adrian and Kate has arrived before me, having enjoyed a day exploring the city centre arcades, the Bay and the Senedd building, despite the awful weather.

Clare made a lovely supper for the five of us and we talked about our different small countries, about getting through covid, music and arts, and even the state of the church in decline. And so to bed.

Visitors

After breakfast I working on the video slideshows for the next two weeks' morning prayer. Then I went over to have a chat with Diana. Clare called to say she bumped into Martin when out shopping and invited him for lunch. When I arrived home he'd just arrived. It was good to have him with us home and chat over lunch. It's been so long since we did that we've changed front door since and he didn't recognise the house.

After he left, I relaxed in the chair before resuming work, but not for long, as Adrian and Kate arrived from Pembroke, where they'd been holidaying with family.  We're their last port of call before returning home to New Zealand. After they'd installed themselves we walked up to Llandaff Cathedral and back down the Taff.

Clare had returned ahead of us to cook a curry for supper, and it  was ready to eat when we returned. It was just a matter of laying the table and enjoying the meal. Afterwards we sat and chatted until they were ready for early bed. I stayed up later to finish work on the prayer videos and upload them. Then I watched most of this week's episode of 'Disturbing Disappearances' on More Four catch up before turning. In for the night.

Slow Mass?

Cooler and cloudy for much of the day, more like early Spring than Summer. I didn't sleep all that well,  woke up at seven, posted the YouTube link for Morning Prayer on WhatsApp, listened to the news and then got up for breakfast. The morning sped by, writing another reflection, editing my Sunday sermon, a visit to the Coop to shop for groceries, then I cooked lunch, and predictably slept for an hour in the chair before going out for a walk in the park and along the Taff.

When I was out in Pontcanna Fields, a phrase entered my head from nowhere. 'The Mass in slow motion'. It seemed familiar but I had no idea why it should. I googled it on my phone, and found it was the title of a book written by Monsegneur Ronnie Knox in 1948. He was a renowned classical scholar, first ordained as an Anglican priest, then converting to Roman Catholicism, a prolific publisher and broadcaster. 

The book is a commentary on each part in the Tridentine Latin Mass, written for schoolgirls, so they'd be able to pray the liturgy with understanding before Vatican Two. I recall hearing of it when I frequented the University chaplaincy church in Bristol, though I don't think I read it. 

Even so, the idea of celebrating the liturgy very slowly and meditatively struck me as something worth exploring. We're so habituated to our routine services, half hour said or hour and ten minute sung, that it would be good to explore a more meditative approach to liturgical worship. 

After supper I gave over the rest of the evening to recording and editing the Morning Prayer audio and reflection for the next couple of weeks, as I had the texts prepared. With family visitors this weekend I'll have lots of better things to do, but it's good to get well ahead and avoid the pressure of the to-do list.

From fact to fiction

After breakfast I walked to St Catherine's to celebrate the Eucharist with six others. After coffee and a chat I collected this week's veggie bag from Chapter then returned home and cooked lunch. I sat down to check the news and fell asleep for an hour, much my surprise, as I wasn't feeling tired. Sleep is a gift, and there's no need to turn it down unless you have to, I suppose. 

I walked in the park for an hour and a half and then spent the rest of the afternoon and the evening after supper watching the remaining episodes of 'The Marnow Murders'. It was even more complex than I had thought, as the revenge story-line hinged around cross-border drug trials between East and West Germany, and cover-up of evidence of fatalities due to illegal experimental treatments in the years running up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. 

For anyone watching who was born since then and wasn't German or  a student of modern German history, this plot would be difficult to follow. Having visited East Germany just a few weeks before the fall of the  Wall and acquainted with the context, it was just about possible to follow the plot, although I wasn't sure if it was plausible. Whether or not such cross border medical collaboration with drugs developed in the West being tested in the East ever happened, I didn't know, so when it was finished I googled the subject and immediately came up with an answer. The German newspaper 'der Spiegel' published an investigation in 2016 into the use of medical patients in East Germany as guinea pids for testing West German produced experimental drugs. So this piece of crime fiction has a basis in historical reality. A surprise discovery.

I was pleased to find how much of the dialogue I could understand. I've not had much opportunity to use the German I learned in school in the thirty years since I needed to brush it up for the Halesowen - Leipzig parish twinning link. The fact that the dialogue reflected the accent of north eastern coastal region was helpful, as it's clear and feels familiar, making it easier to follow. Anyway, it was a good watch as crime mysteries go. And that's enough binge watching or listening for me, for now.   

Banksy's tale

Clare went to her study group after breakfast. An email arrived from Ruth with the Morning Prayer texts for the next two weeks, so I downloaded them, prepared them for recording, and then wrote one of the biblical reflections to accompany them before cooking lunch. 

I listened to the second episode of The Banksy Story on Radio Four after we'd eaten. It was announced that the ten episode series was also available as a podcast on BBC Sounds. I listened to episode one, then continued with episodes three to ten through the rest of the afternoon finishing just before supper, at home and out walking, all on my phone. It was interesting, insightful and laced with humour. The secretive artist has mounted a savagely prophetic critique of capitalism and the high value art commodity business. In the most original and quirky way he has changing the way art itself is understood in the contemporary world. His personal story is hidden away behind his creative output and its messages, but it's a story which is not yet over, and nobody knows what is coming next from him.

