Bleak Sunday covid down-time

I slept OK but woke up bleeding from an operation scar. Eighteen hours a day flat on my back for three days with no exercise, and the sheer physical compression on the old wound is unavoidable. Something I won't find easy to get used to. Covid symptoms are diminished however. My body no longer feels like lead, muzzy head is clearing and fewer aches, pains and shivers. I didn't bother with a self-test as I doubt if I would test negative today. Tomorrow perhaps.

Another Sunday without being able to say Mass or attend church, having to settle for praying on my own. It reminds me of being back in Ibiza living with the limited horizon of estadio de alarma restrictions. Al least it's nothing now to get used to.

The BBC's tireless courageous reporter in Ukraine, Jeremy Bowen gave a disturbing eyewitness report of the trail of murder and destruction left by retreating Russian forces in the suburbs of Kyiv. Dead bodies left in the streets where they were killed weeks ago, Victims with hands tied together. Clear evidence of war crimes. Hundred are said to have been killed. According to Putin, all this is 'fake news'. I wonder if Trump will dare to dismiss revelations against him in future using that phrase. If we does will anyone trust him?

President Zelensky spoke of genocide. Ninety years ago under Stalin millions of Ukrainians, were starved to death during the forcible collectivisation of agriculture, the region punished further by being deprived of a fair share of its produce. If there was shortage, it was blamed on farmers, for whom managed, imposed collectivisation didn't work. Most of the produce was exported to feed the industrial workers of Russia. The Ukrainian's don't forget the Soviet attempt to keep their land subjected by deliberate policy. Using the word 'genocide' is no exaggeration. They've been here before. Expressions of outrage have been voiced around the world all day, even the Israeli government, which has tried to stay on the fence, because of its security interests in Syria relying on Russian complicity. Pope Francis is talking about a pastoral visit to Kyiv. 

Archbishop Rowan was on the Radio adding his voice to the call to suspend the Russian Orthodox state church from membership of the WCC for speaking of the country's mission as holy war. The question is, will Orthodox Bishops around the world make the case for regarding such talk as heresy? Sadly, in both scripture and Christian poetry there is widespread used of bloodthirsty martial imagery. Its impact is deflected into religious rhetoric about spiritual warfare, but there are no concrete safeguards to protect the unspiritual and the gullible from taking this all literally. Back in the Vietnam war, US marines with evangelical religion behind them talked about 'killing a gook for God'. It's blasphemy, just as is any talk of holy war. Time for all Christians to take stock about this kind of abuse of scripture

Both before and after lunch I went out and walked for forty minutes each with a mask on and aimed for parts of the park where there was little human traffic. I wanted to test my strength and stamina carefully. All is well, thank God. Clare, on the other hand is still suffering from the trapped nerve in her back. Her Wednesday appointment has been moved to Tuesday, thanks to a cancellation.

This evening there were two great programmes on BBC Four, one about the food history of Florence, the other, the latest Royal Shakespeare Company's Stratford production of Much Ado about Nothing. It had a majority cast of brilliant mostly young black actors and was vibrant with colour, energetic music and movement; very hip and funky, but it didn't seem contrived, as a modern setting might do. It worked as a showcase for the immortal comedic dialogue of the Bard, funny as any classic farce of intrigue and confused identities. A breath of fresh air. One up for multi-cultural diversity. It's what we need in a world where aggressive nationalism has been made into a demonic idol that consumes its own kind.

Watching and waiting

I.

I cooked lunch for us. Clare is still in a lot of pain from the trapped nerve in her back, inconsolable, The rest of April Fool's Day passed me by in slow motion, not feeling any worse, no temperature, with heavy limbs and  a great tiredness. I slept uncomfortably until late evening when I watched this week's episode of French crimmie 'The Crimson Rivers'. I went to bed annoyed to find that it was a two part story, but not because we're compelled to wait for next week's thrilling episode, but because it's so long drawn out, and implausible. 

I can't imagine a high security prison in which standard security protocols aren't followed where guards don't walk about in twos not carrying radios, and there's a death squad on the loose, practicing mafia like ritual murders (mafia isn't mentioned) to protect dirty secrets whatever they may be. Oh come off it.

There's a scene in a prison ward where a man in a coma isn't wired to a vital signs monitor, nor shackled to the bed, nor is there a nurse or guard in attendance when the cute but tough gamine of a cop stabs him in the chest  with a syringe of adrenaline, like an A&E doctor, jolting him from coma to consciousness in a few seconds without killing him. Truth is stranger than fiction but whenever fiction mocks the powers of observation and intelligence of its audience, you wonder why you've watched.

It was interesting to see Philippe DuClos who played Robin the juge d'instruction in the long running flic saga 'Engrenages' playing a tired ageing dishevelled prison governor, looking much like Robin did at the end of his fictional legal career.

II.

Clare has tested negative two days in succession, but is still in a lot of pain. She has however succeeded in booking a Wednesday appointment with a local osteomyologist who works with Clive Taylor my local go-to back-man. We're both feeling sad about not being able to go to the Wriggledance show in Bath. They've had a full house for all their shows this week, which is great news.

Feeling a bit better, though symptoms have shifted. Head fog is clearing to some extent, but I have strange sharp muscular aches in odd joints, jaw and fingers especially, plus a mild sore throat. Cooking lunch was an effort, and much of the day was devoted to sleeping. I'd love some fresh air and exercise, but and not keen to take the risk of returning and feeling worse. Covid pushes you around, finds your weak spots. It's not a good idea to push back.

This evening I watched two episodes of 'Hidden' on BBC iPlayer. It's slow going and not easy to watch as much of it is shot in half-light showing off what can be done with high powered digital cameras. There are some interesting religious elements to the plot, not weird, but very much about a priest accompanying a marginal community with its broken dysfunctional people. Well presented, as is the story line about rural farms in North Wales being forced into poverty by changing times and circumstances. The portrayal of a few key characters has  a touch of Dostoyevski about them. I can see this winning awards.

Still feeling tired at the end of the day. The virus is taking its time to let go of me.

Red alert - chicken soup time

I.

Clare repeated her lateral flow test yesterday morning and was still positive. I hadn't noticed any change in the way I feel, as I've had a runny nose and a thick head since a surge in local blossoming trees a week ago but I agreed to take a test. It turned out to be positive. Automatically, this means my cataract operation can't take place for three more months. According to sister in law Ann, covid infection can leave residual inflammation in body tissue for several weeks - to be avoided when eyes are being worked on. I called St Joseph's hospital immediately to let them know. Saturday's Wriggledance show is ruled out for me. Maybe if Clare tests negative Friday and Saturday she can go. We'll see.

I attempted to register my test result with the Track 'n Trace app, but the test code it sent me was rejected. Later in the day I had a phone call from the Track and Trace call centre, and complained that the app had not worked as designed, so info I provided was entered manually. The call cut out however, as it was about to conclude and wouldn't reconnect. Had the call handling system called time out? Or did my phone signal drop because I was at the range limit of our domestic black spot signal booster? I'll never know. There was no call back and I couldn't raise the number displayed by my phone. 

