Internet down for Christmas

Cold and windy again today with a few showers. The internet was inaccessible when we switched on, for the second day in a row. Nothing I did could restore it, so we left everything switched on and went to the Eucharist at St Catherine's. There were about thirty of us this morning. No Sunday school today, as the kids are all turning out for the afternoon carol service. 

When we got home I spent an hour and a half in Direct Messaging the TalkTalk troubleshooting line using my mobile phone. We went through all the tests imaginable and in the end, had to book a house call from an engineer. The router works and so does the device through which the fibre optic cable connects to it. Unless I'm mistaken the fault is outside the house, or at the network relay box in Romilly Crescent. We have an appointment for a week tomorrow. It's just as well we're away Monday to Friday.

After a snack lunch, I started a batch of bread dough, prepared the Brussels sprouts for supper then walked for an hour in the park before going to St Catherine's for the service of lessons and carols. It was an event for the entire Ministry Area. It was good to see a congregation of about 200. The kids did their Nativity tableau as part of it and we had an 'angelic' dance from a dozen girls in white tutus, who attend a local classical ballet school. Beautifully done.

As I was leaving church, greeting a few folk I knew from other parishes, my phone rang. It was Clare to tell me that Owain had arrived and supper was cooked, so I went straight home instead of socialising over mince pies and mulled wine in the church hall.

After supper Owain went out to meet his local friends. We watched the first in the new series of 'Murder in Paradise', a Christmas edition introducing a new lead detective who starts as a holidaymaker on St  Marie island. Enjoyable colourful watching with a lovely mix of Caribbean accents in the dialogue. It takes me back to my time in St Pauls Bristol nearly fifty years ago. Happy days indeed.

Solstice snowdrops

After last night's party, I didn't sleep too well, overstimulated by socialising I guess. We live a quiet life for the most part these days. The doorbell rang just after half past seven this morning. It was a delivery man from Ashton's with the Christmas salmon Clare ordered. I was awake and ran downstairs to collect the fish as Clare wasn't quite awake yet. Then I went back to bed to listen to Thought for the Day and the news. By the time I eventually got up it was nearly nine and Clare had cooked Saturday pancakes for breakfast, and started making a fish soup for lunch. And thought she'd gone back to bed after putting the huge salmon fillets in the freezer for the weekend!

It rained until mid morning, then a strong cold wind sprung up and drove the rain clouds away. The internet was inaccessible and it took forty minutes of landline phone time to get it restored. The landline is being taken away, unless you pay £150 a year to retain the sevice. This will hit hardest those whose emergency devices only connect by hardwire. Scandalous. We don't need that and must switch to the all digital service to retain our landline. It doesn't bode well when the fibre lines are stil prone to outages. Changing our account to all digital costs nothing apart from another half hour on line via Direct Messaging, once the internet was restored.

At last I was able to make an effort to email digital greetings, over fifty of them, spanning decades of family life and ministry. It took a long time morning and afternoon to finish the job. The remains of the filleted salmon Clare transformed into a delicious fish soup with spuds and carrots for our lunch.

The chilling wind made walking the park on ordeal, but compensated by finding a few tiny snowdrops on the verge of the long avenue near the stables. There's a patch of ground where they first appear year after year. Finding them on winter solstice day is remarkable, about ten days earlier than last year. It was about the fifth of January the year before that. A symptom of climate driven change as the average temperature for this time of year creeps up incrementally.

I got home as the sun was setting and finished the Christmas emailing. After supper I watched the final two episodes of Crá, a complex 'whodunit' in a close knit rural community with shameful family  secrets and abusive relationships. Then made an effort to go to bed and catch up on sleep I lost last night.

Remembering Canton

A grey and damp day again. We both slept late and started the day late. Clare went shopping for food to take with us. I cooked lunch and afterwards went shopping to Lidl's in Leckwith for a few extra things to take with us. It's quite a collaborative logistical exercise catering for several days of Christmas feasting for seven people staying in a holiday let in a remote rural area.

Hilary and Clive invited us along with friends and neighbours for drinks and nibbles at their house, from six until eight. Some people we knew, most we didn't, but some interesting conversations took place. I was fascinated to listen to Gareth who sings in St Catherine's choir talk about the Canton he's known for the past seventy years since he moved here as a boy, a time when there were still orchards, and working farms with lots of artisan businesses and warehouses with new housing gradually transforming the patchwork of industrial occupation until it became almost entirely an industrial area. He has an encyclopaedic memory of changes over generations, as well as recollections of stories told from decades before he was born. He claims no expertise, but he is the consummate local oral historian. I would love to record him for a few hours, and regretted coming this evening not equipped to take advantage of the moment, I must make a plan for an interview, to map the history of the area's development in an audio recording.

We got home before nine, and I went out again for a walk in the park to quieten my senses after all that social stimulus, and complete my daily step quota, before bed. Thankfully, the sky was clear and I could see a few planets and stars, despite the urban light pollution. Always a lovely moment at the end of the day, as it was when I was a kid, looking from my bedroom window at Ty Isaf farm above Penallta Road. A lot more stars were visible in those days.

Christmas tree soiree

Dad's 'cello was ready for collection after repairs at 'Cardiff Violins', so we went into town together after breakfast, but first I needed to buy a suitable Christmas present for Clare. I'm hopeless at choosing presents and would rather buy something she knows she wants and is happy with. We went to John Lewis' and found a lovely soft Kashmir wool jumper. Just right, what a relief! We'd not thought through how to pay the repair bill, so we went to check this out at the Santander bank main branch. The gave me an opportunity to find out if my record I keep of my credit card PIN was correct. It wasn't, so I ordered a new one. When we went to pick up the 'cello, I took some photos of the the shop interior, so beautiful with scores of violins arrayed on its walls. I took a dozen photos for pleasure and send to Rachel. Here they are.

We had thought about taking a taxi home, but having walked with it into town, I wanted to walk home with it. The weather was just about merciful, except for the occasional nerve wracking gust of wind but I got it home without incident, communing with my father fifty years dead, as I walked through the park.

Fran and Mark invited us to their Christmas soiree in Penarth, started many years ago by our mutual friend Russell Evans and now continued by Fran, with many of their friends and associates and some newcomers too, gathered to share the pleasure of an evening of carols, music, readings, meditative reflection  on the lighting of the Christmas tree along with conversation over food. It's a wonderful warm relaxed occasion, the best kind of domestic social ritual, different from an liturgical one yet bearing so many similarities due to its spiritual depth. Offered by laity not clergy, I hasten to add!

Clare and I sang the plygain carol 'Y fore dydd nadolig' with drone accompaniment from Mark on viola. On previous occasions I has been asked to make a verbal contribution of some kind. I was uncertain about what to offer until late in the afternoon. Then, about half an hour before we were due to leave, out of the blue an idea arrived. I wrote rapidly in pencil until I had a poem in blank verse about the obscurity of the birth of the Christ child manifested in the obscurity of the birth of children in Gaza under violent assault. It was raw unrefined, even after I'd typed and printed it. Clare said she thought it was powerful. When I read it, close to tears, it was acknowledged with thoughtful silence.

We bought train tickets when we went into town on a bus that took us to the new bus Interchange, before going to John Lewis', and took the 61 just after six to take us there again, to take the train for the twelve minute journey to Penarth. Fran lives 5-10 minutes walk from Dingle Road station. This was so much more convenient than driving in the dark and having to find a parking space in a neighbourhood that we don't know and is as hard to park in as is Meadow Street. BY not taking the car, I didn't lose my parking space outside the house. It's not unusual to go out for a night time event by car, losing the space and being obliged to park ten minutes walk away. Not pleasant when it's wet and cold.

We were fortunate to be offered a lift home by one of the participants in the soiree, so we were back in time to go straight to bed, and not needing to relax after such a peaceful evening.

Distraction

Another dismal day of intermittent rain. There was an amazing half hour programme on Radio 4, called 'Singing in Gaza' that told the story of the Edward Said Conservatory of Music in Gaza, destroyed by Israeli assaults but its musical mission kept alive by its staff, most of whom were made homeless and internally displaced by the onslaught. What an amazing inspirational piece of journalism! The sheer joy of musicians surviving, living not just to tell the tale, but make music, after having had their instruments destroyed violently - and making music teaching children to sing together from memory, using solfege. The embodiment of resurrection life and energy. No time for rage or despair driven by the creative urge to make the most of whatever life they have. It moved me to tears..

There were nine of us for the St Catherine's Eucharist. After collecting the veggie bag from Chapter, I cooked lunch when I got home - chicken and chorizo in a spicy sauce for me and fish for Clare with millet instead of rice. In the veggie bag a stalk full of brussels sprouts with one the size of an apple at the top. This on its own cut into quarters provided our greens for the day and any early taste of festivity to come.

I went to the Post Office to mail a calendar to Connie and Udo. Due to its unusual size and weight it cost £850 to send to Germany. Incredibly expensive! Then, a walk under the brolly in Llandaff Fields as the drizzle of rain intensified. My shoes and trousers were pretty wet by the time I got back. Then I wrote a reflection for New Year's Day Morning Prayer until it was time for supper, and afterwards I watched the finale of 'Strike' and a couple of episodes of Crá, the Gaelic crimmie with English subtitles, until it was time for bed, grateful for the distraction, and being in the warm, out of the wind driving the rain through the night time streets.

