Another clear blue sky sunny day, waking up an hour earlier in effect to start the day at the usual Sunday time. It's Eid al fitr, the end of Ramadan for Muslims today, Mothering for church goers and Mothers Day for the greeting card and flower industry. BBC's Sunday religious news programme highlighted the fiesta, and promised a live broadcast of Eid prayers from a Bradford mosque for the first time, and there's a live entertainment programme this evening. It's an interesting milestone in the history of the BBC, reflecting the fact that the number of Muslims in the population is four million. Although a third of the population describe themselves as Christian, only three and a half million attend regular worship. Christians are well represented in terms of broadcast air-time, so it's right that the BBC is making an effort to ensure Muslims are adequately represented as well.
I celebrated and preached at St German's this morning, seven months since I last did, and four months since I last sat in the congregation. I was touched to receive a warm welcome from many members of the congregation. There were forty five of us in church, including former Vicar of Tonyrefail Ruth Moverly, whom we both know from the meditation group Diana used to run in her house some time ago. I enjoyed stepping back into the familiar ritual setting, though it was a bit of an effort with an hour's less time in bed, plus it takes me half the morning to feel fully awake. I really could do with getting up early and going for a walk to oxygenate my brain before breakfast to be at my best for the rest of the day. By the end of Mass, I felt much more awake thankfully.
It was a quarter past one before I reached home for lunch. Afterwards I slept in the chair again for over an hour, which at least meant that I felt more awake when it was time to go for a walk. The park was busy with people enjoying the spring afternoon sunshine. A group of about a hundred of all ages were enjoying pizzas together, an Eid party, probably from one mosque. Men and boys played football nearby, women and children were grouped together in a circle of prams and pushchairs, elderly women and men sat in a separate circle, with another large mixed group standing chatting in between them. Quite a sight.
Clare joined me to walk together for a while. She can't walk for so long or so fast these days, but it was nice to sit on a park bench and enjoy the sunshine together. After supper I watched the rest of 'Flowers over the inferno.' In the last half hour a mystery is unravelled, somewhat confusingly as the complex back story to a series of present crimes dates pack forty years and is told far too rapidly to make sense, though I spotted the hidden perpetrator early on. There was a poorly conceived scene in the run up to the final crisis in which a spool of 35mm movie film runs out and the miraculously started re-running while the dramatic action plays out. There's another mystery too in mise en scene. The wonderful Tyrolean alpine landscape is partly covered with snow, but large melted patches make it look like it's spring, when the big seasonal festa during which the story is enfolding is St Nicholas, 6th December. There are other scenes with snow falling, or hoar frost on the trees, but the rate of change in a succession of scenes to another is implausible as if the movie editor was taking 'artistic' liberties that didn't really make sense. This distracts from the story being told.
The story, past and present, concerned child abuse of different kinds. The six episode series covered one novel by Ilaria Tuti, featuring Commissaria Teresa Battaglia as a criminal profiler working with a couple of male inspectors, and keeping them on their toes all the time. This seems to be a feature of the Italian crimmies. The role in the story of the supportive friendship of four ten year olds, two of whom weren't strangers to physical abuse, was well portrayed and the kids were just marvellous. They reminded me a little of the Famous Five in children's stories when I was young, except that they were just four. It seems there's another series based on another crimmie featuring Teresa Battaglia is in the pipeline, but it'll be a while before that sees the light of day I suspect.
And that was it - time for bed now.
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