Anyway, I had a text message from Track and Trace ten minutes later confirming that I should self-isolate until 4th April. So that's another Sunday when I won't be able to celebrate Mass at St German's. What I can't know is when I was infected - maybe 24 hours after Clare, as we had almost no contact with each other in the time between her negative test and the onset of her symptoms and positive test. But maybe later, as we made an effort at mutual isolation. It will take whatever time it needs for our bodies to deal with the virus. I still wasn't feeling any worse than I have done over the past week, so I got on with next week's Morning Prayer video upload, in case I get too poorly to finish it off. 

Over the day, the symptoms I have been living with for the past week intensified, or were over-ridden by a similar reaction to the coronavirus - the body working overtime expelling alien substances. I cooked  chicken soup for lunch, the fabled 'Jewish anti-biotic'. It's certainly comforting that's for sure. In the evening I watched telly but found it hard going, so went to bed early and slept quite well. 

II.

I woke up late and posted this week's video link nearly two hours later than planned. Track and Trace twice sent me a text message and and email urging me to enter the test code into the NHS covid app, although the data had been collected manually yesterday. I tried entering the code and again it was rejected. Then I thought - what if an app update has been issued and I've not been notified of this. But why the hell shouldn't an update be installed automatically anyway? - I thought, as I checked on the cluttered nagging inferno which is Google's Play Store.

Yes, there was an update, correcting a parsing error in the data input line which auto-corrected anything the user entered. Incredible! With the app updated, I tried again and the code was rejected on the basis that it was past its time expiry date. Admittedly, small print in the first text message tells you to do it quickly. Easy to overlook if you're poorly, or distracted trying to rearrange your life around a red alert. Evidently, manually input data takes time to add to the grand database of contagion, but doing so doesn't cancel the auto-generated nagging reminders to do something that's already outdated by NHS digital's own criteria. Auto-generated confusion spreading I call it.

Chicken soup again for lunch, then I returned to bed and slept uncomfortably for the rest of the day with symptoms no worse than my last bout of 'flu.

III. 

Clare tested negative this morning, but is now in agony, having pulled a back muscle sneezing after poking a swab into her nostril. Sadly that rules out a trip to Bath for the Wriggledance show altogether. My head is clearer and not so congested today. The fluey aches and pains aren't so pronounced. Whether or not I'm over the worst remains to be seen, but at least I'm able to catch up on writing about the last two days, before cooking another round of chicken soup.

Voice from the past

Last night, I put the clocks on before going to bed an hour early, and woke up refreshed at the right time. No church today, quarantining with Clare. After doing breakfast for Clare and myself, I said Morning Prayer and the Eucharist texts of the day, as I did under lock-down in Ibiza, rather than watching on-line.

So far, no unwelcome covid symptoms to prompt a lateral flow test. I went out to get some Ibuprofen and vitamin C tablets for Clare before cooking lunch. I found her playing the piano when I returned, part of the cure she reckons. She's not sleeping long hours now, but still coughing. It was sunny and warm enough to serve her lunch in the garden. Also therapeutic.

When I left for my afternoon walk, I saw a few people returning home in their sports gear clutching their Marathon participant medallions. I was due to say Mass in St German's this morning a journey that would entail road closures and diversions, impossible to predict. At least I didn't have that  uncertainty to disturb my sleep with. I did a big circuit of Llandaff Fields, amazingly well used. Cricket was being played and family groups were picnicking. The newly refurbished children's playground was crowded and busy, and there were long queues outside Cafe Castan for drinks and pizza. I enjoy walking in the park at all times in the year in harsh weather that keeps crowds at home and I'm almost alone with the elements and the trees. It's perhaps loveliest when the Fields are full of people enjoying themselves in good weather and there's a murmur of happy voices in the air.

More speculation from the media commentariat today about Putin's intentions now that his invasion plan has failed to deliver. More rumours of staff changes in military and intelligence services. The breakaway republic of Donetz leader has announced a coming referendum to formalise its relationship to Russia, and the Ukrainian intelligence now alleges that Putin's new war aim is to partition Ukraine, seizing some of its best agricultural land assets in doing so. 

President Biden spoke out vehemently against Putin as a war criminal and went off script in a way that was taken to infer that American policy promotes regime change. Well, I guess he inadvertently gave voice what many in the world are wishing, but the only valid way for this to happen is by the Russian people rising up against their leadership. If only ...  Interesting to hear Kremlinologists try to identify someone in the upper echelons who could replace Putin.  All guesswork. It's so unpredictable.

There was nothing of interest to me on live TV this evening so I looked on iPlayer and found a programme showcasing neglected and abandoned heritage buildings in Wales which played a part in our social history but have fallen into ruin and in some cases it seems fallen out of history as well. An old Swansea Theatre, a remote farmhouse and a stately home dating from the 1550s, colliery buildings, a nineteenth century marine fort, several grand mansions built for the wealthy in Victorian times, and several chapels purchased by a retired pastor with a vision of restoring them to full use. 

A chapel in Maesycwmmer near my home town was featured and the person talking about it was Dr Elin Jones, prominent Welsh academic and lifelong non-conformist still active in the remnant of Wales' chapel going community. She was my first girl-friend when we were sixth formers. We parted company after we went to different Universities. She told the story of the beginnings of the Welsh revival of 1859, referring to the book about it written by her great grandfather who was a chapel minister at that time. It's a story I remember hearing her tell sixty years ago. It was fascinating to see and hear her talk after so many years. I was reminded of her father, a union activist, by her gestures and the way she spoke. It was quite a surprise, taking me on a brief trip down memory lane.

Covid limbo

Clare was up before me testing herself this morning, and announced that she'd woken up snuffling and had just tested positive for covid-19. No question of an outing to Llantwit Major for a singing workshop this morning. I did a test and had a negative result. We'll both have to quarantine for the coming week, and there's no question of me celebrating Mass at St German's tomorrow, so I contacted Fr Stewart immediately to give him the bad news. Fortunately, Fr Irving from St Martin's was able to step in, which is a relief for me.

We have to think about how we co-exist while I wait to see if I'm going to catch it.  Everything separate, towels dishes, bathrooms and lots of sanitizer - a special visit to stock up was necessary. I'll have to cook and serve all the meals - not a problem. If I catch it, there's just enough time to return a negative Lateral Flow test before I'm due to have my pre-op PCR test unless I am unlucky and recovery is prolonged. As long as I take proper precautions, I can go out to the shops and walk in the park. I have no assignments in the coming week other than tomorrow, so it's a question of riding it out, doing as little as possible and taking no risks for the sake of others.

When I went out to buy sanitizer I walked down Severn Road as I often do. There's a corner shop which was home to a heating boiler business which closed some years ago. For at least the past three years, the burglar alarm inside the property has sounded continuously around the clock. It's noticeable outside, but not terribly loud. The side gate to the property got kicked in years ago and the back part looks run down. When I passed by today, I noticed something different from previously. The front garden was filled with detritus, perhaps from from clearing the interior. As I walked away, I realised the alarm was no longer sounding. Were the inhabitants next door in the terrace not bothered by the noise coming through the party wall? A business probably collapsed, and whoever ran it may well have left without adding the alarm security code to the building's ownership documents. Amazing that it had taken so long to silence.