Culpable naivety?

Mostly cloudy with intermittent showers throughout the day but mild at 11C. After breakfast Clare walked to the School of Optometry to order new prescription specs. I listened to the final Reith Lecture, this week from Bergen in Norway. Dr Gwen Adshead spoke about Norway's penal system citing its low re-offending rate, humane imprisonment conditions and above all the number of offenders whose lives are changed for the better as they get to understand why they offended in the first place. Money is invested not in bigger and better prisons, but in psychotherapy and where possible restorative justice initiatives. It's altogether more cost effective than the British penal system. 

I made a couple of loaves of bread and prepared lunch. I did some writing while waiting for the dough to rise. It went into the oven when we'd eaten and was baked as we got ready to drive to Chris' salon in Rumney for a haircut. While Chris did Clare's hair I walked around the lake in Parc Trederlech, and got caught in the rain. Fortunately the salon was warm enough for my top coat to dry out by the time we left for home. It was already dark and still raining and the journey was slow and difficult in rush hour traffic. I hate driving in these conditions, fearful of making a mistake, but so far fortunately, I've been able to do it without accident or incident that annoys other drivers.

When we got home I went out with my new brolly in the rain for a few things we needed from Tesco's. Clare went off to meditation group and I completed my daily step quota walking up and down Llandaff Fields in the dark. After supper, I watched another episode of 'Strike'. All of them are on iPlayer even though it's being screened live, two episodes this week and two next. 

In the evening news, a report from a new media investigation into historic cases of abusive clergy under the leadership of Archbishop George Carey has implicated him in case of the abusive cleric about whom Archbishop Stephen Cotterell is currently under criticism and facing resignation calls. On Carey's watch, Bishop Peter Ball abused a series of young men and was eventually jailed. After a long drawn out review of historic abuse cases Carey was asked to resign as an honorary assistant Bishop by his successor Justin Welby, now resigning himself.  

Carey was granted a local PTO, restricting him from the wider ministry senior church leaders often have in retirement. Now it seems he's withdrawn from public ministry entirely, returning the PTO he held. At his advanced age it's not exactly a surprise. Ill health could just as easily lead to him taking this step. But it takes him out of the media firing line, and further criticism that could lead to his PTO being taken away from him. No doubt he regrets errors of judgement made when he was in charge finding that he, like many other church leaders was taken in by Ball's charm and piety. It seems Carey supported the reinstatement plea of a priest banned for five years due to inappropriate behaviour, but not yet charged for child abuse.

I imagine Carey acted in the belief that if offenders had been punished, shown repentance and changed behaviour they should be given another chance, presuming the person's honesty and sincerity. But how well informed was he, and Cotterell for that matter, about the deceitful behaviour of sex offenders who haven't undergone therapy. Whose advice did they rely on?  Church Safeguarding policy has only arrived in the aftermath of the Peter Ball affair, the church playing catch up on secular organisations and learning to listen to professionals in the realm of care and protection of children and vulnerable adults. 

Looking back a few generations, clergy weren't as well trained in care for people as they imagined. Maybe only good at looking out for each other in the ecclesiastical boys club. Thank heavens things have begun to change, not least because of capable women  and some with disability included in the ordained ministry. More steps in the church becoming what it's meant to be. So sad that so many have given up belonging. The news describes Carey as having 'left the church', equating church with its clergy. In reality it's the laity that has left the church, having lost confidence in its ministers, and maybe its message too, if they ever understood it well in the first place.

The perils of authority

Despite going to bed before eleven, I had a disturbing night and woke up at quarter past nine logging eight hours and forty nine minutes of sleep. I have no idea why I should sleep so long despite being aroused by dreams and flashbacks to times when I injured myself. The mind is a mystery.

Deposed president Assad messaged the world from Russia saying he hadn't intended to leave when he did but was directing military operations from a Syrian air base being run by the Russians, when he learned of the Syrian army's capitulation and told to leave for Moscow. Officially he is an asylum seeker there, but Putin hasn't had anything to say about this so far it seems. Meanwhile the transitional government set up by the victorious rebel army re-iterates that it wants law and order retained and no retribution against perpetrators but justice in court. But will this prove possible when so many were involved in Assad's reign of terror, leaving so many victims and their supporters with scores to settle. 

The celebrations surrounding victory and the return of freedom to Syrian people now gives way to facing the hard work of rebuilding a society in ruins. It's not so easy to achieve while there's uncertainty among the  nations interested in helping, about trusting the transitional government led by Prime Minister Mohammed al Bashir, acting as head of state. He talks about an inclusive future, but has yet to appoint anyone other than his own islamist supporters. How does anyone go about recruiting suitable participants from Christian, Druze, Shia and Alowite Muslim minorities when there's no precedent after fourteen years of civil war and half a century of tyranny from the Assad clan, who just happen to be Alowite?

After breakfast housework, then a circuit of Thompson's park before lunch. We went to town afterwards to look for Christmas presents, but it turned out to be a frustrating venture for me. Clare took a bus home before me, and I walked back through the streets, as the sun went down. After supper I watched an episode and a half of the latest series in British crimmie 'Strike' about a private detective agency with a story about cyber stalking ending in murder. It's interesting in its portrayal of covert surveillance and an investigation carried out by a civilian agency in cases where the police cannot  take action or are reluctant to for lack of resources to take action. What MI5 and MI6 get up to in this area is anybody's guess!

This past couple of days the media have started reporting about calls for Stephen Cotterell, Archbishop of York to resign over his handling of a case he inherited in his previous diocese of Chelmsford of a child abusing cleric about whom he was slow to deal with until the case had been taken up by the police. The man was already deemed to be unsafe around children, a risk to be managed while he was still in office, until there were legal grounds for removal from office. The trouble is there are perpetrators who are good at 'gaming the system' when it comes to avoiding culpability, and its made more difficult because of the rights of clergy as office holders in the established church. 

When I was young, I recall hearing about clergy disappearing from their pastorate without a send-off or leaving a forwarding address with no explanation given. In those days, obedience of clergy to the Bishop who licensed them was rarely challenged. The order to leave a place or never work under licence again in the event of misbehaviour or conflict was taken seriously for the most part. If the Bishop was openly defied by someone staying in post it was because as a cleric they had freehold tenancy for life, it was hard to remove them legally. 

Nowadays, so much church legislation has been put into place, surrounding clergy employment, welfare, professional conduct, accountability etc that a Bishop needs advice from a legal team before taking action. Personal authority and respect for apostolic authority can be and are challenged, making 'gaming the system' more possible for wrongdoers to avoid real accountability. Taking authority in such a complex confusing world is a poisoned chalice.

Swedish Advent

Cold cloudy and damp once more today. There were over fifty of us at St Catherine's for this morning's Eucharist. The children performed a short and simple nativity pageant at the end of the service. Half of them are under five, so it was a wee bit chaotic, but nobody minded. It was just lovely to see them take part in performing together for the rest of the congregation, some of them for the first time in their lives I imagine.

After lunch, I went for my afternoon walk, returning before sunset. Once it was dark I found the link that Sara sent me on St Lucy's Day for watching the 'Lucia Morgan' recorded concert on Swedish TV, as she's done over the years. It's a lovely musical occasion with children's and youth choirs, a barbershop singing group and a duo playing violin and nyckelharpa, which is a Swedish bowed instrument about the size of a viola with a keyboard to press the strings down on the neck as finger normally do. It's also called a keyed fiddle or key harp. It's an instrument I've never seen before. 

It takes place, or is meant to take place before dawn in candlelit darkness. It's the Swedish equivalent of a carol service and an initiation ritual event for young girls especially in their schooling. I don't suppose it happens at the crack on dawn in schools! It was a delight to see a sprinkling of snow in Sala where it was filmed this year - a location where there was once a historic silver mine, a site populated by historic buildings. As I was watching, Sara sent me a message and picture from St Andrew's Gothenburg, where she and Gunnar had joined the congregation for the Anglican Nine Lessons and Carols service. As a port city facing Scotland across the North Sea, it's not surprising there's been a chaplaincy there since 1857, six years before St Peter and St Sigfrid's Stockholm, a testimony to maritime trade routes back then I guess.

After supper we watched the Antiques Roadshow, then I read for an hour and a half before early bed.

Making the most of opportunity

It was nice to awaken, a bit later than usual to bright sunshine. Eating a three course meal in the evening didn't lead to a good night's sleep. Between us we cooked pancakes for breakfast, and I felt pretty lethargic all morning. As today is the feast of St John of the Cross, I lingered over a book of extracts from his teaching which I've had for years and only dipped into. I didn't go out for a walk until gone midday. Clare went out and returned much earlier than me. She'd just completed cooking lunch when I got back.