In the evening I continued watching episodes of German crimmie 'The Marnow Murders', which I started on last night. It seems to have elements of the spy movie about it, because of the presence of former Stasi agents living in re-unified Germany, but the plot is still unfolding with lots of twists and turns.

Call to Caerphilly

A sunny start to the working week with a few showers. Housework after breakfast, then I cooked lunch. A message from Emma in Caerphilly to ask if I could cover a couple of services for her this coming Sunday, as the person who was covering for her was no longer able to. It happens to be the only Sunday that's still free in my diary until October, a fortunate co-incidence. I couldn't possibly refuse an opportunity to return to the parish where I served my first curacy after ordination. I've returned just a couple of times in the past forty four years. The first service on Sunday is at St Catherine's Caerphilly at nine thirty and the second is at St Andrew's Penyrheol, where my public ministry started in 1969. I wonder if any parishioners in either church will remember my time there, or anyone there I'll remember for that matter.

After a long catch-up chat with Emma, I cooked lunch and then worked to complete this week's Morning Prayer video and upload it to YouTube, which took longer than usual today. I had a Windows update to run and that took longer than promised too, so I ran an internet speed test and it's a tenth of what it usually is in the middle room downstairs. In the front room opposite the router, it's back to normal speed. In the back room it's slower than usual but not very slow. Something's up somewhere. It may be that though the wi-fi extenders work better since Rob modified the settings, they don't work perfectly switching from one to the other as more up to date kit would. Once you're used to high speed internet you soon notice the difference. At least I can sort out the issue easily without serious disruption.

At tea time I want and walked in the park for an hour and a half, then after supper started thinking about a next Sunday's sermon. The Gospel parable about wheat and tares gave me a few ideas, so I spent a couple of hours writing a first draft. I recall that last time I preached in Caerphilly I was working with USPG, and that was when I first started to speak about the environment in sermons, in the light of the 1987 report of the World Commission and Environment and Development, called 'Our Common Future'. I'm still at it, thirty six years later. But did anybody ever listen?

Vivaldi re-imagined

I thought my night's sleep was rather disturbed, but I slept for seven and a half hours out of the nine that I was in bed. It was half past eight when I surfaced, thankful I didn't have to rush to get to an early service. A leisurely drive across town to St German's for the eleven o'clock Mass with a congregation of three dozen and a full team of servers young and old, working beautifully together and four singers too. 

There was a young man in the congregation who's been attending as part of his wedding preparation. We chatted over coffee, and he told me he was a maxilio-facial surgeon. He lives in St Mellon's but had already driven to the hospital in Merthyr Tydfil earlier this morning, to oversee an operation under anaesthetic on a small child, before coming to church. It's his weekend to be consultant on call apparently. He told me that he was a cricketer and was often out playing on Llandaff Fields in an evening match. I wonder if we'll see each other when I'm out walking one of these days?

Traffic was slow on the home run so it took twenty minutes rather than fifteen. With the Tafwyl Welsh pop and folk festival on this weekend, there would be more cars coming into town. Lunch was ready to eat when I arrived, salmon and veg as usual on a Sunday followed by seasonal ripe black cherries and grapes. 

Afterwards Clare went off to town to catch the last hour of Tafwyl performances, while I slept deeply in the chair for more than an hour. Before I went for a walk I inspected the kidney bean plants in the garden and picked a five more which had grown long and big enough to eat since yesterday With all the rain this week the plants have yielded a fresh crop of this amount day after day, so we have lots more in the fridge to eat, and Clare has already frozen three quarters of a pound of them for later. Our very own five a day!  

I walked in the park for a couple of hours enjoying the sun, then returned in time for supper with Clare. We watched this evening's BBC Promenade concert, featuring a new interpretation of Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons' devised by Finnish violinist/conductor Pekka Kuusisto. He led the orchestra playing the violin  and duetted with a Swedish virtuoso cittern player Ale Carr, improvising using folk melodies in interludes between movements. In some sections they were joined by the lead 'cellist and violinist. It was amazing how well integrated these improvisations were, and how they added to the interpretation of the whole concerto in terms of folk dance energies and rhythms. The Bremen Chamber Philharmonic orchestra that played with such vital energy and cohesion worked perfectly with the soloists in what was effectively an experimental interpretation of Vivaldi's score. A wonderful innovation. Amazing music.

Network reconfigured

A day of sunshine and spasmodic downpours. Pancakes for breakfast, then at ten neighbour Rob came to collect a juicer which Clare bought some years ago, but didn't use much, so it was just taking up space in the cupboard, so she offered it to Rob after having a chat about it. He works as a database engineer on cloud based information systems, mostly from home. He's long been an early new tech' adopter, as I once was. He regards engineering home based networks of devices including 'internet of things' domestic cameras and sensors as one of his hobbies. He loves the challenge I think! 

Some time back he told me it was possible to reconfigure my powerline internet wi-fi devices to attach to the internet by cloning the router's unique details on each one. When each one has a different identity on the network, moving around the house with a phone or tablet is very glitchy, depending on signal strength and speed of response of the device in changing attachment from one wi-fi extender to another. If each one has the same identity as the router, it's possible to move around without the phone or table making a fuss about it and going slow. It's the equivalent of having a master key to move between locked rooms. I could understand this, but when I tried to reconfigure one of my wi-fi plugs, I failed. It was more complex than I could deal with correctly - or you could say I ran out of patience with the process. 

