Tulip-fest in Dyffryn Gardens

Another grey start to the day, though a little warmer overnight. Clare made pancakes for breakfast again, and then late morning we drove out to Dyffryn Gardens for our first visit of the year. Cloud over Cardiff turned into thin mist over the fields of the Vale of Glamorgan, as we drove through St Nicholas, but by the time we reached Dyffryn the mist had evaporated, the sun came through the clouds and it became warmer. The house has been completely closed since last autumn and is wreathed in scaffolding for the exterior stonework to be cleaned, repaired and for weatherproofing work. Nevertheless, there were over a hundred cars parked, and lost of family groups out enjoying the arboretum and gardens. Both cafes were busy too. So good to see it's as popular as ever. Our membership card still says we're family members (accompanied children under sixteen get in free), although Clare has cancelled the family part, as our grandchildren are both over sixteen, and sadly there's no prospect of having any other young children to visit with us.

Sections of the garden are still closed to tackle issues caused by dominant plant root systems restricting the growth potential of other species. The beds at the front of the house are crammed with dozens of tulip varieties, and it's a spectacular riot of colour.

We had a light lunch in the garden cafe (at the far side of the house in the photo above) and walked around the grounds for an hour. Clare and I got separated, and I waited for her on a seat beneath a tree where I was joined by a robin, which sat on the arm of the seat and stared at me with indignation before flying off, a ritual repeated several times. Robins are very territorial! On its last visit I got a couple of decent photos at about a metre away from the camera. I don't think I've ever taken a photo of a bird at such short range.

Both of us were feeling tired by this time, so we drove home and had a short siesta to recover. Then I went out again for a circuit of the park before cooking supper, with a sauce of butter beans, onions and mushrooms with vegan chorizo for Clare and the same sauce with tomatoes added plus half of the Mercadona chorizo I brought home with me from Fuengirola. Delicious! 

I spent the rest of the evening watching more episodes of 'Non me lasciare'. Quite apart from its setting in contemporary Venice, and romantic relationships with its origins in the city, it tells the story of an investigation into an organised criminal gang with paedophile perpetrators and clients, operating on the 'dark web' and gives an interesting insight into the kind of teamwork necessary to get the job done. The speed and efficiency with which the technology works does stretch the imagination a little, however.

Enter omicron

It was minus one when I wok up this morning, but by the afternoon the temperature rose to six degrees. It was cloudy but we were spared rain. There were the usual domestic chores after breakfast to mark the start of the week then writing before cooking lunch. I walked to Aldi's after we'd eaten, for some bananas and peanut butter, not to mention wine. A new checkout clergy accidentally double scanned a couple of bottles, so it was just as well I checked the amount owing before tapping my card on the cash terminal, as I'd been overcharged by ten pounds. I had to wait several minutes for the error to be reversed and checked by the duty manager. The checkout guy was a newbie and rather embarrassed. He'd teased me about an age check for alcohol purchases earlier, but age was no hindrance to being sharp witted, and I laughed it all off.

When I got home, I completed my Morning Prayer video and uploaded it to YouTube ready for Thursday. After supper, we watched a programme about scientific research into the authenticity of a self-portrait by Rembrandt housed in Knightshayes Court, a National Trust property in Devon. We were shown the house in the course of the programme, of interest in its own right to us, as its architect was William Burgess, who designed Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch. It looks like a place that would be worth a visit for its exotic Victorian Gothic design and the high quality craftsmanship that realised it.

It's good to hear from today's news that the government is imposing rules about face mask wearing in England, in line withe the Celtic regions, and requiring travellers returning from Southern Africa to be quarantined. The extent of the threat from the recently detected and named 'omicron' covid19 variant has yet to be determined, and fortunately widespread testing has detected a small number of cases in Europe and Britain early. This is clear evidence of the need to get all third world countries vaccinated sooner not later, to hinder the development of more threatening variants. 

A hard and fast precautionary response is what scientists advise and for once they are being listened to, even more so that on previous occasions, when restrictions came in a bit too late. It such a pity that the response on previous occasions wasn't harder and faster, as it cost many lives and situations that were hard to control, even with the high up-take of vaccination. It's just a pity there weren't more practicing scientists among our political leaders.

Dunster drive

After breakfast we went to Dunster by car, to visit the National Trust stately home, dating back to the fourteenth century, transformed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by its wealthy landowning family into a substantial domestic country residence with landscaped gardens. The Bristol Channel is a mile or so away and the castle sits high above the coastal plain beneath the Quantocks on a fifty metre promontory. 

The house interior is largely Jacobean with handsome wooden panelling and stairs, its walls are covered with generations of family portraits. Whether or not you know anything about the people they portray, they demonstrate the way in which portrait painting evolved over three. centuries. The extensive gardens wrapped around the promontory on which the castle stands are stocked with trees and plants from far and wide, and some delightful footpaths weaving their way through tall trees bushes and plants. 

At the bottom is a winding stream with three bridges crossing it, all in different styles. Higher up a side valley the stream feeds a mill leet, leading to a working flour mill, with an overshot double waterwheel and four sets of grinding stones. It used to produce flour from cereals grown on the estate, but as this has been given up in favour of sheep farming organically grown grain is shipped in by the sackful from elsewhere. Ann came away with a bag of oats and Clare with a bag a spelt flour for bread making when we return home

In the valley on the western side is the village of Dunster. It has retained many of its mediaeval buildings and town plan. The mainly fifteenth century Parish Church of St George was once a Priory dating back to the 12-13th century and has an interesting internal layout. The chancel and sanctuary are under the central tower and there's a rood screen a couple of bays into the nave. The east end beyond the tower is furnished with an altar and seating in the form of rectangular stalls to the north south and west, as is found in some collegiate churches with a chapter within the building. The east end lancet windows are characteristic of an eleventh century foundation. None of these features are necessarily original. The nineteenth century restoration of a delapidated church was carried out by neo-gothic revival architect George Edmund Street, keen to impart to his work a sense of its history as a parish church of monastic origins.

