Quarantine Cymru day Ten

Thankfully it rained in the night cooling down the air comfortably, although it did make today more humid than yesterday. In the morning I emailed Dave with Sunday's service and a short appreciative article for the chaplaincy magazine, then continued work on my end-of-stay report. I was about to send it off when an email arrived from Emma the locum secretary I was just about to send it to.

It was an advisory email from the diocese in Europe to locums about preparations which are now necessary before taking on a duty. Changes in private insurance requirements, the possible end of EHIC cover when the UK leaves the EU at the end of this year etc. Another document outlined two main health risk categories was also sent. I don't fall into the extremely vulnerable category, and only fall into the moderately vulnerable because I'm over seventy.

My surgical condition doesn't feature among medical conditions considered a vulnerability factor, unless the long drawn out wait for surgery is now making me more prone to repeat infection. On that matter we shall see. It means I'm able to live a normal life and go out subject to necessary precautions which ought to be taken in any case. That's all I need. My habitual restlessness is subjugated for now, perhaps for good

I emailed the GP surgery this afternoon to check if the results of my swab test had been returned. I had a phone call from my doctor at six, and had a discussion which means yet another course of antibiotics. Clare had to rush around to the surgery at the last minute before closure to pick up the prescription. It seems I'm not clear of infection yet, even if I don't feel sick. I think my immune system has yet to recover fully from all I went through in Ibiza. Perhaps it started much earlier but was slow to build up. Who can tell? What I do know is that I'd be a lot better off if I didn't still have to wait an undetermined time to have the wound closed.

Fascinating to transcribe this evening my account of a betrothal feast in an off-road Cretan mountain village, as it reminded me of something totally forgotten - the singing of a traditional resistance song dating back to the struggle to be liberated from Turkish occupation, if not the Venetians before them.  And right then, in 1967, Crete quietly but stubbornly resisted the influence of the ruling military junta in Athens. The lyrics are bloodthirsty so I was told at the time, and reminded of when listening to that BBC documentary about Cretan music yesterday. Then I thought of our own Welsh national anthem, exalting 'brave warriors, fine patriots shedding their blood for freedom' in its first verse. Romance around the use of violence, rather than regret, persists around the world.

This evening I had an email from my niece Nicky with the text she and Jules had devised for their mother Pauline's funeral eulogy, for me to record. Another little challenge to make the best job of that I can, as I'll be unable to attend, given Wales' recommended travel restrictions, although that my change between now and next Friday. As numbers attending are restricted however, it's much better that Owain goes and represents us, and I contribute by video, not in person.

A place to call home

Before being collected to go to St John's Canton to officiate at a funeral, I spent the morning house sitting, as the last of the contractor's teams set about replacing the original cast iron gutters and down pipes with modern plastic ones. Our house is old, heavy gutters, however well fixed originally, can suffer from ageing. There is a risk of them detaching in bad weather and causing damage in a fall. The light plastic ones can also fall in a storm, but the impact would be much less. Thankfully these houses are not yet the subject of a conservation listing order. Whenever home improvements are made, extensions built, loft conversions installed, there's no uniform pattern imposed. Slowly the appearance of the street changes, and becomes much more varied than the measured uniformity of the original build, whose chief decorative feature is colourful brickwork patterns contrasting with grey Pennant sandstone.

Unfortunately for the workers, there was drizzling rain from lunchtime onwards, but they carried on anyway. The job couldn't be completed totally however, as scaffolding obstructed installation of the of the lowest gutter, though not its removal. It won't take long once the scaffolding is dismantled however. At five, I went into the office and spent the evening catching up on necessary company business which is needed before we can present BCRP finances to our accountant for vetting. Getting it all right is vital for the success of what we do, and there can be no cutting corners. I'm fairly confident that we paid sufficient attention to the detail, and that our financial planning is proving as good as it should be. Just as well, since this is the first year in which we have a full time employee to look after.

News of the latest Italian earthquake set me thinking. For millennia, the Italian peninsula has been geologically unstable. Yet, people have made their homes, built villages and towns in hill country and been afflicted by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions with terrible loss of life over millennia. It seems that the benefits of living in the place far outweigh the risks. Some may move to live in safer areas, but most don't, despite the struggle to rebuild homes and re-establish a devastated economy. Perhaps this can only happen because the sense of community with a sense of place is the greatest of human assets. 