We encountered another building mystery yesterday. Number eleven has been empty since Liz moved to Minchinhampton six months ago. The house went on the market and was snapped up within days. Then it was put back on the market again, and again. A handyman was in the garden repairing the gate which had blown down. He told Clare that three purchasers had pulled out, due to structural concerns about the stability of the ground. 

Houses in this area were erected on the layer of ashlar and clay that formed the Cardiff flood plain. The building of the Barrage changed not only flooding risk, but also the water table, and that potentially affects ground stability. The Edwardian sewers in this area are not as stable as they once were and slowly collapse inwards on themselves, so the streets suffer from potholes which need to be filled in from time to time. Not sinkholes, thankfully! So what's happened next door I wonder? Is it something that could affect adjacent properties like ours? If so, I think we'd know by now. 

There are no significant cracks in any of our walls or floors, just a crack in a corner of the ceiling where the main wall meets the bay window. Not unusual, nothing to worry about. We have retained the original configuration of rooms in the house. The solid brick partition wall between front and middle rooms next to was removed to create a bigger space. It's got composite wooden floor panels running throughout. It seems the instability may be underneath this flooring. 

When they were built these houses had brick or flagstone floors laid on the clay. In the first round of post-war modernization, these were taken up and replaced by a layer of concrete in each room. What happened when the partition wall was demolished, I wonder? Was the entire length of the double room properly resurfaced, or just the area where the wall stood? The 'modernized' living room would not be as stable a structure as the original, with two concrete platforms jointed where the wall had been. The slightest subsoil movement in front or back would make the whole floor misaligned enough to de-stabilize its wooden surface. 

Just to confirm this would require a costly removal of the wooden floor and a suitable remedy, something not factored into the rather high selling price on which offers were to be made. I daresay it'll be bought by someone with the resources to get the job done for themselves, maybe someone in the building trade. We'll see eventually.

The mild weather this past few days has brought out many more blossoming trees and leaves on some of them. Our damson sapling in the garden has gone from having tiny buds to sprouting leaves, and the two crab apple trees in Llandaff Fields are covered in leaves now, and tiny pink blossoms are emerging. This photo was taken this afternoon.

With so much blossom around I'm more prone to sneezing and runny nose, though not full hay fever. It's a bit disconcerting when the same symptom could equally indicate the presence of covid. That's why the daily Lateral Flow test is important.

This evening I watched the last of the documentaries about the Arctic on BBC Four, and the second episode of 'Hidden'. It's slow going and I confess to finding it a little hard to follow. The Welsh dialogue has English sub-titles which are quite hard to read as the font is smaller than what is conventionally used in TV drama and the display design is different. I watch a lot of subtitled movies and the readability of this one is the exception. I wonder why?

Pinged

At half past seven this morning, I was awakened by the familiar telephone voice of a Microsoft scammer from the Indian sub-continent, I guess, from the accent. After breakfast or lunchtime scam calls are quite commonplace, but this early in the morning? Well, at least I was awake in time for 'Thought for the Day', and a lovely bright sunny start.

I walked to town half way and then took the bus for convenience, to optimise the time I had to get a new slimmer Casio watch strap from the Market stall - my existing one is too thick and catches on my sleeve when I am putting on a jacket. Then a quick visit to the camera shop to try out a 9-18mm wide angle zoom lens for my Olympus camera. I concluded that the one I have is far more satisfactory for my needs. Then I walked to St John's for a bread 'n soup Lent lunch. There were just eight of us present. Several regulars were away apparently. 

Clare was pinged by Track and Trace after lunch as a close contact of someone tested positive for covid. The contact tracer wouldn't say who but that it happened chez nous - in compliance with Data Protection regulations. It was infuriatingly difficult to work out who she might have been in contact with. We have so few contacts with people at home it took a while to work out that it was the piano tuner who visited on Wednesday afternoon. When she rang him, his wife confirmed that he'd tested positive. The Track and Trace operative contacted her but refused to confirm to her that it was her husband who was the infected close contact, and not someone else. Now, how surreal and bizarre is that? Like something from a Kafka novel.

Thankfully, Clare's lateral flow test turned out negative. I was at work upstairs throughout his visit, so I wasn't in contact with him. Let's hope nothing develops between now and 4th April when I have a PCR test at St Joseph's and self isolate three days before the cataract op.

I went to the local pharmacy, where we'd obtained supplies of Lateral Flow Test kits before, to ask for another batch, but was told they no long had any to give away, so we had to order on-line. I was about to do this once I reported back to Clare, but she was on the case quicker than I. Fortunately we still have a few from before, so we can test ourselves before going out to the Fountain Choir workshop in Llantwit Major tomorrow.

After supper we watched an hour of the recording of Queen's Budapest concert and ate choc ices, and that I watched series three opening episode of 'The Crimson Rivers' before turning in. Another bizarre plot, which unfolded fairly well to begin with then became convoluted and staggered to a puzzling end, which felt as if the film editor hadn't taken enough care with the narrative thread in the last quarter, losing a couple of scenes that made sense of the story rather than leaving the viewer to join the dots for themselves. Disappointing,

Unprecedented hearing in Parliament

I woke up at half past six this morning. The sun was already shining and I couldn't doze off again without first posting to WhatsApp today's YouTube link to Morning Prayer. Eventually, I dozed off again listening to the news, and got up late, just as Clare was off to her study group in Penarth. After breakfast, I spent an hour writing next week's biblical reflection before driving to Penarth to collect Clare for an early lunch, as she had an eye hospital appointment at two. We had just enough time to cook and eat together before I drove her to UHW.

Then I went for my daily walk and bumped into Fran and Mark, just as they were entering the park for an afternoon stroll, so we walked and chatted together. We then bumped into Mike, a mutual acquaintance who kept us at a distance, as he said was nearly at the end of a spell of self-isolation, having caught covid, most likely on a family trip to Sweden. Just as I was leaving the park, I bumped into eye surgeon Andrew, masked up and keeping me at a distance. He caught covid at work last week. By co-incidence I have been in the vicinity of three different people with covid in the past five days, having got through the last two years with hardly any encounter with a covid infected person. Is this what the virus becoming endemic means now? 

It's not life threatening, no worse to get over than ordinary 'flu, so no need to be so vigilant and worried about catching it. Can't say I'm comfortable with this casualness. To our social and economic benefit winter covid restrictions have helped to bring about a reduction in 'flu illnesses and related deaths. I'd be in favour of maintaining social habits which help maintain reduction in contagious sicknesses of any kind. Already the number of people wearing masks on public transport and in indoor entertainment and retail settings, not to mention churches, diminished remarkably even before it became optional. I don't see how this is publicly beneficial. Why tolerate contagion of any kind when it could be reduced?

President Zelensky of Ukraine gave a speech in Kyiv broadcasted live to members of Parliament and relayed by the BBC on the PM programme at five this afternoon. The first time this has ever happened. It was a powerful account of the war on a day by day basis. Ukrainians are still begging for a no-fly zone over their territory, but the risk of this escalating into a world war is too great for NATO or any other country to take. Western nations are pouring 'lethal military aid' into Ukraine to make up for this, to equip the people to keep fighting for themselves. The number of refugees is now over two million. Early estimates of the number rising to four million have now been revised upwardly to seven million, though the basis on which such a prediction is made is not explained.