In addition to a churchyard on the west and south sides, the land at the east end has been made into a park and garden, and there's a large mediaeval tithe barn on the north east side, renovated in recent decades and now used as a community facility. The narrow road through the village winds past the south boundary wall and in the street beyond passes a fifteenth century building called 'The Nunnery'. The Priory originally had a small number of monks whose residence has long disappeared, and a small number of nuns as well. Like the castle, a great deal of attention has been paid to the conservation of the built environment. Unlike the castle, the village remains populated and economically active with small shops and a post office.

On the way there, we had a fifteen minute traffic queue due to road works to get through the neighbouring village of Carhampton, but on the return trip thankfully, we had a clear run. Beyond Dunster on the way to Minehead are even more major road works, road closures and diversions increasing the travel delay. Fortunately, in the past week the road closure has been transferred from the day time to evenings, much to the relief of all those who go to Minehead for their shopping. At the moment, the steam train runs as far as Dunster, then there's a replacement service using an antique bus the rest of the way. Road works would add to the journey time and make it impraticable for a shopping commute. Road maintenance is vital for rural communities, so heavily car dependent, and tends to get done outside holiday season. It must be awful to live with.

I cooked supper and then we watched 'Have I got news for you' savagely satirical, followed by a romantic black comedy, sort of, coarse and in poor taste. I could have done without it. Scientific advice is openly advocating a return to the kind of minor restrictions in England which still exist in Wales, but Boris is doing his optimistic best to disregard warnings that contagion and hospitalization could again spiral out of control. This totally lacks in common sense, as if he's afraid of losing face politically, simply shrugging off growing concern. One local public health authority is making use of its powers insist on mask wearing in situations it has control of. Let's hope others will follow suit and put to shame the fool at the helm of government.

Sutton Hoo makeover

Another late lazy morning, then lunch and a trip to Sutton Hoo for the rest of the afternoon. There have been significant changes since we last visited seven years ago. On a marble plinth next to the visitor centre stands a full sized iron replica of the skeleton of the burial ship, thirty metres long. On the plinth is a map of the interior of the burial ship showing where key artefacts were found and the outline of the place where the body of sixth century King Raedwald of East Anglia is thought to have been laid to rest. 

On our first visit there was a mock up of the interior with positions of treasures found in the exhibition hall. This has been replaced by displays of reproductions of the artefacts (the real ones are in the British Museum), all linked together with texts and maps explaining the personnel of the royal entourage, and what is known about ship burials. On the site there's also a burial mound for his unnamed queen who was a figure of influence and authority in royal affairs. Interpretation of her life adds an interesting modern perspective to the total narrative. 

I took the forty five minute walking route around the grounds of Tranmer House home of Edith Pretty whose interest led to excavations being commissioned at her expense. A sixty foot observation tower has been erected nest to the field in which the burial mounds stand. It gives an overview of the hilltop site, and the river Deben curving around two sides of the area on its journey inland. This helps make sense of the idea that the burial ship was sailed up the estuary, then dragged ashore and uphill to its final resting place, by the King's warriors. There's no evidence to suggest it was constructed on-site. 

Fortunately there was no rain, although it was dramatically cloudy, adding to the atmosphere of this special place. Because of covid it wasn't overcrowded with hundred of foreign tourists, although it was quite busy with Brits. I'm glad we were able to visit again. It seems to me that much has been achieved telling the story of the King and his funeral, working imaginatively with these elements for educational purposes.

Annie and Spiros arrived on their bikes from Kirton just after we got back to Felixstowe and organised a fish and chip supper for us all.Spiros showed us photos taken last summer when the two of them went on a cycling holiday to Rotterdam and Amsterdam, during the respite between lockdowns. It was good to see them both again. After they left I walked around town in the dark for three quarters of an hour, then decided to go to bed early to be ready to face tomorrow's six hour return trip to Cardiff.

Level Zero

On this day of sunshine and intermittent showers First Minister Mark Drakford declared the end of covid crisis management restrictions in Wales, a couple of weeks behind England, with more measured clarity, retaining the obligation to wear masks on public transport and indoor public places, but no longer are there restrictions on the numbers who can meet indoors or at events outdoors. He still encourages citizens not to go crazy and presume everything is OK when the virus is still spreading among un-vaccinated people and this seems to meet with general approval.

The big difference in made for us today is that, after out Saturday pancake breakfast, we were able to drive out to St Nicholas and visit Dyffryn Gardens without needing to book a visitor slot on-line. We could have done that in months past, but I felt that if demand needed to be controlled in this was, it would be better to leave all those booking slots for those who needed them more than us, when we have big parks close by. It was such a delight to arrive there and see how things have changed in the two years since our last visit.

Some of the trees obscuring the view of the house from the car park have been removed, opening up the approaching vista. The entrance to the garden has been relocated in the place formerly occupied by the refreshment area, with a new access path into the grounds. The patio where the outdoor tables sat is now occupied by racks containing plants for sale, and only one refreshment area, next to the house is open at the moment. The house itself remains closed as work is undertaken to adapt visitor routes indoors, with health and safety in mind.

The biggest change, however, is in the landscaping of the grounds. The area to the front and one side of the house and down the western side of the long garden used to be dominated by huge old leylandia trees. These have gone and some of them replaced by dwarf versions. The hugely improves the overall view of the house from every angle. Some sections of the cultivated gardens are closed and under reconstruction. 

The pergola adorned with grape vines dating back maybe a century at the far end of the garden has had them all removed, initially much to my disappointment, but then I learned that in recent months, new vine-stocks have replaced the old. These are already growing and winding themselves up the pergola columns, but it may be a few years before they bear fruit. I'd like to think the new vines are adaptable to a changing climate and will provide eatable fruit, or fruit that can be fermented to give even a tiny volume of 'Chateau Dyffryn' in due course.