Mid-afternoon, feeling a bit more energetic, I went out and walked until sunset. I took the west side path up the river bank through the woods, for the first time in several months. It can be treacherous when the ground is saturated. It's not completely dried out yet, but is firm underfoot due to a deposit of alluvial sand from storm Bert which saw the river burst its banks on both sides. Bushes got flattened and the traces of dark red sand show how flood water ran along the path eroding it in weak spots, flowing through the fence in the adjacent field where often horses from the stables graze. The legacy of storm Darragh the following week was broken branches, some of them quite big, and several trees a metre in diameter, uprooted or snapped mid-trunk, weakened by the impact of long spells of Spring drought or disease. It illustrates how climate change is starting to revise our landscape.

I got back just after sunset, and decided to watch the last three episodes of 'Lykkeland' taking us up to the late eighties and the development of remote technology for operating underwater vehicles and drilling rig machinery, leading to contentious reductions in the number of oil platform workers. It was also the period when environmental sustainability became an issue calling into question the long term future of oil as the main source of wealth for the Norwegian economy, and how some of the wealth created currently could be harvested and put to use in state finances. All three series together have proved to be a most interesting essay in contemporary economic history, and the Scandinavian take on business enterprise.

Enough telly for now, time to return to Spanish novel reading 

Feeling my age

Another cold day under cloud. We're promised clear skies and colder weather tomorrow. After breakfast I drove Clare to the School of Optometry to collect a revised eye medication prescription. The one received after her visit there yesterday lacked a single word, affecting the type of medication intended. Picking it up only took a few minutes, then we returned home via Tesco's petrol station to fill up ready for the trip to our Christmas holiday accommodation. 

We had trouble with the tyre inflation machine, which is now tap and pay. It seemed to have stalled, a few minutes time remained from the previous user, but the air pump had stopped. Clare went to ask for help from the cashier, but by the time they returned the device had rebooted and could accept another payment again. Filling tyres with air was more taxing than I expected. I'm never much good any morning, my back and leg muscles stiffen overnight so mending and squatting when I'm not warmed up requires effort and caution. The last thing I need is a bad back or torn leg muscle. I must go to QuikFit and get them checked next time around, or else get rid of the car.

I walked in the park for an hour for a light lunch, to get ready to join parishioners at a church fund raising dinner this evening. I saw a pair of long tailed tits high in one of the trees opposite the stables, visible now that all the leaves have gone, but out of range for a photo. I think it's the first time this year I've seen them, though I have heard them calling occasionally. It's good to confirm visually that they're not lost from our local environment. They have better chances in the park. So many garden ecosystems have been ruined by remodelling with paving and plant pots for easy maintenance.

The dinner took place in St Catherine's church hall, looking good after recent renovation, with its wooden floor sanded and re-varnished and walls repainted in pale colours. The food was excellent, rising to the challenge of catering for a variety of different dietary needs. We were treated to live jazz from a piano and bass duo, perfectly balanced acoustically without need for the bass to be amplified as a result of the wood surfaces. The piano was an electric one with just the right amount of amplification for balance. We were at one of half a dozen tables for six people, with Fr Sion and Catherine, Sue and Monica her friend, who is a lifelong Catholic. There weren't so many people present for the buzz of conversation to make table talk difficult, so it was an enjoyable evening. Even so, we were both tired by the time we got home and ready for bed.

How to look for life beyond earth

Another dull grey cold day. I woke up in time to listen to 'Thought for the Day', then went back to sleep for another hour. Over a late breakfast, I listened to Melvyn Bragg's 'In our time' programme exploring the complexities of the interdisciplinary scientific search for signs of life beyond earth. A branch of astronomy which has come into its own in the past twenty years with the development of huge terrestrial telescopes, and those mounted on satellites dispatched to the furthest reaches of the solar system and beyond. It's quite unlike the extra terrestrial beings portrayed in science fiction. 

Sustainable life as we understand it depends on suitable conditions existing for basic chemical elements to develop into self sustaining evolving organisms. The right environmental conditions associated with the emergence of primitive life forms and their timing in the history of the universe can be expressed in a typical chemical signature that can be searched for. It's what the Mars Rover is doing, collecting rock samples and examining them in robotic mini-laboratory on board. Telescopes look for evidence pointing to the same chemical signature in different wavelengths of light. These are technological marvels some sci-fi writers dreamed of in my youth, but the reality at which we marvel today, could only happen thanks to the innovation in engineering and digital computing. It's amazing to have lived to see fiction turned into fact in so many areas of modern life through human creative imagination.

I walked to the retail park on Western Avenue to buy a Christmas gift at Halfords. I was offered a fifteen per cent discount if I subscribed to the store's promotional email list. I declined, as I could see no reason to add to the number of promotional messages I have no interest in and have to deal with. On my way back I saw three male goosanders shadowing one female up-river from Blackweir Bridge. I guess they were busy competing for her attention as the time arrives for mating.

Clare cooked lunch while I was out. When we'd eaten, I continued assembling the Christmas card mailing and then took them to the Post Office to buy stamps and post them - four destined for Switzerland, and thirty three for Britain. Cards and postage cost ninety pounds this year. The number of cards posted is half the number sent a few years ago. Next to do, our digital greeting, going out to twice the number of card recipients. But that can wait until tomorrow.

I spent the evening watching the final episode in the current series of 'Shetland', a couple of episodes of Lykkeland, and discovered an new Irish language crimmie with subtitles filmed in County Donegal  that's going to be an interesting series to watch when I get around to it.

Greeting card time

Another cold grey day, but no rain thankfully. I woke up and posted the WhatsApp link to today's Morning Prayer before 'Thought for the Day'. Owain was already up and about, getting ready to make his way to the HMRC building in Central Square. He brought his work laptop with him, but forgot his comfortable earphone headset with mic, so he borrowed one of the several mobile phone headsets I have accumulated over the years. Thankfully it worked OK for him.

There were eleven of us at the St Catherine's Eucharist, including Ann and her nonagenarian mother whose birthday is today. There was a celebratory cake after the service and we sang happy birthday. Clare was already cooking lunch by the time I got home with the veg bag. 

After we'd eaten I glued the car's wing mirror cover to its mounting, to make sure it resists violent gusts of wind in future. Then I went to buy more Christmas cards at a shop on Cowbridge Road, before doing a circuit of Llandaff Fields, arriving home just after sunset.

As the Christmas card mailing deadline is nearly upon, I had to devote the evening to printing newsletters and address labels for envelopes, then writing greetings and stuffing envelopes. All the cards I bought had nothing printed inside them, so signing them turned out to be a slow task with only a third of the job done by bed time. 

Captagon?

A cold grey day. In early news, a report that thorough search of Saidnaya prison in Damascus hasn't found any secret underground cell. It's not surprising that such rumours develop about such a much feared place. It said that 60,000 people may have been killed there under the Assad regime. Prisoners were led about the prison blindfolded, unable to build up a mental picture of its internal layout. Those on the outside knowing nothing of people they know were abducted, whether they are alive or dead may imagine such a story to defend themselves from not knowing. The emerging regime promises to bring to trial state security agents or officials responsible for such evil crimes. Some survivors are utterly broken, physically and mentally. What makes such sustained inhumane cruelty possible?

This morning's Reith Lecture with forensic psychologist Dr Gwen Adshead was broadcast from Grendon Underwood Prison, which specialises in dealing with violent offenders who request to be transferred there as they want to understand and do something about the driving forces within themselves which result in their violent behaviour. Some inmates took part in the Q&A after her talk. Research is revealing there is a link between a person's tendency to violence, the environment they were raised in how what violence they may have witnessed or experience. Those who have been abused go on to abuse others, though not all, and that greatly complicates understanding and predicting behaviour and how to change it.

As the programme ended, Clare's study group members arrived, including icon artist Fran, who brought some of her own Christmas cards to sell. I bought two dozen, and went to pay for them on-line, as I didn't have the cash. I was surprised to discover that Santander's banking security procedures have been boosted again. There's now a lengthy interrogation before a one off transfer of funds before payment is allowed, a triage of anti-fraud questions that ensure you know what you are doing, know the payee and know there are their banking details. 

It's good, it's thorough, and warns you that you might not get any reimbursement if you allow yourself to be conned by not adhering with strict honesty to answering the questions. If Fran had bought her digital payment card ready with her it would have been a matter of simple 'tap and pay'. Your mind has to be sharp to answer correctly throughout, not on auto-pilot. I think I'll carrying carrying bank notes for making cash payments in future.

Clare cooked fish for lunch in a creamy garlic sauce, and I prepared the veg,. After we'd eaten I took some time designing a digital Christmas card to go with our annual newsletter. It was a little tricky to perfect, so once more I started walking late and got back home at dusk.

In the evening news about Syria today the new regime promises to tackle the manufacture and illegal distribution of a drug called Captagon I've never heard of before. It's a stimulant related to amphetamine, used by those in need of going without sleep and focusing effort, nicknamed 'chemical courage'. Useful for coping in a crisis or waging war. It was invented in East Germany in 1961, and made on an industrial scale in Syria, as a money spinner for the Assad regime. Addictive properties and side effects, including psychosis and hallucination, but it can be given on prescription to treat narcolepsy and ADHD. In Middle Eastern its abuse as an alternative stimulant arose when cocaine was scarce. Declaring it to be illegal in order to curb widespread abuse, led to it becoming a commodity smuggled across borders, manufacture and production in Syria was tolerated and the Assad clan benefited. We'll see what the new regime does about it.

