As forewarned last night the Gaza cease-fire and hostage exchange agreement didn't start on time this morning, delayed by nearly three hours until the names of Israelis for release to the Red Cross, acting as intermediaries, were confirmed by Hamas. Several more people were killed during the delay as the Israeli Israel military continued its merciless onslaught. It is going to be touch and go like this every day as long as the cease fire ends? And what happens then? Will the violence resume? There seems to be no future plan under active consideration at the moment.
Sunday Worship on Radio 4 celebrated the 1700th anniversary of the adoption of the Nicene Creed on this second day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Christians of all traditions in the Holy Land, Syria and Lebanon are united more by suffering and persecution than by historical issues that used to divide them these days.
I celebrated Mass with twenty adults and four children at St Paul's Grangetown again. We were without an organist this morning, and had to rely on digital hymns, apart from parts that can be sung unaccompanied. It's difficult to maintain the brisk pace of some hymns, and the break between verses is inflexibly set, and this makes it difficult to sing along with. The pitch can sometimes be unsuitable for the average range of voices, with different musical versions existing in alternative keys. Congregations that are quite good and confident about singing with a live musician sing nervously with a digital device. Is it accompanying them or are they accompanying it? It's a hazard of locum duty which I dread.
I was home for lunch by a quarter to one, as St Paul's is only twenty minutes drive away, and the traffic flow is much lighter. After eating I slept in my arm chair for an hour. Clare went out before me to walk to Tesco Extra on Western Avenue. On leaving the house I found the parking space outside the house was empty, though the entire length of the street had been occupied when I returned home, and I was obliged to park on Llanfair Road instead. I promptly retrieved the car and filled the empty space. I prefer to see the car rather than have to rack my brains to recall wherever I left it - who doesn't.
Parking on the weekend is getting more difficult, with people driving larger sized cars and often parking them badly, reducing the number of available spaces. If we're obliged to buy parking permits this will make no difference to the problem, as I pointed out to the Council's recent consultation on local parking. The parking enforcement scheme is already failing, traffic warden patrols are infrequent, and rotting leaves cover up double yellow lines. Anyone parking over them can object and avoid fines on the grounds that they aren't visible.
I caught up with Clare at Tesco's, and we had a drink in the store's Costa cafe, but we only had a quarter of an hour before the store closed, then we walked home as the sun was setting. As I hadn't walked my daily step quota, I went out again and did a circuit of Thompson's Park in the dark. It was good to hear that the Gaza cease-fire has now started, although it's very fragile with each side hating and distrusting the other with the threat of war continuing when the hostage exchange is complete.
The Swedish crimmie I've been watching is called Blackwater. It's set in a place called Stjanberg, in the mountainous north of Sweden, in a place that exist, as I found out when I searched for it on Google Maps and was offered several different locations with variations on the place name in the southern central part of Sweden. I discussed this with Sara who found this out. I spent the evening watching three more episodes. It's difficult to get into because it's set in the same place twenty years apart with different sets of actors, I think, as the ageing of characters (not to mention sizing) would be difficult to achieve, although I may be wrong about that. It's slow moving and pretty explicit in portraying a commune of drop-outs where total candour and 'free love' are accepted. The story could have been told in an episode less without the lengthy shagging scenes which don't add much to the story that isn't covered by dialogue anyway. Not impressed.
No comments:
Post a Comment