Ash Wednesday

I went to the Eucharist of the day at St Catherine's this morning. There were nineteen of us and most stayed for coffee and a chat afterwards. Mother Francis preached well using the text of the hymn 'O Love that will not let me go', and telling the story of its author, the blind preacher George Matheson. It was a cheery gathering, and perhaps because I was in a quiet observant mood, I kept noticing how kind and attentive people were towards each other. As we parted company I had to wish them Happy Easter, as this was the last time I'd see them until my return in two months time. That felt strange.

After lunch, I phoned up and booked a room in Bristol Airport Holiday Inn for Monday night, so I can get some sleep before rising early for my flight to Mallorca at 07.05 on Tuesday. Then I walked over to the Sophia Gardens coach station and booked a ticket for the 17.40 coach to the airport. In the evening, I activated my new travel money card and registered an online account that will enable me to keep and eye on my euro spending. 

A job that's been in my pending tray for over a week, checking out whether or not my DBS update service registration now works. I had occasion to call the gov.uk troubleshooting hotline over error messages which seemed to be caused by me having two separate CRB checks running at the same time. I was able to access my account with the reference number given by the troubleshooter and this gave me confirmation of the Church in Wales certificate. I then added the Diocese in Europe certificate to the same account as I'd been instructed. As suspected before it was clarified by the call, I have and need only one access path to both applications on the DBS update portal. 

I find all this digital detail hard going these days, too much time spent typing in numbers and re-checking them, no matter how good the cause or convenient the purpose. Reducing human beings to a collection of numbers and use statistics is not my idea of being made in the image of God. Giving up surfing or reading newsfeeds and tweets for Lent in favour of a good book might be worth doing, but it's impossible to give up all things digital as almost everything we do relies on it, one way or another. What are we doing to ourselves? Where will it end?

This last few days army and police helicopters have been evident in the city skies by day and even by night, on a joint training exercise relating to major incident preparedness, according to the news media. As I was walking through Bute Park, two RAF Lynx helicopters circulated overhead and landed in the field by the Ambulance station. One was clearly a rescue craft, the other was armed, to provide protective cover. Services designed to protect citizens have to be ready for anything I guess.
I got some good photos to prove the co-incidence of my being there during the ten minutes they were on the ground. You'll find them here

Back to Montreux - yet again

Free at last to get on with packing, I had all of Wednesday and half of Thursday, to prepare and pack for my six week stint in Montreux, where it promises to be as hot, even hotter than Cardiff for several weeks to come. It's rare that I don't bother to think about packing a pullover - just in case! As ever I exercised myself over which cameras to take, and ended up eliminating my Alpha 68 and its lenses on the grounds of weight in my rucksack cabin bag. On the outbound journey, it would be necessary to carry a cool bag and a couple of freezer packs to keep the tubes of ointment prescribed by Lt Col Davies at fridge temperature, and this couldn't go in my hold baggage just in case it got lost in transit. The worry I had was about getting the cold package through security. It the event it turned out not to be a problem as the screening staff were very understanding.

Clare drove me to the station for the two o'clock train to Bristol, which was on time. However before it arrived, an announcement was made about the next train to arrive at platform two, which was for Manchester. If the Bristol train had been announced it was before I got on to the platform and before it came in. Most confusing. There's evidently no co-ordination between the team which manages the platform and the announcement broadcast. To compound the error, when the correct train arrived, in its shine new bright GWR green livery, it had no destination panel that I could see, or at least if it had one, it wasn't lit up. There wasn't even a quick printed out notice affixed to the train windscreen or side windows. It could have been going anywhere. How dumb is this!

Anyway I arrived at the airport in good time, and quickly checked in with the new automatic check in system working well. There were long summer queues passing through security clearance at fair pace, so within a quarter of an hour of getting off the buss, I was in the departure lounge. No long after, the phone's EasyJet app issued the first of two flight delay notifications. French air traffic controllers are at it again, unfortunately, holding Europe, not just France to ransom. In the end our flight was an hour delayed, which meant that my train from Geneva to Montreux got in at half past midnight.  