Owain arrived in time for supper. His office team's new base is in the HMRC building in Central Square. He has an induction meeting there tomorrow morning, which is reason enough to come over early and be at the office without having to get an early train. Normally he works from home and isn't required to visit unless there's a purpose. It's just an occasional commute. We discovered both of us have been watching the Norwegian 'Lykkeland' saga, at more or less the same pace, so we watched the last two episodes of series two before turning in for the night.

Implications of Assad's downfall

A sunny start to the day with light cloud. By the time I got up, Clare had already left the house on her way to a nine o'clock appointment at the School of Optometry. After breakfast I did the weekly housework and cooked pasta with a veggie bolognese sauce for lunch.

Reaction from political commentators and governments to the speedy downfall of the Assad regime move from astonishment to concern about what happens next. Syrians in bordering countries are already heading back home. Syrians inside the country wanting to know what happened to people they know unaccounted for during Assad's reign of terror are flocking to the notorious military prison of Saidnaya near Damascus , regarded as a 'human slaughterhouse due to the torture and murder of so many opponents of the regime. It's deeply ironic that the municipality of Saidnaya is dominated by the sixty century monastery and shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a place of pilgrimage for Muslims as well as Christians. I visited there on my study visit to Syria back in the nineties. I took a hundred photos there, but few of the Christian quarter in Damascus and sadly none of Saidnaya.

Surviving prisoners were set free by rebel soldiers yesterday, but there are rumours of prison cells hidden  underground which may still hold forgotten inmates, the search for them is now happening. The rebels are swiftly setting up their own government administration with their leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani as prime minister, promising to uphold the rights of religious minorities. He heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham the main group in the rebel army coalition. It's designated as a terrorist group, by UK USA and Canada. Each country has to make up its mind about whether or not to deal diplomatically with Al-Golani. Will those he lead and the communities they represent stay united and work for the restoration of Syria or fragment into warring factions, as happened in Libya? The world is watching and questioning.

It's concerning that European countries hosting Syrian refugees are already suspending applications from asylum seekers still being processed, and preparing to repatriate people without settled status. Yet nobody knows how long it will be until there is a consensus about whether or not safe return is possible After the downfall of a dictator some people are bound to be looking for vengeance, unless a new regime can succeed in  restraining those bent on settling old scores. This alone could contribute to instability and put returnees at risk of violence which they sought to escape from in the first place.

Before going out for my afternoon walk I drafted our annual Christmas round robin and sent it to Clare for approval. This made me over an hour late starting out. On my way out I refitted the wing mirror cover to the car. It seems not to have sustained damage, but I think it may need a little glue around the edges to secure it properly, in case one of the tiny tabs that click it into place has broken off un-noticed. There was a chilling wind when I went out, first to Thompson's Park, then Llandaff Fields, and Canton Tesco's before returning home in the dark. We laughed all the way through supper at the first in the new series of 'I'm sorry I haven't a clue', our favourite radio panel game along with 'Just a minute'.

I spent time writing afterwards then watched another episode of Lykkeland before going to bed.

The Assad regime falls - what now for Syria?

After the storm what a relief it was to wake up to blue sky and a light but chilly breeze this morning. Since last night Damascus has fallen quickly into islamist rebel hands. The army gave no resistance, with many soldiers deserting to the rebels or taking off their uniforms and dispersing. Assad and his entourage fled the country overnight. the prime minister has been asked by rebel leaders to remain in office for the time being and run government services until the Syrian people decide what comes next. 

 Iran and Russia withdrawing their support for the Ba'ath party regime, it's too early to imagine how this will work out. In the meanwhile the streets of Damascus are filled with people rejoicing in freedom from oppression and celebrating the downfall of a criminal regime after fifty four years. Syria has been ruined and broken into fragments by thirteen years of civil war. How the country can be healed and rebuilt, the world waits to see.

Sunday Worship this morning came from Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog near Llangollen, showcasing the Welsh language carol singing folk tradition of Plygain services. A couple of the carols were things that Clare and I learned singing with the Fountain choir. Clare was singing with a Plygain group as well at that time, over in Roath. Now that it's being said 40% of Canton's population are Welsh speakers and we have a Welsh language Eucharist twice a month, it seems to me there's potential to start a local group. So, I have suggested this to Fr Sion as an initiative worth taking.

We went to St Catherine's for the Eucharist. It was a relief to see the churchyard trees have survived the gales. There were three dozen of us for what was meant to be a 'family service', and only three children and a baby out of the two dozen in Sunday Club present, with a children's talk and game rather than a sermon. I'm feeling starved this Advent of hearing the Word preached. Through my working life I invested a lot of energy week by week in preparing sermons, not only for others but myself. I don't do that now I'm not taking services all that often, and realising this is making a difference. Reading devotional books or written sermons isn't the same as listening live.

After lunch I had a go at digging out the root of a Virginia Creeper that Clare wanted removed from the garden. It was rather difficult with inadequate tools and not enough energy. I was only partly successful and will try to finish it off tomorrow. As a left the house for a walk down to Blackweir Bridge, I spotted the wing mirror cover I lost yesterday in the gutter on the opposite side of the road. It was still intact, well more or less. I'll know when I try to refit it tomorrow. Somehow a very turbulent gust of wind sucked it off and carried it up and over the car without causing any other damage. Amazing!

It was bitterly cold in the park, though the wind was not as strong as it was yesterday. It didn't look as if the river overflowed on to the path during the night. The volume of rain can't have been as large overnight. Clare's study group came for a session while I was out. After tea we went to the Fountain choir Advent concert at St John's. It's the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary today, overlooked at the Sunday Liturgy, unless it happens to be the title feast day of your church, but the concert programme was mainly anthems in Mary's honour. Ironic when you consider this isn't a 'religious' choir. Delightful music from the middle ages.

We got back home in time for the Archers and the weekly Archers podcast, then the Antiques Roadshow from Beaumaris Castle. In tonight's news, a report that Assad and his family fled to Russia and Putin has granted them asylum, and most likely their fortune of looted Syrian wealth.

I watched another episode of Lykkeland. It's marvellous to see how the principal characters develop in the story over a decade. Then I remembered that I recorded this evening's concert on my little digital voice device and set about editing it out nearly twenty minutes of commentary and applause, leaving the forty minutes of singing in a single audio file which I have now shared with Anna the choir director using Google Drive. Being only five metres from the performance in an acoustically favourable place gave fair quality of recording, considering how small the recorder's microphone is. The task took me no more than an hour. And so to bed.

Surprising upheavals in Syria

Wind and rain produced a lot of commotion during the night. It kept Clare awake, but me, only briefly. We had pancakes for breakfast cooked with a new recipe. Fewer ones and thicker, tasting good. Rain and wind persisted but not as intensely as it could have done. I walked down to the Taff to see the water level and it was high enough to cover the fish ladder structure but about a foot below footpath level. 

I shot a couple of minutes of video and returned home to edit them, using Microsoft's Clipchamp app, then uploaded the footage to YouTube to share with the family. The wind blew in random gusts, and rain was light enough not to soak my top jacket, trousers or shoes.

Clare made a delicious chick pea curry for lunch. After we'd eaten, I completed work on the Morning Prayer video for Wednesday after next, and started preparing a one for Christmas Day. Then I walked back down to the river to check the water level again. This time wind and rain were stronger and I got soaked. The water level had risen to within four inches of the footpath level and will probably burst its banks again tonight as the wind and rain intensify, as it did last weekend.

I was amazed to see a man in heavy duty waterproof overalls with a canoe, standing on the river bank, contemplating the white water in front of him. It was too wet to stand around and see if he decided to attempt to shoot the rapids. water was entering the pond below the weir in such a volume and rate that it was piling up in a wave a couple of feet higher than when I was there this morning. The deluge from storm Bert a fortnight ago reshaped the islands of pebbles in the riverbed entirely. Heaven knows what's happening beneath the waves today. 

Two days ago when I was walking down the east side Taff Trail, a team of men in firefighters' protective gear were out searching the river banks for signs of someone injured and washed up. One of them told me a report had been made of an empty canoe floating downriver and no sign of its occupant. It seems they have a duty of care to act on such reports, even though nobody had been reported missing. A year ago I spotted an empty canoe drifting down river and took photos of it between Western Avenue and Blackweir, curious about how it would navigate the weir after a stretch of calm waters. It seems that on occasions a canoe escapes from Llandaff Rowing Club, not properly moored, or blown offshore by a strong gust of wind. Maybe the latest one was taken from a place not safe from flood water. Only the owner knows in both cases.

Either wind or a mischievous hand snatched the cover off the passenger side wing mirror from our Polo at some time since I parked on returning from the recycling centre yesterday. It's sad really, the first time this has happened to our car since we moved in fourteen years ago.

