Takeout tasking

After breakfast this morning Jasmine and I took our cameras for a walk to Thompson's Park to check out the nesting moorhens. The nest is still there and the couple take it in turns to sit on the nest and search for leaves and twigs to add to it, nor feed each other morsels. Jasmine caught sight of a clutch of several eggs, maybe four or five. It's rare to get a glimpse of the whole clutch, only when the nesting bird shifts position or reaches out to receive food from the other. I got several photos with my Sony HX50 that I was pleased with, and Jasmine even more. Then Jas and Clare went into town and caught the river ferry down to the Bay for a visit to the Senedd, the Millennium Centre, and a posh Ice Cream shop! I wasn't feeling up to a trip, and I had a job that needed to be started. 

Google is closing its archive facility next month and has sent a notification about downloading archived content if you want to keep it with Google Takeout. This includes all photos, videos, blogs, emails etc I have been meaning to do this with my blog for ages, so that I'm not reliant on Blogger for entries reaching back as far as 2006. I have this idea of taking the best of my writing from the four years of City Centre redevelopment until I retired, to see if I could turn it into a publishable memoir using the photos I took. Google takeout tells me there's 130GB of content, and it's in 66 separate archive files of 2GB. It'll be a mammoth task sorting through them all and organising it chronologically. Downloading and saving to backup drive will take 10-12 hours of machine minding spread over days.

Sister June sent a present for Jasmine plus some photo slides of our Dad she'd not seen before, which had dropped out of a stored package. I think they are Kodak 110 Ektachrome, a size I'd not seen before. There were three of them with coloured images on them. Mounting such tiny objects for scanning was a fiddly task, using a 34mm slide holder. 

The images were visible to the naked eye, but only one scanned produced a decent image. The other two scans were so terribly dark that the images when edited were pixellated so badly their only use was to identify the location where they were taken, outside our family home in Ystrad Mynach. The third one was, I believe taken at Thornhill Crematorium, after my Grandfather's funeral, but all on the same day, as Dad was wearing his bowler hat and dark suit. So sad to think that within eighteen months of those pictures he too would die, aged just sixty seven. It seems that 110 film was of notoriously poor quality, and maybe the underexposed ones which had visible images on them couldn't be scanned like the other one because the surface didn't reflect light adequately.

I cooked supper for us, prepared for tomorrow morning's funeral and received a emailed eulogy for next week's funeral. Good to have everything ready nice and early. Then went for a walk as the sun was setting. Amazing to think that it's the longest day tomorrow. 

Avian surprises

I drove to Saint German's after breakfast to celebrate the Parish Eucharist. It's the first time in eighteen months. It was wonderful to be reunited with a congregation I got to know well and love during the years I spent with them on locum duties. Fr Phelim was taking services in Grangetown, but I had the support of his two ordinands on placement, Natasha and Ross, to brief me. The sun shone and lit the interior of the church during the Mass. Ross acted as thurifer, and Natasha was sub-deacon, and deejay, controlling from her phone via bluetooth the four selected hymns of the day to be listened to rather than sung under current restrictions, with some suitable extra music to fill in when the hymns were too short to cover the action. It worked very well. The investment made by the church in a state of the art karioki device is proving worth while, though I'm glad someone else was managing this and not me! 

There were just over thirty present, all the regular congregation members outlasted the pandemic so far, and much work has been done in the time since I was last there - new church central heating, stainless steel aisle roofing replacing the lead cover which kept being stolen, new church hall heating and toilets. The old people's drop-in centre didn't survive the pandemic. Numbers dropped, not least because some of the regulars died. Transport costs rose, making the project unsustainable for the few remaining, sadly. A plan is afoot to develop a play group with mothers and babies once the covid restrictions come to an end.

Before I left, Phelim returned and we chatted briefly outside. As the new ministry area leader, he will be relinquishing charge of St German's to Roath ministry area. I'm hoping that if help is needed in future, I will get more opportunities to return and make myself useful, but that'll be next year.

We had lunch in the garden again, and after a siesta, I went out for a walk which took me down the path alongside the Taff, through the woods next to the horse paddock. There for the first time I caught sight of the resident bird of prey, perched in a tree, possibly a buzzard or a hobby, and took several photos, none were especially good, as I wasn't using one of my decent telephoto lenses, but it was the first time I had got within twenty metres of one hereabouts. 

Just below Blackweir bridge a little later, I caught sight of a flock of birds that behaved like swifts, but after a discussion with a fellow birdwatcher, conclude they may have been House Martins hunting for insects above the river, as their undersides were pale all over. Then for the second time this weekend I saw a small flock of starlings feeding on the grass. They are often to be heard in the trees around the park, or even in our local streets, but they seem to go elsewhere to feed for much of the year.

In the evening I had a call from Fr Paul Bigmore who retired from ministry in the diocese four years ago and now lives in Riverside, but is housebound following a bout of covid last year. He's a keen hymnodist, who has written texts for well over a hundred hymns, composed music for some of them and published a book of his own work. He's now working on producing another one. To have a creative project like this must be a consolation when his ministerial activity has been so severely curtailed in this way.

The penultimate episode of 'Line of Duty' tonight, another cliffhanger containing an intense long interview sequence. It's still impossible to work out how this series will end. Or will it?

State of Alarm - day Eighty Four

Another cool and cloudy day, and for a change, not too late a start. After breakfast and prayers, I did a little more work on the service for Sunday, before Sarah called by at eleven to take Anthony and I on a trip to the Parque Natural Ses Salines and along sections of the south west coast of the island.

