Coast walk

Yesterday, I delivered my accumulation of electronic waste products to the SFX Tech office over in Newport Road. I had difficulty finding it, despite the accuracy of Google Maps, as the 'Dominions House' building had no name plate. The building seemed to host only a Thai Massage Parlour. I rang the office to check I had the address correct, and found that I did. The office was on the first floor above the Massage Parlour! A strange location for an electronic recycling depot. The guy who came down to relieve me of my stuff was evidently in a hurry, so there was no time to chat and find out a bit more about the organisation. Most importantly, it's there and offering a valuable service to people with a bad conscience about electronic waste. When the CBS office finally closes there's somewhere we'll be able to take kit that can't be re-purposed.

We made the most of the beautiful weather today and drove to Penarth with a picnic, and took a walk along the coast path along the clifftop as far as Lavernock. The last time we did this was in April, just after my birthday. The hedges along the clifftop are overwhelmed with blackberry bushes. Unlike in Bute Park, there's a smaller proportion of fruit here ripe for picking at the moment. It's more exposed and peak fruit will probably come in a couple of weeks time. The berries here are smaller than ones inland. Even so, Clare with little assistance from me gathered just over half a kilo, which produced a beautifully sweet fruit syrup, perfect for Sunday's apple crumble.

The tide was right in when we arrived and slowly went out as we walked, revealing a red sandstone bed of rock at the base of the 100 foot cliff, decorated tastefully by the sea with a scattering of grey limestone pebbles. The fields behind the cliff path are awash with nearly ripe pale golden barley, and I spotted three different species of butterfly, thought I'd be unable to identify them. I watched a flock of several dozen finches burst from a garden hedge into the air, flying in a cloud formation with tail-enders zig-zagging to distract predator's attention from the majority of birds. This behaviour I've only observed at close quarters once before, at the Rio Aguas in Mojacar. Sadly, too quick for photos.

A Chinese family was out exploring the path. One of them quizzed Clare about the blackberries she was gathering. They hadn't seen them before, back home in Hong Kong, wild or otherwise.

We stopped for a drink in Cioni's, at the town end of the managed parkland area of clifftop, before a visit to Asda while heading for home. Clare needed some medical grade olive oil to soften earwax, but was unable to find any, but I came away with a couple of bottles of wine anyway.

We treated ourselves to supper at Stefano's Restaurant, before settling down for the evening. The last two episodes of Danish thriller 'Below the Surface' were aired on BBC Four. There was a sinister twist to an apparent islamist kidnap plot with  Russian spies succeeding in duping some extremist would be jihadis into a botched attack which then becomes a hostage crisis, whilst at the same time duping a top Danish military intelligence official in collusion. As ever the savvy hero saved the day and there was a happy family ending with another series to follow most probably. (Yawn)

   

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.
    

Shoreline reminiscence

This morning I drove Clare to her study group in Dinas Powis, then drove to Penarth, for a walk on the foreshore from the path at the end of the barrage. It's an unusual beach, interesting due to the geological strata in the cliffs above. In some places marl layers take a grey or green colour due to differences in the minerals leached by water out of deeper rock strata. But red limestone beds of crumbly stone of the Upper Triassic era predominate, shot through with layers of pink alabaster. Said to be one of the largest deposits of its kind in this particular stratum of rock.

This beach is one of the most popular places in South Wales for fossil hunters, with a variety of marine creatures caught long ago as they died and sank to a sandy seabed, which turned to stone thousands of years later. I found a slab of rock with no fossil in it, but containing a perfect imprint of sea bed, as it looked when the sea went out and never returned, leaving the mixture of sediment and mineral rich water to dry out and solidify.

This place evokes lovely memories of time spent here three years ago with granddaughter Jasmine (8 at the time) and Rachel her mother. Jasmine was fascinated by the variety of colours and odd shapes in the pebbles. We found a few partial fossils, but nothing special. We came home with five kilos of stones, and she was most disconsolate that she wasn't allowed to take them back to Arizona in her luggage, so reluctantly she left them behind, and later we returned them to their home on the foreshore.

I understand this pink alabaster, much of which is far paler than the above sample, is a popular feature decorating local gardens. It's soft as alabaster goes, and tends to break up with attempts to carve it. It's a striking feature of this stretch of South Wales' Jurassic coastline.

After lunch, I drove Clare to the Heath hospital for another post operative eye check-up, then I returned home and walked around Pontcanna. Today, I picked up fourteen assorted items of rubbish, just six from the beach, including a five litre plastic 'can' washed up by the tide. I could have collected more, but hadn't taken a bag with me, maybe just as well, as I would have ended up being late, and not having time to enjoy the geology.