Weekend work and leisure

With the CBS administrator Julie away on compassionate leave, it was necessary for me to spend more time than usual in the office on Friday. From her notes of the Radio user group meeting yesterday, I wrote the minutes, and from my notes of the WECTU briefing, I wrote an account of all the advice given, and posted it on the DISC intranet for all RadioNet users to see. I did the BCRP board minutes after a break of the couiple of days, and was satisfied with the result. 

It's highly satisfying to think I can recall the content of meetings I've attended with a fair degree of accuracy, especially when I've got to am age where I find I forget what I gone upstairs for, or logged on to Google to find out about. Fear of memory loss is worse than the reality. So many everyday things are trivial it's no wonder we lose focus on them.

Saturday, we went to Penarth for lunch. The 'Cafe des Amis' has become 'The Bistro' since our last visit. Still serving authentic French cuisine, but now with a different menu. To our taste, the food choice is not as interesting as it once was, although the environment is much the same as it was previously. I would have preferred to have had fish and chips from the stall in front of the pier and sat on the beach again, but for once in a while, the tide was in, close to the promenade wall. It's a long time since I last saw a high tide in Penarth, but when, I cannot remember.

In the evening BBC Four showed 'The Bridge III', more Scandinavian crime drama, in a joint Swedish/Danish bi-lingual production wiht Engish subtitles. Two episodes a time for goodness knows how many weeks. Another convoluted and bizarre long tale that supposed to keep us entertained. To my mind, this particular fomula is beginning to wear thin. It focuses for too much, for its own good, on one main character with a peculiar personality, and while this has its entertaining moments, it feels a bit 'more of the same'- The Arne Dahl series of stories was far superior in terms of the complexity of its characters and their responses to the awful situations they find themselves in.

Remembrance Sunday

The rainy season continues, and grey days merge into one another. Friday and Saturday slipped by in an unremarkable way, apart from another Arne Dahl, about a plot by far right militants to assassinate a key figure in a peace process, to provoke an islamophobic conflict in Europe. Each story in the series has laid bare the fears that pervade Sweden's peaceful liberal democratic society. How similar to our own.

This morning I went first to St Saviour's and then St German's to celebrate the Eucharist for them. Although Remembrance Sunday was observed in both places, readings were for the Sunday of the year, depending on whether you follow the Revised Common, or Roman Catholic lectionary version. 

Normally this is not a problem, but there are a few Sundays of the year when Anglicans have their own set of readings, and November is one of those times. It was only when I got to St Saviour's that I realised the Roman version of the lectionary was in use, with two out of three readings entirely different, so I had to listen hard and then ad lib around the Remembrance theme using the different texts. I was pleased with the outcome, didn't go on too long, as I can do when I've not prepared properly, and got the impression that it went down OK. 

The act of remembrance around the war memorial in the church garden was performed by lay people, as I had to go to St German's and lead the act of remembrance there before starting the Mass. I also had to curtail my prepared sermon there, to make sure the service didn't overrun, but that wasn't hard. Although I always discipline myself to write a set text to preach from, I habitually change it as I go along, and these days without being over-long. The challenge of how to get the best out of a 10-15 minute opportunity to work with scripture before an audience is still fresh every time, and thankfully remains a real pleasure. 

In the evening Clare went to the Benefice annual service of remembrance for the faithful departed, I stayed home and said Evening Prayer alone. I needed to do that to re-balance, after an out-going morning, there are times when only silence will do.

Hallowe'en

After a nice late breakfast, I drove up to the Travellers' Rest pub on Caerphilly Mountain to meet a couple and prepare a funeral service with them for Monday. As they live in the Valleys it was the most convenient thing to do apart from meet at the funeral parlour, something I am reluctant to do, preferring to meet on neutral ground, and not at our house now I'm retired. Unfortunately the pub hadn't yet opened, so we had to sit outside at a picnic table. Fortunately the rain stayed away until our business was completed.

Then, Clare, Rhiannon and I went to Penarth and had a fish and chip picnic lunch on the beach. It was such a grey day. With the tide right out, some of the photos I took were almost devoid of colour apart from shades of grey, and converting them to monochrome for comparison, it was fascinating to see the differences.

Later in the day, Rhiannon went out with her little friend Anwen on a 'trick or treat' expedition, and returned with a bag of various kinds of junk sweets that parents are no longer keen for the children to eat. We had only a couple of little visitors, and they got little boxes of Smarties. Just as bad really. Rhiannon doesn't much care for sweets, apart from chocolate, and is good about keeping stocks and rationing herself. Admirable restraint for an eleven year old. It's amazing how she's grown since the summer, and the start of her first year in secondary school.

Another penetrating Arne Dahl episode on BBC Four this evening, all about teenage sex trafficking and child pornography, with a little web hacking thrown in. All very current issues, and interesting to see how they are represented from a Swedish perspective. Much more haunting than all the fantasy horror we're exposed to at this time of year, as it's that much closer suburban ordinariness.

Movie weekend

Neither Clare nor I felt like doing much yesterday. Only later when clouds parted and gave us a few hours of afternoon sun did I venture out to take some photos of autumnal trees on Llandaff Fields. Mild weather has produced a lovely array of colours, and now that leaves are actually starting to fall, the contrast of gold and brown on the still bright green grass is just lovely to behold.

This morning after a good night's sleep, thanks to the extra hour, with the clocks going back, I returned to St John's Danescourt and Christchurch Radyr for their main Eucharists, with a baptism during and another one after the latter service. It's several years since I last baptized anyone, and an event I enjoy. But when I look into some closed hard faces when I greet visitors before or after the service it's clear they've accepted the invite more out of good-will to the child's parents than any appreciation for the value of the ceremony. The same can be true of the guests at weddings and funerals too. It's difficult to retain an open and welcoming attitude to them when the devil inside me wants to pipe up and say: "Why on earth have you come here with a look like that on your face?" Truth to tell, church is for many occasional visitors an embarrassing place to be, for a host of different reasons, and it's an unending challenge to deal with this.

Before the second baptism, I needed a rest with a drink and chocolate biscuit to sustain me, as I was starting to flag - feeling my age? Or did I fail to eat as much breakfast as I really needed, to keep me sharp? I was fine by the time I'd finished and on my way home, and didn't spend all the rest of the afternoon dozing. I went out again with my camera to Thompson's Park to enjoy the even earlier sunset. Photos are here.

It was something of a weekend for crime drama, with another double episode of the Arne Dahl series last night, with something of a post Cold War legacy crime theme with an ending worthy of spy thriller. Tonight, as Clare wanted to watch 'Downton Abbey' and I didn't, I made use of the FilmOnTV website on my Asus Transformer to view the last of four episodes of BBC's One's 'From Darkness', which I found altogether disappointingly slow. Cut out all the agonising slow facial closups and the whole story could have been better compressed into two hour episodes. 

The digital TV box I had in the Nerja chaplain's house ran the same FilmOnTV streaming service. It's only recently I realise that it could provide an alternative means of viewing when there are scheduling clashes of interest here at home. After this, I chanced upon a late showing of 'False Trail', a detective movie set in rural Northern Sweden, starring Rolf Lassgard, the first actor to portray Wallender, as another detective. The plot centred around the ability of an insane, corrupt policeman to fabricate a web of lies around a murder he'd committed. I didn't mind it being slow to unravel as there were subtitles to grapple with. The scenes of autumnal and winter forests aroused in me a strong desire to visit that part of the world, up near the Arctic Circle one of these days.