Fast moving events in Syria have caught my attention in today's news. An islamist rebel group or maybe a coalition of groups has in the past week launched a fast moving offensive against the al Assad regime, taking first Aleppo, the Hama, and then Homs, plus Deraa, south of Damascus. In each case the Syrian army has withdrawn, as it's no longer able to rely on military support from Iran or Hezbollah, and Russia's aid is now limited due to its campaign against Ukraine. Damascus is being surrounded, and it looks like it's only a matter of time before the al Assad regime falls, the end of a brutal fifty year long dictatorship, that has cost half a million Syrian lives, and twelve million feeling the country. 

It's about time too, and it could have happened before now if interested nations hadn't chosen to collude, rather than sanction the regime for making war on its own people. But it's an oil producing country with significant reserves. In the light of climate crisis changing opinion globally, it's now of less interest to keep an evil status quo which serves less of a strategic purpose. That's probably one big reason for other nations no longer propping up al Assad and his henchmen. 

Talking of oil politics, after supper, I watched another couple of episodes of Lykkeland to end the day. It's amazingly well written in its observation of Norway's management of its oil industry development, which has made it one of the world's most asset rich countries now.

Digital Storm Warning - a first

More nasty weather forecast for today but it was just overcast with occasional drizzle when I got up late, thankful to catch up on sleep after Wednesday's late night. Comedian Mark Steel was on Desert Island Disks. He told the story of knowing early in life that he'd been adopted. Only in later life did he decide to find out about his birth mother, and tracked her down to Rimini in Italy, though she'd run a business in Scotland before retirement. He learned about her but didn't get to meet her before she died. What he found interesting was the characteristics they had in common despite lifelong separation. Definitely a case of nature not nurture due to DNA, and he didn't do an ancestry DNA test, having discovered the background story by coincidence.

I drove to the Bessemer Road recycling depot this morning with two big bags of accumulated garden waste to dump. The city council stopped garden waste collections for the time being, and won't be collecting Christmas trees in the new year. This is said to be due to be lack of funding and labour disputes. I was surprised how little traffic there was on the way there. I called at Lidl's to buy a couple of bottles of wine for Christmas and a chorizo, but still arrived fifteem minutes before the time I booked. There wasn't a queue so I was in and out of the depot in five minutes and on my way home.

I cooked lunch, and after eating went out early for a walk down to Blackweir to inspect the Taff. The water level was up about a metre after yesterday's deluge. One of the trees along the path leading down to the river had blown down overnight. I think it was one I noticed shrouded in moss without leaves this year, probably diseased. The path was already cleared with the trunk and branches on the sides, awaiting clearance. Although rain was predicted, there was nothing more than a few minutes of drizzle while I was out, hoping to avoid torrential rain in Met Office warnings.

With nothing else to do mid afternoon, I watched this week's episode of 'Shetland' which I missed, then went out again for a walk as it was getting dark, noticing the houses in the streets which now have lights decorating their front gardens or lit Christmas trees in their front rooms. Again, although rain was forecast there were only a few sprinkles of rain while I was out, and no wind.

In the six o'clock news the impending seriousness of storm 'Darragh' now approaching from the west, with a red alert warning of risk to life was underlined by the announcement that an emergency alert would be broadcast over the mobile phone network, which would sound and be accompanied directly by a page of information and an audio message. This would be independent of any weather app notification, and would override any 'do not disturb' setting. Such a facility should have alerted Valencianos to the deluge which took over two hundred lives recently, but wasn't issued quickly enough in the first instance, but has been used since, I understand.

While we were having supper and listening to the Archers, our phones emitted a warning sound louder than what I thought the phones' loudspeakers would be able to sustain without breaking, and there was a page of information and voice message as well. Fine, now we know it works, but it happened twice more within the hour, rather disconcerting. Still only light rain and little wind. It may be quite different along the coast with news reports from Penarth and Porthcawl saying that wind speeds were building. 

Two miles inland up the Taff, only light rain and wind so far this evening. The fifty metre high western escarpment overlooking the Cardiff flood plain shields us from the full force of wind and rain when it comes from a particular direction. When the direction of the weather front changes enough, northwest or southwest, we'll get the full force of it. It sounds like we're going to have seventy mile an hour wind for the next couple of days. I spent the rest of the evening until bed time enjoying reading 'Las luces de Septiembre'

Another monsoon day

Another grey damp day with an afternoon full of rain and more flood warnings. I felt none the worse for losing an hour and a half's sleep overnight. After breakfast I finished off making  and uploading the video of next week's Morning Prayer, and started work on one for the week after. Clare went shopping in town, and I cooked lunch. 

I unearthed a crinkly cabbage from the back of the veg drawer in the fridge. Straight from the farm it harboured dirt a couple of slugs and probably slugs eggs, a huge carrot was mud caked and the surface of a small celeriac so wrinkled, all of its exterior needed cutting off. Everything needed thorough cleaning and removal of outer layers before being fit for the steamer, but it all cooked perfectly and delicious, worth the effort. I used quinoa again instead of rice or potatoes. It goes nicely with fillets of sea bass.

After lunch I needed to do some food shopping. A break in the rain long enough to get me there and back was forecast on my phone's weather app, but it wasn't as accurate as it claims to be. It drizzled until a got to the Co-op, then the heavens opened, monsoon style for about half an hour non stop. I got everything on the list, but dared not leave the shelter of the store. 

I went back inside to see if they sell brollies, and found a generous sized gentleman's edition for only seven quid. As both the brollies I have and use are hardly fit for purpose, slightly broken, shall we say, I bought one and waited a little longer until the worst was over, and then headed for home. I had to be extra careful as there were gusts of wind from random directions. It was necessary to negotiate a path in the road, as gutters and pavements were overwhelmed with water that couldn't drain away fast enough. If only the drains were cleaned more regularly while autumn leaves fall at different stages, depending on the tree. Such heavy rain is likely to strip leaves from the remainder of trees yet to lose their foliage. It's looking more like winter now with a fortnight before the equinox, still mild, but with much colder weather coming soon we're told. 

Before and after supper, I edited audio recorded this morning, then watched the finale episode of the first season of 'Lykkeland'. So far so good in a decades long story. My Windows 10 workstation is now sending me aggressive full page notifications of the operating system's end of life and need to upgrade. I wish there was a way to tell Microsoft that the machine will get a new lease of life when I convert it to Linux. I need to set aside time to do that properly.

The rain stopped around supper time, so I went out and walked for forty minutes in the dark to get the last of my daily step quota done, and have some fresh air before turning in.

Gala night delight

A dry overcast day. My sleep was disrupted by the recollection that I would run out of my blood pressure medication this weekend, and needed to renew my prescription pronto. I knew my phone would prompt me at the right time to post this week's Morning Prayer YouTube link to WhatsApp a day earlier than my routine Thursday over the past three years, but I ended up inserting a reminder into my phone calendar just in case I forget, and went back to sleep until my phone notification woke me up again, altogether an hour short of the regular amount of sleep I need.

I got up, had breakfast, then went to the pharmacy on my way to St Catherine's for the Eucharist. I was told I'd do better to take my prescription renewal form to the surgery (over the road), as the pharmacy's daily patch of prescription renewal requests had already been sent across. So I did, and was told I could collect the renewed one this afternoon. 

The church was locked when I arrived, but the gates were open. Then Jean arrived arrived with a key, so I was able to go in and prepare the altar and open up the church for Fr Sion, who had yet to arrive. We were six today, half the regular attendance and one of those was a stranger from the diocesan staff team, going around churches finding out what sort of welcome was extended to visitors in places where she was unknown. What's to be done with this information wasn't disclosed. 

I think we were friendly enough as she came clean with us. In the conversation that ensued we uncovered an overlooked flaw in the Ministry Area information output. The Ministry Area website still has St John's midweek Eucharist on a Thursday even though the noticeboard is up to date, showing Wednesday. Internal communications aren't as good as they used to be. A posting on the Daily Prayer WhatsApp group early today mentioned the Christmas Lights switch-on at St John's this evening. Nothing has appeared in the Parish weekly Sway news blog about this. There were posters at St John's, but where else I don't know. Last year when Fr Andrew's appointment had just been announced a lot of advance publicity took place and there was a good turnout. Sadly for us, this clashed with the Opera Gala Performance at RWCM, for which we had tickets, a pity that there was a conflict of interests.

I collected the weekly veggie bag on my way home, and cooked lunch. Afterwards I slept soundly in the chair for over and hour, then went and collected my prescription from the surgery. The pharmacy opposite closes on a Wednesday so I had to go to Boots on Cowbridge Road, a much busier place, so I had to wait over half an hour to collect my medication. It was dark by the time I got back for supper and starting to rain. We took the 24 bus to town and walked under our brollies to RWCMD. 

The Gala was an amazing showcase of a range of operatic music, not all of it that well known. Two dozen female choristers, eleven soloists, and an orchestra of over forty musicians, a mixture of students and WNO players and one of their younger conductors, whose performance was athletic, he moved around so much and bounced up and down. The acting was brilliant as the singing. One of the soprano soloists wore a surgical boot on her right leg - due to an accident apparently - it didn't stop her from moving around and being sex as well as very funny in the roles she sang. A flawless performance delivered with vigour and great enjoyment by all taking part.

