Life in a building site - day three

Up for breakfast just after eight. The workmen didn't start until nine. Basma emailed me a lovely story of  when she was eleven years old at school in Iraq. It was, it seems, a Catholic school, and when there were religion classes, the children were in separate groups. She was curious about a faith different from her own and one day, when the topic for Christians was the meaning of Easter, she pretended to be poorly. It was too cold for her to be sent outside the classroom, so she sat alone in a far corner, head on desk, listening intently to what the teacher said about Passover and the death of Jesus. Some of the detail she still recalls over thirty years later. She also had an Irish Catholic aunt by marriage, and has recently been reunited with her. Her aunt's joy at Basma's journey to spiritual freedom must be very fulfilling.

I went the Eucharist in Saint Catherine's at ten. Father Rowan celebrated. There were nine of us altogether. I collected this week's veg bag on my way home, and continued working on Sway publicity - a Lent Course poster - until lunch was ready, a Clare special: cod with fresh ginger and garlic! After lunch we took it in turns to do our share of the weekly grocery shopping, using the shopping trolly in turns, and after this more work on preparing a Confirmation Class poster, before going for a walk. Sunset wasn't until five today, but the cloud was so low and thick that half past three felt like sunset. Nothing much of interest on telly after supper, so I wrote another talk for Basma, and then recorded next week's Morning Prayer and Reflection before going to bed early.

It's a relief to know that the dispute over post-brexit trading and Northern Ireland borders has finally come to a compromise agreement between the main parties in Stormont, ending two years of paralysis, in which the Ulster government has just ticked over with no guidance or policy making by politicians elected for the purpose. This standoff happens to have coincided with the election of just enough of a Republican majority to ensure that the next First Minister will be a member of Sinn Fein for the first time since the Irish Free State was founded. It will be interesting to see how Unionist parties fare in the next general election, after authoring through their objections to the post brexit trade terms a situation from which nobody has benefited, and many are worse off. 

Life in a building site - day two

We both got up at seven this morning to have breakfast and be ready for the arrival of the builders by eight but it was well past eight by the time they all arrived and started work. I phoned the GP surgery just after eight to get an appointment, as requested by a letter I received yesterday for a 'triage call'. Work went on in fits and starts until four. You could tell the boss wasn't on site today.

As a 20% travel insurance discount offer with Staysure is still live until Wednesday evening, I spent part of the morning investigating this. In the year since I last purchased a policy, the policy's t&c seems to have changed. Instead of a 60 day per trip (up to 183 day total on an annual policy, coverage is now limited to 35 days, which means I'll need to return to Britain for a few days and start another round trip. The full cost is now £220, discounted down to £153, by the time I filled it in correctly and bought it. I'll have to pay for another round trip after a month, but that will be less costly than spending more than double on a one trip insurance of seventy days. I took all day dithering over this and exploring alternatives, but eventually paid up before supper. 

I prepared next week's Morning Prayer and Reflection but couldn't record them due to the noise. Clare had another Optometrist visit for a vision test, and I cooked lunch, as her appointment was delayed. It was half past two by the time she returned home. I wrote another short talk for Basma, then walked for two hours after the workmen left. Doctor Mullaney rang my mobile when I was out in the park. It must have been her last call. She sounded tired. She wanted to know if I was aware of the surgeon's letter to the GP. I said I had acted upon this immediately and booked in for a blood pressure test this Friday. 

She sounded surprised. This is the third post-op call I've had about this. Something is not right about admin coordination. I told her about the anaesthetist discovering I'd not had a blood test for eight months as part of the pre-op assessment, perhaps because the operation was arranged in haste. I also had another moan about the difference between the op notification letter stating analgesics would not be given out in the hospital, and practice on the ward, where the charge nurse's to-do list included offering me cocodamol. Whether my concerns will be fed back or not, I don't know. Medical administrators and doctors alike are far too busy, always playing catch-up, not communicating well.

This evening was mostly taken up with preparing Lent publicity, slow and painstaking, gathering info from the churches to go out on Sway. I missed an hour's dozing this morning. Early bed tonight.

Life in a building site - day one

Up just before eight this morning on a grey overcast, slightly damp morning with the arrival of the scaffolding team to complete yesterday's job, with the roofing team hot on their heels. It was going to be necessary to move the car to make room for the skip due to arrive today, if not tomorrow. I asked for help the do a bump start, but it turned out not to be needed as the car fired into life first go, so I moved it fifty feet down the street and left the engine idling until we'd had breakfast. Lots of noise and dust followed with the activity being concentrated on the back side of the house. The big Velux window was removed, ready for replacement by a new one with a high specification.

Clare went out to shop for a new coded lock for the alley gate and returned with one which couldn't be opened, so she had to return to the hardware shop and get help. Meanwhile, I made the video for this week's Morning Prayer then retrieved the reading texts for next Sunday's Eucharist, and emailed them to the usual recipients. That was quite an achievement against the background noise!

Clare extracted from the freezer the unused half of the port sausage meat bought for stuffing the Christmas turkey, and I turned half of it into a sauce with onions, tomatoes and mushrooms. It was quicker to do this than making it into meat balls to fry, especially as Clare was in command of the frying pan, heating up her veggie 'meatballs'. I was pleased with the outcome. It might have stretched to two days' worth of lunch, with pasta, but with rice instead however, it didn't look as if it would stretch.

Then I went out for a walk, and bumped into Fr Andrew in the park, on his way home from a meeting. We sat on a bench and chatted for half an hour - it was just about mild enough to do this without getting chilled. The roofers had already finished for the day by the time I returned at sunset. At half past six, there was a commotion in the street outside the house, so I went out to investigate. The skip lorry was parking and was just about to deposit its load in the empty space prepared outside the house. The driver said that a forty five minute journey from Rhoose had just taken him an hour and a half in evening traffic. All is now ready for the stripping of the front roof tomorrow.

After supper, I watched this week's double episode of 'Silent Witness', which was all about establishing the identity of three different unknown people whose deaths were discovered long after they died without any usable physical or circumstantial evidence to suggest who they were. The same kind of forensic science as is showcased in 'Bones', but woven into a bigger story in a more thorough way. Very British in its way, but very much the same kind of investigation.

Thankfully, despite the dampness in the air, we got through the first day of roof tile stripping without rain.

New roof this week

Up at eight this morning, intending to join the congregation at St German's for Mass. Unfortunately the car wouldn't start. Flat battery. As there wasn't enough time to take public transport, I walked to the Cathedral  for the Sung Eucharist instead. Fr Stephen Adams preached, and gave me Communion with a smile of recognition. It must be ten years since we last met, when he was on the staff at St Mike's. He left there to become team Rector of Cowbridge, and retired last year.

Yesterday, a team of workers was due to arrive and erect scaffolding ready for the roofers to start work on replacing our forty year old tiles. Clare received an apologetic phone call announcing a delay. It was just before lunch today when they arrived. When Clare went to open the coded padlock on the back alley gate, she couldn't get it to work. Some panic stricken messaging on WhatsApp raised the man who had provided the coded lock after the one with keys went missing. It had been well lubricated overnight, but it has an unusual unlocking mechanism and was stiff. I think its internal cog wheels are worn or need tightening, as the numbers were tricky to align. Anyway, this delayed the scaffolders from bringing their equipment into the garden ready for erection, so they worked for a couple of hours, just on the front of the house instead.

I dozed in the chair after lunch and walked in the park for an hour before tea. Then I put the car battery on charge until dark, though I suspect it will need a longer charge before the engine can turn over. It's stood idle in cold weather for a fortnight. The engine may well need a push start to free it up in these conditions.

After supper we watched 'Call the Midwife' and then I streamed a couple of episodes of 'Bones', for lack of anything better to do before going to bed.

Out to lunch

Another comfortable night's sleep, the weather unchanged, maybe slightly colder. Clare cooked waffles for breakfast. I worked on another five minute talk for Basma explaining the chief features of the Christian calendar year, then recorded and emailed it to her. Andrew invited us to visit him for a snack lunch, so we walked to Llys Esgob, where Andrew lives. He and Bishop Mary have separate studies in a large rambling hotchpotch of a modern house with diocesan offices attached. 

We were introduced to an ordinand who's joining WCMA as a Deacon at the end of June, and an NSM priest who coming to us as well. One's Sian, the other is Sue, but I'm not quite sure who is who, as I wasn't expecting there to be two of them. Rhys and Eluned, and Jan were there, plus Iona and Kate from the Ministry Area Council. Unfortunately the veggie sandwiches all had cheese in them, so I just ate an orange and some grapes instead. We got back at three and after a sardine and rye bread snack, I walked for another hour before sunset. 

The water level at Blackweir yesterday was quite high, although there'd been little rain in the area for a few days. Inland is a different matter. The level dropped over half a metre since then. The fields are slow to dry out as they've been waterlogged for so long, and not been firmed up by frost, so it's still treacherous to walk on the grass in places. For the first time since summer, I saw two swans on the edge of the river in the vicinity of the cricket stadium. Were they looking for a place to feed or to breed, I wonder?