Beyond the airport on the coastal plain is a large area of what once would have been salt marsh, but was industrialised when the Phoenicians first arrived and settled along this part of the coast around 2,800 years ago. Later they moved east across the bay and established a trading port when the Ibiza city now stands. There are roughly 28 square kilometres of salt pans here. Salt is harvested and still exported today as it has been down the centuries. The full range of bird life associated with water of such high salinity is found here, a bird watcher's paradise.

First we went to St Rafel for coffee, but had to double back because I had forgotten to pick up my midday antibiotic pill when I was leaving. I was most annoyed with myself. Then we drove straight to Ses Salines. The visitor centre and observation platforms were closed, but it was still possible to walk on some paths and take the peripheral road right down to the beach restaurant, which went past the 'salt-works' with mountains of salt stored, waiting for transport, and looking like piles of snow with a layer of dirt on top. We spotted black winged stilts, a solitary shelduck, plus flamingos, a few dozen quite close 150m away, and a large colony along the shore side of the lagoon, six kilometres or so away from us, visible as a pinkish white line in the distance. The zoom lens on the HX90 gave us an image showing that they were flamingos, but at that distance the image was blurred. 

Then we doubled back and took another road westward along the southern shore for a brief visit to a see the pier where salt for export is loaded on to a ship. Nearby is a long beach with white sand. In the summer it is very popular and the area is crowded and overrun with parked cars, but not this year so far. It's still mainly locals enjoying time out. 

We then drove to La Caleta, a small cove whose shore is lined with characteristic local fishermen's huts, dug into the tufa on the shore, with wooden extensions on to the beach with slipways over the sand. Sarah and Anthony both said that this cove was unspoilt, and had hardly changed in thirty years. The only visible difference was the modernity of the handful of motor launches and yachts at anchor there. I took a picture which excluded these craft, to capture the sense of a place suspended in time.

From there we drove to Es Cubells, a clifftop village overlooking a beautiful bay with the island of Formentera on the near horizon. It has a lovely church with an open square with a restaurant on the inland side, and another restaurant overlooking the sea. It's a popular place for Anglican wedding blessings to take place. Such a romantic setting. There's also a Carmelite convent above the village. Only two sisters remain there now but the place is used ecumenically for retreats and conferences. The building is very plain looking and geometric, and dates perhaps from the 1930s at a guess. We didn't have time to stop and say hello, as there was one more visit to make before lunch, to a small beach, normally crowded and difficult to navigate due to parked cars on the approaches, but today almost empty. The reason to come here was to get a good view of es Vedra, an imposing tall rocky offshore island, populated by goats and occasionally, I imagine, intrepid human rock climbers.

Then we drove back to San Josep for a restaurant lunch at a reputable place which was open and serving a three course menu del dia. It was an excellent meal with a charming young mesera serving us. Each restaurant that's open for business must have a one way system of entry and exit, and provide a strong alcohol based hand-wash for everyone entering. The staff all wear masks, and tables are set with decent distances between them. All carefully thought out. 

You could only dine out with confidence in the company of a few people you know have lived in isolation and remained virus free, as the tables don't allow for two metre social distancing. Thankfully, weeks have passed now since Ibiza had its last case, although a new one is said to have been detected lately activating a 'trace and test' response from the authorities. There's been no news reports of this in the media yet, however.

After lunch Sarah drove us back to Casa Capellania. It was such a treat to see so much in a four and a hour excursion. Sitting for so long in a car did get uncomfortable towards the end, but was a good trial run for my home journey - a one hour flight, a two and a half hour flight, then a three hour car journey back to Cardiff. I couldn't have managed this a fortnight ago.

It was as the sun was setting in an overcast sky that I went for my daily walk on one of my usual routes, but just fell short of my 10k target, as I didn't walk so much in the house before going out for the day. It's surprising that normally a quarter of the distance I cover daily is in the house.

State of Alarm - day Forty Three

I was working on pastoral stuff until late last night, and realised I hadn't completed my daily 10k so at 11.30pm, so I went outdoors and walked around in darkness The sky was clear and starlit. Only after a while did I see the crescent moon on its descent towards the horizon, and Venus twinkling brightly on the edge of the skyline before it disappearing.

It was a wonderful refreshing pre-sleep treat, except that it stimulated me to draft a poem before settling down for the night, so it was one o'clock before the lights went out, and half past eight when I woke up to warmth and Spring sunshine. Rosie messaged me to say that migrating bee-eaters have arrived and to keep a lookout for them around the arroyo next to the house.

I should have been flying home today. Twenty four days to go, and that means three more Sundays and Bible Studies on-line to prepare, unless church meeting restrictions are lifted, which might just happen for the 17th, though I have my doubts given the perpetual uncertainties surrounding the plan to get economies moving again across Europe and elsewhere.

I had a look at the readings for next Sunday and immediately had a ideas for a sermon. Rather than waste the thoughts I got busy, and had a draft ready by lunchtime. Early in the week for me. Later I made a start on another batch of marmalade, mostly lemon, but with couple of oranges for variety as well. It's all experimental, and fun to see how it turns out. I made four full jars, tasting nice and bitter, the way I most enjoy it.

While I was out walking this evening a flock of about thirty small birds flew into the pine trees in the field opposite, grey undersides, with wings unlike those of swifts or swallows, but more fan like, able to swoop and glide on air currents. I didn't get a good closeup view, but I am intrigued as to what they could be.  Then, as the sun set swifts and swallows did arrive, hunting insects displaying their aerobatic skills against a backdrop of orange tinted clouds - enchanting.

