Museum of the Moon

 I slept a good seven hours last night. The double bed is far more comfortable than my single one. I was more relaxed and Clare and I didn't disturb each other much at all. I enjoyed the company. I felt lonely sleeping on my own, when I was unwell after rounds of bum surgery seven years ago. Even more so over the past six months.

A cold cloudy day with occasional sunshine. After a family breakfast I went on my own to St Katherine's for the Eucharist, with about forty others. With so much to give thanks for, I just couldn't stay home and miss the service, so I took them with me in heart and mind. lunch was ready when I got back as I'd stayed chatting for a while after the service. After lunch Owain, Kath and Anto walked into town to the National Museum of Wales, while Clare and I waited for a bus to take us. The other were already waiting for us when we arrived.

The museum was crowded, busy and very noisy, enough to make me wonder if I'd cope with the intense stimulus of the moment. Well, it took time, but I did adjust to it. There's a big model of the moon hanging beneath the central dome of the entrance hall, the space branded as 'The Museum of the Moon'. You can to walk around it at ground floor and gallery level - a perfect photo opportunity for many, including Kath and Owain. I contented myself with watching and enjoying being there with them enjoying themselves. We spent time in a quiet gallery looking at some of the collection of Turner paintings. Clare and I resolved to return for the current Gwen John exhibition of painting another day. Clare and I then went to a Coffee#1 on the Friary for a cup of tea while the others looked at an exhibition of fossils and reconstructions of prehistoric creatures, and joined us later. Owain then took his leave of us and went for a train back to Bristol. Kath and Anto walked back while Clare and I took a very crowded bus back to Canton to walk home.

A young mum wearing a burka and a face mask kindly offered me the folding seat her small boy was sitting on. He was looking a bit overwhelmed by crowd. I thanked her and declined, as I had acquired an overhead strap plus a nearby pole to hang on to. We chatted briefly. She sounded as if she'd been raised and educated in Britain, and was at ease and confident about chatting to a male stranger on a crowded bus. It was a brief moment of courteous respect and humour, which lifted my spirits.

Kath and Anto arrived home after we did. Having already packed the car, we said our goodbyes and waved them away on their journey back to Kenilworth. What a lovely couple of days. They passed by so quickly. Now the house is quiet again, with a tinge of sadness and a few tears. I uploaded photos of the weekend wrote for half an hour then headed for bed, wishing we all lived closer together.

Art that makes me proud to be Welsh

After breakfast this morning, I prepared my Sunday sermon, then cooked lunch, On impulse after lunch, I walked over to the National Museum of Wales and was delighted to discover that repair work on its dome is now complete, and several of the upstairs galleries renovated. The rotunda room is housing a display of Welsh landscape paintings at the moment. 

It's wonderful to walk through galleries, arranged in historical order from the Renaissance to this century. The Davies Sisters' collection of French Impressionists has a room of its own. Most of these works are familiar. I've seen them here over the past sixty years. Renoir's Lady in Blue moved me to tears. I must have been eight or nine when I was first brought to the Museum. In those days, the Lady in Blue reigned over the east end of the main hall, at the top of the first flight of stairs. Now you can stand in front of her at close quarters and gaze. 

Rodin's sculpture 'The Kiss' is on display in an adjacent room. It's amazingly powerful. It was the first piece of erotic art I recall seeing as an adolescent. L S Lowry's landscape painting of Abertillery in the age when coal was king caught my attention, also a huge vivid triptych by Stanley Spencer, depicting a village festival in Saas Fee.

There's an exhibition on currently called 'The Rules of Art', posing questions about the representation of people in different forms of visual art, and illustrating this with exhibits. Two video installations really caught my attention and made me think. One by Bedwyr Williams has a story-telling soundtrack about a dystopian future in which Mid-Wales has become completely urbanised. The video is an animated 24/7 portrait of Cader Idris and its surroundings covered with giant skyscrapers and floodlit sports pitches.  In a way it pokes fun at the fantasies of architects and developers who seem not to know where to stop in transforming our environment. It has a prophetic ring to it, in my opinion.

