Aftermath

We got up early and breakfasted outdoors in the sunshine. However, the news of the distressingly high death toll, and the stories coming out of Norway this morning were such a distraction that I forgot to take myself over to St German's to say the ten o'clock mass after I'd said Morning Prayer. I felt ashamed of myself, but these tragic events and the world's reaction to them have weighed heavy on me.

A number of media watchers were reproachful of  the initial presumption that this was a work of islamist terrorism, criticising the rush to judgement. Criticism was directed at US news sources describing this as 'Norway's 9/11' when likening it to the Columbine and Oklahoma massacres was the unavoidable home truth.

CNN to its credit interviewed a neighbouring island holidaymaker who'd taken his boat over three times to rescue youngsters fleeing the gunman. They showed a couple of his photos of them on his boat, shiocked by their ordeal. In the picture, a black lad was flanked by two blond lasses. You couldn't have made it up. It's how Norway is today, as open and diverse as any other european country, challenged, as we all are, by the demands of the prejudiced and intolerant. The diversity of the members of this youth camp under attack was to my mind the real target, plus the centre of government in Oslo sustaining this modern multi-cultural society.

Such pathogens are not interested in the vigour of debate, nor putting up with anyone who disagrees with them. What they cannot achieve openly in terms of change, they will take revenge for, suddenly by stealth. I hope the Swiss, equally rich, equally secure in their land, with not much larger a population than Norway, will take extra good care to keep an eye on its dissenters and extremists in times ahead.

  

Enemy within

I returned to work yesterday, with a security user group meeting, to which members of the HANR Outreach Team were invited. The HANR crew are social workers dedicated to the city centre's street people. Last month, I discovered to my surprise that security personnel weren't acquainted with them or their work, so I secured an invitation for them to join the meeting. As there are a handful of street people who can cause real problems for the public and security people when they are the worse for wear with drink or drugs (not to mention the persistent sometimes awkward beggars), I felt this was long overdue. 

Street level social workers can defuse difficult situations sometimes simply because they know people causing a rumpus by name. They know how to draw them away from making worse trouble. So it was positive start in the general direction of managing problems, particularly in the evenings when street people hang around waiting for the soup run to start around the Charles Street exit from the shopping centre. I hope there can be a regular representation at the meeting from the HANR team in future.

This morning I wrote up the minutes of the meeting from my notes, then headed into the office to print them off for editorial corrections. It took me an age to do this because the internet connection went down, as it often does around Friday teatime. I'd done the minutes on Google Docs, being too lazy to save them to a memory stick to carry. Serves me right to rely on this Cloud nonsense. We simply don't yet have as a rule universal stable consistent 24/7 internet access. Even if it's 99% good, it goes down in the 1% when you need it, if now slowing to a crawl when something big happens. As was the case today perhaps.

After I got the minutes printed from Google Docs - less of a pain than it used to be - I took time out to check my Twitter feed, and saw the first reports just coming in of the Oslo bombing, then the shootings at Utoeya Island. Obama was quick to condemn international terrorism, I noted. A a group of fanatical idiots claimed the attacks for their perverted cause, but by the time I got home a different reality was emerging from the facts on the ground. An enemy within - an upper class racist far right extremist - pure Aryan Norwegian - author of both outrages. A different category of idolater of violence. Every country has them they seem to emerge in public from nowhere - and what suffering they cause. The human race sometimes seems unable to get the measure of its own capacity for violence, and it can break out even in the most secure and peaceful of places, like Oslo.

Few seem willing to hear the critique of theologians and spiritual guides of the effects of a culture of violence which is tolerated almost universally, so much so that it is part of our mindset, part of the way we take leisure in movies and the world of sport. The world is so attached to its demons and idols that its only when violent acts cause large numbers of deaths that there's much collective consideration as to why this is so. I seem to have been nagging on about it in sermons for the past forty years to no avail. 

Now I give admin support to an outfit that enables security people in the city to communicate and work with each other in keeping shops pubs and clubs safe to visit and use. I get to see how difficult their job is, and what a lot of problem people there are behaving violently in public. That goodness it's rarely with guns here in Cardiff, but that there is violence at all, whether on the pitch or in the streets cause me to wonder what kind of world we think we have made.