It was still raining persistently when we left to get a bus from outside the Holiday Inn. We had a fifteen minute wait for the 61, and got home a half past ten, with wet trousers and wet shoes only, thanks to the brolly. Then to bed, eventually.

A psychaiatrist's take on sin

Awake at half past seven, listening to the news and Thought for the Day, then up and taking photos of the rising sun through a veil of orange cloud, an awesome start to the day. After breakfast the second Reith Lecture about violence by Dr Gwen Adshead. Interesting discourse and debate about the nature of evil in which she proposed that it's more helpful to consider evil as an adjective describing a state of mind which  can drive human behaviour in reaction to a variety of negative circumstances, bearing in mind we have a choice about whether or not to act on the impulse to violence. 

Ability to control such negative impulse can be impaired by both social and individual influences; poverty, abuse, drugs, dehumanising ideology etc. Spending time ruminating on greed lust anger envy and pride, whether alone or on social media is the kind of activity which could edge the most 'normal' person towards an evil state of mind. 

Harbouring evil thoughts and impulses can be related usefully to dwelling on of the seven deadly sins. Pride leads to egotism and denigration of others. Gluttony and lust are about selfish appetites and emotions out of control. Greed and envy arise from questioning if there's enough to go round. Extremes of inequality can give rise to unjustifiable violence. Sloth is the ultimate in not caring about anything, disengaging from the world. It can driver despair, a risk factor for suicide and even homicide.  Anger is a reaction to pain and fear, a response that can protect and save life if enacted in the right circumstances, but can lead to hatred in an evil state of mind and to violence . Nobody is immune to the effect of sin. Everyone must be awake to its influence and cultivate a mindset of goodness, compassion and gratitude to protect protect themselves from evil influences.

I found this a most engaging interpretation for a diverse secular audience of moral and spiritual teaching that resonated through different religious faiths. It is of course based on the experience and life's work of a woman committed to healing broken people with the ability to see herself in them. I downloaded the audio of the lecture and listened to it again, to make sure I had taken it all in. 

Meanwhile, Clare went off to her study group in Cowbridge, and I made lunch for when she returned, later than usual. I spent some time writing a letter, then went for a walk. Again I got back after sunset. The sky looked beautiful but the temperature had dropped by nearly ten degrees by the time I returned. Very chilly. I had supper early with her, as she was going out again to meditation group. I started another batch of bread dough, wrote for a while and, baked the bread while watching two more episodes of Lykkeland until it was time for bed, with the house perfumed by that lovely fresh baked smell.

Faulty switch

I woke up about half past seven, dozed until Thought for the Day, then got up to make breakfast. The sky was mostly clear with cloud patches on the horizon as the sun appeared just before eight so I grabbed the nearest camera I could find in my office the HX300 and took a few pleasing photos. 

It's sad there's a lens sensor fault which displays a persistent error message on screen making it tiring to use for any length of time, as the fault has made no difference to lens quality. Getting it repaired would be more expensive than buying an equivalent new one. Such a pity.

Housework after breakfast, then I spent the rest of the morning recording and editing another Morning Prayer and Reflection for a week Wednesday. Editing took me a little longer than usual, and I had to finish the job after lunch. It's just as well that Clare had already planned a meal and was cooking. 

An electrician she hired came at eleven to repair the bathroom light switch. Recently, when pulling the cord the light came on and flickered. If you held the string for long enough it might turn on properly, or not as the case may be. It wasn't a matter of adjustment, but an unusual fault in the switch mechanism, the electrician said. It needed replacing, fortunately it wasn't too expensive. For him it was only ten minutes work.

It was gone three by the time I went out, first to the Co-op for the weekly heavy load of shopping and then for a walk in the park. Having started an hour later the sun set, was I was walking along the river bank. It felt very chilly and I was glad that I'd changed top coats after doing the shopping, for the long fleece lined one bought in last year's sale. It's heavy and has no useful inside pockets, but it's warm. I may get away with wearing something lighter underneath, perhaps even a big sweater. We'll see.

After supper I watched three more episodes of the Norwegian drama 'Lykkeland' before turning in for the night. It's so well written and well paced it sustains interest and is compelling to watch. No wonder it's won 12 movie industry awards and 11 nominations besides.

Advent awakening recalled

It rained in the night, but cleared for a while in the morning and the sun broke through the clouds. A good eight hours sleep, following an early night. I benefit from going to bed early but struggle to change my routine, as I enjoy remembering reflecting and writing while I relax at the end of the day.

I drove to St German's for Mass for a change and joined a congregation of thirty for a traditional Advent Sunday Liturgy. Fr Jarel didn't preach, as a Parish bring and share lunch was going to follow the service, combined with a group conversation envisaging the next ten years in church life, leading up to the 150th anniversary celebrations. I didn't know this was happening and didn't consider staying on. I am after all part of the past fourteen years of St German's and may not live long enough to see the day. At least the sun shone during the service, always a consolation in such a beautiful light filled building. 

I set out for home half an hour earlier than I normally would. The traffic across the city centre was very slow and took fifteen minutes longer than the journey there. I arrived earlier than Clare expected, so she'd been late starting lunch, not that it mattered., I opened a bottle of Italian Merlot that I won at the Christmas Fayre last week and listened to the news once I laid the table. 

The sky clouded over again by the time I went for an afternoon walk in the park. There was a lot of water on the roads from earlier showers and my lower half got soaked by a car driving through a water filled pothole. Later on there was a ten minute shower of rain, soaking my top jacket. Although my trousers dried out while I was walking, they needed washing as roadside puddle water is inevitably dirty water.

After an early supper we went to St Catherine's for the Advent Carol service. Nearly four dozen people attended. There was meant to be a bidding prayer at the start of the service, but it didn't happen. I suspect nobody reminded Fr Sion that he needed to provide his own text for this. There is a suitable one in the Oxford Carols for Choirs, which needs to be provided for the officiating cleric, or they need to be told in advance so that they come prepared. I've been nearly caught out by this before and glad that I'm no longer responsible and facing the congregation for worship.

Being in the congregation for Advent Sunday holds a special memory for me. In my first term as an undergraduate, I attended a silent retreat at a convent in Salisbury which catalysed a spiritual awakening in me that opened a way to contemplate the mystery of God. As a child I went to the early Communion service with my mother and this made an impression on me. I connect these two experiences as markers on my journey which set me in the direction life has taken me. 

Fifty seven years of active participation in the church's mission and ministry later, in response to a call which first came to me through others, I still wonder if I made the right choice. I never felt comfortable about being in the social role of a clergyman and it took time to feel completely at ease acting as a priest and preacher representing the church before God, and God's Word to the church. It's a matter of learning to pray all over again when performing the priestly role. When you no longer occupy the role it's a matter of re-discovering if not learning, how to pray as an individual member of the Body, blessed with the time and space in which to do so.

And now, another effort to get to bed earlier and change my habit!

Something completely different to watch

It was a cold night until first light, then the air temperature rose from near zero to ten degrees, and I had to discard the extra blanket in order to be comfortably warm, not overheated. Overcast cloud again all day, however. After breakfast I made a video slide show to go with the podcast interview, so I could upload it to YouTube for posting on the Daily Prayer WhatsApp thread. I thought the visuals could help to make the content more recognisable. There may be more useful podcast hosting sites which I've yet to discover, but I'm not thinking of wider circulation, just the target user group in the Ministry Area. We'll see how it goes.

There was a coffee morning at St John's, so I went there and had soup, sausage rolls and a mince pie for lunch. Clare had already gone to the Fountain School Christmas Fayre in Llandaff North, and got back from there, just as I was setting out for my walk in the park. When I got back Clare was busy baking cake and then moved on to making mince pies ready for our four day rural Christmas holiday party. I scanned two more folders of negatives. One was from a hike up the mountain behind La Baume in Haute Savoie in 1997, and the other from a holiday locum in Howarth, Bronte Country in 1985, when it rained a lot, though we did have a few fair days to judge by the photos I took of a walk alongside the Leeds to Liverpool Canal.

I made supper early, as I was feeling really hungry after a snack lunch - mussels with brown rice and peas. Then I edited the scanned photos and uploaded them. Looking for something to watch to finish the day, I found a BBC Four drama series called 'Lykkeland' or 'State of Happiness in English, telling the story of the birth of the Norwegian Oil industry in the 1980's, and how this transformed the country's economy.  

There are three series in twenty four episodes. Having been predominantly a port with canning fish as its key industry Stavanger became its oil capital. The story of its development is told from the standpoint of locals and American oil prospectors, family domestic drama and the dangerous world of heavy industry meet. It's a superbly acted immaculately portrayed period piece about life before the internet at a time when huge upheavals are about to take place at every level of society affecting individuals differently. Is it the Scandinavian equivalent of Dallas? Maybe not. It has a solid historical basis, even if character driven story-lines are fictional. It's so different from your usual Scandi-Noir crimmies. I look forward to the other twenty two episodes there are to watch in weeks to come.

