Three pairs in a day

Up late for a pancake breakfast after another broken night's sleep. I spent the morning building an archive of the biblical Reflections I've posted on the WhatsApp Morning Prayer thread over the past two and a half years. I deleted many of them from my Google drive, to save space so it was a matter of downloading the entire thread and going through thousands of entires to delete everything else that wasn't one of my contributions. It took me over two hours to save a file with 2020-2021 entries. The rest will have to wait for the moment.

Clare cooked an excellent stir fry with mussels and rice for lunch. After we had our siesta we went out for a walk. It was cloudy with occasions glimpses of sun and gusts of wind. Still nothing like summer weather in the forecast for the net month, meanwhile southern Europe continues to swelter, though for the moment the incidence of wildfires is slowly diminishing. After one circuit of Llandaff Fields Clare returned home, but I continued walking for another hour and a half.

I was buzzed by low flying martins circling in an area where they were finding insects. There were swifts and swallows over the Taff, and a noticed a pair of egrets standing on the water's edge of the east bank just below Blackweir Bridge. Then two herons flew down-river, turning away to circle low together for a short while before splitting up and disappearing from sight. I also saw a pair of red admiral butterflies circling each other in their mating dance. Of the three pairs I only got a long distance photo of the egrets, but it was great to see, making a change from gulls, magpies, pidgeons and crows which predominate. 

When I got home, I had a large slice of the apple pie which Clare made yesterday. Just delicious. Half an hour later we had supper, then I settled down with the Chromebook to watch the last four episodes of 'Top Dog' before printing my sermon for tomorrow and turning in for the night

Parks and parking

A cloudy day without rain with a mild wind to dry out the sodden soil. We need more days like this given the broadening mud slicks alongside all the park footpaths. With so many people out and about every day, socialising without socialising strolling along and hogging the path, overtaking walkers and cyclists drives more and more people on to the grass. Heaven knows how the park management teams are going to repair and restore the greensward to its usual healthy condition. 

The task of keeping the park rubbish free has become a seven day week job, as rubbish bins fill very quickly to overflowing with takeaway cups, pizza boxes, sandwich wrappers and plastic bottles. If a day is missed, the place looks terrible, and more rubbish gets dropped than when it looks clean and tidy. No doubt we'll pay for this with Council Tax rate increases eventually, but such excellent civic amenities as we enjoy are worth paying for.

Talking about the Council - a consultation document dropped through our letterbox this afternoon relating to traffic management and parking locally. A bus lane is proposed for Penhill Road, robbing one side of the road of car parking bays, displacing vehicles into overnight parking down by Cafe Castan. It looks as if we won't be able to avoid a residents' car parking permit scheme for the whole of neighbourhood. There are already too many cars competing for too little space on the street, too many two car households. Will each household be restricted to one permit only? I love our little car, but have thought a lot recently about giving it up, as we used it so little, regardless of lock-downs, we'd be better off hiring for occasional travel needs that can't be met by public transport.

At lunchtime I had a call postponing the telephone consultation I was due to have with a pharmacology expert at Llandough who is said to be off sick. Well I've waited four months for this, and am not dead while waiting. Meanwhile, I'll just keep experimenting with the doxazosin dosage to see if I can minimise the side effects and get my blood pressure nearer to normal.

Now that schools are open again to the youngest children, Clare has decided to resume her regular Thursday visit to the Steiner kindergarten to do eurythmy with the little ones, so she's spent quite a lot of time on the phone discussing and planning this today. It means a lot to her, but she's confident that staff are going to be working with high safety standards, and infection risk is far lower with the under sevens in any case. 

An article I read this morning about kids returning to school stated that 12-14 year olds are the most likely to catch covid and transmit it. It also stated that a much under estimated preventative measure is classroom ventilation, leaving windows open and wrapping up warm. Or, classes outdoors. It's something new to get used to, and not easy for generations raised in centrally heated houses and schools whose standard of clothing is geared to 22-24 degrees indoors, rather than 18. 

Fair and fruitful ground

Again, I failed to get ready to leave in time for the midweek Eucharist at St Catherine's, and that was after a long night's sleep too. I don't lack energy once I get going, I seem to have slowed down a lot lately. It may be the impact of the medication, or it could be this blocked ear which stubbornly refuses to yield completely to an otherwise effective wax solvent. I'm impatient, and unused to being impaired by feeling not quite right in myself. I always want to get well at an unreasonable pace. Ah well, I did some writing and then cooked us a veggie pasta dish for lunch. 