The last of the Christmas turkey was thawed out to make a soup for supper. Clare thawed out a portion of chickpea curry and added some fish to it. Interesting. Afterwards, Clare went out to hear a jazz guitarist in King's Yard. I stayed in and binge watched the rest of 'Arctic Circle' series 2, which I started watching last night. It wasn't so much about cross border crime, as about the cover up of an accidental death which led to another man being pursued for murder, kidnapped by an elite vigilante group which thought itself above the law. In this story the knight in shining armour is a tough female cop with a Downs Syndrome daughter. The child playing the part was a very capable actor with several insightful lines and a good sense of humour. Unusual.

More progress

Another long night's sleep, in bed for nine and a half hours and away for just over an hour in fits and starts as befits a time of recovery. A mild day again with sunny blue skies, but I didn't get around to enjoying it until after lunch.

After breakfast I completed, recorded and edited next week's reflection and recorded a second five minute  talk I wrote for Basma about the Jewish origin of the Eucharist. Clare cooked a fish risotto for lunch. Very nourishing winter fare.Then I went out for a long slowish walk in the park, and returned as it was getting dark having reached my usual daily step quota. That's pleasing, a week after the op. I don't feel yet that I can push myself, but returning home without dragging aching feet and feeling tired is a blessing. 

While I was subjected to the series of five operations to deal with the anal infection, I walked daily but that low level infection in my body made exercise hard work and often my feet ached miserably while I walked. Pain from the open wound was much less of a burden to cope with during exercise. It's different now thank God.

After supper I recorded next week's Morning Prayer and edited it together with the day's reflection ready to be made into a video. Pleased with my day's work. Then I browsed Walter Presents to find if there was something new to watch, and found a second series of a Finnish crimmie called Arctic Circle in a mix of Finnish, Russian and English. It's about cross-border crime and the Russian mafia. It definitely dates from before Putin's war on Ukraine, back to pre-covid times.

In today's news the UN International Court of Justice has ruled that South Africa's genocide allegation levelled at Israel over its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza requires an investigation and a formal response. The court formally calls upon Israel take all measures in its power to prevent genocidal acts in its military action in ways that don't deny the population its right to live in peace and safety. Twenty eight thousand people have been killed in Gaza, over half of them women and children. 

The Israeli military claims to have exercised due diligence informing the population that it had to flee to safety every time war was about to be waged in a new zone, but with cold indifference about whether or not people in the way could act in response to the command. The difference between theory and practice here is the difference between doing good and doing evil. What Hamas has done is evil and unjustifiable and demands a response, but people too young and innocent of any responsibility are being punished collectively. The world sees this but the Israeli leadership doesn't. There's none so blind as those who refuse to see how they are destroying their own just cause.

Outbound Bristol Malaga flight booked

I went to bed late and woke up early, posted today's Morning Prayer link on WhatsApp then dozed until it was time for breakfast. There were six of us with Meg, who celebrated at St John's this morning. After a cup of coffee, I sent to the Post Office and sent off my driving license renewal form. I feel strange about handing it in. It's invaluable, an identity card by any other name. The renewal turnover time isn't said to be long - unless it get lost. I sent it 'recorded delivery' in the hope that it won't get lost. I'll need it, and an International Driving Permit, when I return to Spain.

On my way back home I saw that 'Oriel Canfas'  contemporary art gallery was open. At the moment, it's exhibiting puppetry by Frankie Locke and Pete Raymond with colourful paintings portraying the puppets in their own realm, by Barbara Leith. She has painted some elements of her subject spilling over on to the picture frame. She said she'd have preferred to paint on the walls, so this was a compromise! It a way it was a statement about the power of stories which cannot be confined by imagination.

All three artists have a background in stage design and scenic arts with WNO. The puppets are carved from wood and painted. Sets of them are used to tell specific stories: Jonah and the Whale, Tobias and the Angel, The Owl and the Pussycat, George and the Dragon, for example. There's a Punch and Judy stall whose puppets are also depicted in proscenium arch vignettes. It's all beautifully conceived and executed, appealing to imaginative people of all ages. I found it most uplifting, a real delight, and all just a few streets away from home.

By the time I got back, Clare had returned from another session at the Optometry School and was cooking lunch. I got to work on finishing this week's Sway, which needed a few modifications, once I'd run it past Iona, rather later this week. It was nearly five by the time I finished and went for a walk in the park. It's getting noticeably lighter day my day now. Slowly we're getting back a decent length afternoon in daylight. I'm being careful to increase my daily walking distance gradually. I'm back to 80% already and feeling none the worse for it. I was fearful of losing fitness after lying low for several days, as this does happen when you get older, apparently. Lucky so far, it seems.

After supper I watched another couple  of episodes of 'Bones', and then got to work on booking myself a flight to Malaga. Nothing available with Vueling from Cardiff at the end of Easter week when I need to fly, so I had to choose EasyJet from Bristol, as I did last year. It's just a bit cheaper to take the airport shuttle bus from Sophia Gardens to Bristol than it is to take a taxi to the airport, funnily enough. I have a Saturday lunchtime flight, which cost a hundred and seventy quid on its own. 

As Clare comes out in mid-May on a date yet undecided, it may be possible to book flights home to Cardiff with Vueling, as the summer timetable will be operating then, although an early flight would be prohibitive as it takes an hour to get to the airport by coach. Or else stay overnight in Malaga. This has been complex to plan in times past. We'll see how it turns out. There's plenty of time.

EasyJet booking website annoyingly defaults to booking two flights at a time rather than one. I had to log into my EasyJet account and navigate my way to a booking page where I could book a single flight in order to avoid a very costly error. I think it may be a matter of deleting cookies to avoid this in future.

Anyway, I'm two steps forward in planning for locum duty. When I get my new license, I can buy my international driver permit, and some travel insurance, and then I'll be ready to travel. Now bed-time.

Still progressing, sort of

I had quite a good night's sleep and woke up to a dry, often overcast mild day. I went to the Eucharist at St Catherine's. Bishop Rowan celebrated, there were eleven of us. Afterwards we celebrated Pam's ninetieth birthday with a cake - her fourth this week! Then I collected this week's veggie bag from Chapter on my way home. Clare had prepared the veggies for lunch and asked me to cook the sausages, veggie and pork, to go with them. For once I succeeded in frying both lots without burning any part of them!

I had an email exchange with Basma, which prompted me to explore the idea of recording a series of short catechism talks for her, explaining sections of basic Christian teaching, essential to her preparation for Baptism. We've not been able to meet up as often as possible lately, due to her immobilising herself after a fall and me being less often at St German's. She can repeat the talks without having the text in front of her, or can work from the Gospels in Arabic using a scripture quote I mention. Hopefully this will help.

After lunch I made an example to try out on her, while Clare was out food shopping. Then I went out to do my share of food shopping. Andrew called at the house just after I'd left. Fortunately the shopping list was short and in fifteen minutes I was back at home for what I hope will be a useful chat about handing over Sway in particular. It needs a lay volunteer, or a church administrator - maybe we'll get one of those again now. I don't have to worry about training someone, as Fr Sion Brynach, has skill and experience in this realm, and can do this with a new volunteer once someone has been recruited.

After supper, same old routine. Watching a couple of episodes of 'Bones'. It's a series in which I think the relationships among the team of actors has developed from one series to another. Apart from all the gory action of real life simulated forensic science, there are many quiet moments of serious dialogue between the actors. They're an earnest bunch with different back stories, but they are careful with each other. The flirting is subtle, and there's little sex. There's complex crime solving, but also a compassionate eye on families and the impact a shock bereavement. Shootouts are uncommon. It's not all held together by the military code of honour, despite one of the key roles featuring veteran soldier, an ex sniper. Leroy Jethro Gibbs of NCIS he definitely is not! Often something new to think about, not so formulaic with action packed heroics as NCIS. Easy to go to sleep after.

Before turning in, I filled in the paper version of the driving license renewal application form, ready to take to the Post Office in the morning. It wasn't a happy experience. Too much information crammed into two A4 pages in small sized print. Now that might cause me to lose sleep, wondering if I got it right. I may still be suffering the impact of the operation anaesthetic in a mild way, as thinking straight about things I'm not used to doing is now taking me longer than before. Chemical concussion?

Taking it easy

Another wet and windy day under a grey sky, but an unexpected promise of warmer sunnier days to come. Having got into bed, I was about switch off my phone for the night and an email dropped from John, the churchwarden of Nerja Anglican Chaplaincy, asking if I would be free for locum duty from Easter onward as the second year of pastoral vacancy commences. How remarkably providential this is! Both sets of my locum duties in Cardiff conclude with the filling of all three vacancies I was involved in covering, and all this March. 

I had wondered if I'd be offered another euro locum, given my age, and the fact that below my generation of clergy there's a greater proportion of retirees who might be interested in serving. Thrilled to be asked again. Immediately I said that I'd be free and willing. When I was asked last year, there was so much to do here that I felt I had to decline. With the gall bladder no longer threatening to spoil my plans, and doubling my expenditure on travel insurance, there couldn't be a better time. John responded positively this morning and is looking for a Low Sunday start date. That means being there from April to early June, a lovely time of year. The next message to drop into my inbox was from Vueling, promoting spring flights. Amazing!