 

Back to blighty

Manel drove us to the airport for our lunchtime flight. As usual, the morning security check queue was very long, due to the departure of a couple of big US flights within the same hour. And it is vacation time, after all. The queues (there are several) moved at a healthy rate, however an we were 'air-side' in fifteen minutes, cruising through the expanded range of posh bargain free shops, toting every kind of luxury imaginable at inflated prices. 

No sign of recession in airport retailing, although the summer sales flourish as ever in the city. I'd dithered all week about buying a LaCie portable hard drive at at a sale discount price. Discounts aren't applied in airport shops of the same store chain, so I lost my opportunity of a bargain, since the special offer price, even in strong Swiss francs was better than the sterling price I'd have paid on my credit card. However, I find it hard to convince myself I really need anything more than I already have.
 

France and England were entirely covered by cloud for the flight. The take-off was delayed ten minutes due to the queue of aircraft taking off.  When we arrived our new passports were processed for the first time by the new technology - the RFID chip once scanned gave access to a gated area where a photograph was taken of our faces and compared with that stored on the chip. Once the match was made, another gate opened and let us through. It took a couple of minutes. The access queue was shorter, so we passed through quite quickly. What it will be like when the majority of UK passport holders have moved on to new passports is anyone's guess.

We missed a connecting train at Temple Meads because the ticket clerk had to leave us, mid purchase to collect a batch of fivers to give us change, but six hours after leaving Petit Sacconex we were home again, greeted vocally by pussycat Ben, demanding food from each of us in turn, even though he had food on his plate. It it  a welcome home or a reproach for our absence, I wonder.

One of the better things about being retired is that you can be away for twelve days, and the pile of mail to be dealt with is not nearly as big or as urgent to be dealt with as it used to be. So the leisurely pace can continue just a little longer. 

Gift of new life

It was a morning for final shopping errands and packing, and an afternoon visit to Gill. Having recently broken a wrist she needed help with ordering Buckingham Palace visitor tickets on-line. It's rather a disadvantage to be in a cast with a painful injury, especially when you're a newcomer to computers at seventy one. I acted as her scribe for answering emails yesterday, which was less straightforward than I'd anticipated, as it involved using MS Outlook, which I've hardly ever resorted to, as I began on Pegasus Mail nineteen years ago and was an early adopter of Mozilla's Thunderbird client - both easier to use, to my mind.

We went with Manel out to Meyrin for supper with the Hester family. Alec and Ann-Marie had their three grand children from Paris, staying for summer holidays, as they often have done over the past decade. They also had their newest grandson with them, adopted from an Ethiopian orphanage by Dagmar and Guy, whom I married in Geneva a dozen years ago. Both are doctors in Geneva, and Samuel is their first child. We saw photos of him last year, just before he arrived. Now he's a very lively, charming and curious three year old, who gets on well with his three French cousins. It was such a delight to be at Alec and Ann-Marie's huge and ever hospitable table with all four of their grandchildren together for the first time.

Ann-Marie observed how Samuel had grown so rapidly during his first year in Switzerland, and that he was never finicky about food, but willingly tried new things and ate whatever he was given with enthusiasm. Also, when taken on occasions to play at the CERN day care nursery, he never showed the least sign of nerves or reticence, but enthusiastically joined in with a large group of strange children. After his early years spent in an orphanage, playing in a large group of children would for him be normality. He's already bringing the gift of great joy to his parents, and it's wonderful to see.

 

Food memory

Monday we met with Keith and Claudine again at a restaurant lunch in Genthod-Bellevue with Manel, and Gill who was our host. We had that classic genevois version of fish and chips, with filets de perche du lac fried without batter and served with a variety of garnishes and pommes frites. A gastric trip down memory lane in good company. Claudine showed us pictures on her iPad of the infamous Thai river Kwai, and the memorial to prisoners of war lost there during the building of the 'railway of death' over sixty five years ago.