Clare returned from her early morning walk with nearly a pound of blackberries she picked, so instead of picking litter when I went out for my afternoon walk, I picked blackberries from bushes along the river embankment, another pound in weight. On the way back, I was in time to see the family of swallows that spends the summer in Pontcanna Fields swooping low over the grass at waist height. That's the first time I've seen them since the evening of my return from Ibiza, when I sneaked a quick walk on my own before self-quarantining. 

Clare stewed both lots with cooking apples and loaded them into her special straining bag, tied to an upended stool on the kitchen table, to make some more blackberry jelly. It shouldn't be long now before the fruit on the park's crab apple trees is ripe enough to pick. But will we have enough empty jam jars by then? Clare likes to use the smallest sized jars for different jams and jellies to give as Christmas presents. She generally stars thinking about Christmas gifts during the summer holidays, and has done all our life together. Start early, avoid the seasonal rush and enjoy more of the festive season is her philosophy. I can't fault it. I'm the one who's prone to do things last minute, however.

Before settling down for the night, I walked out again around the park to clear my head and get some more fresh air. Over by the riding stables, the cry of a screech owl penetrated the darkness, only a few hundred metres from the busy A48 Western Avenue, Cardiff's inner ring road. Between the large municipal allotment area and the containing stables and paddocks, there's an environment rich in insect and plant life which is very wildlife friendly, just a couple of kilometres from the city's commercial and business heart. We are so lucky to live here - just West of the Centre.

 

Summer Saturday in the park

A welcome return to blue sky and sunshine today, though the air has yet to warm up to expected summer temperatures. It took me a while to get going as physical tiredness from yesterday's trip to Bristol caught up with me, so it was a day of rest and inactivity apart from daily exercise. It was good for walking and good to see hundreds of people sitting out in the parks. Counting couples, over fifty groups of between two and fifteen gathered to socialise, drink together and eat barbecue food or picnic snacks . Three to four hundred people in all, I think. It's been like this every weekend for a while, says Clare. Few were wearing masks and not all were socially distancing. Far fewer people are going abroad for holidays this year, and hopefully rediscovering the pleasures of home turf. 

No doubt pub and restaurant closures have led to a big increase in the use of our city parks. As for beaches, I don't know, and we've yet to take advantage of the restriction of the five mile travel limit to visit the coast and look. Cafe Castan had a long queue of people outside for take away drinks and snacks, and Pontcanna Street Co-op had a queue outside as well, as it's closest to the park. No queues outside the deli 200m away at the bottom of the street, nor the other Co-op in King's Road. 

It's nice to see the parks so well used, except for the bags of rubbish around overflowing bins, if not discarded in situ. When the wind picks up unsecured emptied plastic shopping bags take to the air and roll over the greensward like tumbleweed until caught by bushes or some vigilant passer-by. In clearings along the river bank on the Bute Park, side groups of people occupy space and dip their feet in the water if it isn't running too fast. You can tell when it's rained in the Brecon Beacons, as next day the full length of the weir has turbid water running over it. Kids who on a normal summer's day would be up on Blackweir Bridge daring to jump off into the pool below, congregate at the side by the fish ladder and splash about in the water when the mood takes them.

In the evening I watched what I thought was the last episode of Non Uccidere. I thought ti was anti-climactic and slightly open ended, suggesting it will stretch to a third series. When I checked the IMDB website the second series was rated with twenty four episodes with the twelfth being screened last week. So it seems another dozen are yet to come, but not yet revealed on the 'Walter Presents' page. At this length it resembles a soap opera with one dominant lead character, backed by a credible hard working team that gets results, but we never really get to learn enough about them and their backgrounds.

The stories cover a range of complex sordid crimes with family issues running through two thirds of them relating to contemporary social issues touching on poor and rich families alike. One third of the episodes feature crime connected to a closed community - a convent and a monastery, both with rehabilitation as their mission, a new-age sect, and a military unit readying for deployment. An interesting set of observations on what goes wrong with close knit relationships in today's world.

More political upheaval and uncertainty

One of the builder's craftsmen came yesterday to finish off a few small outstanding details on the renovated rear of the house. Both walls have been painted right up to the roof in magnolia and a little extra light is reflected into the garden as a result. A tree surgeon wielding a chainsaw was at work in the garden opposite ours, reducing the size of some of its trees. This will also let in a bit more light, although it will mean less cover for small birds until they grow back. As we saw after several gardens were drastically pruned a few years ago, this leads to a reduction in small birds and the dominance of gulls, crows, pigeons and magpies, not to mention cats. Vegetation grows back after a couple of years but sadly, small birds are slower to return.