Anyway, I asked Rob if he could do me a favour and reconfigure the plugs for me. He willingly accepted the challenge, and did the job on each of the plugs from my office workstation. It was a first time success. Now we have seamless no fuss wi-fi everywhere in the house. Later in the day I baked a batch of bread and Clare took him a thank-you loaf.

I continued working on tomorrow's sermon before and after lunch. It took longer than usual as tomorrow's readings didn't easily yield insights to work on, and when they did, they needed shaping into an interesting and coherent text to deliver. If I give this enough time, it's satisfying and worthwhile.

Late afternoon I walked to Lidl's in Leckwith for a few grocery items I couldn't get elsewhere, and got soaked in a sudden downpour on my way there. Fortunately it was warm enough for me to dry out on the return leg. There wasn't much to watch on TV so I spent the evening responding to an email needing much thought and attention. And then, after printing tomorrow's sermon, bed.

Wet Friday

Rain all morning, so I started work on next week's Morning Prayer and Reflection, then cooked lunch. Weather warnings about high winds have been issued but our side of Cardiff hasn't been affected. Once the rain stopped I went out and did the week's grocery shopping at the Coop.

While Clare went to shop at Beanfreaks I recorded and edited the texts prepared earlier while the house was completely quiet. Job done, I walked around Llandaff Fields and down to Blackweir Bridge. For the first time in many months the river Taff flowed across the complete width of the weir, just. A lot of rain must have has fallen at night this last couple of days. Two cormorants were fishing for eels in troubled water just below the weir.

After supper, I worked on Sunday's sermon for an hour, then watched the first episode in a new French crimmie series on More Four entitled 'Disturbing Disappearances' about a specialist missing persons team. It was set in Strasbourg, and as it was the second film I've watched in French lately, my ear was attuned to the dialogue and I enjoyed following with not much need for the subtitles. I wish there were more things in Spanish that I could watch, as I would benefit from improving my Spanish aural comprehension to the same level as French. 

Homebound

Awake on our last morning in Oxwich to a cooler cloudy day, but no rain. After breakfast, we packed out bags loaded the car and checked out. After a short walk on the beach we were on the road by ten thirty, and home by twelve thirty, with all the domestic post-holiday tasks to do. Fortunately it didn't rain, and by mid afternoon a load of washing was blowing dry in the wind.

Clare had booked a consultation with a homeopath living in Thornhill at five, so we had another half hour journey in the car to reach there and find the place. Near to the housing area where the consultant lives is a large open green space with a couple of football pitches, and an expanse of woodland which runs all the way up to the M4 motorway. I parked there and walked for an hour around the woodland and the pitches for my daily exercise quota, then collected Clare for the return journey. She cooked us a comforting lentil dish with veggies for supper.

I was too tired to do much after three hours of the day spent driving, so I spent the evening binge watching 'Spiral of Lies', the latest French crimmie to appear on Walter presents. An interesting story of unforeseen tragic consequences arising from a falsified cover-up story given by a victim who escapes a serial killer, and cannot escape further consequences sixteen years later. A moral fable, sort of 

Third time lucky

Good to wake up and see blue sky and sea outside our hotel window. A few brief showers, and the same strong wind from the west, but basically a warm fine day, good for walking. After breakfast we followed a walking path across the dunes to the far end of the nature reserve, a path mostly parallel to the road before turning down to the shore. Interesting to encounter a couple of men with large butterfly nets out in the open heathland. They were probably checking on insect populations in this part of a special ecosystem. 

Having walked more than usual yesterday we found walking hard going today. I wore my hiking boots but found they hurt my feet with an extra insole, so I had to stop and remove them half way along the beach as we returned. It gave me an excuse to stop at the beach cafe for a cup of coffee and a banana. Unusually the cafe sold fresh fruit among its snacks and fast food. I needed to rest when I returned to our room, paying the price for yesterday's extra mileage. Old age taking its retribution on me!

As the tide was in, Clare was determined to make another effort to go for a swim, so we went down to the shore, and this time at the second attempt she was successful. As well as banks of pebbles washed in by the tide, the sand of the foreshore is littered with smaller ones which are uncomfortable to tread on when barefooted, and not visible when wading out to swimming depth, so finding the least pebble strewn spot to enter the water is necessary, and this involved us moving further up the beach, hoping the breeze didn't spring up again. In the end she waded out painlessly, swam for five minutes and was satisfied.

I uploaded the day's photos after returning to our room. We listened to the news before going down for an early supper. Clare had the three bean chilli and rice, which turned out again to be mostly chick peas. I had roast chicken with spuds and peas in a wine and mushroom sauce. Clare ordered a chocolate mousse for pudding, but had to wait a long time for it to be served, as the dining room had filled up after us and there were half a dozen tables waiting for their main course, so it was eight o'clock when we asked for our bill on the way out. As there's been a school field trip party working from the hotel to be fed and watered this past few days, the staff must have been run off their feet with a restaurant to run as well. It's good to know they get used for educational groups, as well as being a wedding party venue. It helps maintain the hotel as a viable business concern way out into a rural area.

No evening stroll tonight, needing to rest my complaining ankle before returning home tomorrow. More reading of 'La Sombra del Viento' to finish the holiday.

At the hide

Up at eight thirty under an overcast sky for a full cooked breakfast in the hotel dining room. Already there was a group of youngsters on the beach preparing for a canoeing lesson in the shallow waters of the bay with the tide right out. It was eleven by the time we emerged to walk along the beach to the far end of the nature reserve. 