By the time I had something to eat and unpacked, it was two in the morning, and too hot to lie under covers, though not unpleasant. It was nearly ten by the time I surfaced for breakfast. Before lunch I walked to the shops in town to buy additional veggies and a few other food supplies to get start me off domestically speaking. Later in the afternoon I had a visit from the mother of the infant I am due to baptise tomorrow afternoon, to check out certain elements of the service. Her husband's parents and two brothers are driving from Italy where they've been on holiday, to attend the service. Her  family live in Lausanne. He's Swedish and she's Belgium, and all are fluent English speakers. The couple were married several years ago in St John's, so it's a pleasure to welcome them back.

Walking along the flower bedecked promenade this afternoon was such a delight, I couldn't help but grin from ear to ear. This is my third visit in just a twelvemonth, to a region where I still feel very much at home and alive in spirit. I'm so grateful for the blessing of having so much pleasure in the performance of ministry duties in my old age.

  

Return to Switzerland

After a leisurely day of packing yesterday, I woke up to heavy rain. This ruled out walking to the Coach station, so I called for a taxi. The company advised leaving much earlier than usual just in case there was traffic congestion on Cathedral Road, which is usually the case on a normal working day, but being Christmas holiday week, it turned out to be more like a Sunday morning, so I arrived with three quarters of an hour to wait instead of fifteen minutes. Very little was done to prepare bus shelters for waiting passengers when the temporary coach station was established two years ago, so those in place are open to the elements. At least, the early rain had almost stopped and there was no wind, but I was glad to be wearing my old padded ski jacket.

The coach to Bristol Airport got me there dead on time, a ninety minute journey, same as the train and local bus combination, but cheaper and more relaxing despite cramped coach seats, rather like airline ones. I arrived five minutes before the auto-check in system for the Geneva flight was due to start, but was able to check in at a proper desk with a real counter clerk instead. For once, it too me twenty minutes to clear security, though not because queues were long or slow, rather, it was due to me being selected for a random scrupulous check, which entailed emptying my rucksack of all my digital devices including cameras, and everything being put through the scanner. I didn't mind, as there was no rush with two hours to the boarding flight call.

Altogether, I spent over three and a half hours waiting in the departure lounge, as our flight arrival was delayed. The pilot later explained this was their third round trip of four to Geneva for the day. The first two had been flights from Edinburgh, where the airport was still recovering from previous days of snow induced chaos. It could have been much worse. I was relived to get away as planned. I had to wait ages to retrieve my luggage at the other end, as it was in the last of four loads fetched in from the aircraft. There must have been two or possibly three flights arriving in close proximity, as half a dozen if not more of the passport booths in an arrival hall used by budget airlines were busy dealing with a huge crowd, and at a fair turn of speed, given the vital thoroughness of the process. 

By seven I was at the airport train station, buying an abonnement demi-tarif and ticket to Montreux. I had tried to buy on-line last night, but the payment system wasn't working. Never mind, I got a properly printed abonnement in a ticket wallet, which beats a crumpled print-out any time. I didn't have long to wait for a Montreux train, there are two or three every hour. I sat in a carriage which had another passenger from the Bristol flight, and we started chatting, after she'd noticed my cross and asked the reason for wearing it. She told me she attended neighbouring All Saints Vevey Anglican church. In fact, we'd both been at the same community luncheon back in September, when she was still on crutches following a hip operation. Such a small world!

Jane met me at Montreux gare and took me to St John's Church house. By half past nine I was installed and inspecting a fridge generously stocked with enough essentials to get me through the weekend and two days of public holiday that follow here. It was raining, just as it was in Cardiff this morning, only heavier. So pleased to be back again.

   

Homecoming

I woke up at 05.20 with nearly seven hours reasonable sleep behind me, and was relieved to find I could move reasonably well, as long I moved carefully. After breakfast and a final inspection of the house, I locked the house and walked to Montreux gare for the 07.24 train with twenty minutes to spare. As this train stops only at Lausanne and Genece Cornavin before the airport, it's one of the fastest of the day, an hour and ten minutes. It's crowded with commuters, students, teachers and business workers, as well as heavily laden travellers destined for the airport. I had to walk through a couple of carriages to find an empty luggage rack, let alone a seat. 

Having found both, I went to sit down, and was greeted by a smiling friendly face - Bethany-Ann, who'd been in church with her five year old daughter yesterday for the midweek Communion service, such a delightful surprise. She teaches English in both Lausanne and Geneva's Webster Universities, travelling this route by train to work several times a week. So instead of gazing at the sunrise over the lake and dozing, I enjoyed an hour's good conversation all the way to Geneva. 

