Showing posts with label The Fruit Bowl Pontcanna. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Fruit Bowl Pontcanna. Show all posts

Monday, 23 February 2026

Registration sorted

A sunny start to the day, then the sky clouded over and it drizzled for the rest of the day. I slept badly, losing three hour's sleep out of nine in bed. I woke up at one stage wondering if I'd switched off the oven, after slow cooking some chicken yesterday afternoon. I had to get up and go down to check in order to settle my mind. I'm no stranger to anxious wakefulness in the night, prompted by unquiet intestines. I felt better for having a shower and washing my hair after breakfast, but the effect of the meds, slowing down my brain and making me feel light headed made it difficult to function normally. 

A walk in the drizzle to try and clear my head, was unfruitful. Clare called me with a request to buy veg pronto from the 'Fruit Bowl' greengrocer's as she'd started cooking and was short of supplies. We've relied on a weekly bag of organic veggies from Coed Organic for nearly twenty years, but after such bad weather in the past year, the cooperative market garden in St Hilary is currently unable to supply produce for veg bag customers. We rely on supermarkets now, and on Jason at 'The Fruit Bowl', where we get bitter oranges for marmalade. The stock is fresh and very varied. His veg labels are neatly hand written.They declare the provenance of the veg he sells. He opens early but closes at four, so a modicum of forethought and planning is needed before cooking in the evening.

Fatigue hit me hard after eating lunch and I slept in my armchair for nearly an hour. Then I checked the Council's postal vote website, and was pleased to see that the downloadable application form I complained about yesterday has been corrected. I set about finding the required identity details and filling in forms for Clare and myself to email .pdf copies of them to the Council's Electoral Services office. Then I went out for another walk to recover from the mental effort of concentrating and checking details were correct. When I was looking for the right email address to send the forms, I noticed we're both on the electoral register, marked as requiring a postal vote. It also says 'If the information is correct you do not have to do anything'. This is in a letter addressed to 'The Occupiers'. It contains both our names, abbreviated as the NHS does using the first forename in full with the second forename initialised. There may have been no need to fill in the forms at all, but I dislike the ambiguity in the way this invitation to register is presented. Registration is valid for all elections over the next three years. I don't recall seeing this box to tick last time we filled in one of these, so maybe it's just as well. Electoral database managers or AI should flag up any duplication in any case. We'll see.

Clare went to choir practice after supper. I recorded next week's biblical reflection while the house was quiet. I was almost finished when she tapped on the front door, having misplaced her door key. only the last minute needed recording separately and adding to what was already recorded. Then, to relax I watched this week's episode of 'Astrid - Murder in Paris' before going to bed early in an attempt to catch up on lost sleep. I've been wondering if this is somehow linked to the seemingly toxic effect the combination of meds have on my brain.

 

Wednesday, 23 December 2015

O Emmanuel

I went to St German's this morning to celebrate the midweek Eucharist for eight people. Afterwards I talked for an hour in the church hall with Hamid, about preparing for his baptism in the New Year. In order to do justice to this, in every sense, life-changing moment for him, I need to find the Urdu liturgical text of the service, so he can make his promises and hopefully teach me how to pronounce the baptismal formula in his mother tongue. Essential under the circumstances, I believe.

How frustrating to find another card from the postman when I got home, summoning us to collect a piece of mail and pay two pounds because it had insufficient postage. More time wasted in traffic queues to retrieve an un-stamped Christmas card. Accidents happen, and the Post Office makes you pay double, rather than the offender. The new streamlined service and its management sure know how to cultivate customer resentment and ill-will !

When I returned from this errand, I was dispatched to collect the Christmas turkey from Driscoll's, on Cathedral Road, our excellent local butcher. The shop was busy with customers, and I didn't mind queuing, as it was nice to see how cheerful the staff were as they went about their business. Likewise at the Fruit Bowl, the greengrocers shop a few doors up. We are surely blessed with local small shops in our part of town, and using them adds to the conviviality of the season far more than ploughing through crowds in the town's heaving shopping malls.

And so to our last great 'O' antiphon, naming the name Isaiah 7:14 gives to the Anointed One whom God sends us as our Saviour, quoted in Matthew 1:23, and translated in 1:24 as 'God is with us'.

O Emmanuel you are our king and judge,
the one whom the peoples await, and their Saviour.
O come and save us O Lord our God.

Each of the six previous antiphons add in different ways to a portrayal of God as 'All in All'. The seventh declares that the 'All in All' is with us in the One who is to come, entering human existence, born a helpless child, needing to receive everything from others to sustain his life, in order that he can give life to others, the priceless gift of salvation to eternal life. The elusive paradox, that is the very heart of God's loving initiative to those who wait.