Self poisoning globally

Partly sunny and pleasantly warm today at 24C, with a few hotter days to come. It'll be just as hot if not more when we arrive in Portugal next Thursday for our cruise. We went to St Catherine's for the Eucharist at the same time as a mother of two who's regularly in church with her husband, together with her third baby, born at home three days ago. The service started with a round of applause to welcome baby Carys into the congregation. A shared moment of great joy and delight. Hilary announced to the congregation at the end of Mass that the sale of church garden produce has resulted in a donation of £150 to church funds. Donations of surplus garden produce has also made it possible to pass on some veg to the Oasis refugee project which hosts a weekly communal meal for asylum seekers. An expanding virtuous circle!

After coffee and a chat we returned for lunch. After we'd eaten, I started preparing the texts for Morning Prayer on the last Wednesday of the lunch and wrote a reflection to go with it. Then a walk in Llandaff Fields and down to the river. As ever there were a couple of cricket matches going on. I was astonished to see the number of empty water bottles littering the grass in the out field of both games. I'd like to think that someone is assigned to collect them and take them to the nearest bin when they finish, but when there are scores of them scattered about, there are always strays which get missed. If only the rules for hiring a pitch made the provision of special recycling bins in a prominent place and obliged team managers to train players to use them. 

Heaven knows what passers by think when they see the mess. It troubles me that so many athletes are so focussed on their game that they lose awareness of the environment and discard drinks containers wherever they are with no thought for the consequences. It's an echo of global competition for power and wealth, focused on achievement with little regard for consequences, leading to oceans over heating and plastics poisoning ecosystems, including our own bodies at the microscopic level. As a species we are in danger of poisoning ourselves to extinction, one way or another.

After supper, I joined Clare watching an interesting BBC Four documentary about master pianist Alfred Brendel, made twenty five years ago when he was seventy. He died two months ago aged 95. Back in the 80's I was given cassette recordings of all his Mozart piano concertos. They were the sound track of my journeys when I was travelling the length and breadth of Wales representing USPG. I digitized them in the '90s and still have them on my mobile phone amongst other places, a musical treasure. 

I then set up my sixteen year old Windows Vista PC and scanner to digitize one of the remaining packs of film negatives from before digital camera days. The film scanner won't work with more modern operating systems, without paying for a driver update. Finding a driver is one thing, finding one that's malware free is another. Either way it's not worth the expense when the original kit still works, albeit slowly. Once I run out of negatives to scan, I can get rid of both computer and film scanner and clear space in my study for the next phase of sorting through stuff to keep and stuff to get rid of. Tonight's digital harvest dates back 29 years. Photos of James' christening plus Amanda and James' Geneva visit in 2000. Thirty frames scanned in an hour, then bed.

Lessons unlearned

We slept late, had an extra lie in and then Saturday breakfast pancakes. It was ten o'clock before I looked out of the window for the first time in the day and realised it was snowing. I guess that's a measure of how turned inwards I become in these grew dark wintry days. We walked for an hour in around the fields until the chill wind became a disincentive to walk for longer. The temperature hovered  around 0-1C all day but again the wind made it feel colder. One strange thing I've noticed when I'm out walking is that my feet don't get cold, no matter what shoes I'm wearing. May it needs to be well below zero for this to happen, but really cold feet is something I do recall from skiing days in Switzerland. 

News reports today state that fifteen million people in will be been vaccinated by Monday, on target as promised. Infection and death rates keep falling slowly and political leaders are giving tentative answers to questions levelled at them by reporters or back-benchers about a timetable for a return to a semblance of normality. At the same time, leading scientists express caution over loosening restrictions too early, in the light of uncertainties about the spread of new more contagious virus variants. 

Again First Minister Mark Drakeford's response has been sober and measured, saying the best we can hope for, on the basis of timely evidence is a return to the 'new normal' of last summer's holiday season, step by careful step. He's not a crowd pleaser, but doesn't hide the truth that we're in for a long haul. Whatever develops, it's clear the economy nationally and globally is taking a hard knock. The drive is on to de-carbonise the economy and re-think all our priorities in the light of the climate crisis. One way or another the way we live will change, and it will prove very hard for many who cannot understand that the impact of human activity on the planet is the source of crises we are faced with. 

Although we were promised a centimetre of snow in the coastal plain, far less fell, and the temperature rose above zero in the afternoon. Rather disappointing really. I bought some beautiful dark red tulips to mark Valentine's day for Clare, but forgot to order a takeaway romantic supper. (Not really my idea of romance, I'm afraid), so I cooked an acceptably tasty meal instead and served it on our best Wedgewood china dinner plates. Also disappointing. Another interesting documentary about the excavations of Saint Pancras public cemetery, prior to building a new HS2 railways station on the ground, a work in progress now for several years. 

A forensic examination of several centuries worth of human remains is yielding evidence about Europe's largest city in the 17th-18th century with half a million inhabitants. Infant mortality was very high, due to poverty,  malnourishment and insanitary conditions, but it seems that the root cause of  chronic and fatal ailments was atmospheric pollution from wood or coal fires burning in crowded badly ventilated homes. An echo of current environmental health issues caused by urban vehicle emissions in traffic crowded streets. Then, another Inspector Montalbano repeat episode on BBC Four later or. We watched it as there was nothing else to capture our attention