Friend reunited

We attended the eight o'clock Eucharist at St Catherine's this morning, to be sure we were ready to leave by half past eleven to drive up to the New House Country hotel at the bottom of Thornhill for the Friends of St John's annual luncheon party. It was lovely to see the familiar faces of old friends. We were honoured to eat at Sarah, the new Vicar's table, with the church wardens, the President of the Friends Sir Norman Lloyd Edwards, choir leader Vanessa and her husband Keith. It was a lovely occasion with good food and conversation. There were three dozen of us. 

I was saddened to learn of the recent death of Dorothy Wilkins yet another ancient St John's stalwart who was ninety nine years old. Though forever seemingly frail since I first met her eighteen years ago, she was alert, lively and active right into her years. After giving up her family home a decade ago, I understand she moved house three times, rather unusual, given the impact this can have on people, the older they get. Is it constitution, temperament, mindset, making one person comfortable with change and another averse to it?

After an uncomfortable day yesterday, I wondered how I would cope with sitting so long, but in the event, I had no problem. It's the furthest afield I've been for a while, and I was glad to be out of Cardiff (just) for a change of scene. The fields falling away below the hotel were tinted with mist and the sun shone where we were, while central Cardiff was still under miserable thin cloud, typical of this time of year.

Another episode of Little Drummer Girl in the evening. It's a bit of an effort to keep up with the plot in the way the movie is put together. I keep wishing I could remember the book, which I must have read thirty years ago. I don't have a copy now, and don't feel compelled to care enough about the story or the characters to go out and buy one.

  

Back at the altar

In quick succession this morning I had a follow up blood test, and a consultation with Dr Jordan about last weekend's little medical drama. My gall bladder has resumed normal functioning now and is no longer inflamed, but I have been booked in for a scan, and an urgent follow through visit to the 'bum doctor', as we call him. Heaven knows how long the waiting list is. 

I'd rather be a patient in the true sense of what that means, than need to be a medical client as I was in Switzerland, and have to pay for treatment. OK, I probably am mean most of the time, but I believe so strongly in the values and principles of the NHS, and look forward to the election a a government which refuses on principle to privatise large sections of the health service, often in a way detrimental to users and real efficiency of service.

After the doctor's visit a short walk across the road to St Catherine's to celebrate the Eucharist, for the first time in two weeks for a congregations of four. It gave me great pleasure to be back at the altar again. With the ups and downs of my health at the moment, it feels like a gift to be able to carry on offering a little support to the ministry of my home parish.

The newsletter of the Friends of St John's City Parish Church arrived today, bearing news of the death of another of one of the elderly faithful who have been the prayerful backbone of the church over the past fifteen years, Mary Jones was in her late eighties and still active until recently. Sadly her funeral was a few days after my return, and I didn't hear about this until today. She was always appreciative of my ministry, and any time I visited St John's she'd ask me when I was coming again, in the hope that I'd become their a locum priest. I've filled in there on occasional weekdays at short notice, but it's been left to Eddy and Sally Davies to carry the continuity of ministry during the last two interrgna, so they've been in good hands.

St John's is about to welcome its third priest in the eight years since I retired - that's as long as I served there. I hope the new priest will settle and enjoy as long and happy ministry there as I did. 

     

Sunday reunions

I was up before the alarm went off this morning, set to ensure I'd get to St Catherine's in good time to celebrate the eight o' clock. There were eight of us present, Clare included. I was was joined at the altar by Sam, one of two students on parish placement in Canton for two years of his training in the new St Padarn's Institute, which amalgamates existing ministry training centres of the Church in Wales in a comprehensive organisation aiming to meet the needs of a variety of students with different background experience and ages. He's just started ministry after two formative years as a member of a community under a Benedictine inspired rule living the Parish of Abergavenny, one positive innovation to occur in the Welsh church in recent years.

One the way back afterwards we bought breakfast croissants in the Coop, which I notice has gone through another re-branding re-imaging exercise since I've been away. I wonder what that cost them I why it was thought necessary to revert to something nearer to what used to be the recognisable brand identity?

We ate together in a leisurely way afterwards, before I had to set off to celebrate the St German's Solemn Mass. It was a delight to be welcomed back and step back into a familiar pattern of ritual and worship with a congregation I know well. I love the sense of praying with the people there. So often as a locum priest still getting to know the ways of different congregations, I feel like I'm taking a service for them and it's not quite the same. It's the difference between dancing with a familiar partner and having to learn to dance with someone new. No matter how skilled you may be at adapting, that special sense of spiritual intimacy only grows with familiarity.

Afterwards, I left immediately, to drive straight out of town to the Country House Hotel, Thornhill, to join a lunch party arranged by the Friends of St John's. It was a lovely occasion, re-united with many old friends from my time as Vicar of Cardiff's City Parish Church. Earlier this week I was looking at photos of church outings and glimpsed people who would no longer be at the lunch as they've died over the years since. All those people with whom I shared those amazing years in my final incumbency, I still feel close to, living and departed.