Rose emailed me to ask the dimensions of my case for the baggage hold on the return trip. I couldn't find a tape measure, so I had to use a sheet of A4 as a measuring guide, but had to google the actual size of a sheet as it's not the sort of factoid my memory can be bothered to retain. Perhaps I should measure the dimensions of all our cases and write them somewhere on their insides for reference.

When I get home to two weeks quarantine I'll be confined to the house, Clare and I working out ways to avoid each other while living together. How I get my 10k a day routine walk done I have no idea. The garden is small and the back lane hardly fifty metres. I can see myself sneaking off to the park in the dead of night, once the street light go out to avoid enforcers if there are any. There ought be a common sense solution, I'm not convinced there things are thought through in consultation with sensible end users, equally concerned for the common good.

A lovely ending to the day with a transeuropean transatlantic family chat on Zoom, and then a look at the clear night sky with a warmer night breeze than we've had over the past two months. Let's hope there's more to come in my remaining weeks here.
   

    

Pilgrim memories

I attended the Eucharist at St John's this morning, and after lunch walked around the park, enjoying the presence of many birds out feeding while I was passing with my camera at the ready. Redstarts, long tailed tits, a solitary cormorant in breeding plumage perched on a rock in the river Taff, and a jay that fed on the ground for a couple of minutes as I approached, though I wasn't quick enough to get a shot of it as it moved around. It's just lovely to see.

Then in the evening I continued scanning more old negatives from the year 2000, fascinated to learn where they had been taken. Today's batch was a roll of film taken in Haute Savioe in May 2000. One was of the annual pilgrimage by Holy Trinity Geneva to the Voirons massif where a community of about fifty Carthusian Sisters live work and pray at 1,700m on a ridge with a stunning view of the Mont Blanc range.

In the forest that's part of their domain, looking north towards Lac Leman and the Jura, is a chapel of 14th century origins with an adjacent accommodation building for workers. Each year on Ascension Day, the chaplaincy gathered there to celebrate the Eucharist, using its huge boulder-like ancient altar stone. The chapel is dedicated to Notre Dame des Voirons, and it may have been a local pilgrimage sanctuary many centuries ago. It was a wonderful and numinous occasion, even if it was in shadow and chilly there. Sometimes it snowed while we were there. The photos I took were of our group of two dozen arriving and being welcomed by the Sister guest-mistress. I wonder where the youngsters in the photos are now? Some of the older people are still alive, others of them I laid to rest or have died since.

Another first rate episode of New Amsterdam tonight. It did prompt me to wonder how long it will be before I get my appointment letter from UHW.
  

Eclipse time

Yesterday, I had to stay in and miss going to St John's for the Eucharist so that a handyman could take a look at our oven door and see if the problem we have is fixable. It turns out a roller catch that keeps the door closed is broken, and needs replacement. It's easy enough to order on-line, but installing it is tricky as it involves dismantling the front of the oven first. It's no longer the kind of thing I can tackle as my rheumaticky hands don't function with enough sensitivity to hold on to small things or turn tight screws any longer. I understand well the meaning of the phrase at the end of Psalm 137 where in one translation the poet says "If I forget you O Jerusalem, may my right hand lose its skill." 

On my afternoon walk in the park today, I saw for the first time in a couple of years a family of long tailed tits foraging on the bare branches of the avenue of trees leading down to Blackweir Bridge. I only got one photo worth keeping. The little things move so fast. In Bute Park, I saw a Jay foraging on a tree trunk way above me, and got several photos, the best of this bird I've ever got. I noticed that the daffodil shoots which first appeared after Christmas are acquiring heads, and may flower before the end of this month, a lot earlier than normal in such a mild winter. It's been 8-10 degree for weeks except for the occasional day near freezing. 

Almost at the end of my walk I met briefly with Ashley and Julie at Riverside surgery where he was collecting medication. RadioNet business has altogether ceased now and winding up the company formally has started, thankfully without debts. All that remains is to complete the clearance of the office prior to surrender and dispose of radio assets, then by the end of next month it will be all over,  apart from submitting closing accounts, almost eleven years since the service first launched. I believe we served the city centre very well indeed in that time, but our best efforts were eclipsed by self interested political gamesmanship, rather than by a genuine concern to maintain highest standards of service. Nobody will thank us for what we achieved so consistently for so long. Amnesia is rampant the business world, which is why so few lessons are learned when mistakes are made or con-tricks succeed.

Walking home from our meeting, I saw the January Full Moon, aka Wolf Moon above the rooftops in a cloudless sky. A wonderful sight. There's an eclipse of the moon tonight, a special moment in the lunar year, when sun earth and moon are in perfect alignment and the moon is swallowed by the earth's shadow. Unfortunately there's a veil of clouds tonight, so the visual effect of the dimming of the moon's light by the earth's shadow won't be obvious. Stymied again by the weather.

I sent my euro PTO application by email this afternoon. Next I must obtain the Spanish police check certificate to add to the process. My Llandaff PTO on CRB check runs out in April, so I have asked to be sent application form for this one as well, rather than wait to receive a notification. Next thing after that will be a passport application. Not that I want a new blue post brexit one, but mine runs out in September this year, and the chances are that I'll be away as the expiry date approaches, making things that much more fraught if there are delays, which seems inevitable with such a major change in view. And there's the International Driving Permit to obtain also. Sad and sorry things in my life.

Egrets' return

I planned to get up before dawn and go up to the bridge to watch the Egrets fly away for the day, but woke up in the middle of the night, couldn't get back to sleep for a while and then overslept. By the time I got there at ten, there wasn't a single Egret on the charco. Then, I walked up the track on the north side, to see how the remodelling of the river bed was progressing.