Now that school term is over, Keith has finished teaching as well as his church music job. He's joining Claudine already at work in Bangkok since Easter. She returned this week to complete the home removal formalities and join him for the farewells. After fourteen marellous years at Holy Trinity as organist and choirmaster, he's going to Thailand without work plans, aiming to discover fresh possibilities there. His immense talent as both musician and teacher will soon be put to good use in my opinion.

He's already agreed to go into neighbouring Myanmar, at the invitation of the Burmese Anglican Church, to conduct a summer singing school with refugee childen. He's been doing similar things for many summers for the rich kids of expatriates at the Collège du Léman, where he worked. This'll be an adventure at many levels, as there's little likelyhood that teacher and children will have a common language.

After we'd said our farewells, Manel drove us to Versoix to enjoy a little sunshine on the lakeside beach there. It was quite empty, considering that schools are now on holiday. I took the train back into town on a secret errand to purchase a freshly made tarte aux pommes for supper from the supermarket bakery of Manor department store, yet another gastric memory of la vie genevoise.  With a glass of organic wine, a nice lean fruity Gamay de Genéve from the farm shop below the apartment, it went down a treat.

More farewell festivity

It rained for most of the day. We attended the 10h30 Sung Eucharist at Holy Trinity Anglican Church, which was Keith Dale's final service as organist. A lay reader from Paris was guest preacher. Keith was prayed for in the intercessions, and at the end church warden Deborah Vorheis and former church warden Jenny Buffle gave excellent tributes to his work and presented him with gifts. This was followed by a buffet lunch in the parish hall downstairs, with more tributes from choir and congregation. For us it was a wonderful opportunity to catch up with old friends, and so good to share this rite of passage with them, particularly as I was Chaplain when Keith was appointed. He'd been interviewed by church warden Freddie Raveney, and it was delightful that he and his wife Eve came out for the weekend to join the farewells.

    

After lunch, we returned to Manel's for an hour, and then went with her to Gingins for their 16h30 Eucharist. This gave us an opportunity to catch up with a few more friends, and to meet Carolyn Cook, the new Chaplain of La Cȏte for the first time. Although it's summer vacation when many people are away, there were still four dozen people in church. I was pleasantly suprised to discover that the majority of faces were new to me. We've worshipped on and off there down the years since we left Geneva, and while there are still familiar faces in both La Cȏte and Geneva, the number of newcomers grows. More so in La Cȏte than in Geneva currently - and the average age is far less than the 61 quoted gloomily by some surveyor of the English church scene at home last week. Something is going right out here. Church mission is engaging, and making is mark in building community and sharing the Gospel.

But the time the service had ended, the rain had stopped and the sun was shining through the clouds. We had a cup of tea and a chat in the Maison Paroissale, and then drove up the Col de la Givrine to Saint-Cergue to meet with Keith and Claudine for a fondue in a village restaurant. We looked at photos of Thailand Claudine had brought with her on her iPhone and shared their excitement about their new life, ten hours flight away from Switzerland. The air was clear for the evening drive back to Geneva, and the clouds had cleared enough to reveal Mont Blanc in gleaming glory, first white and then golden. One of my favourite of all commuter journeys during my working life.

Farewell concert

Yesterday morning we went into the city centre together for a while, then Clare went off to meet up with a former colleague in Morges, and I went off to see my friend  and former colleague Julia in Divonne. I took the train to Coppet, which is as far as one can travel on the Geneva public transport season ticket. Philippe picked me up and drove me the last leg to their home for an afternoon of conversation sitting out under the trees in their garden, catching up on all that's happened since my visit last October. I was very pleased to hear that Julia's post-ordination training programme is at last completed, and soon, after an interview, she will be fully licensed as a non-stipendiary assistant chaplain.

This morning we visited the farm shop, in one of the buildings belonging to the farm which is the nearest neighbour to the apartment block in which Manel lives. Until the late fifties, most of Petit Saconnex was still given over to orchards and pasture. The farmers who owned the land which is now the Parc du Budé, sold of most of it for housing development, reserving a few hectares and farm buildings in the middle of it, until 2050 for their own use. The land is now managed by a new generation of organic farmers, growing and selling their own organic produce in situ. The shop is well used by neighbours and sells a select range of organic vegetables, oil, honey and Geneva organic wines.