The other video work, 'Vertigo Sea' by John Akomfrah was displayed on three huge HD screens inside a darkened room, with ambient music and sound. It used footage of the natural beauties of the environment, juxtaposed against each other by colour form and movement as much as by theme. It was an absorbing, thought provoking, immersive experience, almost intoxicating. I watched only the last few minutes of the 48 minute work. I didn't have the energy to cope with the amount of sensory input, and watch it from the beginning.

When I left to walk home, I realised I was feeling a physical heaviness and my head ached slightly. I'd forgotten last night's vaccination altogether. The symptoms reflected those I had when fighting the battle with covid, but milder. I stopped and sat down on a park bench twice on the walk home. That is quite unusual for me. It'll pass eventually.

After supper, I watched Channel 4 news hour, then the final episode of the current series of French crimmie 'The Crimson Rivers'. Not impressed. Too implausible a storyline.

Mystifying mumbling

After breakfast this morning, I walked to the Co-op to do the week's grocery shopping live, to spare Clare the hassle of doing it on-line as she's done since lockdown started. A little bit of the old normality resumed for pleasure. There was quite a queue at the checkout after I'd gathered my purchases. Just on of the five tills was working. I noticed a Deliveroo rider leaving with a heavy pack, someone's on-line order. It occurred to me that several of the counter staff were out in the store behind the store picking and packing ol-line orders. The regular staff must still be under a lot of pressure.

After cooking and eating lunch with Clare I walked over to the museum, my first visit since I met Laura Ciobanu for a coffee there on her visit from Romania three years ago. The museum re-opened a couple of months ago with all the necessary safety procedures in place but with several exhibition galleries out of action, as major roof repairs are still in progress. I didn't realise you still had to pre-book on-line, until I reached there, but the stewards on the door kindly registered my contact details on the spot, since they weren't all that busy and had room for more visitors. 

The main feature at the moment is a biographical exhibition about the life of Welsh actor Richard Burton, with photos and artifacts as well as texts telling of his up-bringing in the Afan Valley and his career as a Shakesperian actor and film star. In later life he lived and died a resident of Celigny (GE) where my friend Valdo was pastor when I was Chaplain in Geneva eight years after Burton's demise. I remember being shown his modern house at the edge of the village which he named 'Pays de Galles'.

I took my Sony HX300 with me into town and took some photos before visiting Cardiff Camera Centre to see if it would be worthwhile having it repaired, as it has developed a permanent error message, and the manual ring which alters telephoto length no longer works. For the time being, with a simple workaround it still takes good photos, but I think it's days are numbered as my HX50 developed the same fault and died on me three years ago. It turns out the cost of fixing it is more than the camera is now worth, so I'll just have to keep using it as it is until it packs in. It's a shame I can't repair it myself but it requires specialist tools to dismantle it.

After supper I watched yesterday's first part of a new story in a new series of 'Silent Witness' on BBC iPlayer, then the second one live. A complex plot with a confused crisis type ending, made unintelligible by mumbled dialogue. I'll have to watch the last five minutes again with sub-titles to understand how it actually finished. I've had the same trouble also with newer episodes of NCIS, reduced to guessing what's being said, even with the volume turned up. Am I that deaf or is this some new style of acting aiming to keep the audience in the dark?

Family visit

Kath and Rhiannon arrived for an overnight stay at lunchtime yesterday. We walked over to Bute Park, enjoying the sunshine, to visit the new fitness trail installations and provide an opportunity for mother and daughter to try them out. Everything I tried defeated me. My balance skills are lousy these days but at least I got some nice photos.

This morning the weather wasn't so good, so we headed for the National Museum of Wales and did a kids exploration trail, taking us through several galleries, laid out now in an imaginative way to showcase a variety of informative exhibits. A great asset for the summer holidays. The place was crowded, with even more parents and children than tourists - a credit to the Museum's education programme. It was lovely to share this palace of wonders with Rhiannon.

Sixty years ago it was part of my childhood discovery of the wider world, in an era that had far less money to invest in the learning potential of so many remarkable historic and scientific artifacts. Only a few weeks ago, Kath took Rhiannon to the British Museum in London - they often visit London for a day outing from Kenilworth. I was four years older than Rhiannon before I made my first trip to London by train from Cardiff on my own to see my sister June. I'm not sure how safe it would be considered for a thirteen year old to do that trip in our current climate of insecurity today.