When we were last here at the end of November last year, the bridge across the river nearest the beach had been lifted off its foundations by a tidal storm surge and deposited several metres upstream. It no longer bridges the water, but has ended up along the river bank. Whether taken there by another storm surge or moved there by human intervention it's impossible to determine. Its large metal frame and decking is still intact, and must weight a ton or more.

A hundred metres upstream is a second bridge which has been there for some years, though we never had cause to use it as it takes you back inland at the bottom of a steep hill which is home to Nicholaston woods with its own separate walking trail. Now it's the only way to cross the river dry shod, and then you have to double back along the river bank on the other side to reach the dunes along the shore. 

A brief reconnaissance of the path revealed a constructed water channel runs alongside it, parallel to the river which winds it way through the wetland into the lake above it. I'm intrigued to know what purpose the channel once served. I suppose it could have fed a water mill somewhere along the shore beneath the woods. The water from the channel now drains out into another patch of wetland behind a large area of dunes, rich with its own flora and fauna. What a superb natural environment this is! Always something new to discover, and understand.

There's new Wales Coast Path branded signage on the main walking route across the nature reserve since we were here last. It serves dedicated walkers well, as do the enclosures of protected areas with new stiles and gates, making it easy for those who like to wander and inspect the astonishing variety of plants. Again I traversed the reserve and headed for the hide by the pond. It was quiet and I only saw a moorhen, and a couple of martins  skimming the water to take a drink.

On the way back to the hotel, I called into the village shop and drank a coffee from a china mug, sitting at at table for a change, rather than having a takeaway in a paper cup.  Clare called me and said she wanted to go for a swim, so I joined her on the beach, but as soon as she undressed and entered the water it began to rain, and there was no shelter for me or her, so extracting ourselves without getting soaked through was a bit challenging. I needed a sleep when we got back to our room, and showers continued on and off until mid afternoon when the clouds parted and the sun came out.

We walked together up to the hide. Swifts and swallows were active after the rain, even flying in and out of the hide through its open windows. In the roof space are a couple of nests and recent droppings suggest they have been occupied this year but are not currently in use. A couple of moorhens were in and out of the water, and at one moment we saw a small raptor rise up from an island of reeds and hover for a while before dropping like a stone. I heard the sound of a splash which may have been coincidental. It wasn't a big bird of prey. Googling brought up the possibility that it was a Merlin and that it could have spotted a large dragonfly. I observed one over the water earlier, about twenty metres away, and the bird would have been closer to it than I and with much better eyesight. I got a photo of it hovering, but it's not in sharp focus and no colouration is visible against the bright sky. A small moment of excitement anyway.

We sat outside the village shop and had a drink on our way back to the hotel then had supper at six. I ate three bean chilli again tonight, except that it wasn't three bean. It was made with chickpeas instead, and was hotter than what I ate last night. I didn't complain. It may have been a chef's mistake, and it certainly wasn't a culinary catastrophe. Clare had a huge dish of fish and chips which she struggled to get through. Afterwards we went for a walk up to the church and then back along the beach at low tide, with another group of youngsters having a canoeing lesson off-shore, at eight in the evening. No more rain, but still lots of cloud on the move. More changeable weather tomorrow I suspect.

Footsore after walking over eight miles today, an end to the day uploading photos and reading.

Down to the Gower again

Up, and finishing bag packing for our stay in Oxwich Bay before breakfast. It still took us a while to get going however, and it was gone eleven by the time we left under leaden skies. It rained most of the way to the Gower with fleeting respite and glimpses of sun. We arrived before one but were able to check in and take our room early. We have a sea view across the bay. The tide was in and just started receding, so we went and sat on the slipway visible from our room, and picnicked on sandwiches and coffee, watching a family of sand martins (possibly?) hunting for flying insects on the shoreline, their swooping flight pattern made jagged by snatching their prey out of the air above them. Amazing to watch but hard to photograph.

Before going for a walk along the beach, Clare was bold enough to don a bikini under her clothes hoping to swim, but a cold wind picked up. Although she stripped off and went into the sea, she only went shin deep, then turned around and came straight back. I didn't have a top coat on and started to feel chilled by the strong breeze. I headed into the dunes and found a path across a wooded area covered with young oak trees past the grazing wild horses, ending at the road and the the entrance to the big pond with the bird-watching hide. The only bird I saw was a swift. No ducks, moorhens, coots or swans visible, and few bird sounds from the thickets of reed.

After a cup of tea in our room, I went out again, walking up to St Illtud's church and along a short stretch of the coast path, up to where it starts to climb, then back to the centre of the village before returning to the hotel restaurant for supper - a substantial three bean chili and rice for me, salmon for Clare and plenty of veg all around A meal that cost forty pounds last winter costs fifty now, and I bet the hotel struggles to make ends meet despite its popularity with walkers, school groups and wedding parties. They certainly make an effort to maintain standards.

Hope of an evening stroll after supper was cut short by rain, but not before I saw a pied wagtail standing on a rock calling out to another bird. Then on another rock six feet away, I saw a smaller bird, about the size and shape of a sparrow, but didn't look like one. When it chirped it sounded like a wagtail, and then I noticed it had a couple of black and white tail feathers, which it wagged as it moved. That was when I realised it was the wagtail's offspring, just learned to fly properly, but not yet developed its distinctive plumage. That was a first ever for me to notice.

