Avian surprises

I drove to Saint German's after breakfast to celebrate the Parish Eucharist. It's the first time in eighteen months. It was wonderful to be reunited with a congregation I got to know well and love during the years I spent with them on locum duties. Fr Phelim was taking services in Grangetown, but I had the support of his two ordinands on placement, Natasha and Ross, to brief me. The sun shone and lit the interior of the church during the Mass. Ross acted as thurifer, and Natasha was sub-deacon, and deejay, controlling from her phone via bluetooth the four selected hymns of the day to be listened to rather than sung under current restrictions, with some suitable extra music to fill in when the hymns were too short to cover the action. It worked very well. The investment made by the church in a state of the art karioki device is proving worth while, though I'm glad someone else was managing this and not me! 

There were just over thirty present, all the regular congregation members outlasted the pandemic so far, and much work has been done in the time since I was last there - new church central heating, stainless steel aisle roofing replacing the lead cover which kept being stolen, new church hall heating and toilets. The old people's drop-in centre didn't survive the pandemic. Numbers dropped, not least because some of the regulars died. Transport costs rose, making the project unsustainable for the few remaining, sadly. A plan is afoot to develop a play group with mothers and babies once the covid restrictions come to an end.

Before I left, Phelim returned and we chatted briefly outside. As the new ministry area leader, he will be relinquishing charge of St German's to Roath ministry area. I'm hoping that if help is needed in future, I will get more opportunities to return and make myself useful, but that'll be next year.

We had lunch in the garden again, and after a siesta, I went out for a walk which took me down the path alongside the Taff, through the woods next to the horse paddock. There for the first time I caught sight of the resident bird of prey, perched in a tree, possibly a buzzard or a hobby, and took several photos, none were especially good, as I wasn't using one of my decent telephoto lenses, but it was the first time I had got within twenty metres of one hereabouts. 

Just below Blackweir bridge a little later, I caught sight of a flock of birds that behaved like swifts, but after a discussion with a fellow birdwatcher, conclude they may have been House Martins hunting for insects above the river, as their undersides were pale all over. Then for the second time this weekend I saw a small flock of starlings feeding on the grass. They are often to be heard in the trees around the park, or even in our local streets, but they seem to go elsewhere to feed for much of the year.

In the evening I had a call from Fr Paul Bigmore who retired from ministry in the diocese four years ago and now lives in Riverside, but is housebound following a bout of covid last year. He's a keen hymnodist, who has written texts for well over a hundred hymns, composed music for some of them and published a book of his own work. He's now working on producing another one. To have a creative project like this must be a consolation when his ministerial activity has been so severely curtailed in this way.

The penultimate episode of 'Line of Duty' tonight, another cliffhanger containing an intense long interview sequence. It's still impossible to work out how this series will end. Or will it?

Llanishen connections

This morning I drove to Llanishen to celebrate the 10.30 Sung Eucharist at St Isan's Parish Church, now in interregnum after the recent retirement of Mike Whitcombe, Vicar for the past 25 years. It's a typical old country church, swallowed into suburban Cardiff a century ago, with a ring of six in the bell tower and surrounded by an ancient churchyard. It's a mainstream church, well organised well attended with a prosperous congregation, popular for weddings. 

The first time I visited St Isan's was for my cousin Christine's wedding 48 years ago. My Uncle Gordon and Auntie Joyce were parishioners. When he died 13 years ago, I attended his funeral there. My only other visit was to preach on behalf of USPG about 35 years ago. It's still quite well attended with a congregation of over sixty, and good small choir which sang a responsorial Gradual Psalm to Gelineau Chant unusually well. The congregation was responsive, and also sang well.

As the church chancel is narrow, and the Communion rail accommodates around eight at a time, the distribution of the Sacrament took longer than I'm used to. Interestingly, the choir quietly sang through an entire Mass setting during this part of the service, which was something of a surprise, but I felt it worked quite well.