The heavy bulldozer and excavator have cleared another couple of hundred meters stretch of cane grove from the river bed, and sculpted earth banks five metres high on the south side. Work is now starting on rebuilding collapsed areas of the north bank. How much further cane clearance will go toward the open water of the charco, I won't be here to see. The change is unlikely to show up on Google Earth any time soon.

Following my afternoon walk along the beach and back to get supplies from Mercadona, I returned to the charco bridge, as the sun was disappearing behind the sierras. There were already sixty Egrets settling in for the night in the usual places. I stood there until dusk, and watched another forty odd fly in. Some were on their own, others flew as couple, still others were in nuclear family groups of three to six birds, and then there were a couple of larger groups, ten to twenty in number.

I wonder if this flying pattern reflects the genetic and social relationships? Or is it shaped by their dining habits in distant fields where they forage during the day? Or, is it just random, or a hitherto undiscovered relational pattern?

The more time I spend routinely watching birds, the more I learn, the more I realise I don't know.
  

Birding app discovery

My home-bound travel arrangements are all now fixed. Tony is ferrying my to the Hostal Pensimar in El Altet on Monday afternoon, a short taxi ride from Alicante Airport, and an 08.30 check-in. It gives a cheap, clean, quiet, bed for the night, with shops and restaurants a few minutes walk away for an evening meal. All I need, before facing up to the British cold and damp.

Before lunch yesterday, I visited the bridge over the charco, and saw that there a few more egrets were roosting along the banks. From a family of three over the past months, the number has grown to ten. The pair of Dabs and their growing chick were out together, and I narrowly missed getting a photo of all three in the same place at the same time. They move quickly and are so busy diving for food, even the chick and more so as it develops. No wonder the little nuclear family is hard to snap. 

The visiting cormorant with a white front is still there, but on its own. If it was a breeding female, it would normally be with other females. I believe it's too well developed and too large for a juvenile that can also have a white front. So what is it? 

Among the countless warblers and handful of white wagtails seen daily darting in an out of the cane forest along the banks, I got a good photo a bird directly below me, paused on a patch of reed. I took it for a white wagtail, until I looked at the resulting photo. Another puzzle, as the colouring is not the same, and the tail longer and broader, with a black stripe near the tip. Again, what is it? 

I hunted for help with identification online, and found the excellent Ornithopaedia Europe Android app. It's a huge database of over a thousand bird species which can be searched by country, and presumed bird name in over thirty languages, with photos and bird-song samples. I remember this time last year meeting a Spanish visitor on the bridge and attempting to chat with him in Spanish, trying to identify a bird across the language barrier. He had this app on his iPhone, and I didn't bother to check if there was an Android equivalent. How foolish of me. It's free to download as well. Such a public spirited offering of high quality data, and no intrusive advertising either.

Anyway, the Spanish app selection showed me the possibility that the mystery Cormorant could be the White Breasted variant. When breeding is done, Cormorants tend to want their own space, like Herons, not like little Egrets which often hang out together and travel in family groups. Mallard couples are often seen together, and with their chicks. Multitudes of Coots inhabit the same space, and seem to spend a lot of time noisily aggressing each other. So many behavioural differences, just like humans.

The other discovery from the app was that my other distinctive mystery bird is a grey wagtail. Glad to have that sorted. I can see this piece of software is going to come in very handy in future.

Shore walking is better for you

I was awakened at first light today by a double bang coming from the lounge, the sound of a metal breaking free of its wall mounting and dropping a coupe of inches to the floor. Neither floor nor the radiator were damaged fortunately, but both the wall mountains had broken. Given they were made from some kind of hard plastic, this would have happened sooner or later, as the actual mounting points on each wall bracket weren't very large, so the pressure exerted on them by a thirty kilo load of iron plus temperature variations would be bound to take their toll eventually. A strange start to the day.

Walking to and from the shops along the beach, I've decided is congenial if I'm not in a hurry, albeit a little slower across sand and uneven patches of terrain. If there's little wind car exhaust fumes tend to accumulate along the Paseo de la Playa, some days worse than others. I should have thought of this ages ago. In the same place as yesterday, I spotted a pair of Sandpipers today, defending their patch of sandy soil and grass from other birds. Not that there were many of them. I was pleased to get this photo.

Perhaps because this week I've had less to preoccupy myself with, I seem to have noticed several different kinds of birds for the first time. Occasionally there's the beginnings of a murmuration of starlings around sunset. By day few are visible, but their huge numbers are audible, to judge by their birdsong from the trees everywhere I walk in town. 

I have to make the most of this free time. When I return to Cardiff, there won't be so much daylight. Inevitably there'll be cloud to darken things further, and only the usual local urban species to see - Crows, Gulls, Magpies, Sparrows, occasionally Robins, Blackbirds and even masses of Starlings, with Cormorants and Mallards, the occasional Heron and rare Jay  along the river Taff. Being here beside the sea is rewarding in a different way, not least because its unfamiliar, I guess.

More bird surprises

When I walked out to the bridge over the charco this morning, three older men with telescopes on tripods were stood there chatting in English with West Country accents, inspecting the water below. Evidently twitchers. Their attention was directed toward what they spoke of as rarity in this place, a little grebe, also known as a Dabchick. The diminutive bird they pointed out was one I've observed and photographed often. It moves quickly and dives often compared to other dabblers. Getting a good photo is challenging for that reason. I was pleased to learn its name at last. I suspected there is a pair of them, but I've not them in the same stretch of water at the same time. Their quick diving habit makes them hard enough to spot let alone train a camera on. This is my best distance shot of it so far.