It seems two Russian army generals may have been casualties of the invasion as well as several thousand troops. Remarkably, the innovative use of state-of the-art smartphone technology is helping to make a difference. With thousands of people able to take geo-located photos of conflict zones and post them to website aggregators, real time military intelligence can be harvested and applied to defending the country in an unexpected new way. The skilful use of drone weaponry is in the hands of a generation that grew up honing its skills on computer games and flight simulators. This is something the invaders can't have bargained for.  The Russian army still has a frightening amount of fire-power, and it's using it ruthlessly to empty and conquer targeted cities. They have underestimated those they expected to overwhelm. The anti-war tide of protest in Russia is rising in the absence of success. Already this  is undermining Putin's hold on power. How much more damage will his army do to Ukraine before the army turns against him and scapegoats his failure of leadership? We can but watch and pray.

Pandemic origins according to WHO

The government has announced its plan for organised quarantine hotels for travellers returning to the UK from overseas, at a cost of £1,700 for an obligatory ten day stay for entrants from high risk countries. This includes two covid tests while confined in personal isolation. Only rich people and executive business travellers will be able to afford this. At the moment foreign holiday travel is considered illegal. A surreal notion. The hopes of an air travel industry revival any time soon are being dashed, as infection rates are still high, even if declining slowly. Any easing of restrictions and return to some kind of normality could take longer to arrive than we expect or wish for.

The WHO investigative committee has reported on its visit to Wuhan. Their findings rule out an accidental release of a virus from a research lab there. The market at the centre of the initial outbreak is thought to be the place where the virus, occurring in bats, may have crossed the species barrier, perhaps to other animals before crossing the barrier to humans. Something similar I guess may have happened in other parts of the world spontaneously, given there are reports of covid traces being found in waste water in other countries at or before the first reported outbreak. 

We're already learning from recent experience that very similar if not identical new mutations in covid19 are emerging in this way, so why not. Right at the start of the crisis environmental health experts said this kind of thing was inevitable because of the breakdown of natural ecosystem complexity which normally would check the spread of new viral mutations and the crossing of species barriers to humans. Biodiversity loss all over the planet, no matter what complex mix of species a region may contain, has a similar outcome. Humans are now reaping a disaster they have sown.

It's been another bitterly freezing cold day with strong wind. Again it was a challenge to walk in the park in the afternoon and stay warm. Yesterday afternoon I took a photo of a Tesco trolley parked on a hillock by the north west entrance of Llandaff Fields, noticed over the weekend. I posted the picture on Instagram tagging Tesco Metro's community service team. By this afternoon it wasn't there, hopefully retrieved and returned to service. I was leased about that.

I spent rather a lot of time later in the day shifting my collection of Ibiza photos from one Google Photos account to another, having discovered I uploaded them to my Google Blogger account without realising, many months ago. I need all the free space of that account for texts posted over the past fourteen years - yes, that's how long it is since I started with my first 'Edge of the Centre' blog.

It was good to hear this evening that the American Senate has voted to proceed with impeaching Donald Trump. It may not lead to a two thirds majority decision to convict him, but at least the full story will be told and stay on the record. It will be there to be quoted against Trump if he decides to run for a second term as President in four years time. And then the voters can made another hopefully informed decision on the basis of what they know then. 

Prescience

A cold, dry and cloudy day again, good walking weather, but I didn't get out until after lunch. I thought I'd take my Olympus and Sony HX90 cameras out with and take the same shot of scenes using both to compare and contrast their abilities. It was an interesting exercise. The Olympus takes better quality photos, but is limited in versatility by the need to carry several different lenses to achieve wide-angled or distance shots, which one telephoto lens can. The Sony doesn't always respond as consistently or as quickly to changing conditions, and its shots aren't as sharp, but then it doesn't have the same image stabilisation capability to achieve this.

Seven saplings, silver birch and beech, I think, have been planted in a row at the end nearest Penhill, in front of the gap resulting from the felling of elderly trees as part of the smart terraced housing area development replacing a Victorian mansion last owned by the Council's social services department. It'll be decades before they flourish and add to the park's tree-lined periphery.

I  reached home again by sunset and checked the evening's telly programme guide. Not much of interest, but on Channel 4's Waler Presents, I found a new French flic series to watch, the third in a row with the same lead characters in the setting of Lake Annecy, a familiar place to us from family holidays and from day trips in our Geneva days. This one was eerily different, it turned out, when Clare and I sat down to watch an episode after supper. A poor multi-racial housing estate becomes the epicentre for an ebola outbreak, but it seems there's a crime afoot. Either a mad man or a bio-terrorist incident is at work. By the end of the third episode, all watched in one compelling sitting, it's still unclear. The dramatic portrayal of how the virus spreads hapazardly and spills out of the area is quite striking, though how accurate it is an epidemiology expert would best be able to declare. This is what  makes it so watchable. 

What is unexpected about this is the timing. It's not cashing in on the pandemic. It was first aired on RTF in January of this year, several weeks before the covid-19 pandemic was declared. It was made in 2019, reflecting the 'what if' speculation after the African ebola epidemic which started in 2018. I hope it gets viewed widely, simply because it show how easily contagion spreads, without benefit of mysterious power-point charts or maps that are hard to decode. I have yet to hear of this being reviewed by the mass media pundits. I wonder why?

Special birthday girl

I woke up late this morning with wound discomfort and found I'd leaked blood out of my dressing again. It's happened several times lately, and may be to do with being less active, sitting around for longer spells in the evening. Thankfully it wasn't a messy disaster, just a rather worrying repeat. There seems no simple way to relieve pressure from the wound area when I sit for any length of time. I have to move around often and not let it build up,and this inhibits both concentration and relaxation in different ways. I rang and booked an appointment for tomorrow morning to visit Riverside Wound Clinic for a check-up, but also, to ask advice about dressing and management of the wound, given recent changes.

Today is Clare's 75th birthday, and she was up early working out on her exercise bike while I cooked the porridge and laid breakfast. She opened her cards and presents afterwards, including two different CDs of 'cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason from Kath and Owain, plus from me, a CD of Catrin Ffinch playing works by John Rutter and another of Cerys Matthews singing a variety of traditional Welsh folk songs, plus a few hymns and choruses that are part of the core Welsh cultural repertoire - all beautifully played and interpreted. So many tunes I have known since childhood, though not the words, sadly. 

Clare's Welsh language enthusiasm puts me to shame. I keep on telling myself that I should make more effort to learn Welsh properly, but Spanish retains my enthusiasm. I notice and listen when I hear Spanish speakers in the park, and am pleased when I understand what I overhear. Many more people I hear speaking Welsh, but rarely do I find I understand what they say, and it doesn't grab my attention.