Then it was back to our room, time to upload photos and read more of 'La Sombra del Viento' before turning in for the night.

Participants not consumers

Two services this Morning. I left for St Peter's at ten past nine, and found myself in an unexpected queue of traffic at the Penhill lights, which were out of action. replaced by temporary ones. There were queues in each direction, and changes in lights seemed much longer than usual. Across the junction were a couple of police vehicles and a car, whose back end was mounted on the pavement and wheels were sticking out into the carriageway. It was hard to imagine how it ended up like that but was clearly out of control before it stopped. This scenario robbed me of five minutes, but I arrived in time, deprived of a leisurely start.

There were forty six communicants, over fifty adults and twenty children altogether in church, a lively and healthy parish congregation. I hastened to St Luke's after the service, and again had to park four hundred yards from the church, arriving just in time at five to eleven. Thankfully, I only had to preach, as Fr Rhys was celebrating. The organist was away and we were only thirteen in church. 

Ministry Area congregations are still reacting to the unexpected announcement of Mthr Frances' departure, and St Luke's people are worried about how to face an uncertain future with decisions awaiting about a future that would involve a permanent church sharing arrangement. Without a regular parish priest of their own, numbers have dwindled to an unsustainable. Having even a small group of clergy taking services on rotation hasn't worked for them, few people are willing to volunteer to take on new tasks. The absence of a church warden to represent the interests of the congregation has undermined confidence. Abolition of this elected role under reforms and restructuring initiated by the previous Bishop has been catastrophic.

In two weeks time Bishop Mary is visiting St Luke's for Sunday Mass, and remaining members will have an opportunity to be heard, and understood. What is missed most it seems is the lack of pastoral care and continuity, apart from emergencies, as clergy are too busy managing the Ministry Area and maintaining communication with the congregations (mostly digital) from which some older people feel excluded in any case. We've had a lesson in not trusting Cloud communications this week, with the routine newsletter for Canton churches unable to be issued to a failure in the accessing Microsoft Sway on-line publication account, whose product is regularly issued on a Thursday or Friday. There's no printed equivalent. Several hours preparatory work for delivery down the drain. 

It's difficult to get by these days without use of social media of one kind or another, as we've become so dependent upon them, but how much good is it doing us as a society or as church? Just saying - this week's notices are available on-line or been sent to your email address - is not much good if you don't get around to picking it up and reading it in your own time. Reading out the notice at the end of a service is a direct and social connection to church affairs while you're still in the group to which the information is relevant. It may stimulate a response and action, which can get lost if a churchgoer is distracted by other mundane matters after church. In a church congregation we're still participants, not consumers, but this truth seems to have escaped those who have fostered strategy so dependent on digital media, in which you can get away with messaging and not talking to each other.

Anyway, it so happens that I have a free Sunday when Bishop Mary visits, so I have volunteered to take the service at St Catherine's in order to free Fr Rhys to go from St John's to St Luke's for the whole service instead of arriving late from St Catherine's. It's a long time since I took a Sunday service there, and there's no need for me to show up at St Luke's. As a retired cleric and pensioner I'm a beneficiary of the Church in Wales, and have no say in how it's run. Sooner or later I'll get to meet the new Bishop, but there's no urgency to do so.

After listening to people over coffee when the service was over, I got home at the same time as I would when driving home from St German's. After lunch it rained. Fran came around and joined with Clare in an on-line study session. There was nothing for me to do but wait until the sun broke through again, so I dozed in the chair for about two hours before going out for a walk.

I can still handle preaching twice and taking a couple of services in a morning if needs be, but I'm noticing these days how tired I am afterwards. I need to rest before doing anything else. Another sign of ageing no doubt, along with not being able to work under pressure, and feeling stressed by tight deadlines. I'm fine as long as I have time to prepare, time to deliver, and time to enjoy what I'm doing, so that life feels worthwhile.

I listened to 'The Archers' while I was out walking, and ate supper on my own when I got back as Clare had eaten earlier. Then a quiet evening reflecting and reading, then finally packing a case for our Oxwich Bay holiday trip tomorrow before turning in for the night.

Quiet Saturday

We breakfasted late. Clare was up first cooking waffles. Afterwards she and Owain went to town on their different errands before Owain headed back to Bristol. 

I stayed at home, printing off tomorrow's sermon, recording and editing the Morning Prayer audio and Reflection for next Thursday, before Clare came home for lunch. I finished the job, making and uploading the video slide show to YouTube afterwards. Having moved very little all morning, I needed a long walk in the park to compensate before cooking a supper of lentils and veg with brown rice. 

Again, there was nothing of interest on telly this evening so I spent a couple of hours again reading 'La Sombra del Viento' before turning in for the night, sixty odd pages.

Country diversion en route to Ogmore

A hot day today with the temperature in the mid twenties. After a slow start, we drove to Ogmore by Sea on the A48. When we reached St Hilary we found the road was closed due to a serious car crash for longer than usual, and we were diverted on to narrow country lanes through small hamlets, past a few churches I took services in ten years ago in the early years of my retirement. Progress was very slow due to a lack of passing places and the number of bigger saloons and SUVs taking up two thirds of the carriageway. That added twenty minutes to a journey which took us down Cowbridge High Street, to get back on the A48 as the Cowbridge by-pass was also closed. Luckily I knew my way across this stretch of countryside, as both Clare and Owain were disoriented, and unable to navigate using a phone as there was no signal. 