A matter of death and life

Back under cloud cover again today. Getting to bed half an hour earlier helped me get up a bit earlier, just after an excellent Thought for the Day by Catholic journalist Catherine Pepinster in which she spoke about the Christian concept of Conscience on this day when Parliament debates the draft bill on assisted dying. The public debate so far has been very interesting, as it has raised a host of practical questions and doubts whose seriousness may have escaped the attention of proponents of the bill. The very last stage of life is often fraught with physical suffering and mental anguish. 

I can understand what makes this intolerable for some, and leads them to hasten their own death. It already happens legally in ten countries under certain conditions and probably in many more countries outside the gaze of the law. 'Thou shalt not kill' is a moral imperative widely ignored when it comes to war. For better or for worse medical science prolongs life and on times, it does so when it be more compassionate to stop treatment and let a person die naturally. 

Actively helping people on their way is a different issue, however, and very complex. The law is a mess on end of life issues. I wouldn't want to be kept alive if I was too so sick that relationships with my nearest and dearest were no longer possible, but let my end be natural not managed. Others may think differently. Suicide is no longer against the law. Accountability for assisting someone to die on their own terms must be under strict scrutiny, but with criminal sanctions used as a last resort. And that's where it gets very complex. One thing that will keep coming to the fore is the fact that not enough is invested in caring for the elderly vulnerable, in end of life care and palliative care. Let's hope that the very fact of this present debate will help shift priorities.

There are also questions to consider about there being a right to take one's own life. Is this right the ultimate consumer freedom? Customising your demise goes way beyond customising your funeral just because you can, whether or not your choices please others. How does duty and responsibility towards others fit with 'rights'? It's painfully individualistic, choosing to cut all interpersonal bonds, ignoring the community nature of any farewell ritual imposing your choice on others who feel obliged to carry out your dying wishes without an honest say in the affair? Nobody should have to suffer, not have too much say in how others mourn your passing. 

While I was making breakfast, I had a call from Ruth about the podcast. She had concerns about a few of the things she had mentioned. I made a note of them and reassured her that I could edit them out, rather than her needing to come around and re-record. I got to work after breakfast, and after an hour and a half of tinkering with the audio, she was satisfied with the outcome. Meanwhile the aroma of Christmas fudge and the sound of Clare beating it in the kitchen reached me in the front room.

We had a salad lunch including Greek gigantes beans that Clare slightly overcooked, which gave them an interesting slightly caramelised flavour. Then I went out early for a walk, up to Western Avenue and down the east bank of the Taff to the Millennium Bridge and back home. I was interested to see what traces there were of the river overflow last weekend. There are still treacherous patches of mud on the hard of the path which haven't yet dried out, branches and twigs carried by water caught up in bramble patches and in occasional pieces of fencing. Low hanging trees and undergrowth have trapped plastic sheeting and bags, a sad and ugly sight, with little likelihood of the plastic being removed.

In the five o'clock news, we learned that Parliament has adopted the assisted dying bill. That means it will be scrutinised, subjected to modification by both Houses. Today's debate will I suspect, continue a process that will eventually lead to effective legislation. What the eventual outcome will be remains to be seen.

The whole world was treated to news video footage of the interior of Notre Dame de Paris during today's visit by President Macron today. It's a wonderful sight, with the stonework and stained glass cleaned of seven centuries of grime, so it now looks as it did when it was first completed seven centuries ago, full of light and warmth. Restoration cost €700 million, most of it raised from donations. It was inspiring to hear one of the carpenters working on rebuilding the roof speak on the Today programme this morning. Asked about the reason for using medieval wood working tools to fashion the oak roof beams, he said this was necessary to obtain the highest quality most durable timbers to work with. It seems that mechanical saws stress the wood cutting too much across the grain when the older slower gentler implements didn't. There's a lesson about life to be learned in this, one which I'm sure the luthier working on Dad's 'cello will be well acquainted with.

We went out for supper at Stefano's for a change. When we got back I scanned another batch of negatives from a 1997 hike in Haute Savoie, I think, though I'm not sure where we walked. It may have been up the mountain behind La Baume. Lovely times.

Podcast making

The temperature went down to minus two last night. The humidity dropped so it didn't feel as chilly and I got a good night's sleep. Blue sky with some cloud all day. I woke up on schedule to post today's YouTube link to WhatsApp, and got up after Thought for the Day rather than listening to the news in bed.

After breakfast, we walked into town with my Dad's 'cello for a consultation at Cardiff Violin Centre in Castle Arcade. Its retail interface is located on the balcony level of shops and offices. The arcade is now decorated for Christmas so the view from upstairs is interesting and photogenic. Except that I didn't have a camera with me. The walls of the Centre's reception desk are lined with rows of violins with a range of beautiful wood colours and sizes, all hanging by the head. Beyond that, a suit of rooms linked by a corridor. All the walls are lined with rows of violins of varying sizes, and astonishing sight. I'll be back next time with a camera. It turns out that the 'cello needs more work done on it than we realised to restore it to top condition. Clare is determined to see this done before Rachel comes for her next visit in January.

Clare stayed on make the necessary arrangements and then went to a shoe shop, while I returned home to cook lunch in haste, as Ruth was due to visit at two, for a podcast recording session. After a somewhat nervous start for both of us, we produced half an hour's worth of audio to clean up and edit the clips into a useful shape. It took me a couple of hours of sessions with an afternoon walk in the park sandwiched in. I finished the job after supper, adding an introduction with background accompaniment using clips from Rachel's Tucson workshop composition to top and tail the interview. I wasn't sure if I could do this without making mistakes, and was pleased this trial turned out to be error free. I sent a copy to Rachel to listen to, and she approved. All in all, a constructive day's work. I wonder what Ruth will think of it?

Passing resemblance

A cold night and morning, but waking up to blue sky with sunshine and some cloud. It's the sort of damp cold that clings to you and makes it hard to get warm and stay warm whatever you wear unless you do vigorous exercise. Then when you start sweating you end up getting cold quickly. Not my favourite kind of weather. It's almost a relief when the temperature drops below zero as the air becomes less humid and less clingy, so to speak.

There were seven of us for the Eucharist at St Catherine's. Rachel brought baby Sebastian with her. Today for the first time he gave me a smile or two, which warmed my heart. Rachel gave me some gigantes from the two kilo gab she brought back from visiting her in-laws in Athens at half term. We got to talking about food pleasures many weeks ago, things you like when you're abroad and can't easily get here. What a nice gift! Sion told us about the six months he spent at an ecumenical work camp at Locarno in the Ticino back in the '80s. It reminded me of the time we spent in Lugano on a Sunday duty exchange with the chaplain there, who had worked in Geneva for years before he was ordained.

On the way home I collected the veg bag from Chapter, then cooked fish for lunch while Clare went out to pick up a prescription from the chemists. Then I went for a walk, first for a circuit of Thompson's Park, then to Victoria Park, something I haven't done for a long while. I was pleased to see that the noticeboard at St Luke's church has been replaced by a new bilingual one, advertising its monthly Welsh language Eucharist. It replaces a noticeboard which may have been fifteen years old and never properly updated. Talking of noticeboards, another new noticeboard was delivered to St Catherine's this morning while the service was going on. It's for advertising events in the church hall, and other community notices. It has a lockable double window opening for easy access. It will make a difference to the look of the church yard from the street. No more laminated A4 posters tied to the fence with string!

Walking back, I was addressed by a man passing in the opposite direction who said: "You look just like Billy Connolly!" I don't know why. In response I said: "I've also been told I look like Sean Connery. Unfortunately I don't make any money out of this!" I walked on, crossed the road and went to the Co-op to get some paper hankies, and met the same man a second time who repeated his allegation. Bizarre. Later I googled Billy Connolly. His white hair is longer than mine, and his beard is much longer. Even so it may explain why often strangers in the park look at me and half smile as they pass puzzling maybe, over why my face may seem familiar. It never occurred to me before!

After supper I scanned another couple of rolls of film negatives from 1987. One, a camping holiday in the Vaucluse Parc Natural de Luberon, plus a few shots taken somewhere in Switzerland to judge by the domestic architecture, but exactly where I couldn't work out or recall. The other was taken on a trip to Taize, a rare occasion when almost an entire roll of film turned out under-exposed, to the point that some scans tweaked to the limit in a decent photo editor revealed no information about the subject. I'm trying to figure out how it happened. The only way that could happen would be if I set the camera incorrectly for the film speed used. A slow film with a shutter setting far too fast, I think.

I stopped in time to watch this week's episode of 'Shetland' at nine, then the news, to hear more about the ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. Still nowhere near a resolution of the inhumane tragedy of the conflict with Hamas, where nearly 70% of the 45,000 victims have been women and children, according to the United Nations. Netanyahu and the Israeli extremists who keep him in power have a lot to answer for, but will any of them ever be brought to justice, when the fighting is over.

Reith Lectures 2024

It was good to wake up to a blue sky and sunshine. I learned from local news that the noisy rain I heard along with thunder last night was a shower of hail, a sign of colder currents of air from another weather system arriving, as storm Bert moves south.