It was such a pleasure to use my Olympus OMD E-M10 there for the first time, and add another fifty odd photos to the hundreds I have taken there over the past decade. I'm minded to go back through them and select a series taken from the same viewpoint at different times, to show how the gardens have evolved since we've been going there. Just for pleasure.

We had a snack lunch in the refreshment area. Clare bought a few little Christmas presents, and three pots of herbs in the gift shop on the way out. It's still in the same place near the exit gate. We made a detour to B&Q on our way home to buy compost and plant food, and then I went for a walk around the park before supper - mussels and stir fry veggies and rice.

The on-line National  Eisteddfod concert was on after supper, with an interesting assortment of music that included Catrin Ffinch playing a duet with a Senegalese Kora player, and a funky brass band, whose style of rock seemed to me far more innovative than much of the retro sounding hard rock/heavy metal Welsh pop groups that still seem typical of the scene, but to my hear hark back three or four decades and offer nothing new apart from lyrics s belted out hoarsely in Welsh. C'mon boys bach, we can do better than this surely!

Then, time to print off tomorrow's sermons and head for bed. Early start tomorrow.

Llanerchaeron House

A cooler cloudy day today. After breakfast we drove inland to Llanerchaeron House a Regency country house designed by London architect John Nash in 1795, set in verdant parkland above the river Aeron, within a mile of where we reached in yesterday's walk. There's an ornamental lake, extensive farm buildings, a collection of antique agricultural machinery, and a 200m long walled garden, containing another kind of  collection - apple tree varietals from far and wide. The last owner to live here bequeathed the property and its furnishings to the National Trust having moved in after the first world war, so it's typical of an inter-war country gentleman's home. Down the land from the property is an 18th century parish church, bi-lingually advertising Sunday services.

We booked an arrival time-slot, permitting free entrance to the grounds. The small cafe restaurant, in a period piece corrugated iron green painted building next to the ticket office was serving food and drinks to visitors in a socially distanced outdoor picnic area. One way routes through house and garden were well signed, and visitors could move freely outdoors, only needing to queue for up to half an hour get into the house. It was lovely to see mostly voluntary staff happily welcoming visitors and sharing the story of the house, many of them were Welsh speakers.

Three hours of walking around the domain and having lunch al fresco left us both feeling tired, so we returned for a siesta, and then went for another walk around the far side of the port after tea. The tide was a long way out which gave an opportunity to walk down into the harbour bed and take a few photos of boats beached.

The fishmonger's stall on the quay was open today, and Clare bought some scallops and hake for supper, so fresh, so delicious - a delightful treat. Then I watched a couple of episodes of Canadian crimmie series 'Coroner' on More Four. I'm not convinced the complex story-lines add up when several key characters have mental health issues that would be bound to compromise their effectiveness in real life. 

Church response to climate crisis?

After breakfast and another slow motion start to the day, we decided to take a picnic lunch with us and follow the river Aeron up the wooded valley which climbs gently out of the town into the hills. It's possible to go this way to the Llanerchaeron National Trust owned 18th century manor house, with its superb collection of apple tree varietals, which we visited last eight years ago. Clare booked us on-line to go by car for a visit tomorrow, but we didn't think we could manage to walk there and back and do justice to a tour as well, so today we walked.

The first stretch out of the village has a tarmacked path, and is beautifully managed with seats and picnic tables. Then there's a longer slightly wilder stretch, with a gravel path, labelled 'Public Amenity Site. This was donated to Aberaeron Council by a local landowner forty years ago. The woodland river banks are reserved for fishing. Where the valley widens into meadows, these are still used for grazing and the path for cyclists and walkers is fenced in. We walked four and a half kilometres before stopping for lunch, and returning. Lovely, every step of the way. Yesterday's walk was more energetic. Today's was more on the flat but we both felt quite tired and were glad of a siesta on return.

After tea, we went down to the north beach. As it was mild and sunny, albeit cloudy, Clare was determined to go in for a swim, which she did, very briefly, giving her a pleasant sense of achievement. I cooked supper for us, and then we walked to the beach again to see the sun setting, although what we saw was no more than a long band of coloured cloud above the horizon. But we made the effort.

I received a message this afternoon to say that next Sunday's Eucharist is designated 'Climate Sunday' as part of an ecumenical gesture of concern/solidarity before the global conference on climate change to be held in Glasgow in September. Yesterday I drafted a sermon on the Trinity 5 readings, today I have to start again with a different set of readings. My first reaction towards the Church in Wales leadership is 'What took you so long?' The last ten years has seen church officers appointed to address environmental issues, but development has been rather slow, perhaps too demanding, when having to cope with the catastrophic decline in church membership. 

It's over thirty years since my eco-concerns first found expression in preaching. Often it felt like my words fell on deaf ears. I'd love to see the church move beyond the aspirational and inspirational approach to climate change to some serious data gathering about the total carbon footprint of all church activity, and facing the question of how much it's necessary to be surrender to make a real measurable contribution to carbon reduction. Nobody likes to see churches closed, but are we ready to consider carbon footprint as a major factor, when the church balance sheet usually dictates whether a place stays open or closes? I think that only determined radical action, and maybe sacrificing many more churches than we're comfortable with is ever going to look like a credible response and witness in the face of crisis by churches. We had to do it to curb the pandemic, but to save the planet?

Hazy Rhossili

Walking on the beach to the river at the far end of the wetland reserve yesterday was very taxing, with the temperature rising to 28C. I fell asleep on the sofa before going to bed, and slept for a couple hours before turning in. The stormy weather front caught up with us. After a few rumbles of thunder, torrential rain fell for about an hour, the sound of it on the roof was quite mesmerising and didn't stop me dozing off. Today is cooler, hazy and overcast, prompting a drive to Rhossili for a picnic lunch.