A little later than I had expected I left the church after greeting people, and drove to neighbouring Cyncoed for a midday meeting with John and Paul, the two sons of Sheila, whose funeral I'll be taking this week. John, I met last week in UHW. Paul had since then arrived from the USA where he has lived and worked for most of his adult life, without losing his British accent. We chatted for a lot longer than I intended and it was almost two by the time I reached home again, not least because of traffic congestion along Cathedral Road, generated by an afternoon cricket match.

Later, I caught up on the final two episodes of 'Follow the Money', in which the series villain meets his end, and then the last episode of 'Line of Duty', in which I'm pleased to say, I had already spotted the main secretly corrupt cop of this series early on. Hastings the heroic chief inquisitor is revealed to be a flawed man, but not a villain. It's not all over, however, and although it has yet to be written, a sixth series is promised. It's not over until it's over, as the oxymoron goes.

Gripping finale

We sat together in the congregation again at St Catherine's Parish Eucharist today. It's quite a relief not to be officiating or preaching at the moment, as mornings are when I have most discomfort and pain from my 'thorn in the flesh'. Emma presided and we had a visiting priest called Mary to preach who'd officiated here yesterday at the wedding of two parishioners one of whom she'd known since childhood. It was nice to sing the 'Salisbury' setting again, as this was what we sang at the St John's Sunday Eucharist in Montreux. Happy memories.

After lunch, I revived and walked down to Blackweir bridge for the first time since returning. It was sunny, bright and breezy. The river was a little swollen due to last week's rain, and I got photos of a pair of cormorants drying their wings. They like to hang around here when the solitary heron isn't about. A fellow birdwater stopped to chat and told me about a pair of dippers nesting in the opening of the salmon ladder the other side of the river. I must look up this species in order to have a chance of recognising them next time.

Like eleven million others, we watched the finale of 'Bodyguard' on BBC One. The tension in the last twenty minutes really made me hold my breath, waiting for the catastrophe which never came. The final unravelling of the plot in the confession made by suicide bomber, master bomb maker and electronic engineer cum artificer Nadiya, who failed to complete her mission in episode one, was a real sinister surprise. It also stretched credibility somewhat, taken at a pace, overshadowing detail of the wider criminal political conspiracy which overlapped with it. We still don't know how the bomb which killed the Home Secretary was planted under the stage or whether the senior Met Commander was in on the plot. Still, it was worth a watch from start to finish, and demonstrated that an old style cliffhanger of a serial format is still competitive in the age of bulk episode downloads on catch up. 

Best of all, a brief trailer for the fifth series of 'Line of Duty', to be rolled out in the New Year. This too had that 'unmissable' quality for a TV programme. Funny how police and political corruption are themes which play out often in modern drama - as they do in real life, in fact.

   

Baptism without borders

After this morning's Solemn Mass at St German's, I had another baptism to perform. This time there were two children, a boy of about eight and a girl of about eleven, children of two familiar of Czech Roma people. I remember baptizing the infant of a Czech Roma family on Christmas morning in St James', ten years ago, in the early days when they arrived and settled in and around Cardiff, taking menial food processing jobs to support themselves, and having an easier life of hard work than they would have back home, where they often suffer discrimination. 

I don't know if these families were related to my original one but it was lovely to see a group of ex-pats dressed up in festive attire, making a real effort to have a memorable family celebration - certainly one that the children would find easy to remember in later life. Whilst they spoke Czech among themselves, it was clear most of them spoke English, the younger ones certainly with a measure of pride. After a preliminary briefing by James, everyone joined in the liturgical responses with loud enthusiasm, bright eyed, attentive and smiling. I invited them to say the Lord's Prayer in their mother tongue - some of the younger ones seemed keener to show they could read English from the service sheet with confidence, but when I began, many of the older family members did pray in Czech. In different ways, both were affirming their sense of belonging - to family, to tradition, to this new place they found themselves in.

So often when large family groups come for a christening, it's hard to retain everyone's attention. People talk among themselves and behave in a distracted manner, even if they are trying to behave well. For so many Brits today, being inside a church for an act of worship is an rare experience, alien to them, so they don't know how to behave. Thank heavens there are still people who, no matter what the reason, want to bring their offspring to the font.