I now need to think about a handover for Parish newsletter publication responsibilities. A six month stint week in week out, has been something of a responsibility, and I'd been pondering on how I could let go of this once clergy vacancies are filled, and train up a successor. It's possible a different approach to sharing information across the Ministry Area will see the end of the Sway digital format at this point. The time to discuss it is now ten weeks before my departure. The handover of responsibility I received was more like an ambush, landing me with something I needed to learn to do from scratch  It turned out OK, but integrated communication between MA churches is too important to be done haphazardly.

I received separate calls, morning and afternoon from the GP surgery asking about my post- op welfare and need for support. It was good to share a progress report, albeit with two different members of staff, one in response to the paper letter from the surgeon, another in response to separate email from UHW. I joked about the paper one arriving first, and it gave me a chance to flag up the disparity in info about cocodamol not being on offer, and then being offered according to the post op protocol on paper. I will never know if this leads to action, but it needed to be said.

Clare battled out in the wind and rain to receive a pair of fine leather boots from Canton Cobblers, and I cooked a veggie butter bean casserole Andalusian style with quinoa. It was OK but lacked a flavouring ingredient I can't identify, but it would have been better with chorizo. Then Clare went out again by taxi to the UHW eye clinic, while I tried to work out from my photo archive when I was last in Nerja (without searching my blog!). Apart from a couple of day visits when I was staying in Malaga, the last locum duty I did there was June 2016. My stay was cut short by the arrival of a newly appointed chaplain, but instead of returning home early, I took the train on a ten hour journey to join the Costa Azahar Chaplaincy for spell, as their Chaplain had left. A marvellous set of experiences altogether.

I didn't have the energy to clad myself with rainwear and wellies to go walking, and stayed at home doing nothing much at all. Clare returned home from UHW on foot. It seems there's been traffic congestion due to the weather for much of the day. No point in waiting for a bus when the roads are that bad. After supper I watched another couple of episodes of 'Bones'. I didn't have the energy to look for a flight to Spain and book it. Nobody can say I'm not taking it easy at the moment. That's what everyone tells me to do after all.

 

Recovery on track

The rest of the country may have been lashed by gale force winds and rain last night, but with the Cardiff flood plain shielded by the western escarpment, we got the rain but wind noise was hardly noticeable in the night. The sky was blue with just a scattering of clouds. I slept in bed, not particularly well or long, with a chair jammed beside the bed to use for support whenever I needed to get up in the night. Acute gut pain has subsided and went away once I was able to empty my bowels, slowed down for a couple of days by anaesthetic I guess. 

I was thinking last night about celebrating Mass next Sunday - would there be a risk of not being able to drive or being strong enough to conduct the service the way I usually do? I emailed Fr Stewart and shared my concern with him. This morning he emailed me to say that Fr. Chris would cover for me. He and his wife are often in the congregation at St German's when I'm celebrating and he has no locum duty to perform. I'm OK with that. The congregation is worshipping in the church hall until the heating is fixed. I admit that I would have liked that experience as I've never before done that there. If I'm fit to drive by then, I may just go and sit in the congregation.

After breakfast I returned to routine Monday admin tasks and Sway preparation, as I could sit comfortably upright again to write. Clare made a deliciously tasty curry for lunch which went down very well surgical intrusion has not upset my stomach, I'm glad to say. 

I walked for half an hour, slow steady while Clare was out for another Optometrist appointment. The wind was strong, but not unbearably cold, as the air temperature is about 10C. I haven't got my usual stride back nor did I expect to. I didn't know when I would tire. Half an hour's very fresh air left me feeling good and not the least bit wobbly. Hopefully I can build up my walking distance incrementally in the coming week, aware that it'll take more time to recover than I might like. The surgery called while I was out to arrange a blood pressure appointment on Candlemas day. It seems odd there's no post-op follow up appointment, as was also the case after the fifth round of bum surgery. Unless you realise something's wrong and ask for help. No chance to thank the medical staff after recover either. Quite impersonal in a way. It's a strangely impersonal world we live in when it comes to medical treatment on the NHS today.

Before supper I had a shower and with Clare's help changed the four wound dressings All are in good condition, dry, no inflammation, very neat. The largest one is in my navel, surrounded by purple bruising. It's no surprise under the circumstances. No suspicion at the moment that the wound may leak, as I was warned in the pre-op briefing. I'm extra careful to avoid stressing stomach muscles and this wound. I plan to keep plasters on to protect the wounds for a few days longer and there are signs that healing is occurring naturally. Then it's safe to expose them to air, and wear clothes over them.

After supper, I watched a couple more episodes of 'Bones' before heading for bed early.

It's all about the wind

Another night sleeping in the lounge armchair with pent up gas working its way through my intestines. I can move better despite the pain which is a relief. Sky overcast all day with gales threatened tonight. Wind is leaking out of me gradually and relieves painful pressure. Then a long fart leading to a bigger change. There are bound to be all sorts of internal pains and bruises at this point but wind pressure is worst of all, and so debilitating.

After breakfast Clare went off to church. I didn't even think of making the effort. Experience of lock-down in Ibiza taught me the blessing of reading through Matins and Eucharist of the day, accepting whatever gift it may bring to mind and soul. It's no different from any kind of fasting in moderation and may be good for you, at least teaching you not to take familiar habitual things for granted.

Clare returned with news of the second appointment to the Ministry Area Clergy team awaited since the beginning of December when we knew an appointment had been made, but not told whom. Sion Brynach, currently heads Wales' ecumenical body Cytun is coming to join us. He's the son of late Bishop Saunders Davies, one of Wales' twentieth century holy men, fondly remembered for his warmth and wisdom. Like father like son, apparently. 

Before ordination he worked as a BBC Press officer. He has real front-line of communication experience of what to say and how to say it. He's naturally bi-lingual. Having two bi-lingual priests will really benefit an area that has experienced a big influx of Welsh speakers from all over rural Wales. Our internationalism is assured. Affirming the Welshness of the church's offer to the community is an essential witness to the Gospel. Two pieces of church good news in one weekend is a great antidote to my despair about church decline.

Most of the day was dedicated to doing little apart from eating and sleeping. Like being on a cruise, I tell myself, but with nothing new to gaze at outdoors. Clare got her massaging foot spa out to wash my feet with for a therapeutic treat. A strange experience, but fun to try.

After watching the latest episode of 'Call the Midwife', we slowly started to get ready for bed. Being much more mobile now my gut is deflated, and better able to work around the pain of movement involving stomach muscles, I decided to return to sleeping in bed. If it doesn't work, I can always bale out 

Young blood for Welsh bench of Bishops

I slept in the chair again. The trapped gas in my intestines is moving slowly and painfully. I got up for Saturday pancake breakfast which I enjoyed. Thankfully my digestive system is working normally, but I don't feel like eating a lot because of stomach pain. It was like that all day, although I could feel it gradually moving downwards, with occasional thundery rumbles. I dozed uncomfortably in the chair, ate soup for lunch and a piece of fish and spuds fried in olive oil for supper, or was it the other way round? My memory is a bit slow joining the dots at the moment, and I'm very lethargic, shuffling around like an old man - hell! I am an old man, but don't usually shuffle when I walk.

A Church in Wales press release yesterday announced the appointment of another Assistant Bishop of Bangor to replace our Bishop Mary. At 37, David Morris is the youngest Welsh Bishop. I got to know him in his first postgraduate year of training at St Mike's, a charismatic young man, much appreciated up north where he now works, after being ordained in Llandaff and spending seven years as Vicar of Grangetown.

 On Good Friday 2009, I was invited to preach  the Passion Vigil at St David's Cathedral. I recruited David and two fellow students to conduct the same service at St John's City Parish Church. Peter, the principal at St Mike's was confident they could do well with what was required of them, as all three were very able students. Later, Peter a discerning observer of people said he thought it quite possible David would become a Bishop one day. He was right, here he is! He's taking the title Bishop of Bardsey, a delightful thought, given the association of Ynys Enlli (=Bardsey) with our Celtic Christian history. A cheering thought which got me through a dire day.

Long wait over - a day in UHW

Up with the alarm at six o'clock, half a glass of water and my blood pressure pills, then waiting for the taxi to arrive at quarter to seven, on time. My driver was a Sikh. It wasn't long into the trip to UHW before he was quizzing me about why westerners traditionally prefer to bury their dead rather than cremate as Sikh scriptures recommend. I explained that burial was seen as a way to cherish the memory of the dead, and it gave rise to graveside customs and visits with flowers, more about the need of the living than the dead. In Sikhdom and Hinduism bodily remains are of disposable value after the soul has departed. As much as I could manage at seven in the morning!

The concourse at UHW was almost empty, nobody to ask, though the route to the Short Stay Surgical Unit had proper signage. The entrance was locked and unlit, however. There was a pink sheet in a plastic wallet stuck to wall with SSSU and arrows on it. I walked, and came across a porter with a trolley full of half litre bottles of milk. "Hello, aren't you a priest?" Surprised, I confessed. "You did my mum's funeral at St John's four years ago", he told me. He told me to keep following the scant diversion signs and gave me a vague sense of location. I had to ask another staff member when I ran into fencing blocking the way across on open yard to an external door. No notices, no clarity about the destination. But the only way to find out if this was the correct entrance was circumnavigate the security fence, as all the doors leading out into this back alley were locked. SSSU may employ really hi-tech surgery but is evidently of such low status is the hospital pecking order. A five minute walk took fifteen. Just as well I was early.

