Llys Esgob garden party

Midweek Eucharists again at St Catherine's and St John's again on Wednesday and Thursday. Apart from that, much quiet enjoyment of hot sunny days. I had another bereavement meeting today, at Pidgeon's funeral home, for a service a week today. The deceased had worked as a young mother as a domestic cleaner in Llandaff, for a Mr & Mrs Rees of the Old Registry, I learned from preparing her eulogy. The address seemed like a familiar echo from the past, and so it turned out to be when I rang her daughter daughter to check. 

She told me Mum had worked for the Reverend Geoffrey Rees and his wife Lil, who was Principal of St Michael's College when I was training for ministry there. As a toddler she'd accompanied her mother to work early in the morning, and been taken by Mr Rees across the road and into college for breakfast in the big Refectory with the students "Who spoiled me rotten!" she recalled. This was seven years before my time, but nevertheless a lovely connection with my youth, under the caring eye of a priest and pastor for whom I grew to have the highest regard.

In the afternoon, Clare and I walked to Llandaff for a retired clerics' tea party with Bishop June at Llys Esgob. It was lovely to meet a variety of former colleagues and chat with them in the garden, even if it was occasionally difficult to fit names to faces. Just as we were about to finish, the skies darkened, the temperature dropped and we were treated to a few drops of rain, so we caught the bus back home instead of walking. Well, Clare, with her folding brolly, carried on into town on the bus for a quick piece of shopping, and I returned and cooked supper in time for her return. 

Afterwards I watched another episode of Dicte - Crime Reporter, plus a couple of episodes of a new BBC Wales mystery drama 'Keeping Faith' on iPlayer. Excellent acting with an authentic portrayal of a South Wales family stricken by the husband's sudden disappearance. It's now being screened again on BBC One to critical acclaim. Quite something for two serial dramas made in Wales to be screened in the same season.
  

Winter watching

The week slips by quickly, or so it seems when daylight hours are this short. At least it provides an excuse for some catch-up telly.  At last, time to catch up on the Channel Four Walter Presents Scandi-crime series 'Dicte - Crime Reporter', series two. Its key characters are interesting and flawed people, working on harrowingly difficult cases, and trying to make personal relationships and family life work in mid-life and mid-career. It contains some funny true to life scenes of conflict in relationships. It reflects how much a professionally successful person owes to the understanding and support of family and friends. It can be comic in an un-contrived way, without being a comedy show. It's what I regard as excellent drama, like Inspector Montalbano.

Monday afternoon I had a session with Kay our osteomyologist, for a treatment on my back and also for a helpful conversation about managing the consequences of old injuries revealing themselves in ageing musculature, as these have un-noticed creeping effect on the alignment of bones, if they aren't checked and worked on regularly. Staying fit to function normally, let alone for athletic pursuits at this time of life takes time, just like getting up in the morning seems to take longer than ever.

Anyway, it was helpful and constructive, and encourages me to carry on using the special shaped neck pillow Clare gave me to try out over the weekend. Much of the problem I've had with disturbed sleep over these past few months has concerned getting and keeping neck and shoulders comfortable and relaxed during sleep. To awake from a couple of nights sleep almost free of stiffness and pain is a like a gift from heaven, not that it makes that much difference to getting started and active.

Tuesday, a week later than last year, I drafted our annual Christmas newsletter, and gave it to Clare to error check. It required two attempts to get rid of the flaws found, and there'll be another look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow, just to be sure.

This morning, I walked to Llandaff North for my dental check-up, in just thirty five minutes. Apart from needing the exercise, traffic congestion on routes through Llandaff make it difficult to predict a journey time. It can be ten minutes to cover two miles, or it can be half an hour. Traffic conditions can change unexpectedly.

It is bothersome that with the housing developments taking place to the West and North of Cardiff, no road improvements are planned, or even seem practicable through such a densely populated suburban area. Expanded rail services on the Taff Vale line will help to improve things, but there's still a missing link in the network from Llandaff North, which would facilitate a circular 'Metro' style rail route around the city, with connections from it to the suburbs. Infrastructure which our Victorian forebears created was sadly mutilated post-war, and will cost a lot to restore.

The dental visit was brief, and I caught a bus back home. Last summer's filling has cracked and needs replacement. Fortunately it's under a year's guarantee. So all I have to do is arrive by 9.20am, and that's a challenge either by car or on foot at that time of day.

In the evening I wrote a sermon for Sunday, then found the Channel Five TV catch-up app and was able to watch another episode of 'Bull', the first of which I saw last night. This is a courtroom drama series featuring Michael Weatherly, who until last year played one of the key regular characters in Five USA's NCIS. In this, his own series he plays a an expert psychologist who acts as a behavioural consultant to lawyers, helping them to plan their argument strategy to appeal to juries, on the basis of profiling jurors. Apparently, it has some basis in American legal praxis, but whether it's that hi-tech in the real world, I wonder. Weatherly certainly looks bullish, bulky, not as slick and stylish as his alter ego Tony Di Nozzo. This is the second series, apparently. Is he still growing into the part? The plot lines were a little too compressed and clever-clever for dramatic impact, leaving this viewer puzzled, and just a little underwhelmed.

Quiet time

I was musing over my Sunday sermon this morning, and suddenly realised that I was cutting it a bit fine to arrive in town for a wedding blessing preparation, given that usually I walk. I set out briskly, and was almost out of the urbanizacion, when I realised I'd forgotten to pick up necessary to take with me, so I had to return, and by this time collect the car keys also in order to drive in, and park beneath the Plaza de'Espagna. The traffic was slow and the car park almost full, but after driving around for a few minutes, I found a space, and made it to the Balcon Hotel just a few minutes late. It probably took me about the same time as it would have taken if I'd persevered with walking briskly, and I was no less flustered and hot when I arrived, despite the car's air conditioning. Never mind, it was a good meeting, and I was home in good time for lunch and another go at the sermon, and printing off the weekly notices.

In the evening I watched this week's episode of Danish drama 'Dicte - crime reporter' on Channel 4 with its interesting mixture of sleuthing and domestic drama, this week involving a bereaved mother stealing another mother's child. To my annoyance I can't catch up on episodes of other things I've missed since I've been away due to digital rights issues relating to on line media players. There's not much of interest to watch live at the moment, and for the moment I've net felt inclined to watch any Spanish telly, although it would help progress my language learning. So life has been rather quiet for the most part lately. It's probably what we need.