Then we went into the city centre shops to look for a few things we need but can;t get at home and lunched in our favourite department store. As we didn't find what we wanted in the city centre Migros supermarket, we went out on the 18 tram to the Migros in the much larger suburban shopping centre of Balexert. Clare was after a pair of basanes, a lightweight gym shoe, to wear for eurythmy. I also found a pair that just fit me. They'll do nicely for Tai Chi. I also looked for some rubber washers to replace ineffective ones on the joints underneath Manel's leaky kitchen sink. We had no luck in the Migros, so we jumped back on the 18 tram and went further out to the Jumbo DIY superstore in Meyrin, where we quickly found the right ones. We returned to Manel's and I fitted them without any difficulty. A successful expedition.

Our evening was given over to Keith Dale's farewell organ concert in Holy Trinity Anglican Church. Over eighty people were present. Keith delivered a fine programme, which included some duets with trumpeter Christian Crocoll, who attends Gingins. In his day job he's a local air traffic controller working at Cointrin Airport. Keith introduced each of the pieces performed with a background story about the composer and the piece of music. He's an enthusiastic raconteur and his 'act' certainly brings the music alive. It was good to see so many supporters of Geneva Anglican church music present for this occasion. A collection was taken which raised £1,200, to be divided between the organ fund and an orphanage in Myanmar. 

Le quatorze Juillet

We slept well, and eventually walked into the city centre through the generous parks in which many of Geneva's high rise blocks of the sixties and seventies are set. This is a persisting tribute to the influence of Swiss architect Le Corbusier, one of the european pioneers of modern urban high rise lifestyle, and in places like Petit Sacconex where this kind of urban design is particularly well done and well managed, residents indeed live in a green and pleasant land in the heart of the city. 

Having said that, the costs of renting or buying a place to live this lifestyle are very high indeed - not only because of the high demand from people with plenty of money to spend, but also because of the high cost of maintaining both buildings and park landscape. I don't suppose Le Corbusier, designing and planning between the Great Wars, could have imagined the cost of his creations in future generations. Switzerland then was not nearly so wealthy then and contribution made by routine labour was undervalued. Most importantly however, habitations were created that raised aspirations about the quality of living space any constructor could set out to achieve, both in private and publicly funded housing.

Our mission was to get city travel passes for the week (anywhere in the Cantonal network on any kind of transport at any time, for thirty quid), to have lunch in our favourite department store, with the summer sales in full swing, and to get some Swiss money. I'd brought with me to use some spare Canadian dollar travellers cheques left over from our Christmas excursion. We discovered that none of the many bureaux de change handled travellers cheques, but the UBS bank was most obliging.

We walked across to the Rive Gauche, had an ice cream at an open air bar on the banks of the Rhone, and observed an eight year old working his way with a small cup through the clientele, and tourists seated on steps nearby begging for centimes. Earlier, before crossing the bridge we'd been accosted by a young woman, tidily dressed, begging for a tram fare to get her to the end of the canton for some unstated reason. We watched her work the queues of visitors waiting to cross the street and at the bus stop. 

It was an odd pretext to beg, given that even visitors soon find out how rarely anyone on public transport is asked to produce a ticket. When it happens, fines are steep. Few people resent paying because fares are reasonable and the quality of service is so good. I also noticed a couple of women in  black wearing the hijab and begging in the streets. One had propped herself up against a parked white van, in exactly the same position as where I took a photo of a woman begging last summer.  I guess this is as much of a challenge to police in Geneva as it is in Cardiff.

We made our way back to Petit Sacconex at tea time, and later went out for a brief  visit to our friend Gill, who lives in a nearby apartment. The last time we'd seen her was in the televised broadcast of the Royal Maundy service from Westminster Abbey, where she was among representatives of the diocese in Europe.

Tonight we can hear fireworks from France voisine.  After all, it is Bastille Day.

