Sobering prospects

A day of changeable weather, sun and wind, clouds and rain. Clare went off on the train the Kenilworth to join Kath for a Carnival Choir concert rehearsal in Birmingham. There were two loads of washing to be finished off. The second one, I put out on the line to blow in the wind, but after a couple hours I had to bring it in and hang everything indoors when it began to rain. 

Details landed of another funeral for me to take in ten days time. Fr Dyfrig the Area Dean sent me the St German's December duty rota, confirming  my engagements there until the end of the year. If had an email too from Emma the diocese in Europe locum co-ordinator. It seems possible I'll be asked to do duties abroad next spring, once I get to the top of the Euro Safeguarding training queue. There are plenty of vacancies at the moment, that's for user.

I spent most of the morning editing the sound file and adding pictures to it for next Thursday's Morning Prayer video. After cooking and eating lunch, I walked in the park with intermittent gusts of wind and rain showers. The changing colours are lovely. I took one picture that to my mind summarises autumn.

               

With nothing also calling for my attention, I whiled away the entire evening relaxing in front of the telly, wondering what next year will bring my way, at home or abroad, maybe both. It will be two years since I last left the country next March, and covid has changed the world so much since then, even if efforts to return things to a semblance of normality abound everywhere in Europe. 

Effective treatments are being developed, and infection surges will happen, unless more effective means of controlling contagion are put into practice universally. At the moment the UK covid infection and death rate is falling back, but in some European countries it isn't. Each is different and the reasons are complex. The word 'pandemic' is used less frequently now, and replaced by the adjective 'endemic' meaning we're stuck with the risk of covid for the foreseeable future, just as we are with 'flu.

COP26 finishes today, with significant progress being made in commitments to glocal carbon reduction, though still not sufficient to reduce global heating to 1,5C, which was the key aim of the conference. All in all, it's a much greater threat to the health of planet, and our own future, than covid is.

Staycation round two day five

As it has been since self-quarantine began, the day began overcast with torrential rain. Clare cooked our Saturday breakfast pancakes garnished with crab apple puree, chocolate sauce, and mashed banana. A great remedy for a dark autumnal day. At the end of the morning the cloud thinned enough for sunlight to penetrate and lighten up the garden, then the cloud cleared entirely, and unexpectedly given weather warnings for very heavy rain over the weekend. Would that the pandemic could throw us the occasional surprise! The growth of covid-19 infections shows no sign of slackening and projections for the rest of the year are gloomier and gloomier. We can expect heavier and more widespread restrictions next week.

Since I've been confined to exercising inside the house unable to use the garden due to the weather, I've shifted from listening to 'talk' Radio Four over to Radio Three, with its rich diet of classical music and other kinds of modern music. plus record reviews and conversations with musicians and scholars. It greatly lightens the daily monotony attached to pacing indoors, and often awakens memories of music listened over the past seven decades. 

I prefer silence when I write. Listening to music or conversation is too distracting. Outdoors in the street and the park I don't listen to music, but my surroundings, and only occasionally listen to radio news. Walking around the garden in Ibiza daily however, I did listen to lots of jazz and Latin music albums sent me by Kath and Owain. It was a lovely consolation, living in isolation, confined to the chaplaincy house for weeks, I felt close to them and to my roots.

Trying to sit and write for any length of time when the wound is uncomfortable or painful, also robs me of concentration. These days my legs and back are strong enough to allow me to stand instead, but short of finding a stand-up computer desk to buy I've settled for temporary, unsatisfactory solutions so far. 

This morning, however, I realised that a small bedroom chest of drawers is just the right height, and moved it into my study, into a position where light from the window is just right. It may look messy and cluttered, but I can live with that. It's my 'man-cave', and the amount of stuff in it offends Clare's sense of order. I need my works-pace to work for me and satisfy my current needs. As I write, it works well. Hopefully it's not going to be a long term solution.

I watched the final episode of 'The Same Sky' this afternoon. It had a surprising twist in the last few minutes adding to the portrayal of life's complexity in a city divided, by the partition of Germany at the end of the war and then compounded by the Berlin Wall during the Cold War. 

A recorded broadcast of Puccini's operal 'Tosca' from Covent Garden started on Radio Three at supper time, one of the operas I know best. Starring Bryn Terfel as Scarpia, Angela Gheorghiu as Tosca, and Jonas Kauffman as Calvaradossi. Such emotionally powerful music, wonderful to listen to. It brought tears to my eyes. Just as it finished the latest double episode of Danish crime drama 'DNA' started on BBC Four, which I watched on iPlayer. It's interestingly complex.

There was an interesting programme on Radio Three this afternoon about the environmental impact of music making. Someone has studied the carbon footprint of cloud music, video services and the record industry. It was quite disturbing to realise the extent to which the world going digital is contributing to climate change. Looking back on my media usage for today, I admit to feeling rather guilty. I could do without the car, go abroad without flying, but whether in lock-down or out of it, not have internet access altogether would reduce my quality of life immensely. What are we doing to ourselves?