At Ogmore beach, the heath land over the foreshore was parked with scores of cars and camper vans in a piecemeal assortment of rough metalled parking areas linked by access roads and hemmed in by boulders to limit the extent to which visitors could park off-road. The pay and display parking was a shock to the system. £1.10 an hour, for short stay visits, and then £6.10 for anything over an hour, pay and display. A beach about half a mile long, to the east of the Ogwr river outflow is under active lifeguard surveillance, as there are dangerous rip tide currents in the vicinity, so swimmers and paddle boarders are shepherded away from the area. Owain and Clare went for a paddle while I took a few photos, including a couple with a smartphone for two women with eastern European accents, sunning themselves on the shore. 

The beach is served by an ice cream van and a fast food van and nothing more. The public toilets are in a disgusting unmaintained state. Even so there were hundreds of people on the beach and on the foreshore above, enjoying the sun. It's the sort of place you take a picnic unless you have a camper van. There are no trees, no shade unless you bring your own. In bad weather it's windswept and desolate, but on a day like today with the tide going out, the expanse of golden sand against a blue sky compensates for the stark and unwelcoming impression. Unless you're going to swim surf or paddle board in safe areas, or walk along the Heritage Coast, there'd be little reason to stay longer than an hour, but an extra five quid to park for longer than an hour is hardly justifiable when the toilets are so awful, and there are no changing facilities or showers available. Installation is currently in progress of an automatic number plate recognition camera to enforce drivers to pay and display. I wonder how long that will survive vandalism?

We stayed a couple of hours, then drove back up the river valley for a cup of tea at The Pelican pub, near the riverside ruins of Ogmore Castle before heading for home on the M4, rather than the A48. We called into Lidl's in Leckwith for groceries, to ensure we had enough for supper, as Owain is staying on an extra night. He's taken a week's holiday for respite after a stressful few months. It seems like the solicitors have completed all the conveyancing work, and his purchase of the apartment should be done by the end of this month. Then there'll be more stress for him as he prepares to move in while still working, but he's looking forward to having the security of a place of his own again. The past six months of returning to be a lodger hasn't been the best of experiences for him. 

Clare cooked mackerel and sea bass for supper. Owain then went out to see friends after many months of being too busy, and catching up with them, and I took my prescription renewal form to post through the door of the GP surgery, then walked around the park. There was nothing on telly I wanted to watch, and spent the rest of the evening with Rafon's 'Sombra del Viento'. It's language is rich with a range of unfamiliar words that need looking up or guessing from context, but the conversations and description of characters are wryly comic. It's a challenge, but an enjoyable read.

Worcester and back

Clouds and sunshine again today. Good conditions for a long trip. I posted today's Morning Prayer link to WhatsApp, then got up for breakfast. Then a drive to Worcester to collect Clare's clavichord from Gail's house. Clare loaned it to Mike about ten years ago, but then he died six years ago. It's taken this amount of time to arrange to retrieve it. The trip was smooth and uneventful in both directions, two hours each way and two hours having lunch with Gail and getting the instrument ready to travel home on the back seat of our VW Polo, where it sat neatly with just enough space, with the stand in just fitting into the boot. It's now sitting in front of the blocked off fireplace between Clare's piano and my guitar, hanging on the wall.

Once the clavichord was installed, I went out an stretched my legs for an hour. Meanwhile, Owain arrived for an overnight stay. Clare booked us a supper date at seven in Stefano's, our favourite Italian restaurant in Romilly Road. We had a delicious meal, and afterwards Owain and I went for a walk in the parks before settling down to drink the bottle of Swiss Gamay he brought with him. All in all, a pleasant evening.

Culinary ignorance

Clouds and sunshine all day today, cooler but no rain. Quite pleasant really. I woke up with a nose bleed in the night but it didn't last long, and I still had a good night's sleep. It's what I need at the moment. After breakfast, I drove to St Peter's to celebrate Mass with twenty two others. News of Mother Frances' departure has been reacted to with shock and concern about how the Parish and the Ministry Area is going to cope with half the full time clergy numbers. Kate, one of the two Ministry Area Wardens and Iona the Ministry Area lay co-chair are going to pursue the proposition of an interim minister, if not a part time administrator. Finding sufficient supernumerary clerics to cover gaps in the service rota is not the only matter for concern it seems.

It was nearly lunchtime by the time I reached home after chatting in the church hall over cover afterwards. Clare had started preparing veggies but I took over cooking sausages, garlic mushrooms and couscous so she could do some ironing. I slept unexpectedly for an hour in the chair after lunch, and then went out for the week's grocery shopping at the Coop. On the grocery list was bicarbonate of soda, which I mistakenly thought was Baking Powder and bought some. Clare returned from doing the Beanfreaks shopping, with Baking powder as well. I needed to google to understand the difference between the two products. It seems pure bicarb is used as a raising ingredient in soda bread and other recipes with stronger flour, I think. That's something I never needed to know in my life before now.

After supper I walked to Blackweir Bridge and back, then watched an episode of a new British crimmie series on iPlayer called 'We hunt together'. It has darkly comic elements and a high quota of foul language which contribute to its rather unpleasant character. It's not clear which direction the plot is heading or what underlying insight into human behaviour it intends to convey. In other words, I don't get it.

Unique guitar concert

Clouds and intermittent rain for most of the day. Clare's study group arrived mid morning. I didn't fancy going out in the rain, so I stayed in the front room out of the way, read and started work on next Sunday's sermon until they left. 