   

Rainy train trip

The weather changed for the worse overnight, with thunder and intermittent rain. The mountains were either shrouded in mist or decorated with massive cloud formations. We said our goodbyes and took a taxi from Grabs to Buchs railway station, rather than get wet through walking to the bus. In fact, it rained on and off, all the way from the east of the country to its westernmost tip.

We went from Buchs to Sargans on a regional train, and shared the carriage with a class of primary school children who sang with their teacher for most of the journey. At Sargans we picked up the inter-city train to Zurich, and with perfect timing caught the westbound train which, although destined for Geneva, only took us as far as Bern, where we had to change from the standard double decker inter-city express to another older train, 40-50 years old to take us onwards.

Apparently the double decker had to be taken out of service for technical reasons. All we had to do was walk across the platform and board the replacement. This took less than ten minutes, and we still arrived in Geneva at the scheduled time. A very impressive feat of organisation on the part of Swiss railways, and quite crucial, given that the final destination of the train is Geneva Airport, and some travellers would be relying on punctuality to catch flights elsewhere.

As for us, our dear friend Manel met us at Cornavin station and drove us to her apartment in Petit Sacconex, where she fed us royally with a Sri Lankan curry for supper. It's great to be back in the city we know and love as much as we love Cardiff.
  

Mountain stroll and village visit

After an early night, I awoke at 5.20am to see a beautiful orange sky. I sat outside on the balcony in the cool morning air and waited, camera in hand, to watch the sun rise. Just after the church clock stuck six, the first brilliant flash of the sun's rays broke out of a low mountain ridge across the plain, over in Austria. Then I did some Chi Gung exercises before returning to bed to sleep for another hour.Not too long as we had to breakfast and then get a nine fifteen bus from Grabs Post Office to take us up the narrow winding Grabserberg road to Voralp, for a cool walk on a hot day around a lake set in the forest surrounded by mountain peaks at 1,200m.

In a meadow above the lake twenty cows with grey velvety coats made music with their bells as they munched. It was the only sound to be heard apart from that of distant streams descending steep slopes. Four elderly herdsmen quietly worked the grassy enclave with scythes, excising unwanted plants which can grow to occupy such space that the grass yeild is reduced. And grass yeild of high quality is essential to the cheese making that follows milking.

Also above the lake is a small terrace with a portakabin for serving drinks and snacks. A fire had reduced the wooden one to ashes last winter, and this will be replaced eventually, but in the meanwhile, service to visitors continues as usual. By the time we'd walked around the lake families with children began to arrive to have their picnics, walk their dogs or go out on the lake in an inflatable. The only other occupant of the lake was a pair of brown ducks with their brood, making strenuous efforts to keep as far away as they could from anyone else enjoying the water.

By the time we arrived back in Grabs, with the midday bus, the temperature had risen to over thirty degrees and it was quite humid. Later as it began to cool slightly, I walked the two kilometres down the valley to take photographs of Werdenberg Castle, and the remarkable collection of three dozen wooden houses gathered within its outer walls. Some of the houses date from the middle of the fifteenth century and all are different in style and decoration. It's one of the oldest collections of wooden buildings extant. Most others comparable villages have burned to the ground and been re-built at one time or another. Not unsurprisingly there was a notice which declared the entire area as a no smoking zone. Another notice describes it as the smallest town in Switzerland.

This 'smallest town' and its castle (now a cultural centre) are in the commune of Grabs and sit just beside the main road from Buchs to Grabs. The castle has a small vineyard, and on our first evening, Hans gave us a glass of their 2008 Blauburgunder rotwein. It was something of a rarity as only 500 bottles were produced - a gift from a patient. It was a pleasure to photograph this remarkable historic treasure - as much a tribute to the Swiss passion for conservation as the alpine forest, meadow and lake we'd visited earlier in the day.

  

Philatelist's Haven

This morning we visited the Principality of Liechtenstein, a 35 minute journey from Grabs across the Rhine Valley, with one slick bus change in Buchs. The return trip cost CHF 4.20 - equal to the cost of a cup of coffee at high street prices here. A very reasonably priced excursion to another country. 