I spotted swifts and swallows foraging in the air above Pontcanna Fields when I took my daily work, also a family of pied wagtails, and the older heron, trying out a vantage point on the east river bank, different from its usual habitat by Blackweir bridge. The younger heron stand there on watch more often these days. I wonder if this is the younger bird ousting the elder (perhaps its parent?) from the prime site for hunting,

We continue to follow the Parliamentary crisis with astonishment and dread. There's simply no let-up in the uncertainty clouding the future direction of the country. Boris Johnson has lost a great deal of credibility this week in the eyes of party members who recently elected him. The speculation is that if he could call an election soon, his party would win, probably because of the support he receives from movers and shakers from brexit backing newspaper industry. 

Opposition to him and his plans grows, adding to divisions in the Tory party as well as in the country. Parliament has now voted to outlaw the no-deal conclusion the government seems to favour, and stop an election being called before the October 31st deadline. Given the lack of evidence of a realistic negotiating strategy for withdrawal, this throws a spoke into the wheel of the Johnson juggernaut. His tactics amount to little more than bullying and bluff. At last members of Parliament, even of his own party, are expressing their disgust, heaven knows where this is going to lead.

Another episode of 'Non Uccidere tonight, on More Four. This week's episode focused on a Tunisian Muslim immigrant family and the commnity context in which an honour crime was committed. It also portrayed an Italian man about to separate from his wife, converting to Islam, in reaction against the piety of his Catholic wife, having falling in love and having an affair with the crime victim. An interesting twist to the tale.
  

  

 

Hope the Heron

I celebrated the midweek Eucharist at St John's this morning, and after lunch and a siesta, went for a slightly longer walk than hitherto. I'm feeling better generally as the wound condition improves and am aiming to increase my daily target distance from around four to to at least five miles on a regular basis. The fitter I get, the less tired I get in the evenings, after all. The light summer nights are sheer delight now that the pall of cloud has lifted and we're seeing sunshine and blue skies along with nice white fluffy cumulus. 

I did a loop which took me from Llandaff Fields up to Western Avenue, then east to the other side of the big Tesco store, to the boundary path which goes south, parallel to the river Taff, and thence to Blackweir Bridge. I paused on the bridge thinking about taking a photo of a group of gulls feeding on the weir below, and a lady of a certain age said "Did you see the heron down there? She's come back"  

I hadn't yet noticed the heron, standing at the water's edge in the same familiar spot, fifty yards down from the fish ladder. A few days ago I saw it flying up the river, but failed to spot where it landed. It uses an assortment of spots to hunt from, where passing fish are most visible, as light changes during the day, but always up by the weir several hours before sunset. The last time I saw and snapped the heron was on April 1st. 

The lady also told me that it was a long time since she last saw it, and this sighting for her was a blessing. "I call her Hope", she said smiling. "My husband has just come home after open heart surgery. We had to wait so long for the operation that it was touch and go. I walk here every day, and decided to name her 'Hope' while we were waiting. So It's great to see her especially today, as she's been absent for so long" She'd noticed that I was wearing my cross, and asked why, so I explained. Perhaps that was why she shared her moment of joy and delight with me. I felt so privileged to be entrusted with a passing stranger's confidence, there on a bridge out in the open, just like that.

  

Meeting the bird man of Pontcanna

I had an early clinic visit today, from which I came away with a different kind of dressing to try out, as regular stocks have still not been replenished, well maybe later is possible I suppose. I feel sorry for the nurses. I went to Berry's the butcher's in search of some fresh chicken to cook and freeze and came away with four huge legs, more than I expected to get, but it'll be good for 6-8 meals and fulfil the recommendation that I eat meat to promote tissue building. True or not it makes a change for me on a semi-vegan pescatarian diet these days.

Once I got home I realised I'd forgotten to visit the bank as intended, so I had to go out again, and once out, remembered those other shopping items which slipped my mind earlier. We make a list and keep it on the fridge, but usually I forget to look at it. I should make a to do list note on my phone, but can't be bothered. I make an effort to train my memory, which works well enough, as long as I'm not distracted.

I cooked the chicken pieces before lunch. Clare came back from her gym session with two big fresh tuna steaks, one of our favourites, so the chicken was left to cool before freezing later in the day, and we had dish for lunch instead. 

Later, I completed my postal voting form for the European election,  I decided to vote Lib Dem, to support candidates of the party that took an unequivocally clear pro-european stance as a matter of policy for many years. I popped our ballot envelopes in the posting box on my way to walk around Pontcanna Fields.

On the riverside path, a young woman seated on a bench enjoying the sun greeted me, as if she knew me. I think I recognised her, but am unsure from which part of my life. We chatted about the pleasures of the environment and bird life along the river. I started to tell her about 'Bird Man' whom I see regularly in the distance feeding the crows.