Then an hour of repeated bureaucracy and identity checks and the inane question "Do you know why you are here?" The anaesthetist noticed that I'd not had a blood test for eight months. Pre-op assessments are, I believe, valid for six months. Clearly I had been fitted into the schedule at ten days rather then two to three weeks notice, for which I'm grateful of course but the admin hadn't caught up. Blood was drawn and taken for testing. This I imagine was a factor leading to my op slipping down the list until last. I waited six hours to go to the operating theatre. The tedium was relieved by conversing with a tall bearded student nurse. We talked about whether there was sense to be made of any religious quest. I steered him towards considering the way of the mystics. Don't start with ritual or belief but with your own curiosity about what's unknown, above and beyond existence. Did he understand me? I'll never know.

It was two thirty when I was taken to theatre. The clock read a quarter to three when I was about to slip into the Unknown, and five fifteen when I emerged. The six year long wait for surgery ended with another  long wait for surgery!

The op was longer than expected as my blood pressure was through the roof. Getting a 430mm stone out through my navel must have been a wrestle, like extracting a tooth. Now the surrounding area is bruised. The four incisions aren't that painful. I thought the recovery room nurse wasn't quite allowing me enough time to come to, then realised it was a quarter past home time. The assistant surgeon already in his outdoor clothes ready to go, gave me a letter for my GP, recommending a hypertension medication review, as the monitoring team had difficulty controlling my blood pressure. Not surprising removing such a big stone.

 The nightmare began when I was back on the ward. I warned that my stomach would be inflated with air during the op and that I should expect to pass lots of wind. Nothing but pure agony. Impossible to move at any angle without pain. It was hard to take anything but a shallow breath despite a nurse exhorting me take deep breaths - like in yoga. Really?

The nursing shift was coming to an end. I was still groggy from anaesthetic, and at the end of 22 hours of fasting, feeling faint. No food was offered, or notification that you should bring your own. A nurse gave me a banana which revived me. No nausea, just pain. Due to the shift change my discharge was delayed an an hour. A young nurse wheeled me down to the concourse. The east wind blowing up the corridor was at minus three. Ruth kindly collected me and took me home by car by 8.30pm.

I was in bed by 9.15pm, dozed for six hours immobilised by stomach muscle pain, then struggling to get out of bed for a pee. Getting in and out of bed was agonising every which way, and had to be careful to avoid stressing the four wounds. My pulse rate was frighteningly high, but calmed down when I took a blood pressure tablet six hours early. I got up and walked around, and slept the rest of the night in the lounge chair.

I haven't felt this bad since I went down with anal infection four years ago,  especially when I was in Ibiza, alone with an infection and struggling to get in and out of bed for a pee. I didn't expect the trauma of that experience to visit me again here. But, I am still alive, the pain reminds me. And I daresay it will subside fairly soon.

Reassured

Another clear cold night, temperature down to minus 4. I woke up at seven thirty, posted today's Morning Prayer link, then sang Happy Birthday to my sister  on WhatsApp. 89 today. I didn't go back to sleep but got up and cooked breakfast porridge. Clare's eye is still inflamed and her vision worsening. Something's not right, so she contacted the eye hospital and was encouraged to visit the Optometry School for a check, as the eye surgeon looking after her isn't available to consult at the moment. 

I went to St John's for the Eucharist. There were the usual five of us with Fr Colin. I skipped coffee after the service to return home and scrape the layer of frost off the car before taking Communion to Sandra in Danescourt. A taxi was reversing into our street as I arrived home. It was collecting Clare to take her to the Optometry School for an emergency consultation. It seems to have taken more than three hours to arrange this. I cooked and ate lunch leaving Clare's share to eat this evening. I walked then to the house where Ray lives the other side of Thompson's Park, to take him Communion. I rang his doorbell for a good while but there was no response. I suspect he may have fallen asleep in the chair. I decided not to phone and disturb him, and went for a walk in the park instead and returned just after sunset. The sharp drop in temperature was noticeable once the sun was below the horizon.

After her eye checkup Clare went into town. We chatted while she was having a cup of tea in John Lewis' top floor restaurant, our usual host. The optometrist gave her a thorough examination and said that the inflammation wasn't yet serious. He gave her a new prescription and arranged to see her again on Monday to check if it's got better or worse. She gave me the taxi service phone number she'd used, to book myself a ride for tomorrow morning. My operation calls for a six forty five departure from home, to allow for any taxi timing error. I could if necessary walk it in forty minutes. I'm more worried about arriving late than I am about the operation itself. My taxi booking was confirmed with a text message giving an estimate of the fare, dependent on drive timing and conditions, plus possible payment means. A neat feature.

Sister-in-law Ann rang to check if whether the operation had been cancelled or not, and gave me a helpful briefing on the procedure and its aftermath. Fascinating. Thanks to low impact surgery, I may not be out of action for long. She said she walked out of hospital after her gall bladder was removed. In any case I have no commitments apart from Sway until a week Sunday, just welcome free time.

After supper, another couple of 'Bones' episodes, then a really early night.

Darkness, a lost old friend

It wasn't easy to stay warm in the night with the temperature dropping to minus two. Early on I woke up in the middle of a lovely dream in which Clare urged me to join her in the garden and look up at the stars in a clear night sky. Thin high cloud this morning, the sun shines through it, but the temperature hovers around freezing. Still no snow. 

On my way home from town in the dark yesterday, I was aware there were fewer bikes on the path beside the river. It made me realise that the demise of the city's Next Bike scheme due to significant abuse and vandalism means fewer moments of being dazzled by LED bike lamps. A scheme for electric scooter hire is being mooted, I learned. These too, have dazzling LED lights, as do cars. This is raising some concern about eye health, and there are calls for the high standard of luminosity to be reduced. 

The replacement of sodium lamps by LED in public lighting does, in my view, improve night visibility on the streets, but the impact on nocturnal animals is going to be detrimental. It only diminishes light pollution if the design of lamp housings reduces upward light overspill. Bright light from so many vehicles, bikes and scooters also adds to the impact, robbing urban areas of completely starlit skies. What a loss this is to humankind, our primal source of awe and wonder. 

After breakfast I walked to St Catherine's to celebrate the Eucharist with ten others today. Marlene, one of our numbers is ninety next week, and we have enough regular who'll soon be the same age. Amazing women, shining light of faith and love in their eyes.

Afterwards I collected the veggie bag from Chapter, and was surprised to see only half the usual number of deliveries in the chest containing veggie bags. I'm always among the first to collect. That's a surprising downturn to a popular service. Is this seasonal selection not attractive, or are people economising on their expenditure. I hope not. These organic veggies last longer anyway and save money.

Clare made lunch early. She cooked a pork steak for me with brown onion gravy which made it delicious with spuds parsnips and cabbage. She went out to an afternoon appointment with the research team at the School of Optometry testing new equipment and procedures leaving me with both batches of grocery shopping to do. 

I'm Still puzzling over the problematic Powerpoint file display on my PC. I ran the file sent out on WhatsApp and found that it worked perfectly on a phone. It's a relief to know I've not been sending out gobbledygook files for others to read.

With my mind set at rest, I collected Clare's Beanfreaks order, then did the Co-op grocery shopping, all before sundown. A lot of pavement pounding. No walking in the park today. 

After supper, I watched this week's episode of 'Silent Witness' on catchup. Then, I braved a chilly shower room to wash my hair before going to bed, still pondering on the critique of a social media driven contemporary society embedded in the story-line of tonight's complex episode.

Middle string vulnerability

Just as I was putting my phone away for the night at bed time, I had an email from Basma, excited to have received positive news from the lawyer handling her case at the immigration tribunal. It seems he's been home to Iraq recently for a family event, and had learned things there which support her personal plea for asylum. She's excited, with the prospect of not having to wait much longer to be baptized, and fulfil a desire which has persisted in her for the past twenty-five years.

I woke up after a good night's sleep with the outdoor temperature at minus three and clouds starting to cover the sky. There's snow up north and we're promised it'll happen down south too, but will we get any here on the coast?  

After breakfast, Clare's study group started to arrive. As she was welcoming them, her phone rang. It was Kath, video calling from a coastal holiday let on the border between the states of Victoria and New South Wales. What a delightful surprise. As Clare was busy with her guests, I had the joy of chatting with her about their journey along the coast, and the wonderful wild empty places they visited, of which we have already seen photos on Instagram. 

She told me about childhood friends Katie and Karina who lived with us and then across the road when we were in St Paul's Bristol. Katie, a talented painter on the Melbourne scene, whose art works we often see on Instagram and exchange messages, Karina, a Hansard journalist in the State Parliament. Amazing for them to meet up forty years later. Amazing that Katie lives a few streets away from Seela and Mike, the friends they went to visit in Oz. 