Then it was time for a light lunch and early departure for the Royal Welsh College, where we were invited to the Principal's Tea for Connect supporters. A cuppa and cake with a clarinet trio playing in the background. Then a speech by the Principal, Helena Gaunt about the life of the College and its students, and the big announcement of the College taking a 99 year lease from the City Council for the Old Library in the city centre, at the far end of the churchyard garden from St John's City Parish Church. It will be used as a place for performance, rehearsal, lectures showcasing the work of the College to visitors and citizens alike. At last a really worthwhile use for the whole of this landmark listed Victorian building! 

The Tea concluded with an impressive performance by post graduate percussionist playing the Marimba, using its subtle tones and dynamics in a way that compelled me to listen attentively. Then we walked back home across Bute Park and Pontcanna Fields, thankfully without being rained upon.

After supper, I took the 18 bus from Cowbridge Road East to 'The Res', for a concert by the City of Cardiff Symphony Orchestra, a group of sixty plus amateur musicians of which Jan the Vicar is a member. The orchestra filled the choir, sanctuary and side aisles it was so big, and when it played the first piece I found it deafeningly loud, but where I was seated, I was hemmed in. The acoustic echo of the building is about a second long, making it difficult for everyone to hear each other, a conductor's nightmare. Loud ensemble sections were coherent enough, and made the church seem as if it were four times the size, due to the echo. In gentler, harmonically fine grained sections, the difficulty in retaining cohesion showed.

I went to the concert because the highlight of the evening was a rare performance of Rodrigo's Concierto Andaluz para Cuatro Guitarras, something I'd never heard before. The guitarristas were four Royal Welsh College students, who performed superbly, bright eyed, smiling with pleasure, and had two encores to themselves. As an interval followed after this piece, I decided to leave, as my ears had taken as much as I felt I could cope with for one night. Within five minutes a 17 bus arrived, and I was home by a quarter to ten playing a YouTube recording of the Concierto to Clare from my phone. It was good to have seen Jan and Peter, and have a brief sharing of concerns about how the Ministry Area is going to cope after Frances leaves. We're agreed that an interim Minister is needed to cope with some complex management issues in the MA, but how to convince the hierarchy it's urgent and necessary? 

Time for bed already.

Automatic renewal: opt-in or opt-out?

When I switched my phone on before breakfast this morning, I was shocked to receive an email from the Staysure travel insurance company with my new policy document and confirmation of payment on this the date of renewal. A payment had been taken from my account without authorisation, and this immediately aroused a sense of alarm in me. It didn't seem to be a scam. I've had a set of documents by email like this every year since I started insuring with them, which must be ten years or more now. 

My first thought was to go to the only HSBC bank branch in the city centre and block the payment if it wasn't too late already. Then I found a phone number for Staysure and explained what he happened. The call hander was very helpful, and a brief discussion revealed that policy renewal was automatic and had to be opted out of, not op-in. I hadn't notice this when buying a policy this time last year. I expressed concern at this, as their protocol includes medical screening in establishing the correct price quotation. 

In every other year pre-covid, renewal hadn't been automatic. My euro-locum duties and our river holiday cruises had been on different dates, and insurance booked to start before the first outing of the year. I always took an annual policy expecting to go abroad more than once a year, one way or another, making it slightly cheaper than shorter duration policies. How this happened I have no idea. I can't have noticed it on the Staysure website when I paid last year. Anyway the call handler said that a case worker would call me back some time soon. 

I walked down to Cowbridge Road, and caught the 62 bus the rest of the way to go to HSBC bank, and a call came through from Staysure's case worker just as I was getting off the bus outside the HMRC building. I explained that I cannot use an insurance police abroad for the time being due to commitments keeping me in Britain. I hadn't responded to the usual renewal reminder emails as I wasn't ready to renew, and would need to update my medical screening details at the time the policy was due to start. I was asked if I wanted to cancel the policy, which obviously I did, and that concluded the conversation.

I visited HSBC bank and asked if it was possible to stop money being taken without my authorisation and was told it wasn't, and given a printout stating that the payment is 'pending' - issued at 07.30 today - although banking transactions for the day aren't concluded until late afternoon. I was told nothing could be done, but I could track payment using on-line apps. Which I don't and won't with HSBC anyway. What if it had been a scam? A fraudulent transaction of which I was unaware? I found this extremely unhelpful. 

Fortunately by the time I left the bank, Staysure emailed me confirmation of cancellation of the policy and reversal of the direct debit, though how long it will take is anybody's guess. At least it's a standard feature of such insurance policies to give the purchaser time to change their mind and cancel or modify the policy taken out. This opt-out of automatic renewal issue is cause for disquiet. It's one which is used by Amazon Prime to retain subscribers, by making it hard to find the opt-out option. I'll need to be much more careful in future when closing the deal on any policy of this kind.

I went straight home on the bus and did my share of the housework as Clare was cooking lunch. Later, I went for a walk in the park, chatted at length on the phone with Owain and Rufus. Then I started watching the last of the four newest episodes of 'Beck' on iPlayer, before they are screened live, before and after supper. 

Again, very good drama. Peter Haber who plays Beck is a fine actor. He's getting on in years himself now, but plays the part of the elder statesman among detectives superbly, portraying a wise intelligent sensitive team leader, but exposing the vulnerability that's part of growing old, wanting to do things which physically he can't sustain any longer because the stress is debilitating, and there's not enough energy sustaining adrenaline flowing through the body. It's something I can identify with.