There was a fine damp misty rain for much of the day, very low cloud, I suppose in reality. Clare and I went out to the shops together and I went out again separately later for a walk in the park, and to see if I could buy a nice pastry to serve as a mini-birthday cake. Unfortunately the small tart I bought had a custard filling, which is verboten in Clare's dairy free diet. So I scooped out the content, and replaced it with recently made blackberry puree plus soya cream, which, with a few candles around the flaky pastry case made just about the smallest birthday cake imaginable. I was also delighted to get a bunch of roses in an unusual shade of pink.

At eight after supper, we had a Zoom call with Owain, Kath, Anto and Rhiannon, plus Rachel and her friend Patrick. It's the first we've done for a month or so, occasioned by Owain and Kath being unable to come and join us to celebrate in person today. The call sped by, and we ran out of time before we could say goodbye or sing happy birthday, but it was lovely to be together anyway. I lost count of the number of phone calls and messages Clare had today. Such a happy time for her. Love laughs at lock-downs, and without violating restrictions or putting anyone at risk, admittedly these days, it's thanks to technology.

Just about every urban borough in Wales is now under restrictions to curb the contagion. We've got used to accepting limitations on our activities for reasons infirmity over the past eighteen months, so this has hardly any impact on us. It must be a nightmare for people whose entire work, domestic and social lives rely on their mobility.

Universities - a looming crisis

As I was getting up this morning, I listened to the Radio 4 'Sunday Worship' service. Harvest Festival with several traditional hymns pruned down to a couple of verses each for timing. It's a time of year when I can sing all the hymns off by heart, four to six verses long! Not being able to sing along to the complete hymn evoked an unexpected child-like reaction, like the kid who knows the bed time story off by heart, and corrects the adult reader if they miss a few lines or improvise. Harvest Lite! 

After breakfast, we watched Mother Frances celebrate the Sunday Eucharist broadcast from St John's. I wish it was possible for this to be done with a small socially distanced congregation, as the sound of just a couple of voices highlights the abnormality of what's being done. It was what we had to cope with during the severe lock-down months, but the presentation hasn't changed since, apart from shifting from being shot at the Rectory to being shot in church. 

One good thing about our Parish service, is that Mother Frances sounds like she's addressing a group, although only Andrew the Camera is with her. Often officiants on Radio Four sound like they are just addressing you personally, rather than a congregation. It's a broadcasting presenter's technique which works for 'Thought for the Day' and  'All things considered' and the such like, but it's less effective in a liturgical celebration, by nature a group activity.

Talking of 'Thought for the Day', yesterday's offering from Rob Marshall was reflecting on student life, in the news because of the covid-19 campus hot-spots. He recalled how European Universities grew out of the scholarly and teaching role of monastic communities a thousand years ago. His hope was that the old monastic community virtue of people looking out for one another for the common good would come to be seen as the best resource we have in overcoming the menace of contagion. 

Well and good. But Benedictine monasticism emphasised that love of learning and desire for God are inextricably linked. You can't say this holds good in modern secularised academia, where know-how and students are now commodities of industrialised learning, equipping the masses to maintain the global economy. Sure, the traditional notions of education as personal formation, and learning for its own sake still persist, but a materialistic environment has corrupted them. The element of high stakes competition, for glittering prizes dominates. It excludes or poisons the spiritual endeavour which should be at the heart of all learning. 

Many students are returning to campus, disappointed and disillusioned by the poor face to face contact time they are being given, because of the pandemic. With so much being done on-line what is the point of spending so much money on a campus based education, when an Open University degree would be so much cheaper and flexible? Is the modern university value for money, if it cannot deliver a guarantee of employment afterwards? These questions were already being asked before the pandemic. They are set to become more critical as the pandemic continues.

It wasn't obviously like that when I was a student or even a student chaplain a six years later, but I've witnessed the change over my working life, and now wonder if anything can be done to save these institutions from corruption. Competition means that people can end up looking out for themselves more than others, tribally if not individually. This might well be a factor at play in the difficulties now being faced in controlling campus contagion. 

There's no lack of altruism and charity in secular society, but alongside this, egotism is celebrated and greed considered good in making economic progress. The natural human selfish impulse is a huge asset to spreading covid-19. We may all pay heavily for the culture shift which has taken place in my lifetime.

Bakery treat

Clare went into school early this morning to have a covid-19 test, as this is on offer to staff and visiting teachers, She hasn't resumed her weekly kindergarten eurythmy sessions yet, but would like to. Her test was negative, which means there's no evidence that she's had it or has it. If she ever did it would be over six months ago, so fragments of covid DNA would by now be undetectable by means of the simple test. By inference, it means I'm unlikely also to have had it previously, as neither of us did any social mixing before I went to Ibiza. We're both still in the higher risk of infection category, but hopefully our present lifestyle and precautions help to minimise the possibilitty of catching it.

There were eight of us for the St Catherine's Eucharist this morning, four clergy, four laity. On impulse, I walked home via 'The Hot Pantry' bakery and bought one of their superb 'Donka' rye loaves, and to eat with our morning coffee, a croissant, a pain au raisin and a Chelsea bun. It's decades since I've eaten one of these. There were sitting there, looking good and fresh, not plastic wrapped, so I yielded to temptation to try once more this childhood favourite, enjoyed long before pains au raisin came on the scene. And it didn't disappoint! We're fortunate to have an independent bakery in our neighbourhood, and don't use it enough because it's not on our habitual shopping route. We need to change that!

I made a contactless card payment, as I have done habitually over the past two months, and no longer carry cash about. I'm not sure about the wisdom of this, as I don't want to see real money disappear. The lady who served me said that the majority of people since lock-down are paying contactless, but over the past few weeks she'd seen an increase in cash payments again, so maybe others share my misgivings.

I cooked a pasta lunch, with different sugos for us. chicken in mine and a veegan soya mince for Clare, enough for two days meals for both of us. Then I walked into town, to visit Camerland and take a photo of a specialist camera bag to show Clare. I asked about the second hand Olympus OM-D E-M5 they had on their website, and learned that it had been sold, but they do have others occasionally. It's a pity there's no way I could hire or borrow one to try out. 

I'm curious about Micro Four Thirds cameras as they are much praised by enthusiastic users. But I'd rather not pay the full price, but buy a used one at a reasonable price to satisfy my curiosity. Above all, the thought of its lighter weight that appeals. I'm thinking about a proper padded camera bag for my DSLR kit because carry around a one or more changes of lens is always a packing hassle with a normal rucksack.

After supper and a little telly, I hunted for a piece of writing about St Paul's at the time of the riot, which I started before going to Ibiza but didn't finish off. It took me ages to find it as it wasn't file with other similar pieces, but once tracked down and re-read, I completed the edit. It's still not as satisfactory as other pieces I wrote about St Paul's, not as driven by the vividness of the narrative. Is it still a work in progress or not? I wonder. 

News from Switzerland

I drove to Thornhill at lunchtime to officiate at my first funeral since I left for Ibiza, and my first under the new health and safety restrictions followed by the City's Council's Bereavement Services team. Normally the Wenallt Chapel has seats for two hundred and fifty people, now it's eighty with wide gaps in between the rows. Currently the permitted number of mourners is thirty. I'm not sure if there's any elasticity here to accommodate more with socially distanced household family groups. Wales is relaxing restrictions at a different rate to England. 