I walked into town and back mid afternoon, with no particular aim in mind, apart from checking the bargain shelf in John Lewis for an affordable discount Chromebook for Owain. I intended to walk home along the riverbank as the sun was setting, and headed in that direction past the Library. The way that the Wyndham Arcade entrance was lit called for an interesting photo. For that reason, I walked through the arcade. At the west end of the arcade is a big musical instrument shop. Seeing it reminded me that I need a new D string for my flamenco guitar which had broken. This didn't come to mind when I set out to walk to town, but somehow I ended up in the right place. 

The shop had no D strings in stock. He told me that D strings are the ones which most frequently break , and he had just used the last they had to re-string a couple of display guitars. He suggested a quick visit to a smaller shop in Wharton Street before they closed and check if they had any. I arrived as St John's church clock struck five, closing time, and purchased two, just to be on the safe side. 

It's interesting to consider why D strings should break more frequently than others, more often at the machine head end at the top rather than the bridge end. The D string is wire bound nylon. The wire used has to be quite fine given the weight of the string in comparison to the two lower wire bound strings. It has to turn through a few degrees of an angle to reach the fixing hole in the peg that secures and tightens it. Perhaps this adds small stresses that fatigue the metal to breaking point over time. 

Another factor is string vibration frequency. The distance from the peg hole to the bridge at the top of the neck is perhaps a tenth of the length of the string that's played. It has a much higher resonance frequency than the rest of the string, and this generates stress when the string is plucked. Higher frequency G strings can be plain heavier thickness nylon, or they can be wire covered. This gives the string different tone. It's years since I use a wire bound G string, but come to think of it, I've never lost a G string since I made the change.  

I the evening passed completing the web page design task while baking a batch of bread, having received information I was lacking. This enabled me to add the full set of basic pages necessary to serve what is effectively a public notice board on the web. It doesn't detract from individual churches websites, but provides another point of reference for them. The Church in Wales has a similar set of information displayed, but it's buried deep in its digital ecosystem, church by church, the Ministry Area is referred to in each, but there's no easy to read group display of all six of the churches. It's better to have an easy to find, easy to read set of pages for the Ministry Area to help establish the identity of an area based group ministry. That's why a second window on the info is necessary.

I tinkered about for a while trying to acquaint myself with Microsoft's Powerpoint. Files constructed on Libre Office work in Microsoft 365, but difficulties arise testing the product and making a standalone version. I didn't have much success with this, nor with finding a third party Powerpoint app that would read the file and display as anticipated. I'm not doing something right and can't figure out what it is. IN the end I gave up and went to bed.

Web creation annoyances

The temperature went down to minus two overnight and stayed there until mid morning. I got up at eight, had breakfast, prepared this week's set of texts for readers at St John's and St Luke's, then started a new edition of Sway for next week. It all went without hitch, and by eleven thirty, I was investigating website building software - the free version. I tried one called Hazel Pro, but couldn't get the hang of it, and after an hour of frustration uninstalled it. It was very detailed, with helpful instructions, or so it seemed, but I got no further than doing a title page. I couldn't find out how to write text or import it. Probably easy when you know how. It's twenty years since I last built a website and now there seem to be too many embedded options. 

Then I tried Wix, which has a good reputation for being easy to use. I set up a new Google account to use, that I could pass on to others if my product was found fit for purpose. It offered free web hosting but you still have to subscribe to a custom web domain if you want one. Someone else may have already done that, on behalf of WCMA so I decided not to bother, and deleted the new Google account I created. Not quite a wasted couple of hours, but more of a steep learning curve, let's say.

Clare cooked a curry for lunch. Mid afternoon with the temperature in the sun rising to four degrees, we walked together for three quarters of an hour. Then Clare left me to go and buy some fruit. I carried on walking until sunset, pondering on what essential content might consist of for a Ministry Area, both text and images. I spent a couple of hours after supper on content and page image creation using Libre Office Impress, its equivalent of powerpoint. Just as capable but not quite so user friendly. I remember using ten years ago for a Cardiff  Business Safe presentation, and hadn't got much more than a basic recollection of how to use it in detail, so progress was laborious. 

The chore was made even worse by my efforts to create a collage, using the Google Picasa legacy app which I keep on my workstation. This gave me grief, as it was downloading files from OneDrive, and wouldn't let me transfer the photos I needed to make into a collage because it was busy. I thought I had found a workaround but succeeded in deleting the folder containing the relevant photos, which I then had to reassemble from a couple of sources. No idea whatsoever how I did that but in the end I acquired the file I needed of a collage photo of Ministry Area Churches to use on the presentation front page. I made a .pdf of this work in progress and sent it to Iona. Hard going, but satisfactory to create and learn how to create. Enough for one day! Now to bed. Minus three tonight!

Freezing in church

It took me ages to get to sleep last night, Clare too apparently. Nevertheless, ending up sleeping well and woke up feeling unusually refreshed. It was 3C, and stayed around that temperature all day, under a sunny blue sky with clouds building up later. I drove to St German's to celebrate Mass. The church heating is still not working, it felt as cold indoors as outside. With a shortened liturgy we finished ten minutes earlier than usual. I kept my thick indoor jacket on under my vestments and kept warm, apart from my hands, which tend to get cramp when it's really cold.  The coldness made it difficult to focus on reading my sermon, and I wasn't happy about my delivery of it, but we all survived.  Basma wasn't there, as she injured her foot a couple of weeks ago and still can't walk on it without pain, so after a much needed cup of coffee and a chat, I got home for lunch just after one.

I relaxed in the chair, dozed a while, chatted to Owain on the phone, then went out at four for a walk under lovely sunset with white clouds tinged with pink and orange. When I get back, Clare had already left for Abergavenny, where the Plygain group she sings with was taking part in another service. With the house to myself, after supper, I recorded Morning Prayer and Reflection for St Paul's day without disturbance, then made the video slideshow and uploaded it YouTube. Clare returned about nine, and I found out that the concert had been in Holy Trinity Anglican Church Abergavenny, which I recall preaching in back in the 1980s when I worked for USPG. It's now part of a ministry area with two town churches and five in rural villages whose population has expanded, like suburbs with fields in between over the years. The area is served by a rail link so it's an attractive place to commute from. All served by two full time clergy. A sign of the times, sad to say.

Britain and the US have mounted a couple attacks on Houthi rebel forces in Yemen, in response to months of attacks on Red Sea shipping which have scaled up from occasional to frequent, in which they use Iranian supplied ballistic missiles and drones, now in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza where the death toll is now 24,000. This is an unwanted measure of escalation in the Middle East, a dangerous moment which could so easily slip beyond control.

After finishing work I watched another episode of 'Bones' and then wound down for the night. 

World Championship Venue

A cloudy day to start with, but the sky cleared during the day and the temperature was a steady 3C, but it didn't feel as cold. Clare made our Saturday pancakes for breakfast. Afterwards I finished tomorrow's sermon. The heating at St German's is still broken, so I was advised to make the liturgy shorter reduce the risk of hypothermia in church. A five minute sermon takes just as long to write, if not longer. There's a long second lesson and psalm which can be omitted. That should reduce duration by ten minutes or more.

Then we went for a pre-lunch walk in the park, As Clare had already made a fish stew from leftover flesh and bones of our most recent filleted salmon purchase, so it only needed heating while the table was laid. Comforting on a chilly day.

Last night before going to sleep I started writing a reflection on the life and thought of St Paul for Morning Prayer on his feast day, two weeks hence. Advance preparation for recovery time after next Friday's gall bladder removal operation. I continued writing after lunch, then went for another walk down the Taff on the Bute Park side. On the return leg I called into the Sport Wales National Centre adjacent to Sophia Gardens, to use the toilet. I was delighted to discover the Centre is hosting the Wheelchair Fencing World Championship this weekend. That was a surprise!

Before supper I recorded and edited the reflection I'd written. The rest of the recording will wait until I have the house to myself when it's quiet. Afterwards, with nothing better to do, I watched a couple of episodes of 'Bones'. I learned from IMDB that there are 245 episodes to date of the twelve years the series ran. NCIS is still running and has clocked up 459 episodes so far. I don't think any of the 21 series has made it to catch up on free UK TV channels yet. 

The temperature went down to zero after dark. Extra layers definitely needed for church tomorrow. Having printed my sermon, I went to bed early. I'm not used to rising early, but it would be good to get into practice before next Friday, when I need to be out for the house by a quarter to seven to get to UHW for the operation. It's been a long time coming, six years in fact. I'm not nervous about it, and resigned to the fact that it may yet be cancelled due to the current junior hospital doctor's strike. I don;t know if this will affect specialised hi-tech' surgery.

Recovering

Another long night disturbed by indigestion again, probably caused by not drinking enough. I rarely feel thirsty, so don't notice that I need to drink more than is necessary. I had no appetite for eating, so decided to fast, just drink water and stay in bed. Two litres of water later, I started to recover and eventually got up and worked on a Morning Prayer text for two weeks time. Instead of having lunch, went for an  early afternoon, walk.