The car parks at Rhossili were two thirds full and the path out to Worm's Head busy with walkers. Down on the beach 120m below were a few hundred people scattered about on the vast expanse of sand. It must be heaving with people when the surf is up and the sun shining. As the car park is on National Trust land our membership allowed us to park for free and not pay the six pound a day ch arge. The car park meter has a QR code scanner to register members parking there, but it wasn't working. The car park attendant issuing tickets was taking cash, but many drivers arriving had no cash with them. The habit of using real money is disappearing rapidly with the surge in use of contactless payment during the pandemic crisis.

There was no wind and it was warm enough to have a picnic lunch on the clifftop overlooking the island. A few spots of rain on the return walk and a drink in the cafe near the car park served to deter a further expedition down to beach below. On the return drive it started to rain in earnest. A last supper of fish and chips on the beach had already been mooted, but sporadic rain deterred us, so we sat around the caravan picnic tables and feasted, with copious amounts of wine, before moving down to the beach to light a fire once the rain showers ended. 

We agreed that not even the best of the Mediterranean's beaches can match those of the Gower, as it's not been ruined by developers, and the majority of tourists have to leave at night. There's not enough accommodation, nor ever will be as long as the land is as carefully conserved as it is. Besides the majority of tourists probably live within convenient driving distance. We've noticed a great number of cars leave between five and six - people taking their children home for tea, most probably. We are so very blessed.

Back to the garden

I went for my weekly visit to the wound clinic, mainly to collect supplies, and update the duty nurse on recent events. A man, and an elderly lady were waiting for treatment. She stood uncomfortably, leaning on her walking stick. Either the physical act of sitting down on the queuing bench was too painful for her, or as I've been so often, sitting down was painful enough to want to avoid unless necessary. There'd been some appointment mix-up. She'd arrived an hour early, when I was due, and the nurse was in any case running late, as often happens, given the demand. The supplies I wanted weren't available as none had been delivered (again), so after a brief word with the nurse I skipped my appointment and returned home.

As the weather was fine, I took out my Sony Alpha 68 and several lenses we drove out to Dyffryn Gardens for lunch and a wander around the grounds, which are looking wonderful. Recently, some of the enclosed gardens have been revised according to the original 19th century master gardener's plan. Best of all, the water garden which runs the length of the main lawn in front of the house has now been completely restored, and filled with a variety of different coloured water lilies. The fountain in the pond at the far end of the lawn is working again, and beyond it, the sunken garden which for years was like a wilderness, is re-ordered and populated with plants. What a lot has been achieved by the team of fourteen gardeners and scores of volunteers over the past year. And more is to come.

Attempts to trim and restore the hedges around gardens on the west side came too late to bear fruit. Some of the bushes will never grow back as desired and others have died after pruning, or maybe due to old age. These will be uprooted and replaced in coming months, and large sections of hedge will then be grown from saplings and re-trained to reflect the originals. It'll take some years to complete, but will be worthwhile. 

There's also renovation work to be done on the south facade this autumn. So good to see a distinctive and beautiful building and its setting restored to former glory. Originally it was the home of an elite landowning family which could afford the artists and staff. Under the ownership of the National Trust it belongs to everybody in different ways - workers, volunteers and tens of thousands of visitors. It was indeed a busy place today at the height of the summer holidays. The rest of my photos are here

  

A medical movie and a mail muddle

Just after nine yesterday morning I had a call from the surgeon's secretary to check that I could make the next scheduled appointment for 4th April, as it had been changed from 29th April. Naturally I was utterly delighted to confirm this was a most welcome advancement. But, I hadn't received any notification of the latter appointment date, so please could I have written notification of 4th April. I was promised the letter would be in the mail first class post today. 

The last time this was said to me on a Friday, the letter arrived the following Tuesday - such is the mail-out chaos. And that letter, although promised to be mailed first class was sent second class. So I mentioned this mischievously, and put the 4th April in my diary straight away, after doing a little dance of joy around the house. It seems the necessary procedures to be performed are back on schedule for the next step at least.

At midday the snail mail arrived with a letter from the surgeon, recalling the content of the briefing she gave me when we met two weeks ago. An accompanying second letter was the appointment for 29th April now superceded! Anyway, I was pleased to share the good news when I visited the wound clinic later on.

This morning, another appointment letter arrived with the corrected date of 4th April. The secretary had been true to her word and made sure this went out with a first class stamp. Surgery this time will be in effect a maintenance procedure I believe - a change of suture and modifications to both that will make sitting much more comfortable. This has often been a painful and unpredictable problem over past weeks. Each of the wires attached to my body has attached to it to all intents and purposes, a small moveable piece of wire twisted around it to serve as a handle, though what exactly is meant to be manipulated using these devices is anybody's guess. The sutures themselves are nowhere near as hard to live with as these handles. These are due to be changed for something with lower impact. Here's hoping!

We took advantage of the warm sunny weather and clear skies to drive to Dyffryn Gardens for lunch and a walk around the grounds this afternoon. The blossom and bursting buds and early flowering plants astonish with their beauty. My photos are here.

In the evening BBC Four's Euro movie slot delivered an unusual offering from Wallonian auteurs. 'La Fille Inconnue'. It's about a young GP who has an out of hours surgery call from a young African girl in distress, but fails to answer the door. The girl, of whom nothing is known, ends up dead nearby. This distresses the GP greatly, so she starts enquiring, through her patients in the locality who the girl is. She can't bear the thought that he'd be laid to rest unknown in a paupers grave, and hunts until she succeeds, where the police aren't. 

It's not a murder but a concealed tragedy. What held my attention was its portrayal of the GP, aged between twenty-five and thirty. Thoughtful, diligent with her poor working class clientele, not presenting herself ostentatiously in any way, she's a model young professional woman, without any superficial glamour. We're given no hint about her personal faith or convictions, but her compassion and respect for people shines through - dead as well as alive. 