Hand sanitizer was available on the way in, though I'm not sure how many took advantage of this. Six young men of the family were bearers. I didn't see anyone wearing masks. Neither I not the funeral attendants wore them. Unlike church we sang a hymn. I didn't feel there was any undue risk, the chapel is large, seating is widely spaced. The mourners kept their distance from me if not each other and nobody attempted to shake hands. It was so different from the mother's funeral which I took back in January. 

It was good to see familiar faces about their business - the crem manager and funeral attendants' team members, with whom I have often worked. They talked about how much the boss had invested in PPE and bio-safety measures in the previous months. The business remains covid free, and needs to stay like this. At the peak of the pandemic wave they were doing the maximum of thirty five funeral a week using all the teams and resources available. The FD spoke of dealing with thirty nine different funeral arrangements at the same time, and the struggle to fend off 'funeral blindness', where they start to blur together making it that harder to access the details of each, when there are so many to remember at the same time. Thankfully it never got to the stage where the company was overwhelmed, but talk about stress testing!

After a late lunch and a brief siesta, I went to Tescos for freezer bags and wine, then we walked together in Thompson's Park before tea, Clare had a surprise call from Mari-Luisa in Switzerland with news of the opening of the mother and baby educational centre in Buchs, a project arising from her work, which she and Heinz have cherished and worked on together for the past decade. It's a wonderful achievement. The buildings and their environment are beautiful, designed by a young architect inspired by the nature of the project, and destined to win an award they think. 

To think it all started with a mother and baby group meeting in the huge attic space of the old farmhouse they renovated and transformed into a zero carbon footprint eco-house. The first small group of parents with infants is now attending sessions and the numbers will be scaled up as the year goes on. When a vaccine for covid-19 has been put to use, we'll go and see them again, most likely by train.  There's positive news on the vaccine development front today, but it'll still be a year or more before this has any impact on those whose immune systems most need protection. And that means us.

  

Unexpected request

Disappointingly, after a sunny weekend, by the time I was ready to go out for a mid morning walk, it had started to rain, so I stayed in and wrote letters instead. It was teatime before I ventured our to the post office, and popped into the Co-op for the first time since my return for apple juice and rye bread. It wasn't busy, and few were wearing masks. 

I hear that Boris Johnson proposes to make the wearing face masks compulsory in shops and other enclosed spaces, with fines for non-compliance. After so many mixed messages and letting people used common sense to make up their own minds, it's going to be hard to change public habits. Locking the stable door after the horse has gone.

After taking the shopping home I continued to the park where fine drizzle turned to rain. I was very wet by the time I got back, jacket and trousers were soaked.

Pidgeon's have asked me if I'd do a funeral at Thornhill next week. I officiated at the funeral of the deceased's wife back in January and the family requested that I do the same for him. The man died from organ failure months after recovering from a bout of symptomless covid-19. Coincidentally, I read a report this morning that stated this is not uncommon, and so far inexplicable. The impact of the pandemic may be more devastating and far reaching than has been realised so far.

Funny, only a few days ago I was reflecting on the end of my public ministry, and then this happens  I could see no reason to refuse. Crematorium chapel services are very carefully regulated.

In the past I have always been taken to and from the crem or the cemetery by car. This time I will use my own car, eliminating a close proximity ride in a funeral company car. One less risk for me, one less sanitising job for the driver. No bereavement visit is possible, but arrangements by phone and email are now universally acceptable. I'll miss the face to face contact, and won't be able to shake hands with mourners after the service. I'm glad that the family and I have already met.

We watched an interesting BBC Four documentary about Beethoven and his music this evening. It spoke of his life as a triumph over adversity. A sad unsustainable love life, bouts of illness and the terrible onset of deafness, yet the worst of times saw the composition of some of his greatest music.

An unforeseen ending to ministry

The sky was overcast again when woke up at first light. I couldn't get back to sleep as I usually do. Instead of dozing, I lay awake, the impact of last night's conversation with Rufus slowly dawning on me. To all intents and purposes, after fifty years of public ministry, officiating at church services as a stipendiary cleric for forty years and then as a volunteer for ten came to an end on March 8th in Ibiza. No matter how fit and well I may be and able to fill in when others need to be absent, I'm now classed as elderly and vulnerable. As long as the covid-19 crisis lasts, I'll be out of action. 

Unless there's a global roll-out of means to prevent and cure this virus, I don't see an end to this for several years to come, years in which the public face of the church will change radically. The more churches have to close and ministries contract, the less need there'll be for aged clerics to plug gaps. Like the rest of the faithful, it'll be a matter for us of finding ways and places where we can meet for common prayer and worship.

Strangely, I don't yet feel sad about it. I'll miss preaching however more than presiding. I'm comfortable enough inhabiting the priestly role. It nurtured my years of full time ministry, but now I'm more blessed by being on the receiving end, responding rather than leading, meditating rather than voicing the prayer of the people.

As I've got older I've relaxed and feel I'm more myself in preaching the Word. Who knows if it'll be possible in future ever again? Will there be an audience for anything more than a brief homily, so that people aren't detained for too long in church? Will every future homily need to be no longer than the BBC's 'Thought for the Day'? (3mins) or at best 'A point of view'? or 'The Archers' much maligned monologues? (13mins) 

Much has been made of the reduction in people's attention span in the era of high speed electronic communications, well before we had covid-19 to make us anxious about the length of time we can risk spending in public gatherings with others not of our household. This doesn't take into account the immersive experience of theatre performances, story-telling or opera, which are able to retain the attention of an audience for a much longer time. Re-launching these activities safely is a hot topic currently given concern about preservation of artistic culture.

Traditional forms of liturgy are also a performing art, calling for a social environment of worship and fellowship. The church would lose its ability to preach and teach the Gospel in depth without them. A radical re-think of the way we do everything in public worship is necessary, but we need to be mindful of what we risk losing in the act of reform.

Karl Rahner half a century ago said of the life of faith; "In the days ahead you will either be a mystic or nothing at all." Christian mysticism, it seems to me relies on the depth of relationship with nature, immersion in the story which scripture tells, the tradition of prayer and worship, and the experience of love in community. All point to the Beyond in our midst, the ground of our being. There's nothing abstract about it, our relationships with God and with each other are inseparable.

When I was at St Mike's I remember a fellow student who was have real trouble getting to grips with a rational analytical attitude to scripture. He wasn't an ideological fundamentalist, but found it hard to reconcile such cool intellectual rigour with his spiritual life. "How can I pray?" I remember him saying, "If I am obliged to think like this all the time." We weren't doing much holistic thinking back in those days, but he did find his way out of the maze eventually, helped by engaging with the mystical writings of Christian saints. They weren't always easy to understand, but got you pointed heavenwards, and that was all that mattered.

The New Normal in Cardiff city centre

Another overcast cold and rainy day. I slept well in my usual bed, but am physically tired after my walk and stairs exercise movng down from the attic yesterday.