After breakfast, the first of this year's Reith lectures on Radio Four, called 'Four Questions about Violence' by forensic psychiatrist Dr Gwen Adshead who has worked with murderers and other violent offenders in mental hospitals and prisons helping them to come to terms with their crimes. She dispelled the notion that violent people are monsters - ordinary people who take leave of their senses for a particular reason, often shocked by their own extreme behaviour when they stop denying or trying to justify their actions, and face the seriousness of what they've done.

People who resort to extreme violence do so in different circumstances and for a different and complex set of reasons. What triggers the violent response in each individual is a set of factors as unique as the code which releases a combination lock. It can take years in therapy to figure out all the elements involved. There's a lot more to it than this. Her disciplined thoughtful discourse made for compelling listening.

After that, I spent the morning writing a response to a reflection about mission from my friend Rufus. Clare cooked batches of mince pies for Christmas and I cooked lunch, fish for her, pork chops for me, done in the oven alongside the mince pies. 

We ate early enough to allow me to walk for three quarters of an hour while Clare was having a rest. Then I drove her to UHW for an eye appointment, and on returning, continued my walk in the park until just after sunset. She returned home after me, with the surprising news that she'd been diagnosed with viral conjunctivitis. The painful condition of her eye in the past two weeks isn't a consequence of the tear duct operation he had, but an acquired infection. Where she picked that up is anybody's guess. It could give her trouble for many weeks, but at least the pain isn't due to the operation - less worse? I'm not sure.

Apart from a break for supper, I spent the rest of the day binge watching episodes of 'Judge Marianne', sad tales, crazy tales and even a couple of happy tales, and a lots of humorous dialogue making it entertaining to watch, light relief for a change.

Quick return after the deluge

Glimpses of the sun between rain clouds, and periodic showers all morning. Housekeeping chores after breakfast, then I hunted through my photo archive in search of photos of the story Dennis flooding. It took longer than I expected. I was sure I took photos using my Sony HX90, but they weren't in any of my Cloud accounts, or stored on a hard drive. 

All I found was a date gap of a few days, but there was still a last resort. As SD cards became cheaper, I stopped transferring photos to other storage media and recycling the card. The last one I examined was the last one I filled covering 2019-21, and there I found a couple of dozen flood photos from 16-17th February 2020. The inundation was worse then, not as I remembered, as water covered the path as far as the rubbish bin about 300m from the river bank. The river banks broke both sides, but the volume of water moves faster since the river bed was cleared up, so the overspill isn't as extensive this time.

A hundred homes inundated by Taff overflowing in Pontypridd, and Ynysangharad Park flooded, and Ponty Lido surrounded and invaded by flood water. It happened during storm 'Dennis' in February 2020 and put out of action for several years. Flood protection measures taken then were not enough to prevent recurrence. The park was slow to recover due to rain during and after the National Eisteddfod. 

Flood hit municipalities here and abroad come in for strong criticism for lack of preparedness or tardy responses to weather warnings. It's as if those responsible underestimate or cannot imagine the true seriousness of the impact of climate change, despite what scientists keep telling us. It's not exactly denial, but inherent inability to consider that things could be so bad, so quickly. Economic and social priorities need to become more proactive, instead of reactive, to avoid ruinous upheaval. It's not a good place to be.

After tracking down the missing photos I cooked a chick pea curry with brown rice for lunch. It turned out well, and just the right amount for two with no leftovers. Then I went down to Blackweir to check the river and was surprised to see that almost all the water had drained out of the fields. Gulls and crows were having a party around the edges of the remaining small ponds, foraging for worms and other creatures brought to the surface by the water. 

The river overflow washes not only soil containing organic matter on to the paths and surrounding grass but red sandstone sediment, and on top of this a smaller amount of black sediment, possibly particles of coal duty remaining from half a century ago when the waters of the Taff up-river were used for washing coal. There are still places where traces of coal still persist in the woodland soil along the Taff, rather than the riverbed, and this gets washed down when the river bursts its banks.

Once I'd taken photos I returned home and took a shopping list with me to Tesco's to stock up on fresh fruit and a few other rather heavy things we were lacking, and got back just after the sun set. After a cup of tea and some chocolate cake, I made the video slide show to go with the recording of my first Wednesday Morning Prayer and uploaded it to YouTube just before supper.

Later on I found a new series to watch on Channel 4 Walter Presents called 'Judge Marianne'. It's a sort of lightweight crime comedy as opposed to thriller, focusing on the cases of a judge d'instruction - the investigating magistrate in the French legal system, whose role is to manage police enquiries when the prosecutor considers there is a crime to consider and deliver evidence to the prosecutor. It's different from our British legal system procedure, which a police superintendent manages an investigation in consultation with the Department for Public Prosecution, if I understand things correctly. Anyway the setting for these stories is Toulon on the French Riviera Cote du Var. The scenery and the dialogue is familiar and easy to follow, thanks to the year we spent living in the region. Quite funny, but with tragic thoughtful elements.

Big rumbles of thunder and a noisy shower of rain at bed time.

Storm Bert fills the Taff to overflowing

Rain in the night and lighter rain most of the morning flood warnings galore. Miserable. We went to Saint Catherine's for the Eucharist. With the Sunday school children, wearing paper crowns in honour of Christ the King at the end, we were over forty. Despite the weather yesterday's Christmas Fayre exceeded last year's revenue by more than ten percent. Hilary remarked on the number of older non churchgoing people from the neighbourhood, among those making the effort to attend the Fayre. It's a positive indication about the good will the church enjoys locally. 

After lunch, I took a brolly and my camera for a walk in the rain down to Blackweir. As expected after two days of continuous rain, often heavy was exceptionally high, high enough to break through the banks on both sides, flooding the fields. It was worse this time than when the fields last flooded, with water this time reaching up as far as the initial west side flood protection dyke where the ground level rises sharply by about a metre. The last time this happened on 17th Feb 2020, during storm 'Dennis'. I'm not sure without checking the photos I took then if it was as bad then. I need to check my photo archive. Then I walked up to the Western Avenue road bridge and there the water was spilling over on both sides of the river, and the Taff Trail was awash. 

Up until now remedial work on a few places on the banks and riverbed undertaken after the last big inundation have contained heavy flow pretty well. The volume of water and the speed at which it's being dumped by storm 'Bert' suggest a higher scale of magnitude, such as was seen recently in Valencia, on a much bigger scale given the size of the mountains and area of the watershed. I wonder what more can be done in the flood plain occupied by the city, to improve flood protection further? 

I got home just after sunset, a mile short of my daily target. I didn't want to get any wetter than I already was. In the evening we watched Antiques Road show, and then BBC's Young Jazz Musician of the Year. A brilliant and inspiring display of musicianship from competitors aged between 18 and 22. This year a new performance item was added to the programme, in which all four finalists performed a Charlie Parker tune which they'd learned to play together from scratch in the previous 48 hours. Such a joy!

Monsoon-like rain strikes again

I woke up in the night to feel a breath of fresh air on my face, a little warmer than room temperature. No window was open, but if the wind veers to the south west and  blows directly on to the wall outside the bedroom, the slight change in pressure pushes air into the room through leaky window frames or chimney breast not properly sealed. Today it heralded the end of the cold spell of northerly air we've experienced in the last couple of weeks. By mid morning instead of being one degree C it was fourteen, unusually warm for the time of year.

Clare was up before me, receiving an early delivery of fish from Ashton's. She was bagging portions for the freezer when I came down. Having already prepared the batter for waffle making, she instructed me on how to use the waffle iron, so we had waffles for breakfast cooked by me for the first time. No disasters!  Ruth Honey asked me to check a draft order of service for her. It gave me an opportunity to arrange with her a date next week for my first podcast interview in a series I've been planning.

With a change in weather came the rain. it rained non-stop until three in the afternoon. I spent all morning writing then made lunch; fish for Clare, chicken and chorizo for me, the other half of a dish cooked some weeks ago and stored in the freezer with veg for both of us.

What bad luck with the weather for St Catherine's Christmas Fayre this afternoon. Before I went there I had to withdraw some cash to spend. The only place I could think to walk to in the rain with an indoor ATM was the Co-op on Cowbridge Road. A break in the rain was promised, but when left there it was still raining heavily, so I walked to the nearest bus shelter and waited there five minutes until a number 18 bus arrived and took me two stops to the corner of King's Road, within a few minutes walk of St Catherine's. By the time I got off the bus, the rain had stopped, so I wasn't completely soaked when I arrived.

Despite the weather, a decent number of people had turned out, although revenue is bound to be less than last year. I bought three tickets on Clive's bottle tombola stall and won two bottles of wine and another of spicy fruit juice for mulling. I've never had so much luck before! I also bought a jar of apple chutney. As we still have a few of the last batch I made, there's no need to make any more for a while. I returned with a heavy rucksack to deposit my winnings, then went for a walk in the park as rain hadn't yet re-started. It was just after sunset when I set out and walking in the dark with no moon after rain was more an act of endurance than a pleasure. I spent the rest of the day exchanging messages and responding to emails.