The movie commentariat speaks of the GP as obsessed with finding out the dead girl's name. It says more about them than it does about a character portrayed with moral fibre. An obsession is a pathological state of mind, but this character portrays wholesome human decency in her concern. It's a perverse tendency, denigrating the motives of others which don't fit easily in our world-view, and it happens when we fail to put ourselves in another's shoes, even in the case of fictional characters.

   

Discovering Upton House in Warwickshire

After a slow start we were on our way down the M42 to visit Upton House, a country mansion in deep rural South Warwickshire. It was built in 1695 and served as a grand hunting lodge from the mid eighteenth century until 1929 when it was acquired by the heir of the Samuel family whose members founded Royal Dutch Shell. It underwent a period of expansion and remodelling in order to house a large display of paintings spanning a period of five centuries, belonging to Lord Bersted, an enthusiastic collector of fine art and porcelain. 

The house is set in a rolling wooded landscape of tall mature trees above a valley which is part of the estate. On the valley floor is a series of 'stew ponds', lakes in which fish used to be cultivated for food. Nowadays, a couple of them are for ornamental purposes, and one has been transformed into a 'bog garden' featuring a wide variety of exotic wetland plants. The main slope down to the largest of the ponds is south facing, and was originally developed as a giant vegetable garden, but since Lady Samuel took charge a substantial section is devoted to a series of floral gardens enclosed by hedges, reached by a flight of steps from the huge apron of lawn in front of the house. 

The valley cannot be seen from the house, only the steep side of the hill opposite, so it's a surprise when you walk to the end of the lawn and discover the spectacular view below. On the east corner of the lawn is a 25m swimming pool, which has the reputation of being the first heated outdoor pool in Britain. The house and pool enjoy the benefits of an early oil fired central heating system, which is what a wealthy oil magnate could easily afford to maintain.

The introductory guided tour of the house told a fascinating story about family members and the role they played in the making of 20th century Britain and not only in the energy industry. As their forebears had taken refuge in the East End of London from 19th century anti-Jewish pogroms, they foresaw the need to help finance the Kindertransport rescuing thousands of Jewish children from the Nazi genocide in the late thirties, and  they were involved in counter-espionage as well as fuel supplies as part of the war effort. Successful trading relies on information, so business experience is a good preparation for intelligence gathering, whether military or economic.

Rhiannon took even more photos than I did, and after supper we each uploaded ours and compared notes. It was interesting to observe what young eyes pay attention to in photography. She took more closeup pictures than I did, perhaps partly because I'd discussed with her earlier how get the best results on auto-focus with a telephoto lens. She's a quick learner. My photos are here
   

Half Term journey

It made a pleasant change both yesterday at St Catherine's and today at St John's to attend midweek Eucharists, celebrated by Fr Mark, and be on the receiving end. It's something of a rarity when I spend so much time filling in gaps due to clergy shortages. Thankfully his new Team Vicar starts in two months time

Next Tuesday I've accepted to do one of two funeral he has booked, both of which follow on in close succession from the Eucharist at St Luke's. That's the kind of pressure he's been under working single handed in the past year. Not good.

After lunch we drove to Kenilworth for the weekend. It's Rhiannon's half term week, so we have arranged to take her out for a National Trust property visit out in rural Warwickshire tomorrow. It'll be an opportunity for us to take photos together with our similar cameras and compare notes. 

Dyffryn Gardens summer outing

As today's another Bank Holiday, and a sunny one too, we decided to visit Dyffryn Gardens. Not surprisingly there were double the number of cars parked outside as on a normal weekend. Even so, the estate seems able to absorb huge numbers of visitors, it rarely feels crowded. If we didn't have to queue long to get lunch, it's because a large number of visitors brought picnics with them. 

In the foyer of the house there was an exhibition of watercolours of British stately homes and gardens by Japanese artist Takumasa Ono who's lived in the UK for 17 years. His style is intriguing, as he brings to the genre a sense of perspective originating in his home culture, which not that of Europe post-Renaissance. HIs paintings resemble images taken using a fish-eye camera lens, with an element of curvature in them rather than receding parallel straight lines. He was just setting up his exhibits when we last visited at the beginning of December last year.

Also on display upstairs were some beautiful Edwardian pictures of the house and gardens by Edith Helen Adie, an eminent watercolourist of the first half of the twentieth century. High quality reproductions were on display, as originals were long ago removed from the house and are now in galleries or collections. Some of her best known paintings of Dyffryn now belong to the Royal Horticultural Society.

As it was dry underfoot much of our time was spent visiting the arboretum, a wonderful place for children to play hide and seek. A large clearing in the woods has now been developed as a children's play area, making use of huge trunks and branches of trees which needed to be felled, trimmed and sculpted into useful playground shapes. It's a marvellous addition to the estate, a hidden asset for parents with lively kids under seven.

On the journey home, we called into B&Q for a couple of plant purchases in addition to one made at Dyffryn House, including a new hanging basket for a bracket just outside the back door. I returned to poster design, on the basis of feedback from Rachel. Now it gets harder, a matter of correcting and eliminating error. I'm quite good at getting the big picture right, but proof reading is for me a nightmare. Luckily, I have eagle eyed Clare and Kath to call upon.

     

Saturday Outings

A trip with the new camera to Dyffryn House and Gardens this morning. It's as much a pleasure to hold as the Alpha 55, quicker to focus, and offers photos to play with which are 50% larger. I used my 18-55 kit lens around the house and gardens, and switched to the 18-280mm telephoto lens at the end of lunch in the cafe, to snap birds feeling at the table outside the window. This was where I was most hoping the upgrade would be worth it. I wasn't disappointed. An excellent longish lens and high-res photo size will produce better results than the HX300 with three times the magnification and 20% smaller file size, as it can focus and shoot faster. Learning how to get the best of this combination is going to be a photographic adventure for me.

