New router arrives

Another day of sunshine mixed with clouds with a few brief showers in the afternoon.  I woke up early, posted the YouTube link for Morning Prayer on WhatsApp, then dozed for an hour before getting up and getting ready for church.

Ukraine has agreed to a general proposal about a temporary ceasefire and peace talks. The world waits to hear whether Putin will agree to this or not. Trump says he's going to meet Putin in the coming weeks. In the light of Zelensky's agreement, the use of Musk's Starlink satellite network and US military intelligence sharing will be resumed. The same tactic was used behind the scenes to get stalled ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel started again. More Palestinians have been killed in the time since the talks stalled, and the blockade of humanitarian aid and electricity supplies continues, as talks resume in Qatar on extending the temporary ceasefire. Netanyahu's government refuses to consider ending the conflict despite calls from world leaders to end the aggression and allow the rebuilding of Gaza to proceed. The nightmare continues for the Gaza population and the world looks on horrified, as crimes against humanity are committed again and again.

I celebrated two Eucharists today as Sion is away on a training course. We were just five at St Catherine's and seven at St John's. On the way home I collected this week's veggie bag from Chapter. Clare was busy cooking sausages for lunch when I arrived. A new router arrived in the post from TalkTalk. The package was slim enough to slip through a standard sized mailbox. I opened it and checked the content, but didn't feel the need to swap old for new straight away. A new router means a password change for all our wifi devices, five for me and five for Clare. It's better to do the lot in one go and test them, rather than do it on a basis of need, when any of them is switched on in a hurry.

A chill wind was blowing, dispersing all the cloud while I was walking up to Western Avenue and over the bridge to return on the east bank path, busy with commuting cyclists after four any working weekday, used by staff and students from Glantâf Welsh Comprehensive school in one direction, and city centre office workers in the other. I picked up eleven drink containers - cans, glass or plastic bottles on my circuit. Over the winter it's been about three a day. As the weather improves, and there are more daylight hours after work, more people come out to play sports or socialise in the park, and the amount of discarded containers increases. The distribution of existing litter bins is inadequate, but drink cans, especially energy drinks are often discarded within twenty yards of a bin. Does imbibing such sickly caffeinated beverages produce a kind of amnesia or myopia in the consumer?

After supper and the Archers I found a new crimmie to watch on Channel 4 called 'Get Millie Black'. It's about a Jamaican born detective working in London who returns home and joins the Jamaica Police Force, and when looking for a missing schoolgirl unearths a people trafficking enterprise run by organised liking Kingston and London. Running alongside this is a story of two siblings abused by a violent mother, both fleeing home when teenagers. It's about changing identities and coming to terms with the past. Much of it is filmed in Kingston. It's fantastic to hear dialogue in Jamaican patois used again in a dramatic context, even if I did end up switching on the subtitles. It takes me back to my time in St Paul's Bristol, and my visit to Kingston forty two years ago. How it's changed since then. I made myself stop and get ready for bed after a couple of episodes, saving the rest for tomorrow.