In Victoria Park I saw a pair of chaffinches on the grass, and later a solitary one in a tree, still looking for a mate I guess. I went home briefly to get a scarf and take my pills, then walked down to the woodland trail in Pontcanna Fields. The mud there is drying out very slowly not frozen, the temperature is mostly above zero along the riverbank, unless there's a really severe frost.

I got back before sunset and fell asleep in the chair. It was dark when I woke up, and the curtains were still open. Clare returned from town with a new bargain winter coat, made of faux fur. It looks good on her. I broke my fast with a light supper, feeling better now, but still tired. I watched another episode of 'Bones' and decided on an early night.

Oldest house in Cardiff

I had a rare poor night's sleep due to even rarer digestive discomfort. No time for recovery however as I had to shop for food bank  groceries before going to St John's to celebrate the Eucharist. There were only three of us today. We had coffee together afterwards. The Post Office scandal was the inevitable subject of conversation, including the secondary scandal of ex CEO Paula Vennells being a non-stipendiary cleric. How could she not know what was going on? 

Simple. She was lied to, going with the flow of the corporate culture she presided over. All too humanly she failed to discern this, failed to be curious about the unusually high number of fraud prosecutions over a period of years. Not even the most capable CEO in the world can be totally perfect. Did the company's data analysis team notice the anomaly? Were they regarded as low status geeks not taken seriously enough by top managers? I hope the enquiry will come up with answers about this. In the world of corporate big business all sorts of things go wrong which only come to light it there's a catastrophe impacting on many, causing a company to collapse.

Clare went to the School of Optometry to be a subject of a research project studying field of vision testing, so I cooked lunch when I returned from church, just in time for her return. A letter arrived from UHW confirming my operation appointment, giving preparatory fasting instructions. It mentions that patients need to be sure they have a stock of pain killers at home, as these are no longer issued. After previous ops I was sent home with a box of cocodamol tablets, none of which I used, and learned to decline them as I'd never needed to take anything that strong. I think that's a good move as this medication is addictive, to be reserved for use in extremis, in my opinion.

I slept for an hour after lunch, then did the weekly mail-out of the link to Sway, before walking until the sun set. After supper, we watched the latest episode of 'Digging for Britain' which featured a report on the archaeological excavations of an area of Parc Trelai in Caerau two miles away from here. The foundations of a Bronze Age round house have been uncovered, and also a feature quite unexpected. Underneath the floor level is the floor of an even older round house of the same dimensions. 

It was suggested the earlier house had been destroyed and rebuilt, possibly after the original occupying family had died out, and been replaced by another. It reminded me of the old gypsy custom of burning the caravan belonging to the head of the clan after their death, seen as a mark of respect. But who knows? The original round house could have been destroyed in a raid, or by an accidental fire too. No mention was made of finding charred timber on the site. An interesting puzzle surrounding the remains of the oldest house ever to be discovered in Cardiff.

 

Triple coincidence

I've been using the CofE Daily Prayer app on my phone for the last ten years. Late last night, when I went to use it, the app crashed. I uninstalled and re-installed it but it still crashed, so I gave up and prayed from memory instead. When I woke up this morning, a repeat performance. I had no difficulty using the app on my old Blackberry phone, which meant there was something wrong with my new phone. The one thing I didn't do was switch the phone off and on again. Once I did, the app worked perfectly again.  Silly not to have thought of that earlier. 

Recently, I've not switched the phone off at night as I did before. If it stays on for many days at a time, the very occasional tiny glitch in an app, or in the Android operating system can cause a crash. There was a time when the technology was young that it occurred more frequently than it does nowadays. The helpline advisor always started by asking "Have you tried switching it off and on again?" Funny that I'd forgotten this essential basic procedure. It reflects just how reliable smartphones now are. Note to self - remember to switch it off at night.

Another cold, bright sunny day, good for the spirit. I went to St Catherine's for the Eucharist, there were eight of us with Fr. Rowan presiding. After coffee and chat, I picked up the veggie bag from Chapter, then returned and cooked rice veg and lentils for lunch. I had a call from my sister in a panic as her laptop had frozen. I was prompted to guess that the reason was a big Windows update, as I noticed the restart icon had appeared in my laptop's toolbar. It's possible an update had been imminent the last time she switched off, or it had been in sleep mode instead of powered down. I persuaded her to do a hard reset, and when it re-booted, the update proceeded as intended and sanity was restored. 

I wish I'd persuaded June to get a Chromebook when they first came out, as there are no hassles of this kind with it, and fewer notifications to bewilder a non technical user, yet it would still be possible to do the same range of tasks as she now uses a laptop for, while doing battle with the distractions caused by notifications barely understood. Admittedly there's a learning curve involved in making the switch, but it's not huge - a different keyboard, a different file system layout, and writing documents using Google Docs, which definitely isn't in the same league as Libre Office. It's possible to use a version of Linux which looks and feels much like a Windows PC, and doesn't have any of the distractions. But, it's harder to make such a change the older you get.

After we talked, I edited and recorded the reflection I wrote yesterday, then at four I went out and walked for an hour and a half. Then I started work on a suitable slide show to accompany the audio. It took me longer than usual to find suitable visuals to use and had to complete and upload it to YouTube after a break for supper. 

We watched 'The Repair Shop' together, then an episode of 'Storyville' about an archaeological survey of a proposed housing estate in Cambridgeshire, which uncovered a village site with a late Roman era villa and several cemeteries around its periphery. One of the skeletons uncovered was that of a man in his thirties with an iron nail driven through one of his heel bones - evidence that he had been crucified. This is only the second skeleton ever to be found of a crucifixion victim. The other was found in an ancient ossuary in Jerusalem. Osteo-archaeology is one of the forensic science disciplines used in crime scene investigations and identifying war victims buried in mass graves, which can tell a lot about the person's life, especially if it's coupled with the analysis of DNA recovered from bones, and isotope analysis of material in teeth, that indicates diet and living environment. Unique, fascinating scientific detective work.

It's a triple coincidence that I watched Almodovar's movie 'Parallel Mothers' last weekend in which one of the characters is an osteo-archaeologist investigating a Spanish civil war massacres, and working my way through episodes of 'Bones' on Walter Presents, whose protagonist is also an osteo-archaeologist.

What price justice?

Another wonderful wintry day, cold and sunny. With time to spare while Clare as making lunch, I set to work on next week's Thursday Morning Prayer. It's on the first day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Nothing much happens locally on the inter-church front these days, although food banks and work with refugees and homeless people does engage people from across the churches. Anyway, I decided to use service material from this year's special Churches Together special leaflet in preparing a text to use.

After lunch I drove Clare to the Heath Hospital for a round of minor eye surgery aimed at reducing the eyeball pressure, which is what causes vision loss. After dropping her off at the entrance, I drove to the University School of Optometry in Cathays to book an eye test, then did some grocery shopping at Lidl's.

I went for a walk in the park, while awaiting a call from Clare to collect her but the operation took a lot more time than expected, and in the end she took a taxi back, to spare me having to drive through rush hour traffic in the dark. She returned home not long after I returned chilled from the park. After a cup of tea, we went out again together for a walk around the block to the Co-op for a few more items which were not on my memorised shopping list in Lidl's. 

When we got back, I recorded the text I'd prepared earlier in the day, and after supper, wrote a Christian Unity Week reflection observing how, even in this time of decline in Christian adherence, there's been a growth in the international diversity of expatriate Christian communities in the area covered by Canton's Parish churches. This year's Unity Week theme is 'And who is my neighbour'. Noticing our world wide church neighbours is indeed something special to be celebrated.

Much to my surprise I had a phone call from the General Surgery Unit at UHW to offer me an operation to remove my gall bladder a week Friday morning. At last, after five years of waiting!

The death toll in Gaza is now around 23,000 and the Israeli assault continues. The military public relations rearguard is showing video of an underground armament producing factory on a small industrial scale, way bigger than any home industry effort. This is offered as justification for their campaign, but even the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken is becoming more outspoken about the unreasonable scale of the suffering and death this campaign is causing. 

Such a huge amount of time effort and money has gone into creating this subterranean world, a huge investment. Where does all this funding come from? It's been shown before how material resources such as water piping and fuel have been hijacked and fed into rocket making, but workers and militia personnel can't survive without being fed, trained and rewarded for their efforts. To what extent I wonder has the money supply been investigated, and what efforts have been made to cut it?

The telly drama about story of the 700 postmasters prosecuted for false accounting here at home has stirred up widespread public indignation, years after it was made public through the quashing of some convictions on appeal. The background story of the faulty software introduced over 20 years ago has been aired in tech' journals, and now at last being aired in mainstream media. Far too late. Only in the past week have questions been openly raised in the press about Fujitsu as a key supplier of the financial software  that was unfit for purpose. 

Many people within the post office colluded with the lie that there were no problems with the software, dismissing the anomaly of so many postmasters being prosecuted within the same time span. Statistically speaking 700 prosecutions highlights something might be wrong and need a fuller investigation. That's a high crime rate in an institution which would have checked out the people it was going to hired for safely working with money at the outset. An expert software analyst reported that the software wasn't fit for purpose. He was dismissed and discredited by the company. How many top level executives and lawyers conspired to perpetrate this travesty of justice will be revealed by public enquiry. Will their fate entail as much suffering as has been caused to those 700 victims? I wonder.