The Gardens are mostly tidied up for winter, and bulb planting has been done With such a variety of trees, even without leaves they add colour to the landscape. Some are budding earlier than usual and winter flowering specials are already about their business. The vegetable garden is an array of vivid rows of green and purple Brassica varieties, with a dash of orange. An amusing sculpture trail with pieces themed on the song 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' is laid out, for children of all ages to discover with the map provided. Such a delightful way to sustain visitor interest in a quieter part of the year.

In the evening, we went to a concert performance of Fauré's Requiem, which was meant to be at Eglwys Dewi Sant, but had to be switched to nearby City URC due to a church heating breakdown. The choir had evidently rehearsed hard, but the last minute switch of venue can't have helped. It was accompanied by piano and organ. For acoustic balance, the organ could have done with being more in the background, not so much loudness but choice of stops used. The choir lacked the emotional energy to make the performance sparkle. I couldn't help wondering how many choristers, mostly of a certain age, were familiar with the meaning of the text, and where it fits in Christian devotion, and in Fauré's case, theological discussion, as he had a slightly unorthodox take on its finer meaning. 

Ours was the liberalising post war generation when the influence of established Christianity and religion in general on society became noticeable, and this affected education and religious literacy. Controversy over the critical interpretation of scripture simply led to more ordinary people being deterred from taking seriously or receiving its inheritance of biblical and liturgical information. Ignorance, like a disease has spread down the generations since, and affects attitudes to many things including classical music. People of any kind of informed committed religious faith are perhaps no more than ten percent of the UK population these days. There's an awful lot of muddled religious belief out there, as well as agnosticism and ideological atheism. The muddled that worry me most.

When we returned from the concert, I watched the French crimmie 'Witnesses - Frozen' on BBC Four, have seen last weeks episode on iPlayer, earlier in the week. I had a most annoying time trying and failing to convince the telly that I was an already registered iPlayer user. Perhaps it would  have helped to get the password right, still on a piece pf paper on my desk, and not in my password book. But, it still let me watch, so really what's the point?

The French spoken is mostly with a Pas-de-Calais, if not Wallonian accent, nice and clear to follow, not quite making the subtitles redundant, but rather making them less than vital to keep up with the dialogue. I'm not convinced about the practical plausibility of the plot, about a serial killer with ritual magic and child sacrifice overtones. Too many lingering shots of women staring aimlessly. I've not returned to watch the second series of the previous Spanish crimmie, as it had become so implausible as to be annoying. So much for entertaining Spanish conversation listening practice.

Travels Ahead

A quiet Friday, not going out anywhere, with a Sunday sermon and funerals for the coming week to prepare. Just as well, as the weather was glum. Clare and I started discussing a holiday break after Easter. Although we'd mooted the prospect of spending time in Santa Pola, what both of us had been thinking about was the possibility of another cruise, this time on the Rhine. It's probably too late to get anything in May now. Last time we booked nearly a year ahead too. We can but dream ...

Well, this morning, we decided that the Koln-Basel was what we wanted to do, and sooner rather than later, so we went ahead and booked a very expensive cabin on a mid May trip, which was all they had left. Again we'll go with Riviera Travel, as last May's Danube experience was so enjoyable. Perhaps that week of total photographic indulgence made the memories extra vivid, but on dreary days, I think of many things I enjoyed and the insights gained into Eastern European history and culture, without needing to open a Google Photo album to refresh my memory.

The Rhine has a history with which I am more familiar, largely because of our past travels in Eastern France and Germany, also, having grown up after World War Two with all the stories recounted in the family, the documentaries and movies on telly. It's one period of history, perhaps too raw to have been covered in Pengam Grammar School classes at that time, which I read several thick historical books over the years. This cruise will put some of that narrative into geographical setting, but much more, because of the amazing history of Rhineland cities over the past millennium of European history.

I shall resist feeling guilty of extravagance. Working away so much over the past year, we haven't had a lot of time for holiday leisure travel, so it's a matter of quality time together rather than quantity, doing something we both delight in. I feel privileged to be act as a locum pastor abroad, to be able to live in Spain, and discover another language and culture in more depth than I could if it was holiday. Nevertheless, it is work. I'm on duty when I'm there, no matter what else I get to do when I don't have work things to do, and sometimes loneliness is the price to be paid in order to keep on working in this particular way.

Much cheered by our decision, we drove out to Dyffryn House and Gardens for lunch and a winter walk. Much work done pruning bushes and trees, and renovation work on ponds, since our last visit. With so many flower beds cleared, the seasonal contrast is vivid and helps me see things about some vegetation I wouldn't usually notice, just because there are so many flowering plants and bushes attracting the eye. I got some great photos of coal tits, blue tits and chaffinch feeding at the bird table, perfectly placed outside the restaurant. I just can't believe it's six months since we last came, judging by my photo albums, though Clare thinks we may have come for a walk one day before Christmas when I forgot to bring a camera, or brought a camera without SD card or charged batttery. I believe her, though I can't pin down when. Put it down to memory lag.

The other good thing about today is that I've received requests for locum duty in Malaga for June and July, and Mojacar over December and January. That's a lot to think about, all in one day, and a great deal more to look forward to.

   

Tredegar House visited

Last night I went to bed early and slept a full nine hours, and woke up at first light. No lie-in for me as, at Clare's insistence, I needed to visit the GP surgery early to secure an appointment for today, rather than wait for one tomorrow booked weeks ago. The reaction I had to that wasp sting extended beyond a swollen hand to a body rash, uncomfortable and sometimes painful. I was fairly sure it was an allergic reaction to the sting, but she wanted to be sure it wasn't something worse.

