Royal Year's Mind

A brighter start to the day with a scattering of much higher cloud decorating the sky, but uncomfortably humid at 27C. 

It's a year today since the Queen died, and the ritual of Accession began to be enacted. How quickly the time has passed. I guess it was intended that the King should be in Balmoral this week in the place where he visited his mother and said goodbye. Charles occupies quietly his new role as Head of State with the emphasis on continuity rather than innovation, which is important in such times of uncertainty and upheaval. Thank goodness we no longer have a populist prime minister competing with him for media attention.

Yesterday the guys living next door gave Clare a couple of kilos of big ripe red beef tomatoes harvested from their garden. They're off to Greece for the week and didn't think the fruit would keep well until their return. Clare's anti-arthritis diet forbids tomatoes, so as there were more than I could eat, my first thought was chutney. Clare found a recipe, and went shopping for extra vinegar and sugar after breakfast, then we set about preparing the ingredients - Clare on onions, chilli, ginger and spices, me on tomato dissection and tidy up. A big cooking apple from the tree of a neighbour across the street also went into the mix, so we could perhaps label it 'neighbourhood chutney'. Slowly the characteristic aroma of chutney cooking fills the house. If all turns out as intended, we'll have jars to share with neighbourly contributors.

I finished my Sunday sermon and started working on a reflection for St Matthew's Day which falls on my Morning Prayer day, a week next Thursday, my 53rd anniversary of presiding at Mass the first time. Before I realised, it was lunchtime, and while Clare was keeping an eye on the cooking chutney, she had prepared the food for cooking, and was riding her exercise bike. All I needed to do was switch on the cooker ring with the steamer on it. Our preferred method of making lunch the easy way.

After we'd eaten, I went to Tesco's to shop for a few items, and for this week's food bank contribution to drop off at St John's. There was extraordinary amount of traffic in both directions on Llandaff Road on the way there and back. There's an international cricket match on at Sophia Gardens today, but I don't see how this would impact on a parallel road half a mile to the west unless there are traffic restrictions on Cathedral Road forcing deviation to a secondary route. The schools aren't all back yet, to generate a lot more congestion. None of this is good for air quality in a dense residential area, even if it is slowly improving with the advent of electric cars. I finished the afternoon with a lap of the park, where the air is usually cleaner, thankfully.

After supper, I cooked a tapa of broad beans and chorizo, plus a vegan equivalent in preparation for Kath and Anto's opera evening visit tomorrow. Then I spent the rest of the evening reading the chapter in 'Battle for Spain' about the siege of Madrid. This was when the Spanish nationalist insurrection against the republican government decisively turned into an international proxy war, and became a technical rehearsal for the world war that was about to break out, unforeseen by many who should have known better.

Then, it was time for bed with much to ponder about.