Ready or not?

Another cold day, sunshine but with clouds coming and going. After breakfast I did my share of the house work, then prepared next weekend's Sway and routine distribution of liturgical readings before cooking lunch. Fresh sardine fillets today!

I had surprise visit from a colleague after we'd eaten, and we chatted for a good while about our crisis ridden churches in crisis ridden times, and how we reset our priorities for rapidly changing circumstances overtaking us. I couldn't help look back to the time when I was ordained, when some at least in the church recognised the onset of decline. 

There was a surprise recruitment dip in the mid-sixties when I was training for ministry. The cohort I was part of was the smallest in a decade. Numbers ordained went up again after my ordination year but never returned to the numbers of young ordinands between '45 and '65. The numbers ordained in their fifties and sixties increased. The number of ordained non-stipendiaries increased. The number of young ordinands on the path to lifelong ministry didn't increase. Women's ordination made a difference, though not a lasting difference. Decline continued but was prolonged, reflecting the decline in the numbers in active faithful worshippers. 

Some of us could see this emerging trend over fifty years ago, and did everything we could to reverse it, without success. Those of us who weren't broken by this experience worked hard and having given it our best efforts, have little to reproach ourselves for. But that background sense of failure is inescapable. It's been like helplessly watching a slow motion car crash. With what's going on in the diocese at the moment, it seems to me we're not far off coming to a half, with the silence that follows. After that, picking up the pieces, asking - how can we rebuild? What do we need to re-build from the little that remains? It's time to look much further ahead, and ask ourselves again what are we Christians here for now, without falling back on glib dogmatic formulae.

Twenty years ago our faith leaders encouraged us to think and act in a counter cultural way, not to go with the flow of contemporary secular consumer society. This didn't prevent churches from co-opting business management techniques and values in an effort to reform its institutions and their often haphazard ways of working, but religious organisations are not businesses, faith isn't a commodity. The pastoral and spiritual heart of the church and the humane relationships it nurtures cannot be made more efficient, productive or profitable. Members of Christ's Body are not 'resources'. The church's pastors are 'ministers and stewards of  the mysteries of God' not asset managers.

The 'Joyful News' message of Brother Roger of Taize calling for a Council of Youth back in 1970, when I was Curate of Saint Andrews in Caerphilly, was more far sighted than I understood at the time, not just the aspirations of an idealist. I found the full text tonight. It relevant to a situation in which the church has lost popular support, and is losing its assets and well as its influence, and can no longer rely on managing its resources. Only on God.

The Risen Christ comes to quicken a festival in the innermost heart of man.
He is preparing for us a springtime of the Church:

a Church devoid of means of power,

ready to share with all,

a place of visible communion for all humanity.
He is going to give us enough imagination and courage to open up a way of reconciliation.

He is going to prepare us to give our life so that man be no longer victim of man.” 

I guess it's what my generation was inspired by. We have to accept it's still a work in progress, but are we, fifty four years on closer to being 'a Church devoid of means of power, ready to share with all.'? I hope and pray so.

It was sunset by the time I went out for exercise, and walked one big 8km circuit a quite a good pace, as it was bitingly cold, but invigorating. 

After supper, I watched this week's double episode of the new series of 'Silent Witness' on iPlayer. It was an investigation into a serial killer who was never caught but disappeared, with a big twist in the tale in the last five minutes delivered so briskly it was difficult to figure out exactly what had happened.

Meanwhile this evening, a couple of brief showers of light snow, just enough to give cars in the street a dusting of white. Unless the temperature dips below zero later tonight, I don't suppose it will stick around for long. 

Plygain revival

Another bright cold day, with the temperature just above freezing. Interesting that I didn't need an extra blanket in the night to keep warm, an indication that the humidity level is low. I went to the Eucharist in the Cathedral at eleven. The rugby pitches on Llandaff Fields were all busy with junior matches, if not training sessions, attracting more youngsters and parents than Sunday School. The worship of sporting success and prowess overtook churchgoing as a major Sunday activity decades ago. Most of the hundred and forty worshippers in church were over fifty. 

The readings for Epiphany Sunday including the Three Kings were used, rather than the ones for the Baptism of Christ set in the Church in Wales Lectionary for the first Sunday after Epiphany. I think that it was an appropriate choice when the Feast of the Epiphany was only yesterday. The Baptism of Christ is also a key Epiphany story, but it's widely done in the Catholic and other churches nowadays, to transfer Three Kings day to the nearest Sunday, then have the Baptism of Christ the following week. Why the Church in Wales should ignore this trend is a mystery to me. 

Canon theologian Ryan Green celebrated and preached with Archdeacon Mike Komor assisting him. It's Mike's farewell service at Choral Evensong this afternoon. Sitting as I usually do near the front of the nave he spotted me and sought me out at the Peace to exchange greetings, asking me if retirement could be rated as one of the best jobs in the world. All I could think to say was yes, as it gives you freedom to choose what you say 'yes' or 'no' to. Not so easy when then decline in congregation numbers and ministers haunts you with the thought of the still faithful remnant who are 'like sheep without a shepherd'.

I was conscious throughout the service of continuous background noise emitting from a large industrial hot air blower lodged in an doorway on the north side. I guess the regular heating system must be broken. At the end of the service it was switched off, and the temperature indoors plummeted which I listened to a Bach organ prelude being played. Not even a brisk walk back through the park on the way home could warm me up. There can't be many churches in use that aren't expensive to heat. Because their volume and inadequate insulation their carbon footprint is bound to be high, churchgoers are challenged on both counts to think hard about what a sustainable future looks like.

I was home in time for lunch at one. Clare went off to Aberdare with her Plygain group for a special Welsh language service at St Fagan's church. I went for a walk in the park, testing a long winter fleece lined long coat I bought some months ago against the 3C chill. It was heavier than I realised, and not quite as effective as my ancient padded ski jacket. It's time I tried it out in on a really rainy day. There are more patches of snowdrops emerging on the side of the road through Pontcanna Fields, and a clump of three daffodil buds in an area where there are a dozen or so daffodil shoots about six inches high. It's the same as I observed last year. a few select plants - snowdrop, crocus daffodil - emerging in advance of all the others, a week or more ahead. I wonder what the reason is for this?

I had a long catch-up phone chat with Martin, and a shorter one with my sister, then after supper with nothing better to do I watched three more episodes of 'Bones'. Clare returned from Aberdare, reporting that the Plygain service had attracted about 200 people. An impressive turnout for a revived traditional winter evening event. It's going to be a frosty night tonight.

On the twelfth day of Christmas ....

Such a pleasure to wake up to a blue sky rainless sunny day. By the time I surfaced, Clare had prepared our Saturday pancake breakfast, and started cooking the second batch of marmalade. It was midday by the time another eight jars were filled and cooling ready for storage. We drove out to Dyffryn Gardens for our first visit since last April. We used to go three or four times a year, and last year downgraded our family membership, as the grandchildren are no longer young enough to enjoy it as an adventure playground and not yet old enough to enjoy a historic building and landscape. 

Only recently we decided to cancel our annual subscription, now over a hundred pounds, and not without justification, given that one visit a year for the two of us costs only twenty five pounds. Well, the National Trust benefited from our subscription for the last fourteen years anyway, but we've not used it by visiting any other property in the last five years. We don't do that kind of leisure travel often nowadays. Clare finds long car journeys more and endurance than an enjoyment. Our horizons are shrinking with age. It saddens me. I don't mind travelling on my own if I have work to do, but leisure travel is for enjoyment shared.

Both the regular and overflow car parks were full of cars. There are a few charging points for electric cars near the garden entrance, and the place was busy with families, as well as old folk like us. Scaffolding has been taken down from the building, now that weatherproofing has been completed, but the main rooms of the house have yet to re-open. Only a day room looking on to the garden is open at the moment and used to showcase latest restoration works. Snowdrops are already in full bloom, and early daffodil shoots above ground. Some, though not all of the flower beds have been tidied and made ready for planting. On such a bright day, the leafless trees look striking against the green of the lawns. Leaf buds are appearing earlier than usual, the trees are ready in their own way for the surge of new life to come.

Clare had a drink and a sandwich, but I didn't feel like eating, absorbed with taking pictures with my Sony Alpha 68. I wanted to take my Olympus and/or my new Panasonic TZ95 with me, but found the batteries in both needed charging. I've used them very little in the past three months, a reflection of how little there is that's new and catching my attention in my unchanging daily routine. I'm not bored with photography as much as bored with the sameness of it all, but not yet restless enough to do anything about it.

We were home again before sunset, so I went out and walked again for an hour, to complete my daily round. Clare thawed out and heated what was left of the chestnuts in red wine casserole from Christmas dinner for supper, enough for the two of us with brown rice and brussels sprouts. Still tasting good! Our dear friend Gill called us from Geneva, and we enjoyed a half hour chat with her. She told us about the costly building development project being undertaken at Holy Trinity Church. Phase one was an interior refurbishment of the worship space, phase two is the excavation of another suite of rooms beneath the present basement level church hall. This is apparently justified by the recent expansion in youth ministry. 