After breakfast, I completed work on the slide show for my sister Pauline's funeral with several list minute additions, which now make it feel more complete. It's now just too big to email, so I had to upload it to Google Drive and send a file sharing link to the funeral directors, and likewise later on for the eulogy. It seems likely they're not very keen on using a file streamed from YouTube on the crem's digital system, just in case it picks up a virus of a different kind altogether, I guess.

This afternoon, I walked into the city centre and back. Having read about the road closures in front of the Castle, I thought I'd go and take a look and some photos. It's been done with temporary traffic barriers and cones, plus lots of yellow and white line markings on the roads. The grass in the Castle moat area has been marked out with large circles in whitewash paint, to guide the placement of street furniture for when the pubs across the street re-open, as it's planned to let customers drink outdoors across the street. The place seemed very empty for a weekday afternoon. Very few pedestrians or bikes in newly widened bike lanes and pavements. 

The city centre's shopping streets have yellow guidelines for pedestrians walking in separate directional lanes. It looks a mess and will be terrible to remove once no longer required. Will people bother to comply when it's crowded I wonder. Guidelines were largely ignored today with few people about. Only a handful were wearing masks.

I went into the St David Centre to visit the EE phone shop to top up my PAYG phone. I wore my Virustatic shield mask again, was greeted at the door and directed to a hand sanitizer point, then collected by a young salesman who dealt with my request, sitting at a desk behind a plastic screen. I've not had a top-up card for the past five years, so I had to give my number and buy phone credit. 

The contactless facility of my debit card wasn't yet activated, so I had to use the card's chip and pin device, as they were unable to accept cash payments. The paper receipt containing the phone top-up code couldn't be given to me as a sanitary precaution. The salesman said he could hold it up to the screen for me to read. I told him that even with the right glasses the code was too small to read from the paper, so he agreed to dictate it to me, so I could enter it into my phone's SMS window. It worked perfectly, first time, and I was delighted!

My visit to the centre wouldn't have been complete without a look at the building works in progress - the new bus station, and the hotel being built behind the facade of the old Custom House. The Central station entrance doors were all boarded up except one for entry and another for exit. It looks very sad. There's even a notice up asking 'Is your journey really necessary?' harking back to World War Two.

I went to the nearest Santander ATM to activate my card's contactless device. I was pleased to see that the machine had a contactless symbol on it. When you tapped it with your card this activated the machine to request your PIN number in the same way as inserting it into the slot for it to be read. I didn't need cash, so I just asked for the balance on the account instead. Now it works properly. Using the ATM keypad and touch screen does bear the risk of contamination however, but I covered my working finger with a tissue, and must remember another time to keep something better in my pocket to use instead.

Some, though not all shops are open, it's all very low key and tentative at the moment. Wandering about the streets with all their strange markings and covid19 notices up, almost empty at rush hour made me feel as if I was on a huge film set location for a dystopian movie. I wonder how it's going to work out in the months ahead?

State of Alarm - day Thirty Seven

The temperature dropped a few degrees and there was wind and rain overnight and through the day into the afternoon. It was overcast and felt just the way it did a month ago. A day without cheer save for calls from Clare and Owain. There was a certain irony in seeing Clare in a summer blouse under a cloudless blue sky in our Pontcanna back garden. She told me that a local organisation is trying to organise a local sewing bee to make PPE gowns for NHS staff. 

She still has an old Singer sewing machine in good working order, and has volunteered, though she suspects good intentions may yet founder on poor planning and organisation. Whoever is trying to run the scheme asks volunteers how many gowns they think they can make in a day, without stating where the start line is. Are the workers to be given a pattern and material, or ready cut parts to sew together, or what? It seems typical of the situation we find ourselves in. 

It reflects the crisis management chaos exhibited by UK government leaders at the moment. Those in charge are lacking volumes of practical experience at juggling all the necessary demands of an overwhelming situation. They can tell you what they've done, but on times fail to join the dots, and must suffer the humiliation of being reminded of this by news media which seem to have more information at their disposal. Maybe the media could do better by making sure to pester relevant officials on the job, not on-air to entertain (or agitate) listeners.

Jayne brought me my week's grocery order, plus a  month's supply of my main blood pressure pills. I emailed our GP surgery yesterday to get the name of an equivalent to the standard diuretic pill I'm also supposed to take, but the email didn't arrive until after Jayne had been, so unfortunately that's another thing that can't yet be crossed off the 'to-do' list. If things were normal I could get some posted from home, but there are no guarantees they would arrive. I'm OK now until the beginning of June. There's no way of knowing if I'll be able to get home by then, there's such uncertaintly.

One good thing is that Jayne bought me a mascarilla, which I can wear if I need to go to a shop or the Pharmacy to collect something. I felt very awkward going into places without one, and earlier none were available, so I thought it prudent to simply avoid going up to 'Es Cuco', as I did before. Maybe I am a bit over sensitive, but I don't want to be a source of bother for anyone, and need to protect myself from the possibility of being a bother to others, even though the risk on Ibiza is very low compared to elsewhere. Clare has ordered me a new innovative anti-viral material protective hood cum mask to wear when I do eventually travel. The next question is whether it can fit into an envelope for sending in a posted letter, as any kind of parcel post is off-limits at present.

Despite the weather, I walked my 10k, but there was nothing noticeably new to take a photo of and send to Kath today. If it warms up again tomorrow, however, there might be some new flowers to notice, and lots more snails of different sizes. I did notice that the injured snail I saw being attacked by ants two days ago has entirely disappeared. Not just dead, but re-cycled without a trace. Whether by ants or some other nocturnal creature, I have no idea.

This evening I listened to a Low Sunday service broadcast on-line by Radio Suisse Romande from the Temple de Rolle on Lake Geneva. The link was sent to me by my friend Valdo in Aigle at the other end of the lake. It was a Swiss French Protestant service with some Bach organ and violin pieces and several Easter canticles sung by a local Russian Orthodox Choir - Low Sunday was their Easter Day. If that went outlive, the choir must have been tired as the Russian Orthodox keep Vigil throughout the night on Holy Saturday!

Special and well worth a listen was the address and meditations by Pasteure Isabelle Court. I was able to follow nearly all of it (except when she got really passionate and picked up speed), since her romandie French was beautifully clear, at a measured pace. My Spanish listening comprehension is not nearly as good as my French, but then I lived and worked in a francphone environment for nine years. So glad I haven't lost the ability to understand spoken Swiss French. French spoken in France is another matter altogether!

The meditations were an imaginative journey taken with Doubting Thomas's twin sister (he was after all Thomas Didymus - Thomas the Twin), from the day of the resurrection to the day when Thomas was reunited with the Lord again. Her theological and spiritual reflections made use of the typology devised by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross to describe the five stages of grief. Ir was remarkable and relevant to here and now with the pandemic loss of life, and most people's loss of freedom due to lock-down. Plenty to ponder on. You can find it here.

State of Alarm - day twenty four

A blue sky day after the full moon slipped away not long before dawn, and up to nineteen degrees too, which is lovely. The walls of the house are starting to retain warmth you can feel when passing into shadow. After domestic tasks and chatting early with Clare, I started work on a script for a pre- Easter video message for the church website, which I'll try and do on my Blackberry, following the advice I have received from Ann, one of the Wednesday Eucharist group back in Pontcanna. She's emailed me a couple of times, as have others in the Parish, and she's followed the recordings I have had uploaded to the Ibiza chaplaincy website.