Surprise announcement

A slow start to the day with a trip across town to St German's to celebrate Mass at eleven. David and Susie were welcoming a visitor from David's home community in Nigeria, his local clan chief, a small moment of delight for us in a church perpetually open to the world. It was half past one by the time I reached home for lunch.

At St Catherine's this morning,  Clare told me that Mother Frances announced that she's resigning her post and moving to the island of Lindisfarne to run the Marygate House retreat centre. I looked at the website, and see it's one of those challenging front line places to go for anyone who takes Christian spirituality seriously. The last few years as Ministry Area leader cannot been anything other than a nightmare for her with colleagues not being replaced, to the point where normal parochial ministry is unsustainable, not least under the burden of added bureaucracy and media management laid upon grass roots pastors. The question is always where to put your creativity to best use for God's service? 

It's a brave decision she's made, to redirect her energies to a front line position which will make good use of her gifts in the spiritual struggle against the spirit of this age. Two ministerial vacancies out of a full time team of four are left behind when she departs at the end of August. There'll be difficulty in providing pastoral cover for four of six parishes in the Ministry Area ad interim, but we coped with covid so we'll get through this. 

After a siesta, we went for a walk into Bute Park. At Blackweir Bridge, a mink crossed our path. It's the first time I've seen one around here. This may or may not be a new occurrence, but I think I should report it, as mink are an invasive species with a damaging impact on existing wildlife.

In the evening we watched a Sky Arts documentary about the musical evolution of jazz trumpeter Miles Davis in the 1970s and eighties, with interviews from his many musical collaborators. It was amazing in so many ways but hard going after an hour and a half, so we switched off and I watched another current episode of Swedish crimmie 'Beck' instead.

When I went upstairs to bed, I took my work rucksack containing my alb, to unpack and hand it up. When I took it out of the bag, the aroma of incense from the morning's Mass greeted me. A blessed reminder of worship on the Lord's Day to end another Sunday.

Beck Back

Sunshine returned today, pleased for Owain as he's gone to Cornwall for the weekend. After getting up late we sang him a Happy Birthday greeting on WhatsApp, and then Clare cooked waffles for breakfast. Then 

I went to Tesco's to buy some offerings for the foodbank and drop them off at St John's Church, as I had a set of keys with me. If didn't need them however, as the door was open. Sounds of loud voices and music could be heard outside. I was greeted at the door by a smartly dressed young man and a smiling young lady at the door wearing a badge bearing the legend 'Usher'. 

The usual seating area of the church was full of worshippers, being addressed by a woman from a platform lectern decorated with a drape on which was printed 'Remnant Christian Network'. I was told that a ten hour prayer vigil was taking place and invited to stay. I said that I'd only come to drop off my foodbank offering and offered words of encouragement as I took my leave. I'd like to have stayed, but the amplified noise level was taxing on my ears. The atmosphere was one of exuberant joy and serenity, so characteristic of black Christian congregations. I was reminded of my years in Saint Paul's Bristol, and occasions when I had the pleasure of sharing in West Indian Pentecostal services there. 

When I reached home, I googled the name of the group, and found they are a branch of the Seventh Day Adventist missionary movement,  which was born in the 19th century in the USA and has spread world-wide since then. UK groups in the 'Network' appear to have their origin in Nigeria, but the movement is active and present in mission all over Africa, except perhaps in the North.

It's good to know the parish is offering hospitality to a Christian group of this kind. During and after covid the Russian Orthodox Exarchate congregation worshipped in St John's, while their normal home base in the Catholic chapel at Nazareth House was closed to the public. It was amusing for a while to find notices on the toilet doors in Russian as well as English. So sad that they didn't stay with us although they did give the church a lovely icon of St John and Our Lady at the foot of the cross, as a permanent reminder of their sojourn.

Mission accomplished I returned for lunch, which included among the veggies carrot plant tops fried with olive oil and garlic, something we've never tried before. It wasn't a great success as they were very chewy, maybe undercooked? But Clare had followed the recipe correctly as she always does. Next time I think I would steam or stew them until easy to cut, then fry with olive oil and garlic to see if it made a difference.

After lunch, I had a snooze, printed off my sermon ready for tomorrow and went to the shops to get a few things I'd forgotten earlier. Then a quick visit to Thompson's Park to check on the moorhens. There's no longer any sign of them sadly. At tea-time, I drove Clare to Penarth to a party with an ex-Steiner School colleague, but didn't stay, as I didn't share in the experience of the group welcoming her return visit. Back home again I ate an early supper and watched two fine episodes of Swedish crimmie 'Beck'. 

The stories all show how team work in policing functions at its best, sometimes despite the weaknesses and failings of team members. It exposes their humanity when faced with tragic events which they have to cope with as they labour on in a disciplined and methodical way. There are fifty lengthy episodes in this series going back twenty six years, when Beck (played by Peter Haber) was a middle aged detective. He's retirement age now, overseeing the team that has grown up around him. Interesting to compare and contrast this with Gibbs and the NCIS team running for twenty years with 458 hour long episodes, and much more action and personality centred. I love the understated dramatic nature of 'Beck' even more than that of the Swedish version of Wallander. I wonder if that series will ever be re-run?

Then after three solid hours of watching on my Chromebook it was time to call it a day