We left for home just after four. The sun was low in the sky and although Cardiff was in shadow and about to be illuminated by street lights, the Severn Estuary was still aglow and silvery with sunshine. It is such a special place to see the entirety of the Cardiff's coastal plain. After supper, we watched the fourth episode of 'Y Gwyll' on S4C. Another finely crafted piece of film drama, it didn't disappoint.
    

Tale of two offices

After the midweek Mass with Tredegarville school children at St German's, I stayed around and chatted with people in the thriving church hall Elderly People's Day Centre. It was pleasing to hear that ITV local news would be visiting to do a feature article this Friday, as a follow up to one a year ago, when the centre landed a substantial piece of funding to sustain the excellent work done there. There was a karaoke sing along in the main lounge with a couple of dozen participants having a good time, and a reflexologist was giving someone a treatment in the hall, while others not musically inclined relaxed and chatted over a cuppa. 

I stayed around because Area Dean Fr Bob Capper was due to make a visit to inspect church records and premises certificates, all part of the Archdeacon's visitation report. Thanks to Angela, the church administrator, all the essential documentation is systematically and accessibly filed. Bob expressed his admiration if not a little envy as well. Such a thorough and disciplined control of paperwork is rarely a strength for any cleric, even if this virtue is high on their wish-list. It's ages since we last had a chance to chat, the August before last, in fact. How time flies.

When he'd finished his inspection, we parted company and I headed for PC World on Newport Road to shop for a computer. Much more choice of machines there, but not of non-touchscreen devices. So, I drove across Cardiff to Culverhouse Cross, where there are still two stores, a Curry's and a PC World, but it was the same story in both. Back then to Western Avenue and Staples, where I found exactly what I'd been looking for, and at a reasonable price. It's a stylish 23" Core i3 HP Pavilion All in One PC with 8GB of RAM and a terabyte hard drive. Far more capacity and power than is really necessary to get the job done, but properly set up from scratch in the light of experience, it should see off recent troubles and be reliable for a good few years to come.

It took me six hours to set it up with additional software to resemble the existing office machine, so as to make it possible for Julie to continue working where she left off when she next comes in. It was yet another machine which had Windows 8.1 pre-installed, but at least on this occasion, as soon as it had completed the set up routine, it switched smoothly into update mode. I do resent the fact that there is no warning about delays involved in getting a new purchase into use. But at least it didn't have a sticker on it saying Windows 10 NOW - such a downright lie.
  

Enter Young Montalbano

On my way into the CBS office yesterday morning I went into St John's City Parish Church to join a congregation of 150 celebrating the golden wedding anniversary of the Reverends Eddie and Sally Davies. Edddie is doing locum duty at St John's these days, but 50 years ago he and Sally were married there, so this was a special double act for them. Archbishop Barry led the service and preached. The choirs of St John's and of Christchurch, where Eddy used to be Vicar and Sally is now doing locum duty, joined forces to lead worship and Cardiff City Male voice choir was there to sing special items as well. It was so good to be there and congratulate them, as well as greet old friends.

Clare and I were back at St John's this afternoon for the 'Friends of St John's' Annual General Meeting, preceded by Evensong at which I'd been asked to officiate. It's the first time I've sung a full Evensong since retiring, although I have said Evensong at Flemingston a couple of times since, but it's not the same as singing the office. I started to do that in Vale country churches  during vacations when I was a student at St Michael's. Sung Evensong is a rarity in parishes nowadays. It was part of normality back then, and something churchgoers often express nostalgia for though not enough to support it regularly any longer.

On the way back from St John's we stopped at 'Almeida', the Portuguese restaurant on Cowbridge Road East, which replaced the Turkish restaurant there, which replaced an Italian one ... It's hard to make a living from a small speciality restaurant at the best of times, even worse in the sixth year of recession. I admire the zeal, courage and belief  of those who invest their lives in giving it a go. The food was good, and so was the Portuguese wine that went with it. The background music was interesting too - a mixture of Fado and Brazilan, or was it contemporary fusion? I wonder. I forgot to ask. Definitely worth another visit.

We arrived home to the surprise discovery that a new Italian crime drama series was just getting under way on BBC4. 'Young Montalbano' is a prequel to the popular and well established 'Inspector Montalbano' series which endeared us to Sicily long before we went to Taormina last December. This series portrays the beginning of the Inspector's career in charge of Vigata Police Station, with an all new cast of actors to portray characters from the book, remaining quite faithful to the way the characters presented themselves in the original series. An impressive piece of work, with hilarious moments and intriguingly complex plots to sustain interest throughout.

Maybe it's something to do with the producer's own approach, but in this series I noticed how clearly everyone spoke and how easy it was to distinguish between the accents of characters, the use of Italian and Sicilian dialect. Over the past few years of European Saturday night drama I've got used to reading subtitles. It's less essential with Italian, however, as I understand much of what I hear. I still struggle with this when the language is Spanish. The challenge of making sense of the spoken word, however, is part of the entertainment pleasure.