Three dimensional ethics

After breakfast this morning, I worked on editing and condensing on next week's reflections for a couple of hours, then went for a pre-lunch turn around the park. I'm amazed at the growth of the French Beans planted three days ago. One of the six hasn't sprouted at all, a fifth is starting to emerge three days behind the others. Will it end up doing as well? We'll see.

More good news about the continued reduction in covid infections and deaths over the past week. This is a review following the easing of restrictions in England five weeks ago, and shows no infection set-back has occurred as a result.  This has been sustained both due to over half the country being once vaccinated and a third vaccinated twice, plus social distancing and other precautions still being followed by many. It's so good to see pubs and restaurants opening for outdoor service. 

I was particularly pleased to see that the tiny St Canna's Ale house on Llandaff Road has transformed its back yard in recent weeks with the addition of a solid canopy sheltering all the yard area at a three metre height above ground. I think this is a far sighted investment by a popular real ale pub with a substantial following. 

Most places have gone for tents or umbrellas within enclosed serving areas. Heaneys, our local nouvelle cuisine restaurant with its own cocktail bar-cum-cafe next door has canopied its car park. The building was once a paint store, with huge shop windows and a narrow forecourt, where clients parked off road. Not the most congenial of dining environments even after an extensive makeover. The forecourt is fenced off now with outdoor tables under big umbrellas and flowering plant pots punctuating the enclosure line. The shop windows no longer detracts from its appearance. It's somehow more inviting now. I wish them success in the bounce back to normality. The pandemic has really changed the ambience of city centre and Pontcanna streets for the better.

After lunch I drove Clare over to Cathays to the University Optometrists to collect her new varifocal specs which look very good on her, and deliver a hoped for improvement, given the slow deterioration of her eyesight. She's been for a DVLA mandated two-eyes field of vision test at Specsavers this week, and now we wait to hear whether the results will permit her to hold a license or not.

Then, another walk down to the river and back before supper and this week's episode of 'New Amsterdam', which was all about the ethics and values behind crowd funding for medical aid for patients who couldn't afford life saving treatments. A discussion of the issues in an essay wouldn't be nearly as engaging as a well thought out film script in the hands of the right director. The argument in words may be something any reasonable person could follow, but a movie condenses and symbolises the issues in a way that allows the reason, imagination and critical faculties of a recipient to engage with. It provokes genuine discussion over values we can identify with. We need all the tools we can find to help us analyse and think creatively

Royal Berkshire nuptials

Last night, Rachel played a gig at St Canna's Ale House on Llandaff Road, co-incidentally a hundred yards away from the Apothecary Tea Room where she did a gig in July last year. Clare did all the organising and emailed friends and associates to let them know. Rachel borrowed the three guitars she needed (each with a different tuning) from friends, and installed herself in a corner of the bar room to play. It wasn't the best location, as it was adjacent to the way out to the toilets, but she's so used to working in awkward environments that it didn't seem to bother her. 

There were around twenty people there, including people from church, friends and colleagues of Clare. It wasn't one of my better days, so my only contribution was to video the first hour of the gig on my Sony HX300, from nine until ten. I didn't have the energy to stay for the second half, and went home early. St Canna's Ale House is a warm friendly place, dedicated to good beer and conversation, so not surprisingly there was too high a level of audience chatter in the background for the recording to be of much use for distribution, but I figured it would give Rachel an opportunity to monitor her performance critically.

I rose early to work on the videos, to be able to upload them to YouTube before we left for my cousin's Lindsay's wedding in Ascot. The job took just a couple of hours, as I didn't bother editing the raw footage, since it wasn't for public consumption. Since I edited footage of her last Cardiff gig, I've done videos of two choir and one eurythmy performance, so I've not forgotten how to use Windows Movie Maker. It's a slow business with an average speed internet connection and a not particularly powerful computer, but I've trained myself to start processes and then get on with other tasks in the meanwhile, like making and eating breakfast and packing bags. 

We succeeded in leaving at our planned departure time. The trip up the M4 as far as Reading was plagued by wind and rain, but we drove into better weather. It was a race day at Ascot and Google's itinerary re-routed us on a circular route through leafy suburbia along roads line with exclusive and very expensive houses. Our destination was the Royal Berkshire Hotel, once a huge Churchill family mansion, now an even bigger country hotel with golf course and tennis courts. The wedding reception was going to be held there so Clare thought it would be a good idea to stop there overnight. It was an expensive B&B for the night, but an enjoyable experience, well worth the indulgence, as several of my cousins and members of the bride's family also stopped overnight, and a special breakfast room was reserved for wedding guests.

We had an hour and a half in our room to rest and dress up before taking a taxi to the Parish Church of All Saints Ascot Heath, just past the racecourse, in the London Road. It's a beautiful ornate gothic revival building dating from 1864, with frescos and mosaics, where Lindsay attends church. His bride Lynne lived in Bromley, but she was happy for the service to take place in the area to which she'd be making a new life. Her parish priest gave the homily, while his performed the ceremony. There was a small robed choir leading the singing, and a soloist sang Mozart's 'Panis Angelicus'. It was moving to hear then plighting their troth for the first time, he 70 and she 65 and recently retired from teaching. Lynne was born and raised in Natal, South Africa, and is one of triplets, a brother and a sister who is an Anglican priest, living and working here for over 25 years.. What a lovely occasion it was!

We set off for the reception after the post-wedding photographs, just as racegoers were leaving at the end of their day. It was slightly surreal at tea-time to see women in party clothes staggering in high heels down the London Road while others were staggering drunk with excess of Pimms or Champers. It's a strange foreign world to me. The Royal Berkshire hotel, in contrast, was sedate and quiet. The reception and banquet were delightful, accompanied by a life string quarter, who played for the best part of the four hours it all lasted. So many interesting conversations with family members and guests with whom we shared a table. A day to remember with much pleasure, and a capacious comfortable bed in which to bring it to a close.

Quiet anniversary

Yesterday on my afternoon walk, I took the west bank path along the Taff from Western Avenue to Blackweir, for the first time in ages. I spotted a Little Egret among the reeds on the east bank. I was sure I'd seen one from the east side path, feeding with other birds  a couple of weeks ago, but I must have disturbed it, for it flew off before I could awaken my camera. Despite the distance, I got one sharp shot, pleased at last to see this bird again. Apparently they can be seen up at Radyr Weir, but this far down river they seem to be just occasional visitors.

Kath, Anto and Rhiannon arrived for their holiday in Crete. Rhiannon and I exchanged WhatsApp messages in simple Greek. Just for fun.

Rachel is busy borrowing guitars and planning her song set for her gig at St Canna's Ale House this Friday evening. The house is full of the sound of her playing and singing. It's lovely. 

Despite the mix of showers and sun, the builders are forging ahead now with applying new layers of concrete rendering to the back of the house. The new surfaces will need to be painted, in a plain near-white colour afterwards, to reflect extra light into the back garden. It'll cost extra, but it needs to be done while the scaffolding is up. It'll be worth doing, I'm sure.

It's our 53rd wedding anniversary today. Clare wasn't feeling great, so we decided to postpone a festive meal for a while. Disappointed there was no service to go to in the Parish. The importance of this as a major festival was made plain to me when Clare and I went backpacking in Crete, 52 years ago, and attended the Orthodox Liturgy in the village church in Platanos - we experienced Orthodox worship as students in Bristol, but this was really the first experience of a Greek Parish at prayer, and it was such an eye opener. The informality, the relaxed sense of devotion, plus the iconography, the incense and the ritual. It made a lasting heavenly impression on us, and influenced the kind of Anglicans we have grown up to be.