Then came a surprise, however, as what the men were getting excited about was a Dabchick chick, taking refuge on a clump of reeds, and occasionally venturing to rendezvous with its mother and practice diving. That was quite unexpected. The photo isn't that good, as both are less than half the size of a Pochard, and a good twenty metres away below me. But, I was there!

Later, I remembered to put on my walking shoes and went along the beach to the supermarket, thereby avoiding the annoyance of grit invading my sandals. I saw a solitary sandpiper high up the shore, hunting for insects, and then a few moments later, a lapwing in car park gravel nearby. I saw lapwings foraging above the shore last year, a few kilometres beyond Mojácar at Playa Macenas, but this was my first sighting this year.

I was delighted to hear from Clare this evening that sister-in-law Ann is planning to join us for a week in Montreux just after New Year, while I am on locum duty there. She'll be in Scotland with her son David for Hogmany, and flying direct from Edinburgh to Geneva. I enjoy having a chance to share places where I stay on locum duty with family and friends, other than with photographs.

  

Afflicted, coping

Since Sunday my lower back has been giving me grief. The trouble which developed after tripping and falling in the dark at Montreux a couple of months ago is recurring, despite being sorted out by osteomyologist Kay when I returned to Cardiff. Maybe I didn't have enough recovery time at home. Although the discomfort hasn't stopped me walking 5-6 kilometres daily this week. 

Exercise is essential as the affliction makes sitting for any length of time painful. I just have to keep moving, which is tiring in its own right. Getting comfortable at night also isn't easy, so the last few days have been spent avoiding doing anything that makes things worse. Just as well I have had no duty assignments. I am having to learn to be patient with myself, and manage this with what I learned from Kay.

On Halloween afternoon I walked to Garrucha and found the 19th century Capilla de Nuestra Señora del Carmen in that part of the town centre which houses the ayuntamiento buildings. In the absence of any midweek Anglican celebration, I'd intended to go to Mass there on Todos Santos and the Dia de los Muertos, but was not capable of doing this when the time came. I had to settle for praying in solitude on one of the church's great feast days.

Yesterday, All Saints' day the charco was graced with a visit from around fifty egrets, which settled for a few hours during the day, upstream of the bridge. But, they didn't stay. I heard from another bird watcher not long after my arrival that a flock of egrets had been sighted up-river, but apparently this was not a regular occurrence. This is just a fraction of the numbers of egrets that roosted regularly here this time last year. It must be something to do with their food supply hereabouts.

I learned from Clare about the death of our former neighbour Mike Creighton Griffiths in Queen Anne Square. The news has taken this long to reach us, largely because I have been away so  much. I used to meet his daughter Cindy at Tai Chi classes, but the last time I saw her was six months ago, perhaps just before he died. When I was Rector of Central Cardiff, he and his wife Valé would ask us in for drinks before supper and we'd enjoy hours arguing, setting the world to rights. His working life was spent as a public relations organiser, and although a nominal Anglican, he was appointed to manage the Papal visit of John-Paul II to Cardiff back in 1982. A larger than life character who took great pleasure in offering hospitality. May he rest in peace.

Herons in view - again

A visit to St German's this morning to celebrate the Wednesday 'class Mass', with a bunch of 7-8 year olds, some of whom looked bored or half asleep, others of whom were bright eyed and placed to sing. I spoke a little about generosity towards the poor and needy, referring to the work of Islamic Relief as well as Christian Aid, as many of the children in this, as in all other classes of the school, are Muslim. Half the kids come up for a blessing, and some of these are Muslim. Other kids don't come up. None are forced to. 

It's not easy to make a simple liturgy in church fully participatory, especially when it's a Mass, which is by nature, overtly Christian. I have more misgivings about the potentially divisive nature of doing this than I did when I was the incumbent, regularly visiting the school. I was reluctant to go against established expectations then, and make an effort to create an act of God centred meditative worship in which all present might find something to identify with. Kids need to learn how to pray and how to participate in public worship in a non-alienating way. Now, I'm no longer in a position where I have any business experimenting with or changing the status quo, this avenue is no longer open to me. I do get the kids singing simple choruses each time, however. Sometimes they join in enthusiastically, other times it's hard work.

After lunch, I walked along the Taff to the city centre, to search for some clip-on polaroid sunglasses to go over my driving specs, and was delighted to find just the right thing in Boots. Clare had tried to find the same thing for herself in the same store recently and not been successful, perhaps because they were tucked away in an obscure corner of the sunspecs rack. I find my eyes don't work as well in high contrast lighting situations as I get older, they seem to struggle to adjust. Having special specs for driving and computer usage makes some difference, but not enough. I'm hoping a polaroid filter will cut some of the glare and reduce the strain somewhat. It's worth a try anyway.

Today, I seemed to have a bit more energy that recently, more of a spring in my step, so instead of getting the bus home, I walked back across Bute Park to Blackweir, where the resident heron was to be seen at the foot of the weir. I positioned myself about seven metres above on the footpath, and the bird just seemed indifferent to my presence, so I stayed for ten minutes or more, taking some of my best ever close-up heron photos with my Sony HX300. It took most of the evening to sort them out and upload them to a new album. Pleasing stuff indeed. Here's my album of bird shots so far this year. 

  

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.

Bay watch

After preparing my sermon for tomorrow and an early lunch, Clare and I walked along the Taff Trail down to the Bay wetland area, enjoying the Spring warmth, bluebells and cherry blossom. We saw a few pairs of Great Crested Grebes in the wetland area. We saw one couple performing mating rituals, posing to each other, displaying the full extent of their head plumage and elongating their necks. We saw one bird disengage, dive and bring to the surface something in its beak, which it then presented to the other. I thought it might be a fish, but on checking later with a decent bird book, learned that it was fishing for strands of seaweed to offer. 