Bethany-Ann's father is a retired American Lutheran pastor in Philadelphia. She teaches students from around the world, many from Arab countries. She said how filled with hope her Saudi students are at the rise of a young Crown Prince able to give them a voice through his progressive thinking and actions. Her younger sister is an academic who began as a French graduate to learn Arabic and now researches and writes on Islamic culture. Bethany-Ann is married to a Kosovan Muslim who was a refugee at the time of the Yugoslavian war and made his home in Switzerland. Such is the everyday diversity of a significant proportion of the inhabitants of Switzerland. It made for a happy conclusion to my stay.

The airport was busy. Twenty minutes to drop off my suitcase, but only ten minutes to go through security. The flight landed at Bristol ten minutes early, and I was soon on a bus for Temple Meads station. My twenty minute wait for a train turned into a half an hour wait, as the train was delayed due to 'cows on the line', which makes a change from 'leaves on the line' I suppose. Clare met me with the car at Cardiff Central, to save me lugging my case to the nearest bus stop. Home by two.

As ever, there were Windows PCs to be updated and made fit for purpose, before attempting any work on them. Sister in Law Ann arrived for the weekend at four, and Owain at six, then we walked together to 'La Cuina', the Catalan restaurant at the bottom of King's Road, for the first of Clare's birthday meals, a superb gourmet affair with an excellent bottle of Catalan wine from Vallibona de les Monjes, due north of Tarragona. Unfortunately, it rained on us as we walked home, not that it dampened our spirits after a splendid night out.

  

Journey to Switzerland

Yesterday morning, I celebrated the Eucharist at St John's with nine others, took my leave of them and returned home immediately to finish off packing my case and eating an early lunch. Just after one, Mary our neighbour drove us to Cardiff Central station to take the train to Bristol, with lots of time to spare, just in case there were delays in arriving at Temple Mead station. This happened to us the last time we travelled over to Bristol Airport to fly to Budapest a year ago, causing unwanted and stressful delay in arriving for our flight. This time, all was well, except that the airport shuttle bus stop has moved from one side of the station entrance to the other for the first time in all the years we have been using the service.

Bristol Airport was, as to be expected in mid-August, quite busy. People were queuing, but moving through the check-in area surprisingly quickly. Check-in desks were apparently replaced just last month by an array of automatic self-service terminals, supported by airline staff. The system is very simple. Your flight ticket QR code is scanned, your bag is weighed, and as long as it conforms to the prescribed weight limit and content declaration, the machine prints a baggage label which you apply yourself. The bag is then taken to the usual check-in desk site and placed on a conveyor, where the label is scanned to check that it's the correct one issued against the ticket. 

I think the label may have an RFID tag plus a bar code to make it recognisable to both standard systems in use at different airports. The technology now being rolled out to regional airports has been around for some years and it works impressively. Staff are available to help travellers on a friendly face to face basis, but are more efficiently used, as those used to this routine check themselves in and move on quickly.

There was a queue of several dozen moving at a steady pace through the security clearance area. This too has been remodelled in the past year. There are now six luggage and people scanning terminals, half of which were in use. This procedure only took us ten minutes surprisingly, and is a testimony to improved efficiency. People moan about long delays at larger airports. Well, Bristol's queue of maybe fifty people at a time, scaled up five or ten times at any moment in a bigger airport, even with a bigger system working at full capacity, will scale up the delay in getting through. It's still amazingly efficient at processing people unless the technology fails, or staff don't show up for work when expected. Millions of people around the world, on the move, day and night, and under such constraints. It's a remarkable everyday achievement.

As testimony to increased airline traffic, our flight was twenty minutes late taking off, and made up five minutes en route. The queue at passport control was long and slow, and although this meant we picked up our luggage as soon as we arrived to reclaim it, we missed the half part nine InterRegio train to Montreux by a few minutes, and had to wait forty minutes for the next one. Church Warden Jane met us at Montreux Gare at twenty to midnight, and drove us the last kilometre to St John's Church House.

While the church is characteristically Victorian (dating from 1875) and Anglican in appearance, the house adjoining is characteristically Swiss with shutters and dormer windows in the roof space. The upper interior is entirely clad with wooden panelling, and has four bedroom, two bathrooms, a large landing space and a small upstairs rood terrace in the space between house and church. It's a very spacious house, and the only disadvantage, like so many English churches of this period, is that it's by a busy main road and railway line. Thankfully, it's pretty quiet at night, and we slept well.