The highlight of the rest of the day was watching the final episode of 'Line of Duty'. While I was fairly confident that I'd worked out 'whodunit' when it got under way, the path by which the conclusion was reached was grippingly tense, and required much concentration to keep up with, due to the twists and turns woven into the plot. Brilliantly acted, brilliantly written, and the Twittersphere erupted with praise within minutes of it ending. 

I also managed to watch, during the course of the evening, the first of Alex Polizzi's travel series 'Spectacular Spain', featuring glimpses of Barcelona, Valencia and Benidorm. She even visited Isola Tabarca off Sta Pola, recognisable to us from our visits there. Mind you, to sail to Tabarca from Puerto de Sta Pola, home to one of Spain's biggest fishing fleets without so much as mentioning this, and nearby flamingo inhabited salinas is incomprehensible to me. And not to give viewers a ride through Benidorm and environs, but focus on a game of ex-pat bowls, undervalued the reason why it's such a popular resort all year round.

Polizzi's a charming enthusiastic presenter, but the selection of features relating to each place was a bit quirky and 'pot-pourri', hardly giving a typical impression of such lovely places and leaving a lot to be desired. How I'd love to have a crack at a series of programmes like this one, with the aim of bringing out more of the visual delights and key features of the environment and its rich rich history. 

Leisurely Spring Sunday

I could have done with more sleep, being tired after yesterday's walk, and it seemed to take me ages to wake up fully. Thankfully I didn't have an early service today, just the St German's Parish Mass at eleven. Afterwards, Area Dean Fr Stewart Lisk to chair the Parish Easter Vestry meeting. There was no requirement for me to stay on for this, so I returned home, earlier than usual for lunch. Angela was there in her role as Parish administrator, just three weeks after returning from hospital with a repaired shoulder strapped up, completely organised and ready to play her part in the meeting. 

She told me beforehand that she was now getting on well enough to dismiss the twice daily carer assigned to help her to wash and dress. She recounted how the carer expressed concern to Marisa, Angela's daughter, as she thought Angela was 'confused'. The carer insisted she'd been there for her since January well before the accident, whereas in reality she'd been visiting for two weeks. That illustrates, I guess, how much pressure people are under in the caring profession. Angela is a sharp and organised as ever, and hasn't lost her sense of humour either.

As it was sunny and warm, we were able to eat out in the back garden, which is looking lovely at the moment. Our apple tree has lots of blossom on it this year, and so far no rain or cold wind to dislodge it, like last year. Then, overcome by tiredness, the rest of the day was devoted to somnolent inactivity rather than strolling in the park, until it was time for the penultimate episode of 'Line of Duty'. This continues to be a compelling watch as the determination of the unpopular police anti-corruption team, is pitted against continued resistance to the exposure of a web of lies, falsified evidence, snooping and office intrigue. It's superb British police drama, but does tend to make you wonder how far art reflects life.

    

Palm Sunday and crime fiction

Up bright and early to celebrate the eight o'clock Eucharist at St Catherine's, and Clare came too, so she could have the rest of the morning free to go to Riverside Market, and prepare lunch for an early afternoon visit to her study group in Bristol. I went on to St German's to celebrate Mass. Being Palm Sunday, we began with the blessing of Palms in the church's walled garden, and processed from there into the building. The sun shone and a wren tweeted a commentary during the the Palm Gospel reading. Again the sun streamed into the church wonderfully throughout the service.

Beforehand and afterwards, we had visits from people asking for baptism in the coming weeks. There are seven to baptise in four separate services, and all these will fall to me, as they'll happen before Fr Phelim is licensed and starts working full time in the Parish. I've done more while on different locum duty stints in St German's over the past five years, than I did in eight full years at St John's. There have been more this past years than previously, and the reason for that is not apparent. I wonder if it's a sign of resurgent interest in tradition and custom, after a long period of disinterest. It's certainly not unusual for faith concerns to wax and wane, and skip a generation.

I fully intended to go out for a walk after lunch, but indolence got the better of me, so I didn't. After a few phone calls and emails, I dozed off for a while, and then Clare was home again. I watched an NCIS episode not previously seen, while waiting for 'Line of Duty', which made compelling watching, with a shock ending yet again. So many twists and turns you don't see coming.