Liechenstein features  regularly on Swiss weather maps as one of the consistently hottest places in the country. It functions much like a Swiss Canton with its own elected government and institutions, but it uses Swiss currency, has a constitutional monarch, the Prince as head of state. It has its own legal code, even its own Archbishop, whose flock is the size of a large UK parish.

In the 20th century, this small state rose from rural poverty to become a international banking and tax haven. It's a lot larger than Monaco with its 60 sq miles of mostly mountainous land area, but its population at 30,000 is roughly the same. There's good skiing in winter, some high tech engineering businesses, a famous postage stamp industry, endless streams of day visitors, and private banking industry. All of these work to make its population unusually wealthy.

There's not much more to the town centre of Vaduz, the capital city than a high street of rather dull late 20th century shops offering all the prestige high value brands, some curious public art, and a few stylish new art galleries. Standing next to the Parish Church of Sankt Florin, which doubles as a Cathedral, is a 19th century government building in the Austrian imperial style. This is now flanked by a new building clad in yellow brick, its simple lines in daring contrast to its neighbour. The open precinct in front of them contains an array of lime trees, planted in five straight lines running for over a hundred metres, a hundred trees in all. Probably each is planted in a growth restricting container to make this artificial grove of trees manageable in the public realm. It looks striking in summer, offering a shady area within a large open space, but the trees are not evergreens. Apart from looking good in summer, it's hard to imagine how this area will function in winter.

We wandered the main street, bought ourselves some post cards and stamps, and a picnic lunch. Then we climbed up the footpath to the Palace. It's on a promontory overlooking the town, about six hundred feet above the plain. The first stage, past the houses on the slower slopes is all steps. Then the path becomes a series of long gradients, with occasional views through the trees, and punctuated by a succession of information panels giving the history of the royal house and principality, an account of its social and economic geography, religion and political constitution. This is very well set out in German, French and English, clear and simple, a super resource for visiting school parties to use on their ascent. At the top there is a viewing platform, and a place where we could eat our picnic lunch. 

The road to the castle runs close by, so we were able to walk up to the outskirts of the palace and take in the scenic location before descending. The castle is not open to visitors, it's the private home and work place of the Prince and his family. Having reached our goal and sent our handful of postcards, we returned to Grabs, feeling unusually tired after our steep climb in one of Switzerland's hottest places, today and any day.

  

Protestant Sunday

Another sun-filled early awakening. Summoned by bells, I walked to worship at the church I can see from the bedroom balcony.Its clock strikes the hours and signals the beginning and end of the working day for people in the parish. It's the parish church of Swiss Reformed community, I discovered when I arrived and joined the assembly - a large building with balconies, seating over six hundred. There were about eighty people in church, two thirds of them belonged to a couple of families bringing babies for baptism. My guess that the regularly attending congregation is around thirty people was later confirmed by Heinz.

Yesterday in Alt Sankt Johannes, the Swiss Reformed Church I looked at had been renovated in recent times, and the sanctuary was furnished with a small pulpit, font and altar table, in keeping with contemporary liturgical design practice which has been truly ecumenical as well as widespread in its influence. The Grabs Gemeindekirche reflected an earlier movement of renovation and restorations, probably 19th, early 20th century, still faithful to reformation tradition.

Thus, on the north side of the nave was a finely carved wooden pulpit fifteen feet above floor level, high enough for the preacher to be able to eyeball people sitting in the gallery. The semi-circular vaulted gothic apse, had one central stained glass lancet window depicting Christ the Good Shepherd and was empty apart from a dozen chairs around the wall. At what Anglicans would call the chancel step stood the font, with the lit paschal candle nearby - one concession to the modern liturgical emphasis on the importance of baptism. However, the font cover provided a surface on which a bookstand could be placed for the pastor to use while officiating. There was no altar - very Zwinglian. The first time saw this was in a Wintertur church 25 years ago.