Ashley texted to tell me about the double murder of a young couple on their way to work in Queen Street at six this morning. While I was waiting for my appointment in the surgery, I overheard someone saying that the culprit might have been a homeless person. I was thankful that the police very early on announced an arrest and went out of their way to state publicly, and with firmness that this was not a homeless person and not an act of terror or a random killing. 

Apparently, there's been a recent upsurge of new homeless people and new beggars on city centre streets. Despite the valiant efforts made by the city's social work homelessness team, and legions of volunteers, the problem persists. The willingness of gossips to suspect the worst of some of the poorest and most vulnerable people around reflects the fear, suspicion and resentment attached to their persistent presence. It's a shameful reflection on prevalent uncaring social attitudes. 

By half past ten, I was telling my story to the doctor, who confirmed that it was nothing worse than I'd expected, and prescribed me some anti-histamine tablets to help send the slowly diminishing rash on its way a little quicker. She also concluded my current hypertension review, scheduled for tomorrow and gave me this year's anti 'flu jab, all in fifteen minutes, which means I don't need to return for tomorrow's appointment. I then bought some croissants and a pain au raisin at the Co-op store nearby, and headed back home for Clare's birthday breakfast.

Later, we drove to Newport to visit its National Trust masterpiece, Tredegar House. We spent several hours exploring the remarkable stately home, once the house of Welsh landed gentry, the Morgan family. It buildings date from the late fifteenth to eighteenth century, and it's surrounded by beautiful gardens and well kept estate lands. Being landowners, the Morgans became wealthy during the industrial era because all goods transported through their properties were subject to charges, but times changed and family fortunes declined. Before being bought by Newport Council and handed to the National Trust for conservation and management, it had a spell as a Convent secondary school, as the family had become Catholic in the nineteenth century.

It was a damp overcast day, during which it never quite rained properly. There were far more visitors for such a dull weekday than we'd expected. The car park was full, although some of the occupants may well have been commuters leaving their cars conveniently within walking distance of their work places in a nearby business park. Those with a National Trust car sticker don't have to Pay 'n Display like the rest, fortunately. We had very pleasant lunch in the restaurant created in the old estate brew house, in between looking at the house and wandering around the gardens. Work was just beginning on erecting scaffolding around the main house for work on renewing the roof which leaks badly. Some of the rooms had token displays only, rather than being entirely closed, and the guides freely talked about the project to make the place fully watertight again, and looking forward to re-opening after winter closure for the work to be completed.

Clare first visited Tredegar House for the National Eisteddfod a decade or so ago. My first visit was for a Visit Wales tourism promotional event, not long after starting at St John's about thirteen years ago. I was surprised at how much about the property and its lands I had forgotten, or not taken in at the time. It's one of those places I'm sure we'll be visiting again once the roof is fixed and all is back to normal. Having had this outing and lunch, Clare didn't want to go out for a birthday supper, so I cooked supper instead, and followed it up by giving her a long relaxing foot massage to finish the day.

  

Garden outing

A warm sunny day, and time for a summer excursion with a picnic to Dyffryn House and gardens. There were many cars parked outside, and lots of families walking about enjoying the place, though the place is so spacious that it doesn't feel crowded. Each season we return, the variety and the colours of garden sections change as layouts are varied or new sections restored to use. It's one gigantic labour of love for all the enthusiastic National Trust volunteers who work there in so many ways to support full time staff and raise necessary funds. 

Last weekend, at our Golden wedding celebration, my cousin Ros presented us with a plant voucher to spend at Caerphilly Garden centre, plus another voucher for Afternoon High Tea for two, so after a few hours in the sun at Dyffryn, we drove to Caerphilly, and were treated to an enormous tea, with scones, cake and sandwiches. Had we known it would be quite so splendid we wouldn't have bothered with the picnic lunch as well! We came away with an Everlasting Sweet Pea, which can grow up the edge of the trellis in Clare's very varied and colourful flowerbed.

There wasn't much of interest to watch on TV apart from Olympic sport. Whilst I'm delighted that all those hard working British athletes are doing so well, the broadcasts sap more attention and energy than a bi-lingual crime drama with subtitles to watch, pumped along as they are by hysterically excited commentators working so hard to earn their crust. I better liked the days of my youth when broadcast sport commentaries (with the exception of horse racing) were delivered for the most part with far less emotion and wasted words.
  

Houses visited and remembered

The weather was mild enough today to encourage us to visit Dyffryn House and Gardens for the first time this year. We had a light lunch in the cafe before entering and watched blue tits feeding at the bird table near where we were seated. In the grounds, plenty of snowdrops were out, an occasional early primrose too, but none of the daffodils were yet blossoming, just appearing as shoots yet to bud. It's that much colder for them to develop out here in open countryside than it is in the urbanised coastal plain of Cardiff. The grounds have been tidied up as far as possible after the fall. All is quietly waiting to emerge, buds are appearing on trees and bushes, earlier than usual.

Inside the house is where changes have taken place since our autumn visit. The main drawing room and the library have now been furnished elegantly with suitable period pieces, now that the restoration of the walls and windows is complete. It's impressive, and the enthusiasm of the volunteer guides is also impressive. It's a grand labour of love, this landmark place in the Vale of Glamorgan, of which many are justly proud.

Owain came over, both to see us to visit friends in the evening and stay overnight. With a Sunday sermon readied on Friday, there was time to enjoy cooking supper and relaxing with another episode of Young Montalbano, in which he lunches with his vineyard owning Father in his huge barn of a bottega. The traditional wine barrels in the background setting of the scene caught my eye, about three metres in diameter, and five metres in length on their side. They reminded me of the large ones I saw for the first time forty years ago in the bottega at Palazzola, at that time, the English College summer residence, south of Rome, above lake Albano. We were staying there as ecumenical guests of a local Catholic parish community that hired the fourteenth century convent buildings for group summer holidays. The site had been in use as a dwelling place since the days of ancient Rome, and the cellars, hollowed out of the volcanic tufa dated back that far. Happy memories of summers when the girls were toddlers.