My regular diet of crime fiction watching when I have nothing better to do, has made me wonder lately about the significance of the character portrayal of crime investigators.

So many of them are mavericks, some are team players, sort of, but with brilliant bosses, as in the CSI and NCIS series, where the nature of leadership and its qualities is part of what's being explored. In other series, sleuths are sad people, loners, struggling socially, in pain, but all of them have the ability to think outside the box, to see and read evidence differently from others, obsessive as well as brave in chasing the truth, no matter how costly to themselves or others.

These seem like heroic cultural figures in the so called ‘age of reason and scientific evidence’, for they expose weaknesses and disabilities in the way well meaning people and those with vested interests in the status quo interpret, if not select evidence to work with, to suit themselves. The idea that the truth is out there, but hidden. Searching for the truth involves discipline, pain and self sacrifice, also intuition and inspiration as well as experience, learning and skill. Truth may not be what it seems at first sight. This is important, not just in forensic science, and law enforcement, but also in politics and commerce. Recent episodes of 'Line of Duty' and 'Follow the Money', both about uncovering corruption in policing and in the financial world, have made me think about the personal costliness of pursuing the truth.

If I may dare stretch the point, this is equally important in terms of religious truth too, filled as religion can be with hypocrisy, lies, bigotry and manipulation. Some say that’s all there is to religion, yet, there are outstanding people who see truth and reality beyond the superficial crap, who want to take us where we don’t think the evidence leads. The best and most inspiring spiritual and religious leaders and teachers resemble the maverick crime busting heroes I’m thinking of. Perhaps that’s why I enjoy the genre so much, even when it's weird and wonderful, or just super nasty. These detectives may be odd characters, and downright unholy in many aspects of their lives, yet they feel compelled to sacrifice themselves to uncover the truth the evidence really points to. 

There's something comparable to the story of Jesus in this, as it unfolds on Palm Sunday and during Holy Week, when we're reminded that the revelation of God in the midst of outrageous human iniquity and injustice occurs in a context of law enforcement and political expediency, secular and religious.

    

Refreshment Sunday

Yesterday was another sunny day, so I took the bus into town and out to Penarth at the end of the morning, and after a walk through the parks above the Esplanade, I returned on foot along the rocky pebble strewn foreshore and crossed the barrage, before picking up a bus from the Millennium Centre to town, and then a 61 home. Coping with loose stones and rough rocky surfaces was a good test for the stability and resilience of my knee, above and beyond regular walking on metalled roads, and passed without incident. I expect I'll have stiff legs over the next few days nevertheless.

On the beach I collected just half a dozen plastic bottles over the majority of its kilometre length, then in the last 200 metres of beach and 100 metres of footpath to the car park, the most frequented patch, another dozen pieces. The only waste bin in sight was on the opposite side of the road beyond the car park. The beach was relatively clean as the tide was receding, but among the few items of plastic found at the high water mark, were several that were oily and may have been tossed overboard from a passing ship. I could have picked up more if I'd had a bigger bag. This beach is litter picked regularly by local volunteers. It just goes to show that the stream of visitors lacking concern for the environment continues unabated.

Aware of the arrival of summertime, I put all the clocks forward early, and restricted myself to just one of the two episodes of 'Follow the Money' before turning in early for the night. A nine o'clock celebration at St John's Canton would still be eight o'clock according to my body clock. At the service Sam, one of the two ordinands on placement preached the sermon. It was good to listen to him with a view to making an assessment - something I haven't done since my St Mike's sojourn. It was also good refreshment for Refreshment Sunday to have a respite from preaching.

After the St German's Mass and distribution of Mothering Sunday flowers and cards, followed by a brief check on the state of the office PC Windows 10 updates (now reaching 50%), I took Communion to Angela at home. She's glad to be home and looked after by nurses, family and friends, rather than still being in a recovery ward waiting to be moved into a regular ward, as she was for a week after her urgent shoulder repair. Now she's all trussed up with her arm and shoulder immobilised, similar to the way Clare was after her operation, but cheerful nevertheless, and trying to figure out how she can use her PC to catch up on her administrative backlog after two weeks of down time.