Being a good fifty meters offshore, my photos were taken almost at full length zoom with my HX300 so the quality and composition wasn't wonderful. Clare remarked that I'd have been better off taking video. Funny, all my Sony cameras make a good job of this, but it never occurs to me to use the built in facility. But I still enjoy the challenge of old school 'hunt 'n shoot'. This is one of the better shots.

We had tea in the Millennium Centre, then caught buses to take us back to Pontcanna, as we were both quite tired after a four and a half mile walk. Later, after supper I watched the third in the  Danish series 'Department Q'. This time an investigation into the disappearance of children from families of Christian religious sects, due to a murderous psychopath convinced he was an agent of the devil with a mission to destroy the faith of true believers by making them helpless witnesses of unspeakable suffering of innocent children. 

It was pretty nasty stuff, but it gave me cause for thought. One of the detective heroes is a practising Muslim. The other is an atheist who claims to hold no belief in God or anything metaphysical. His only conviction is that justice must be pursued regardless of the cost to himself or others, and that no crime victim should go without redress. The conversation is fragmentary and disjointed like the characters themselves. The atheist nearly loses his own life to rescue two kidnapped children, and it's the Muslim who finally catches the perpetrator, and drowns him in the sea in a life or death struggle with the diabolical killer.

Earlier in the film there were images of the religious sect practicing full immersion baptism in church so these resonated with that of the killer drowning as he resisted subjugation and arrest. It reminded me of parents speaking about babies crying at the font when they have water poured over them, as 'crying the devil out'. The film auteur plays with religious themes and symbols, raising the question of whether the existence of evil is more tangible and oddly credible than that of goodness. 

The atheist survives, his unbelief intact, just grateful to see children restored to their widowed mother. It's the religious man who is compelled to use lethal force at close quarters to stop the perpetrator's violence in its tracks, aware of the trail of death left behind him in a hospital. Experiences which will impact upon this kind, gentle and devout man. It's the kind of paradox which is not at all foreign to those who serve in security forces or the military, while the rest of us remain, for the most part unaffected. I what would Kierkegaad, that 'melancholy Dane' have made of this, I wonder?

      

Advent time out

Thursday slipped by with nothing remarkable happening. Perhaps this is what happens when you don't have a project or a work plan, and at the moment, I have neither. I'm not resting, or putting my life on hold, but waiting to recognise and respond to whatever comes towards me next in life. I refuse to think that all I can do, having reached three score years and ten, is to wait for rigor mortis. 

Retirement from regular employment with a modest pension for security simply set me free to work in new ways, as I have come to appreciate over the past six and a half years. Finding priestly things to do is never a problem, but this doesn't occupy the whole of my life. It's time now for me to move on and do something different. What this is, I don't yet know. It's strange territory to inhabit, and in a way this is just right for the season of Advent, a time of waiting that offers us an opportunity to see everything in our lives in a different light.

Today, having finalised my Sunday sermon, and done some digital tidying - the best way I can describe making my archived stuff intelligible and accessible - I walked the longer route through Bute Park and back, and saw a dozen Magpies gathered in the same area of grass. I believe the collective noun is 'charm of magpies'. Can't  think why, but am pleased to see so many in our City Centre parkland. The same is true for Crows, Gulls, Pigeons, but also, surprisingly enough, Tits. Walking down the tree lined path to Blackweir bridge, I saw a family of a dozen long tailed tits, plus a few others, working their way quickly through each tree in turn, searching for insects, so quickly that I couldn't get photos of them despite bare branches stripped of leaves. I also saw two pairs of Jays, also too quick for me. Even so, it's a delight to know that there are still so many birds in our wintry parkland.

Owain came over from Bristol to have supper and spend the night. We drank good wine and talked until late on politics and culture and social vision, as well as career matters. I feel very blessed that we still have so much to talk about. I have so much to learn from him.

    

Chance encounter

After a lazy uneventful morning, in which the only unusual thing I did was paying our domestic water rate bill on-line, I made an effort to get out of the house to enjoy blue sky and afternoon sunshine and hunt for wildlife with my camera along the east bank of the Taff. As I approached Blackweir bridge, I was hailed by a neighbour, who was walking along with a friend, who greeted me as if he too had recognised me. But I doubt if he would have done had he not been told who I was. We'd not seen each other for fifty three years. 

Roger Hacker was a classmate in Pengam Grammar school, a sixth form Chemistry student as I was. After A levels I went off to study in Bristol Uni, and he'd taken a job selling ice cream for a year, while he waited to go to Aberystwyth Uni. We'd never seen each other since the results were announced. He'd emigrated to Canada, spent his career there in teaching, then eventually moved to Australia to teach, and that's where his he and his family now live, although he also retains his links with Wales through a family house in the Gower. What an amazing coincidence to have just bumped into them like that, when I'd wandered down to the river across the playing fields for a change, rather than by the usual path. 

Life is full of surprises, I mused to myself as I walked on. There was a Cormorant keeping watch on top of the pillar from which Blackweir bridge is suspended. It's not a nesting place, but is a safe place to roost and enjoy the sun. Sometimes two birds are up there. Beneath the east bank below the weir a heron surveyed the swirling waters hopefully. I got within ten metres of it before being seen, but wasn't quick enough to get a photo as it spread its magnificent slate grey wings and fled downstream.