This contrasts in many ways with the contemporary culture of mobility embracing millions of people, either out of necessity or from opportunity to live differently. The internet, so say, abolishes distance, and people build on-line communities of interest that embrace the world. Yet every website still has its Home Page. Everyone starts somewhere which can later be referred to. The trouble with excessive mobility is that many feel they don't really belong anywhere. They may think of themselves as digital nomads, but fail to understand that ancient nomadism revolved around a succession of special places to which a clan would resort with the passage of the seasons. A sense of belonging to the land is far more important than any sense we may have contrived of land as property someone can own. In the end, as the Psalmist says "The earth is the Lord's", and our place in is His gift.

A sense of belonging is essential to our sense of identity. Having moved around a great deal over my lifetime, my sense of being a Welsh Valleys boy, European, and a priest ordained for Llandaff diocese are important to who I think I am. Where I think I belong, where I come to rest, alive and dead, are however, issues yet to be resolved. "Here we have no abiding city.", as the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews states. We've made a home and been at home in dozens of places over the years. Cardiff is the place in which we've been settled for longest, and we both love it, but I still can't help wondering where I truly belong and will finally settle and not want to go anywhere else. Not at a result of infirmity and need, but from fulfilment and content. Will I ever really setle down? It's all part of the great mystery of our existence, I guess.

     

Verification vexation

As expected, St Paul's Grangetown was three quarters full for Tuesday morning's funeral. A family member give a delightful eulogy, much of which consisted of hilarious extracts from her Gran's letters, written to her during the three years she was away at University. These were an affectionate narrative of observations about everyday life and and remarks about family members which had people smiling if not laughing aloud with recognition. What a remarkable way to bring the memory of a person alive. The rest of the day I spent working at home on CBS affairs.

Wednesday morning, I celebrated the midweek Mass at St German's and chatted with people in the church hall afterwards, then again spent the rest of the day working at home on CBS affairs, and didn't even go out for some exercise to take advantage of slightly better weather. How dull and inert I can be on times.

We heard yesterday that Clare's godmother Auntie Daphne had been admitted to hospital with a stroke. She's in her eighties, and it's serious, albeit early days. It's going to be imossible to get to see her before we go away. I wonder if we will see her or even be able to talk to her again on the phone.

This morning, another funeral at St Paul's Grangetown, my last assignment before we go away. There was a cold wind blowing into a cold church when the doors were opened. It was cold at the graveside in Thornhill cemetery afterwards, and I wish I'd bothered to put a long sleeved pullover on under my jacket. These days, even if it's bright and sunny there can still be a wintry chill in the air, so it's easy to get caught out by changeable weather. Clare is already in the throes of packing to go to Spain next week, wondering how changeable the weather will be there, but already it's 8-10 degrees warmer than here, and that makes clouds and rain a bit more bearable.

After lunch I went into the office and did the necessary banking preparation on-line to pay Ian's salary while I'm away. I also went to the branch which handles our business bank accounts to present the signature change mandate, only to have the correct documents rejected again, on the grounds that two of the signatories are not HSBC customers. The fact that I countersigned all of the identity and address documents presented to verify them was unacceptable to the bank. The individuals need to present themselves with the appropriate papers in person at one of their branches, to someone assigned to process identity documents, who is most likely not to know them personally

I have been countersigning to verify passport photographs, and pension fund identity documents for people I know personally for the past forty years, and this is considered acceptable confirmation to Her Majesty's Government. I can still legally solemnise a marriage at which I have officiated, and commit a dead body to the ground with a word of legal authority that requires a legal exhumation order to undo. Banks however, play by their own rules, nationally and internationally, and they have taken us all hostage, by making the world over-dependent on their services and infrastructure, which despite their security regimes contain criminal activity of all kind. They get away with it because of the impersonal nature of data abstracted from social context. De-valuing the authority of personal knowledge and trust based on real relationships will ultimately do the world no good, and leave many people craving for the real security of knowing and being known.