While I was cooking lunch after my return home, Owain called to say he was on his way over to give his mum flowers and chocolates for 'Mothers Day', as he insists on calling it to wind me up. He had forgotten that Clare's in Kirton over the weekend, and called only after buying his ticket, poor lad. Even so he came over and we spent a couple of hours chatting. I walked with him down to Cowbridge Road when he was leaving. Before taking a bus into town, we called into the 'Calabrisella' restaurant, for him to get a pizza, as he'd missed out on lunch earlier. Having eaten a few hours earlier, I didn't feel like eating a full meal, so just shared his tasty arancino and couple of tranches of pizza. An unexpected treat at the end of the afternoon.

While I was waiting for Owain to arrive, I sat down do do my daily Duo Lingo Spanish drill. Before I could get started, fell asleep. When I woke up, an hour later, I completely forgot to continue. It's the first day in months that I missed practicing altogether. Despite going to bed early, I was more tired that I realised.

I discovered a new BBC 1 TV series of 'Call of Duty' about a police anti-corruption squad was on at nine, and that gave me something new and interesting to watch. Just after it finished, I had a message from Jane, the Churchwarden in Montreux, to confirm that I'm wanted for locum duty there the second half of August and all of September coming. I was surprised to discover that it'll be six years since we last spent time in Switzerland. The place is so vivid in my memory that it still seems like yesterday when we were there. I say the same about Spain too. Beautiful places are so nourishing. I need a lovely landscape for nurture and inspiration.

Still no news about the appointment of a new bishop for Llandaff diocese. It's worrying.
    

Getting the record straight

At the St German's midweek Eucharist yesterday morning, I told the children about St Mark and how he collected stories from St Peter and others about their time with Jesus and made them into the first of the Gospels to be written. Mark probably grew up speaking Aramaic, and learning to read and write in Hebrew and Greek, I told them, and how fortunate they were to be learning Welsh as well as English in school, and for many of them to be hearing other languages spoken at home - some will learn basic Arabic to read the Qu'ran outside school hours, as well. Whether they find it a chore or not, this is a special thing about good education, that we can learn to communicate and say good things to people in their different languages. I'd so like children to appreciate the diverse environment they are part of, and learn from.

I went into the office in the afternoon and worked on an equipment inventory database format to record our newest acquisition of handsets prior to issue. It's important to get as much as possible of the recording done ahead of time, to keep track of the complex exchange and upgrade process step by step.

Thursday afternoon I started the laborious task of entering data. Just doing the first few entries reveals the limitations in design, and calls for discussion and modifications to the framework. Even before the number of data entries grows, the framework itself has to grow, as we understand more clearly our own need to record different kinds of information to help the project to progress. 

It wouldn't be all that difficult to scan this information from bar-codes on each piece of equipment, and I did some tentative experimenting with this some months ago. It's even possible to scan data into a spreadsheet of sorts, but the challenge is to configure the data received so it can easily be imported into our database. Sure you can buy scanning equipment and software packages that will do this, and deliver an inventory database, but you still have to take time learn how to use the kit, and take the risk that the database is in a proprietary format that isn't all that flexible about exporting data, or else you pay extra to do so. We simply don't have to time to invest on this, nor are we running on the volume or turnover of equipment or have numbers of staff that would make this seem a sensible worthwhile option. So the old fashioned slow steady plod of manual data acquisition will continue, so long as we are not going to be overwhelmed by the task.

Clare and I both completed our postal ballot sheets for the Welsh Assembly and Police Crime Commissioner elections, taking place next week. While we're in Spain in June there's the EU referendum. I hope the postal ballot papers arrive before we leave. For this election they were issued two weeks ahead of the date, and if this happens again they may arrive after we leave. Clare will return in time to vote, but I'll still be in Spain and unable to use mine. Such a shame if this happens, as to my mind it's one of the most important voting issues of my lifetime.