In places there are still bright yellow leaves attached to trees, even some that are still pale green, all looking luminescent in the low afternoon sun. Squirrels are very active in the woods, both at ground level and jumping between trees or bushes as they forage for food to store for winter. I spotted one of the Jays that inhabit both banks of the stretch of river by the SWALEC stadium, but in the only photo I obtained the bird's head was perfectly obscured by a leaf not yet fallen. The photos are never as good as I hope they'll be, but it's fun to try.

I walked for over two hours in a chilly breeze, so I walked to the Tesco superstore and then to Staples to browse for bargains and get warm again before heading for home, by crossing the Taff in order to walk down the long tree lined avenue bisecting Llandaff Fields from north to south. The sun was just reaching the horizon by this time, and there were snatches of birdsong, blackbirds and tits plus others I didn't recognise. Sometimes huge flocks of starlings occupy these trees whistling and chattering among themselves. Other times, you hear a solitary thrush or several blackbirds announcing themselves to each other in song at this time of day. Maybe it was too cold, or I was a little early, but although birds were making noises, it was hardly a delighful song-fest this evening.

How fortunate we are to have such a large stretch of well managed parkland with wild areas plus a fine clean river running through it, as a defining feature of the city centre environment. The main shopping streets were decorated for the festive season early this month. One notable addition is a group of four wire metal sculptures of reindeer, painted gold and covered with lights. Quite tasteful really, in stark contrast to the alternative to a traditional Christmas tree, a plastic conical structure said to be 40 feet high, whose gold coloured surface is meant to represent a host of golden baubles. Spectacularly tacky, and meeting with general disapproval from people on social media. It's on hire for £10k per year for three years, according to the Western Mail. What an embarrassing disaster, when seasonal decorations are, for the most part, pleasing to the eye.

      

Bay bird walk

It was both a relief and a pleasure to wake up at first light and find that the sky was clear of cloud for the first time in many days. After breakfast and a couple of hours of writing, I headed out on foot to walk the length of the Taff Trail down to the Bay Wetland, and take photos. When I checked my photo archive I was surprised to find that it's five years since I last did the walk in full.

After a week's rain, the colours of fallen leaves were not so vivid, and there were fewer birds around. However, the sunny verge next to the footpath along the edge of Grangetown, south of the city centre was occupied by hundreds of Pigeons and a couple of dozen Swans, taking respite from a keen wind. In the wetland reserve,

In Hamadryad Park, I spotted a solitary Grey Heron, statuesque in a bed of crumpled reed and grass.

A family of Cormorants occupied a small island in the wetland enclosure on the west side of the St David's hotel.

Hundreds of Gulls were roosting, then rising like clouds into the air, as if taking exercise, then settling again.

Apart from a few Coots and a few more Swans, this was all I saw or heard. Winter is here indeed, but I'm so thankful for a couple of hours walking in the sunshine, even if I did catch buses to get back home, not least to take refuge from the wind.

When spring comes and birds are on the move again, I must make the effort to visit here regularly, not least for the exercise. Two hours walking left me feeling quite tired, but that's what happens these days if I don't maintain a daily regime of walking for an hour or so. 'Use it or lose it' takes on more meaning with advancing years.
     

Finally, a Hoopoe day

Another overcast day, and a morning spent reading news reports on reactions to yesterday's Law Lords' judgement on the need for the British Parliament to be consulted before the Brexit process is started. The tabloid newspapers hysterical and misleading denunciation of long established legal authority and process is deeply disturbing. If these newspaper owners and their editors claim to be the 'voice of the people' what they are doing is preaching anarchy and calling for mob rule. It's worrying to witness truth being cast aside in favour of unsubstantiated, inaccurate oft repeated opinionation, and its happening all over the western world these days. It's every bit as evil as religious fundamentalism in its many guises, and is re-enforcing social divisions by the day. So disheartening.

Finally, after lunch, I summoned the effort to shrug off worldly despair and get out for a walk. I crossed the rio Aguas bridge and then turned into the complex of hotels and apartments and golf course that are part of the prestigious Marina Club Golf resort. I've walked through parts of the resort a few times before, but this time I climbed up as high as I could, to a ridge about 70m above sea level, where there are several very classy architect designed luxury dwellings with fantastic views inland and out to sea. 

The course extends down on to the plain the other side of the ridge, cutting a huge green grassy enclave out of an inland plain of pale sandy soil. In season I guess this would be normally used to grow cereal crops. It was hard to avoid overhearing a snatch of conversation between two golfing gents talking loudly in their electric buggy on their return trip. "I spent two hundred and fifty thousand." Then "Did you say two hundred and sixty thousand ....?" Yes, it's that sort of place. But already, something else had caught my eye.

Looking out over part of the golf course on the sea side towards Puerto Garrucha, its loading dock empty since the departure of the bulk carrier 'Sun Vita' after sunset last night, a distinctive bird flew out of the shadows, then settled again on a green further away. I first saw a Hoopoe take to the air when I surprised one on a track in the pinewoods near El Chaparal golf course, La Cala de Mijas in the winter of 2013. Several times later, I glimpsed one in the foothills of the Alpujarras behind Nerja, where I got one lucky, but slightly blurred photo of the bird on the wing. It was only recognisable Hoopoe photo until now. This was among the first I took today.

A perimeter fence post at shoulder height enabled me to stabilise my trusty Sony HX50, so that I could shoot near the limit of its 30x zoom if needed. The bird obligingly allowed itself to be photographed in the company of a pied wagtail, and what I think was a Rock Pipit. Then, even better. I spotted a second and third Hoopoe foraging on the same green. I got a good clear picture of two together out of three, the other was just out of sight. 