Much to my surprise, Jayne turned up with my grocery shopping order before lunch. She said that there were very long queues at Mercadona, and other supermarkets. A controlled entry policy is now in operation admitting so many people, allowing them space, and not letting anyone in until someone comes out. Heaven help you if you forget anything! 

In a flash this took me back to days before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the DDR, when ex-Archdeacon Geoff Johnston and I led a small party of people from Halesowen where we served in ministry to the DDR to inaugurate a parish twinning with Leipzig's Stefanausgemeinde. We were in the East the night Erich Honeker resigned, but that's not the point of the story. We westerners noticed how little there was on offer in many stores, and also noticed queues outside supermarkets and bigger shops. 

We asked our hosts what this was all about, and we're told that it wasn't just a matter of scarcity of goods, but social convention. "In the west you queue to pay, then leave with your goods. Here we give people space to buy what they can afford at leisure with no need to queue to get out. If you want something, you queue to get in, like at the cinema. Nowadays this protocol is operated by big fashionable consumer and technology outlets when their latest product is launched.

Ironic that now we just need space to avoid contagion.

I was delighted with my box of supplies, including some fresh salmon for Easter Sunday lunch and a bottle of Faustino VII Rioja to toast Christ's resurrection. Jayne had just done several shopping errands for others and still had to do her own big weekend shop. I felt sorry for adding to her work load, but it's not worth putting myself at risk and maybe causing more trouble if I got sick. Since I last checked over a week ago, the confirmed number of coronavirus cases in Ibiza is 130, and there have been no new cases in 24 hours, just a death, of of eight, and over 50 in hospital. 

Proportionally, for a population of 148k, it's the least afflicted place in Spain. The overall Spanish toll is colossal but the new infection rate is levelling out now at last, though the number of deaths will continue to rise, fourteen and a half thousand to date, the highest coronavirus death rate in the world, attributed to strategic errors in allowing large mass gatherings at the outset. It's going to have a huge impact on future political and well as economic impact in the country.

In the Balearics there's mild optimism that the State of Alarm will be scaled down after the 26th April. Maybe this will happen for each island, but I can't see how that would extend to resumption of traffic with the mainland, even with contagion tailing off. There's `

State of Alarm - Day Seventeen

A slightly warmer day today, clouds and wind, but no rain. I finally got around to giving my fleece a much needed wash, plus towels and a nightshirt and they all dried beautifully. Two swifts flew past this afternoon, so maybe more have arrived and will start feeding nearby soon. The sun has brought out into the open many more lizards in the two places were there are stone or concrete surfaces for them to warm up in the sun. I've seen lots of fast moving little brown lizards, small than the large green backed lizards, more than a hand-span in length, are the smaller ones juveniles, a different gender from the larger ones, or a different species? I have no way of knowing at the moment.

On the side of the fourth step down from the terrace last night, I noticed a tiny snail stuck to the wall, the size of my little fingernail. By this morning it had relocated itself to the pillar on the corner of the terrace, a metre above surface level. An impressive feat of climbing for such a tiny creature in twelve hours. I wonder where it's heading and what it expects to find there?

All the time I had to spare after domestic tasks and exercise today was devoted to making an audio file of Sunday's Ministry of the Word. Sarah and Clare contributed readings, but I felt strange about having to record the St Matthew Passion reading on my own, when every year just about, since I was ordained, I have read this in conjunction with between three to six other speakers, plus a church congregation acting as Jesus' lynch-mob. It sounds very amateurish, the best I could do under the circumstances. It's for a unique occasion, and won't be required another time. Hopefully it will do the job, just this once in history.

Strange, but I haven't come across any April Fool stunts on the radio today, although Clare did send me a short video of so called King's College Cambridge male choristers singing in place of the boys by using helium to raise the pitch of their voices. But then at the moment there are lots of parody videos in circulation and some hijacking popular melodies to sing lyrics about covid-19 and coping with a pandemic. Amazing what people do with time on their hands, to entertain themselves and others. Just like me really, I suppose.

   

State of Alarm - Day thirteen

Not quite so cold and humid for much of today, with some sunny periods to cheer the afternoon and colour the sunset. I sent off the audio files to Dave for uploading, and then walked in silence for an hour thinking and planning ahead the kind of audio liturgies Holy Week calls for. My aim is to offer something related to the readings set for each day's Eucharist, as I would do if I was doing a Holy Week Mission in a Parish. The effort of doing so isn't often rewarded by good weekday attendances but for me is part of the entire devotional experience of walking the Way of the Cross and asking yet again, what it all means for the world today. This I love to do. 

Well, this year we can't gather for prayer and worship at any time in the week but making an on-line offering makes it possible for people to listen on demand, as it suits them, or not. A preacher has to offer God's Word, trusting the Spirit will make use of their endeavours, and do so without worrying about the consequences, neither craving feed-back, nor approval. Heaven knows what is behind the conventional 'Nice sermon, Vicar' with which priests are greeted at the door after a service. It's not like being a classroom teacher where you can reasonably ask 'Tell me, what did you learn?', though I confess I have been tempted to ask sometimes!

From news articles I've read, it's impressive to see medical scientists, engineers and technology specialists working innovatively and flat out to design and produce new ventilators, tests for the virus that will assist in triage of the workforce into immune and vulnerable people. A team at the Royal Mint in Llantrisant found a rough design of a medical visor on-line, and in 48 hours created a design of their own and got their proof of concept prototype medically approved for production. All they need now is raw material supplies, and hopefully logisticians and delivery drivers will help get the manufacturing process running soon. Britain is short of Personal Protection Equipment to meet all the needs of nurses and doctors in close quarters contact with sick patients.

It's been the worst day of the pandemic in Spain today with 832 deaths in 24 hours, the second highest covid-19 death rate in the world. In Ibiza, only sixty six cases reported so far. Numbers of infected people in the United States have jumped, nearly a fifth of the world's cases. The death rate is bound to follow, and the economy Mr Trump idolises is going to collapse. His insistence that it will be over soon and people will quickly get back to work will not be borne out by reality. Another false prophecy for a democratically elected false prophet.

The British Parliament seems to have been too casual about precautions during its recent sittings. Now the Prime Minister, several Cabinet members and more MPs have tested positive and are self-isolating. Not to mention Prince Charles, who should have set a better example, like his mother. He too is at the age of vulnerability. Putting himself at risk of never being king? Did he think of that when he was busy dispensing earnest charm. So irresponsible. How could they? What does this say about the exemplary quality of Britain's leadership and royalty? Not so much invincible ignorance as foolish arrogance, I'm afraid.

When I completed my daily walk after lunch, I played an album by Ali Farka Toure a West African master musician, whose band uses Western as well as African instruments. Quite challenging to listen to, I can't remember if or when I last did. Hypnotic, syncopated stuff. You can see how much Jazz owes to African musical roots. Stimulating stuff.