I watched the final episode of 'Line of Duty' tonight, tense and demanding watching to the end, with a fairly satisfactory conclusion in which right and justice prevail, but only after much suffering and struggle. Almost everyone involved seems at some time or another to have compromised their own integrity or told lies to cover their tracks, but in the end the truth comes out, and the courageous prevail.

There was ome impressive acting from the leading characters in the Police anti-corruption squad which gave it all a very convincing and realistic feel. To think that a twenty minute interrogation scene in one room, crammed with references to investigative detail could be so dramatically gripping, is a credit both the writers and actors. For this to be shown in the same week that the inquest into the Hillsborough Stadium tragedy revealed police corruption in the fabrication of a cover-up, blaming fans for non-existent misbehaviour, is perhaps co-incidental, but most remarkable in the way that dramatic art can sometimes reflect authentically the unhappy realities of life.

    

  

Home and back to business

Elvis arrived cheerfully bang on quarter to nine to pick us up. He played a CD of a Portuguese fado singer to us on the journey, and when we said how much we'd enjoyed it, he gave us a copy. It had his personal contact details written on it, so that next time we visit, we can arrange for  him to collect us at the airport. There are four or five buses a day between Sta Pola and the airport, only 12km away, but the taxi service is organised and efficient. A great number of holidaymakers arriving will head to Beindorm to the north of Alicante or Torrevieja to the south, so it's good to know that Sta Pola based taxista can be there to meet you in peak periods.

The passage through security to our two hour wait in the departure lounge was smooth and hassle free, as was the flight home which arrived 15 minutes early. This must have thrown the baggage handlers, as our luggage arrived on the Malaga flight arrival belt, due in possibly just before ours, causing some confusion. A few eagle eyed people spotted their distinctive cases appearing on the neighbouring belt and that got the waiting crowd moving smartly, once they realised. Another hour, and we were home having lunch. 

I went into the office for the rest of the afternoon, and marked the resumption of business as usual by paying our first quarter's VAT bill. Motorpoint Arena is hosting a Disney World event this week. I don't really know that this entails, except that it involves lots of Disney merchandising stalls in and around the arena, as well as street traders touting their wares outside. Here and there in the crowd you could see mums with small girls in fairy princess outfits. I've never seen so many magic wands and fancy helium balloon on sale anywhere. Horrendous kitch and tat.

Ashley and I met up for tea at the Louie Restaurant, as he was busy, out and about doing a crucial inventory of radios in use, and was too busy to come in to the office. We're spending more time at the moment going over plans and preparation for a vital system upgrade with potential for the network's future, and we need to review each time we get new information, to ensure all can happen seamlessly, so that users aren't faced with anything unexpected. If a thing's worth doing, it must be done well.

After supper we watched another hard hitting episode of 'Line of Duty', followed by the two final episodes of 'Follow the Money' on catch up. I think there are just enough untied loose ends of story line in the plot to suggest 'Follow the Money II' might be screening in the coming year. An interesting insight into the ephemera of high finance and investment, and none of it too far from the truth, I suspect.

True fiction or fictional truth?

Sad to see the offspring depart at lunchtime today for a visit to Bristol to see Amanda and James, and then the journey home. The weather wasn't up to much, so I indulged in some more binge watching of TV series on iPlayer, started a couple of nights ago, when I was too wound up to go straight to sleep. This time, 'Line of Duty', another acclaimed cop drama series I've never heard of because I don't take any notice of media hype, but as the whole of Series 2 was available to watch, I thought I'd give it a try and found it compelling if tough watching. 

Everyone with a role in the action seems to be lying and deceiving about something, or has a history of having done so. Even the ostensible 'goodies' seem to have a darker side to them. The series portrays a Professional Standards team's anti-corruption investigations, and paints a bleak picture, inviting the audience to believe there is moral chaos at the heart of UK law enforcement behind the facade of due diligence and political correctness. Understandably, the Police didn't play any part in the creation of this series, although anyonmous bloggers and retired officers are said to have done so. 

Whether fact or fiction, or a mixture of both, it makes for uncomfortable watching, and makes me wonder how far this kind of drama does paint an authentic picture of life in post-Christian Britain.