It was good to hear that the Chaplaincy now has a half time curate, who is also a half time representative of the Anglican Communion with UN agencies in the city. He served his title at St Andrew's Moscow, but had to leave when Putin declared war on Ukraine. Having a young married priest is apparently going down well. HTC like most other chaplaincies tends to have an experienced cleric in mid-life ministry. HTC will benefit from having the best of both worlds. 

On BBC Four this evening the 2021 move 'Parallel Mothers' from Pedro Almodóvar. An great unmissable story beautifully told by one of the greatest film makers of our age. It combines the story of two mothers which give birth on the same day, whose babies are swapped while undergoing post natal observation. It's something which has been known to happen. The one mother is young enough to be the daughter of the other, and they become friends. 

One child suffers cot death, and it's many months before the truth comes out. But that's only half the story. The other is about a village which has ten of its men murdered in the first weeks of the Spanish civil war, and how an investigation relying on the detailed memories of village elders enables their mass grave to be uncovered. The stories are linked by a fleeting encounter by the older mother with a forensic archaeologist who fathers her child. Both narrative threads are emotionally powerful. It's about identity, memory and the way truth comes out eventually, no matter how much it's resisted. 

Best of all, once I'd tuned in to the way the Spanish was spoken, I found that the vocabulary and language used was more accessible than I expected. Subtitles confirmed what I heard and understood, rather than substituting for my lack of comprehension. That gave me as much pleasure as the stories told.

Epiphany Eve

A welcome return of blue sky and sunshine this morning, while flooding after weeks of heavy rain is in the news headlines. After breakfast, time to cook assembled marmalade ingredients into jam and bottle it. The house is filled with delicious orange aroma. By midday, I had eight one pound jars filled and then labelled. Clare is going to do the second batch, and then the jam storage shelf will be full again. I still have four jars of 2023 marmalade to finish!

After lunch, I walked into town through Bute Park. The Christmas sound and light show extravaganza has finished and been dismantled already, restoring night time peace and quiet to owls and foxes. Many of the stores were having big discount sales, including a few closing down sales. I don't suppose this has been a big spending season for retail, and with the terrible rainy weather the outdoor winter attractions won't have made as much money as hoped for. Economic recession is on the near horizon one way or another.

Another lazy evening, binge watching episodes of 'Bones' with nothing better to do, while Clare worked on her share of preparing oranges for the next batch of marmalade. As it's the vigil of the Epiphany, Clare took the decorations from the Christmas tree and I carried it out into the garden. As it's got roots, it will stay with us until next year. It's likely to need re-potting during the year to stay healthy.

Marmalade time

Awake at half past seven to an overcast damp day, but no torrential rain thankfully. I posted today's link to Morning Prayer on YouTube, dozed for a while and then got up for breakfast. I went to the Eucharist at St John's. There were ten of us, more than there has been on a Thursday for quite a while. 

I chatted with Fr.  Dyfrig as we were leaving, There's a meeting tonight to prepare for another meeting of the three Cardiff Ministry Area Councils next week to discuss the twenty percent increase in the diocesan share. He said that the increase had come about due to the collapse of income from Valleys parishes. Clearly a reflection of an even greater impact on them of the cost of living and membership crisis. It's considered urban parishes aren't so hard hit, but I wonder if this is true, or if the same catastrophe is delayed but unavoidable. A similar crisis hit Monmouth diocese several years ago, leading to church closures and reduction of clergy on the ground.

Clare learned yesterday that the first batch of this year's bitter Seville oranges would arrive today at our neighbourhood greengrocer's. After church I bought some sugar for jam making at Tesco's then went to buy a couple of kilos worth and some lemons. After sharing the lunch cooking and eating with Clare, I got this week's distribution of the Sway link ready and emailed it out via Mailchimp. Then I cleaned up the first kilo batch of Oranges ready and stewing in the pressure cooker. 

A message came in from Andrew with news of the death at 93 of Alf, one of St John's longstanding members, and later news of the death of Fr John Webber, the same age as me. When I worked with USPG in the eighties, John was working in the Church of Bangladesh teaching theology supported by the Society. When he returned he was a parish priest in East London pastoring the Bengali community there, then came back to Wales to be Team Rector of Llantwit Major. In retirement he lived nearby and helped out in Canton Benefice until he became infirm due to the impact on his health of living in a challenging climate. 

By the time I added the sad news of both deaths to Sway, three dozen people had already looked at it. Another seventy will also have opened the Sway link by Sunday, but it is an advantage to be able to edit and update what appears on-line when news comes in.

My phone's weather app said it was raining so I donned the wellies I had for Christmas and a lightweight pair of rain trousers that emerged after months in hiding in the back of the cupboard, and went for a walk in the park. The light drizzle I faced was hardly worth the effort of dressing up for, but it gave me an opportunity to test the wellies. They were comfortable enough, but felt surprisingly heavy to walk in, making my thigh muscles work harder than in any pair of shoes. I managed for about half an hour, then came home and changed for a paid of shoes to complete my daily quota of steps. I can envisage putting them on at the start of my daily exercise to work the thigh muscles and warm them up, and then switch to shoes to walk at a faster pace. Who knows? It may be beneficial.

As I have no service to take this weekend there's no sermon to write, so I idled the evening away watching more episodes of 'Bones'. The series ran from 2005-2017, and it's interesting to see in successive episodes the advancing technology and design of mobile phones and laptops. It all looked a bit magical as fiction permitted the timescale to be compressed. The strange thing is, over the past nineteen years, how reality has caught up with fiction, with Cloud computing, touch screen smartphones, tablets and ultra lightweight laptops, although there are still analytical processes which can take weeks in real time due to their nature, and storytelling still needs these to be accelerated to reach a timely conclusion. Amazing to this that I have lived through this era, and the fifteen years before it. I remember buying my first properly portable laptop at the end of 1992, though my first Amstrad PC was six years before that. What a journey!

Break in the weather at last

A dozen photos arrived on Instagram overnight from Kath and Anto arrived now in Melbourne. With only a four hour time difference between Malaysia and Australia, they're already over the worse of the jet lag and able to enjoy arriving relatively fresh.

We only had showers overnight, and the streets were drying out with sky clearing by the time I eventually woke up, gone nine. I don't know where all the sleep comes from, as I don't feel very physically tired. I got to St Catherine's to celebrate the Eucharist in time, but not early enough, as I had to open the church and prepare the altar for the service, so we were nearly ten minutes late starting. There were five of us, and the others didn't mind the delay, as none of us were running to a deadline and we all had coffee together in the hall afterwards. 

I walked home and and found that Clare had put out the empty veggie bag in the hall. I assumed this meant there was a delivery today and went down to Chapter to collect, only to discover a load of empty bags from last week in the veg cabinet. It seems Clare put out the empty bag ready for tomorrow's delivery on a different date this week. I cooked lunch when I got back, then went out to get this week's groceries from the Coop. 

Then I made the most of today's better weather with a half hour's walk in the park before tea. A message arrived from Owain, showing a photo of the second hand sofa he's just had delivered in his lounge. His plans to fully furnish his apartment before Christmas were ruined by the stalling of a pay rise promised months ago and not yet delivered for some spurious reason. It's no wonder so many public sector workers are going on strike when the government is deaf toward the pleas of any group whose needs don't fit in with the grand plan devised to maintain if not increase the wealth of the rich, at the expense of those who are just about managing.

Clare went out for her Plygain singing session after an early supper. I worked on making the video slide show of next week's Morning Prayer, and then settled down to watch a couple of episodes of 'Bones', the American forensic series. It portrays the collaborate nature of criminal investigations between police lawyers, forensic scientists and the arsenal of techniques they use, but compress months of work into a timescale of a few days. Too much like 'infotainment', and in that sense it's inauthentic, like the acting.

Soaked again

Another day under cloud, with spells of torrential rain and violent gusts of wind. Clare went to her study group after breakfast, and I prepared and recorded next week's Morning Prayer and Reflection, taking a break to cook lunch for her return. 

At three, we ventured out and walked for seventy five minutes. The Taff at Blackweir Bridge was within an inch of overflowing on to the path. Flood alerts being posted for places all over Wales. More rain was threatened but we only had to content with gusts of strong wind while we walked. Only in the last ten minutes were we subjected to a cloudburst with gusts threatening to demolish the brolly. It was like having a bucket of cold water poured over you! Then it just stopped. While I dried out at home, I returned to working on audio editing and postponed completion of my daily round until the evening.

When I did go out again, the wind had abated somewhat but still blew the drizzle about. My trouser legs got soaked when a car drove through a large puddle on a road that was drying out. No doubt they will dry out with mud splashes. A west wind was blowing the low clouds apart enough to see a few stars, higher fast moving clouds suggested that this storm isn't yet finished with us. 

Nothing of interest on telly tonight so I watched the pilot episode of an American forensic crimmie series 'Bones' which has recently appeared on More Four. The scientific detective work is interesting, but US police procedeurals aren't as engaging or subtle as European ones, and guns play an abnormal part in any scenario it seems to me.