Password problems

As it's St Barnabas Day today, I joined the St Luke's congregation for a quiet morning Mass. As  it was bright and sunny, it seemed a good idea to go out for lunch, so we drove to Dyffryn Gardens, walked for an hour or so, marvelling at the changes in vegetation since our last visit six weeks ago, and then ate in the visitor centre's friendly cafe.

Last night, Amanda called, as she was having problems with her computer, feeling that she was losing control of it. Now she's quite computer savvy, and I thought if she's bothered, maybe I should help troubleshoot. She texted me earlier today to say she's been unsuccessful with the measures I proposed over the phone, so I decided a hands-on session was necessary. I drove Clare to her staff meeting mid-afternoon and then took off for Bristol.

Thankfully, there wasn't a lot out of order, just enough to leave her feeling helpless. One of those software downloads with boxes you have to un-tick to avoid acquiring unwanted crapware had been ticked. Her default home page had been set to display a branded search page, full screen. This hid the normal browser controls, so it wasn't possible to change the home page settings. I messed around until I found how to switch off full page mode, and then reset the home pages as she wanted it.

She's also lost access to her Tesco shopping account and couldn't figure out why. She'd made half a dozen attempts to re-set the password, none of which delivered, and made a mess of her memorised passwords, particularly as Tesco require use of an email address and login password. Your password should be different from your email one for security reasons, but it's easy to get confused. Worse still insistence on high strength passwords by default on Tesco's part, means that if you miss out one of their required alpha-numeric components, your password change is requested and it's not at all clear why. 

Yes, the instructions about password quality are there in your face when you're setting up a new one, but if anything they are close enough to be easily overlooked as you're trying to think of something you'll find either memorable or easy enough to write down. High strength passwords are neither of these, since they use keys which normal mortals don't use often and get distressed about locating consistently.

It's understandable that Tesco have ramped up their security critera, but if this encroaches on usability, it's not good for customer relations. Apparently the helpline people were decent with her about the problems, and assured her that the problem was at the home end. But that was as much as they could do, and naturally it left her worried that her machine had been compromised. This fear was indeed enhanced by the unknowing acquisition of a foreign home page. Sites with secondary download tick boxes on by default should really be blacklisted, for the anxieties they cause.

 

Ynys Mon on Ascension Day

We got up early this morning to breakfast in time to be out of the house by nine, and on our way to Bangor to attend the 10.30am Eucharist for Ascension Day. The Cathedral website said there was a service and I emailed a request to confirm this, as the home page was still advertising Easter services, evidently not having been updated since then, so there was no knowing whether the usual weekday routine service continued or was supplanted on this special occasion. The response to my request arrived, telling us about a 5.30pm service, but only after we'd decided to take it on trust that there would be a 10.30am service, 

We arrived in good time, but the officiating priest didn't show up. The Sacristan rang around and found a substitute before coming out to apologise to the nine of us who were waiting. We all sat quietly and patiently for a quarter of an hour until he came. The anticipation was most enjoyable, as was the bi-lingual service, offered in a gentle and relaxed prayerful manner. It was a happy occasion, despite embarrassing mishaps. There's no doubt about it, the church is under pressure to live up to its own aspiration to offer the best it can to those who seek its ministrations. Patience is not just a virtue but a necessity.

We had coffee in a High Street bakery shop before leaving town and heading for the Menai Bridge, to cross over into Anglesey, Ynys Mon - Mam Cymru, to visit Plas Newydd, a huge chateau-like National Trust property with extensive gardens and an arboretum, bordering on the Menai Straights. It was in the national news recently for completing a £600,000 project to install a marine source heat pump to drive its central heating, oil powered until then. The house was shut, but the gardens were open. It was dry but overcast with a chill wind, so it needed a certain resolve to keep going. We found the spot where the heat pump's water source was located just above the shore, freshly lansdscaped, the grass not yet grown back. 

After lunch in the site cafe and a second walk around the gardens, we drove further along the A4080 road, and discovered a CADW signposted turning up a side road to Bryn Celli Ddu, a neolithic burial mound in a field at the end of a new and well constructed half mile path through fields. The site is thought to have begun as a henge, a twenty metre diameter stone circle, a rarity in Wales. Later occupants of the territory plundered the stones to construct a communal burial chamber at the centre of an earth mound. The site was excavated and reconstruction was based on this theory. Anglesey has many such neolithic sites. So much to see! 

We drove on past Brynsiencyn down to the road to the shore leading to the Sea Zoo, and to a dead end at water's edge, where there's an old ferryman's house and a small harbour. It's dead opposite Caernarvon on the mainland. Whether there's still a regular ferry service, I doubt, although there were several boats beached by low tide in this vicinity, which could be used to transport goods across and avoid traffic jams on the bridges. Another similar ferryman's house stands in the village of Porthaethwy in the lee of Menai Bridge, but that's well above the shore. The need for a ferry so close to Telford's bridge has long gone, but Cambrian House as it's called, is one of the oldest there.

On our way back from the shore to the A4080 for the home run, quite by chance we happened upon a small roadside cottage serving home made cream teas, under the banner 'Giddy Aunt's Tea Room', run by a couple from Yorkshire, with a delightful story to tell of how they'd purchased a small plot of land with rights for a caravan dwelling, and a ruined agricultural building in one corner. Over several years they obtained planning permission and re-built the ruin as a smallish cottage, and eventually to use its facilities to run their delightfully situated little tea room. The wife was a great raconteur, who'd successfully appeared on the "Who wants to be a miilionaire?" TV game show, and paid off their mortgage on building work with the proceeds of her win. An unexpected bonus to our first visit to 'Mam Cymru', as Ynys Mon is also known.