Within seconds the man himself appeared on the path, surrounded by a dozen or more birds, chasing the last remnants from his feed bag. As he passed, we engaged him in conversation. He told us that he walks both sides of the river daily and the crows spot him from afar and seek him out,. They recognise him even if he's riding a bike, regardless of what he's wearing or which bag he is carrying. I was so glad to have met him face to face at last.

As I approached Blackweir Bridge, I was thrilled to glimpse several swifts high above, wheeling around aerobatically as they fed on insects. Just to think, these birds would have been making their way up the Iberian Peninsula from Africa a few weeks ago. Summer is a-cumen in!

Waking to a dream

Another warm bright spring day to lift the spirits. I walked to St John's and celebrated the Eucharist again. It was the Parish's Mothers' Union Corporate Communion day, so I used the scripture readings for last Monday's Feast of the Annunciation. I spoke about the risk agreed to by Mary in accepting to become a mother, in an age where stillbirth and dying in childbirth were much more common than now. It was hearing a morning news item about authorising Coroners to investigate still-births that triggered this line of thought, plus recalling of the MU's  maternal health care and educational work in the Anglican Communion. From the looks of recognition I observed, it seems talking of pre-natal loss struck a chord with some of those present. As someone said to me afterwards; "You never forget it, not even decades after."

I cooked lunch when I got back, to coincide with Clare's arrival from school, then a siesta with the lunchtime news playing on the radio. I woke up just after the afternoon drama started in Radio 4. It was about a man transported in a dream to Britain a hundred years from now. It was a post brexit post apocalyptic world which, for a change was not dysfunctional or savage. It was more like a rural paradise in which everyone lived in peace and harmony, seeking each others' welfare before their own, working as much or as little as they chose. 

It portrayed a post capitalist world in which money, competition and consumerism were irrelevant and redundant, a world in which technology was the servant of all, not the master. It was a dream of Utopia or maybe Erewhon, given the New Age idealism in action wryly portrayed, how selfishness anxiety and greed were successfully abandoned for a better way, was glossed over. Perhaps it was beyond imagining. How do you get from the agony of the Great Tribulation to an ideal realm with no struggle or suffering birth pangs? Well, it was an idealist's fantasy I suppose, quite entertaining too, but how strange that I should wake up like that into a dream.

I then went for a walk around Pontcanna Fields and Bute Park to enjoy the sun and revel in the birdsong. So far, no ducklings on the river Taff however. It's lovely to see so many people, even on an working weekday afternoon, taking time out to sit on the grass and chat. Most make an effort to take their empty cans bottles and cartons to the nearest rubbish bin. It's such a pity these are quickly full to overflowing and not emptied often enough in the day. It only encourages people get lazy and leave a mess rather than take their cast offs home with them.

As I was passing the Summer House Cafe in Bute Park, I was accosted by a man, who noticed that I was wearing a cross. He asked if I could tell him about Jesus, declaring he knew little about religion. We sat on a bench in the sunshine and talked for half an hour. He told me that he was a Kurd and had been in Britain for the past twenty years, an exile from the time of the Iraq war. His father had been a Jew by birth and his mother a Muslim, but he'd been raised to know neither religious community, perhaps because of the unsettled lives they'd had over the years. He said he was searching for a way of peace and goodness to follow, and had a horror of Islam from what he knew of its extremists.

So what could I tell him about Jesus? He vaguely knew that Jews had crucified Jesus, but seemed unaware that Jesus was a faithful Jews whose teaching was resented by some who sought to kill him, though not all. I told him how Jerusalem and the Temple Mount were holy places common to all three religions, that stories of Jesus were found in the Qu'ran and in the four Gospels, and that Jesus was acknowledged as a teacher and prophet in Judaism.

He told me he spoke Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic, Farsi and English and was aware that in Kurdish areas, Christians, Muslims and Jews co-existed peacefully, but he was not aware this is reuw in most moderate societies in the MIddle East and beyond. He didn't know and struggled to grasp that Jesus worshipped in Hebrew and spoke Aramaic, which isn't the same as Arabic. His own background was evidently one of diversity of cultures, but didn't realise that other regions had their own histories of diverse culture. What you pick up from the media headlines rarely reflects everyday grass roots reality.

I think if you're coming from knowing nothing about the setting of Jesus' life, there are a few things like this it's helpful to understand from the outset. I advised him to google on his smartphone 'The Gospels in Kurdish' to find texts he could read in his mother tongue, assuming that his early learning to read would have been in Kurdish, and move on to reading them in other languages later when he's hungry for it. Reading the same story in different languages can give you a much richer idea of what the message of the story is, an take you beyond words too.

