Anniversaries - personal and global

Our fifty fourth wedding anniversary today, on the feast of the Transfiguration, and the seventy fifth anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima four months after I was born. On the news I heard that there was no international gathering to observe this anniversary this year because of the pandemic, just a handful of dignitaries and remaining hibakusha - survivors of the bomb - all masked and socially distanced. A generation which learned about about lethal contamination the hard way in the ruins of their city. Were their contemporaries in denial about the dangers they faced, like so many people today who refuse to take seriously the need to wear masks, wash hands and keep socially distanced? Somehow I doubt it.

I went to St John's for the Eucharist of the day. There were ten of us present, five of us clergy. With its movable chairs it's easy to arrange the church for social distancing by removing surplus ones, and it still looks OK. On the walk home to cook lunch, I met Eileen on her way to church to prepare for the first funeral since the pandemic started. I wonder how it'll work, how many mourners will be allowed inside?

Nicky or niece asked if it would be possible to annotate a few of the oldest photos in the slideshow I did for my sister Pauline's funeral with identifying names. Today I got around to doing this. It meant adding text to photos and replacing the originals in the slidewshop project file, then re-rendering into MP4 file. Adding the text was a bit fiddly as I had to learn how to do it in the latest version of MS Paint. Just as with other modern apps, it's simple enough once you know how the process works, but the minimalist user interface lacks guidance

Mid afternoon we drove to Bristol for another double chiro appointment. Ruth took my blood pressure. I was relived to learn that although high it was less than when I last took it. I didn't get my GP telephone appointment yesterday and wondered if that would happen today instead, without having to chase up the surgery. I still need to discuss medication dosage rather than just guess. I am at the surgery for a blood test tomorrow, so I can ask about it then.

After supper, I watched the third of Huey Morgan's programmes on Latin American music on BBC iPlayer. This one was about Puerto Rican music, on the island and in Huey's native downtown New York. Like the other two in the series it was most enjoyable, well worth watching, all three are celebrations of cultural diversity and musical creativity. And I could follow the Spanish being spoken!

 

Quiet anniversary

Yesterday on my afternoon walk, I took the west bank path along the Taff from Western Avenue to Blackweir, for the first time in ages. I spotted a Little Egret among the reeds on the east bank. I was sure I'd seen one from the east side path, feeding with other birds  a couple of weeks ago, but I must have disturbed it, for it flew off before I could awaken my camera. Despite the distance, I got one sharp shot, pleased at last to see this bird again. Apparently they can be seen up at Radyr Weir, but this far down river they seem to be just occasional visitors.

Kath, Anto and Rhiannon arrived for their holiday in Crete. Rhiannon and I exchanged WhatsApp messages in simple Greek. Just for fun.

Rachel is busy borrowing guitars and planning her song set for her gig at St Canna's Ale House this Friday evening. The house is full of the sound of her playing and singing. It's lovely. 

Despite the mix of showers and sun, the builders are forging ahead now with applying new layers of concrete rendering to the back of the house. The new surfaces will need to be painted, in a plain near-white colour afterwards, to reflect extra light into the back garden. It'll cost extra, but it needs to be done while the scaffolding is up. It'll be worth doing, I'm sure.

It's our 53rd wedding anniversary today. Clare wasn't feeling great, so we decided to postpone a festive meal for a while. Disappointed there was no service to go to in the Parish. The importance of this as a major festival was made plain to me when Clare and I went backpacking in Crete, 52 years ago, and attended the Orthodox Liturgy in the village church in Platanos - we experienced Orthodox worship as students in Bristol, but this was really the first experience of a Greek Parish at prayer, and it was such an eye opener. The informality, the relaxed sense of devotion, plus the iconography, the incense and the ritual. It made a lasting heavenly impression on us, and influenced the kind of Anglicans we have grown up to be.

Anniversary separation

Monday was our wedding anniversary, but Clare was at the Welsh National Eisteddfod in Cardiff, attending the Crowning of the Bard ceremony. Beforehand, she attended Pauline Grainger's funeral at St John's City Parish Church. The place was full, with a large number of her 'choir friends' taking part, singing anthems in her memory. First with Mike and now Pauline, it's the second time this year I've been out of the country, unable to attend the funeral of a good friend. Then there were also Roy Damary and John Meredith's funerals, people I'd worked with in Geneva, dying within weeks of each other. I didn't find out about either of them until after they were laid to rest. All I could do was remember in prayer Pauline, as I did the others during the day. Not being there with the mourners never feels enough, however, to do justice to their passing.

There was shopping to do, in preparation for the arrival of Ann and Clare, but I also walked to the Chateau de Chillon. Unsurprisingly, given the heat, there were more people than usual swimming in the lake. The sound of numerous grebe chicks cheeping loudly offshore was noticeable as I walked. Come to think of it, I'm here nearly a fortnight earlier, this August, so the chicks are younger and more vocal in their demands.