So unexpectedly in a few minutes, a dull day turned to delight and exultation. I've hunted for Hoopoes to photograph, each duty tour in Spain for the past three and a half years, so taken was I by my first El Chaparal encounter.

Another little surprise of the past few days has been the appearance of a pair of pied wagtails around the rio Aguas watercourse. They were there again as a made my way back to the apartment, as the sun was going down. Separately, they fly out of the reed beds, alight on an isolated clump of reed in the water, then fly around in tight circles, returning to the same spot, presumably insect gathering. 

Being a bit bigger and brighter coloured than other reed bed denizens, wagtails are quite distinctive. Most of the time they are sociable. I once counted two dozen together in the Asda Leckwith car park. Not when they're mating to reproduce however. They seem to count on the absence of predators to hang out in a twosome around the watercourse at this time of year.

Tonight, I look at the photos with pleasure, but also a little disappointment. Might I have got better pics with my Sony HX300, with greater magnification, but essentially the same camera innards? Shooting at extreme zoom lengths and getting decent images is a chancy business. Now I know where to find  those Hoopoes, should I return there tomorrow with the other camera? Really, I could do with a camera with a bigger sensor as well as a decent zoom, but at this point the cost of my little diversion start escalating unreasonably. Fair quality on a modest budget is a factor in my measure of hobby satisfaction, but real pleasure is to be found in the surprise gift of a moment unexpected.

       

Beach surprise discovery

I had a meeting this morning with churchwarden Pam and Fr Alan, the retired priest who been living in Mojacar permanently for 12 years. He's acting as Interim Priest in Charge during the interregnum, to provide much needed continuity, as he is well known in all four worship centres, and throughout the widespread pastoral area the chaplaincy covers. If was good to hear them speaking about the many challenges and opportunities which present themselves, and in the privileged position of having my duties organised for me during my stay.

When we'd finished, I had some washing, and then, having located the nearest Mercadona some shopping to get done before lunch. It's necessary to drive to a supermarket, as it's almost half an hour's walk, too far to carry a full week's basic purchases in one go. Mojacar Playa is well spread out over six kilometres of sea shore. There are a handful of small convenience stores, the nearest is ten minutes from the apartment. The resort and all the satellite urbanizacions are planned around the presumption of car usage for the long term residents. I understand that in summer vehicle congestion is a terrible problem. A journey which now takes me five minutes can take four times as long.

There are, however, frequent busses along the coast road catering for visitors, or residents that are no longer able to drive. It will be necessary to use the car more than I'd prefer to, in order to perform all my duties, and look after myself. I don't mind at all, except that it will be vital to make sure that I get out and walk every day for an hour, as well as go places by car.

After lunch and a siesta, I decided to go and find the chapel where I'll be celebrating the Eucharist on Sunday next. The Ermita de San Pascual is not in Mojacar itself but 11km from the apartment, just off the coast road as it weaves though the mountains, in the hamlet of Agua de Enmedio overlooking one of the several golf courses in the area.

The west front of the building, which accommodates over sixty people, is tiled in large roughly hewn slate slabs with a silvery grey colour. This isn't typically local, but apparently an idea originating with the benefactor who had the chapel built, who'd lived and worked in South America, and imported this architectural feature, imitating capillas rurales in the Andes.

On the drive back, I stopped to look at Castillo Macenas a mid-eighteenth century coastal defence fortress which stands on a beach, fifty metres from the shore. There's a promontory a kilometre further south with a round watch tower, the Torre del Pirulico. The beach is several kilometres away from the conurbation, with unpaved parking areas between road and beach. On the sand beneath the fortress walls, goodness knows how many people had made small piles of stones, found laying about in the vicinity. I made one too. A spiral design, a peace sign and a yin-yang symbol were also laid out in a mosaic of white marble pebbles and black slate pieces on the sand.

The beach has an element of natural unkempt wildness about it, until you look back towards rising ground where there's a bend in the road. Here the concrete skeleton of long low rise building complex sits, looking neglected and ugly, a sad blight on the landscape. It's one of several large unfinished projects hereabouts, a legacy of the past decade of economic crisis. Good cheer arrived, however in a pair of lapwings, one of which sat quite still for long enough to allow me to take three good pictures, quite close up, before flying away.

Immediately after returning, I went out for that essential walk, this time, heading north on the beach towards Garrucha. A few hundred metres along there's a large area of reeds, bushes and trees that makes a huge green patch on the otherwise quite bare shoreline. It's where there's usually a dry river bed, an arroyo, with underground water seeping into the sea. Here, however, the sand has created a barrier over ages, so that instead of water spreading out and dispersing in the sandy subsoil, it has formed a shallow lake of brackish water, on which certain kinds of vegetation and wildlife thrive. 

The lake is about half a kilometre long, spanned by a road bridge. This is the outflow of the Rio Aguas, as the bridge signage informs the world. I walked back along the road to the bridge, and from there had a fine vantage point to take photos of an egret, some coots and a remarkable if shy wading bird with red legs and red cheeks and beak - a Purple Gallinule - my first sighting. There were other smaller birds as well, but they moved too quickly for me to identify.

Another man was on the bridge with camera and binoculars, another bird watcher. He approached me and we started chatting in Spanish, and comparing photos. He showed me an app on his smartphone which not only gave a photo of a bird, but its name in four languages. He was a visitor from Madrid, I think, and had only discovered this remarkable jewel of a conservation area, right in the middle of a major holiday resort in the previous week. A conversation about birds exclusively in Spanish plus the discovery of this place really made my day.