For me, reading for oneself about 'all that Jesus did and said' is the place to start, even though it can be a difficult path to start with. Getting to know Him through scripture opens the way to making a relationship with Him and God. You can take it at your own pace, and if ever you have questions, there'll be Christians around to ask not to far away, even kurdish Christians maybe. He was making a tentative first step, and impulsive move to approach a stranger in a park. He wasn't looking for a follow up meeting, I thought, just a little encouragement to start the journey.

Such an encounter is a rarity for me, and thrilling too. It's something I like to think I'm ready for, starting from who we are whenever we meet. But, out of the blue like that, this also had a dreamlike quality to it, only I wasn't in the audience listening to the drama, but rather on-stage being myself.

  

Multi-cultural fields

Notification of an appointment for an ultrasound scan of my gall bladder has come through. It's in a month's time. Still waiting for an urgent specialist appointment to follow up on the abscess problem however. Minor improvements continue. The wound is definitely drying up now and I can sit down properly without much discomfort for most of the time.

This afternoon I walked to Blackweir bridge as the sun reached the horizon and took a few photos. It was just mild enough to be outdoors without a topcoat. Most of the trees still have their leaves, and they are green, a little darker than usual, like they often are mid-August. Few have fallen, there are just occasional patches of brown and yellow leaves in the canopy of trees around Pontcanna Fields.

On my way there, I noticed a group of footballers arriving in their kit for an evening kickaround. Noticed them because everyone shook hands with each other before they started to warm up. As I came closer, I realised they were speaking Spanish. You often hear cricketers in summer speaking Asian languages, most likely Urdu, on the Fields in the summer. One of the delights of our diverse city where, to judge from the number of daily joggers and cyclists a large number of the population are sports mad.

A lovely evening, but night time seems to arrive early at a pace. Perhaps I notice this because I've spend so much more time indoors recently. I don't look forward to winter darkness, and the clocks going back.

  

Spring chicks and artworks

A lazy Saturday morning, with just a sermon to write, then lunch in the sun in the garden. Clare had heard from artist friend Fran Whiteside that Llanover Hall community arts centre in Romilly Road was hosting an art exhibition featuring work by some of the people who teach classes there. As it opened today, with a little ceremony by ex-First Minister Rhodri Morgan, we thought we go over and take a look. The vernissage party was in full swing by the time we arrived and Rhodri had gone, but we enjoyed looking at what was on display, and chatting to a few people. Fran's contribution to the exhibition was a remarkable work reminding me of the style of William Blake. It's called 'The Divine Wisdom', and here's the photo of it which Fran sent me.

I must be careful to chose the right words here. Use of the word 'iconic' has been debased and misued in recent decades. Moreover, Fran is a practitioner of Byzantine 'icon writing', as it's called in Eastern Orthodox, producing very beautiful traditional sacred images, fit for use in any place of prayer and worship. The above is equally the fruit of study and meditation, and its very title would be familiar to an Eastern Christian, but it's the fruit of a occidental contemplative eye. Marvellous.

Also in the exhibition was a painting of  railway station platform which I immediately recognised, but couldn't identify until I looked at the label - it was Treherbert station, end of the Cwm Rhondda line. I stood in exactly the same place as the artist on a visit there nine years ago, and taken a photo. In the background is a pyramidal shaped tabletop mountain, which according to locals is a global rarity, Phil Watkins the artist told me. Here's my photo, and after it, courtesy of Phil, a photo of his oil painting,

 

I love the misty atmosphere in this painting. It'd be hard to take a photograph which equals this.

 After this we went for a walk around Pontcanna Fields. We bumped into Jan and Peter walking their new dog. I don't think I have seen either of them since Peter retired last year, so it was good to catch up, and share appreciation of the new episcopal appointment. We spotted a Mallard family on the east bank of the river Taff a few hundred metres down from Blackweir Bridge, parents and six tiny chicks, moving so swiftly as they paddled against the flow to keep up with each other, that it wasn't easy to distinguish them, or get decent photos at full lens length with the Sony HX300. This was about the best of the bunch.

I sent this to Peter later, who responded, saying that Jan had been wondering if or when any chicks would be seen on the this year. They walk their dog in the Fields a couple of times each day. Amazing really, this is the first time we've met there, when I also walk along the Taff several times a week. In the evening, I didn't fancy watching the BBC Four scandi-noir offering, preferring to continue with another episode of Inspector Borowski. There are eleven in the series - over half way now.