The Pastor, dressed in dark suit and tie, looking like an undertaker on a home visit, led the baptismal families in at the start. He addressed the congregation, and the making of the baptismal promises seemed to be no more than a simple 'yes' on the part of the parents and sponsors. Then came the baptism. He didn't use the font, but rather a small silver ewer and bowl for the baptismal water. He held each child and put a drop of water on the forehead of each as he spoke the trinitarian words. After saying some prayers and then a hymn together, he went up into the pulpit, read a passage from Exodus, then preached for fifteen minutes. We stood to pray and sat to sing hymns. The service ended with the Lord's prayer said together, a sung prayer from the hymn book, then we were dismissed with the Pastor's benediction.

When I got outside I realised no collection had been taken. I wonder if this was because the church is still funded through the kirchensteuer - the church tax or some other means of subscription which takes the offering of gifts right out of the liturgical action. The point of the reformation was to re-engage all people fully in church life and this was meant to be expressed in the liturgy, which up until that time had been mainly a clerical monologue with a passive audience, unless there was a choir to sing parts of the service. Congregational hymn singing is part of the historic legacy of the reformation for protestant and catholic churches alike. Up until the liturgical reform movement of the 20th century worship remained for the most part a clerical monologue with a passive audience, except for hymn singing. It was like that in some non-conformist chapels when I was growing up. Anglican lay people were reading lessons and sometimes prayers also, however. That made us different. Still, participation has to be worked at, developed and sustained in any religious tradition, or else the tendency to revert to passivity reasserts itself.

It was good to be reminded about how things used to be, and as my German is not too good, it was quite a struggle to follow the monologue. Vernacular speech is right and proper to use in any local worship setting, but this always makes it difficult to enable visitors who do not understand the language to feel at home. Being a a non-eucharistic liturgy exacerbates the difficulty, for at least the commonly accepted form of a eucharistic liturgy makes the entire activity accessible to participation if if it is not wholly intelligible. And this holds true wherever you are. I was glad to have attended a service with a baptism, because that has a recognisable form and identity as a pastoral social action. Without that I think I would have felt quite lost, more like a stranger in the Lord's house.

After brunch and a siesta, we took a leisurely afternoon stroll along footpaths around the village of Grabs and sawe something of its colourful mix of old and new housing, and small industries, not set apart, but in among the houses as they have been since the village was more thinly populated and quite rural. Ringed around by high cliffed mountains and wonderfully green alpine hillsides below them, it's a pleasant place to live, well connected to the rest of the region by superb public transport, if you have to work elsewhere. Heinz is blessed with his own dental practice in the heart of the village, ten minutes cycle ride from home, and Marie-Louisa, works at home and in the community with mothers and infants.

Hills alive with the sound of music

We slept well and woke up as the sun rose, the air still and clear, promising decent weather. After a leisurely breakfast, we took the Post Bus up into the Toggenenberg Valley to Wildhaus (birth place of Huydrich Zwingli, radical Swiss 16th century church reformer), and on to the village of Alt Sankt Johannes, where a Catholic church with former convent building attached (now turned into apartments) stands next to the Reformed Church, with a beautiful herb garden and quirky water scuplture between them.

From here we took the chair lift half way up the south side face of the mountain to join a walking trail going east along the contours through alpine pasture and forest with views north across the valley of the mountain range crowned by the Säntis peak, with its panoramic restaurant at 3,000m+, topped by a tall TV relay mast. Throughout the afternoon, clouds came and went from the high peaks, making every view different. The reason we'd come up here to walk was not just the scenery however.

The trail is punctuated with a series of artistic installations of devices making different sounds when a user interacts with them. Several use a wide range of cowbells and chimes struck or shaken by different mechanisms. Animal bells in alpine pastureland is one of the most evocative mountain sounds, but here, the listener rings the bells, and they are placed, sometimes very close and other times away at a height for different effect. Our favourite was a see-saw fitted with a xylophone along which a ball rolled as it tipped. It gives a new understanding to the phrase 'playing music'.

There are several other sound making devices as well - including a rotating cylinder covered with metal strings with a movable bow attached, so that it can be made to play notes and overtones at different frequencies simultaneously. An awesome ethereal sound. ('Awesome' is word I now rarely use since hearing it exhausted of meaning in Canadian common parlance.) This installation was housed in part of a working barn. We rode a bicycle tethered to a device whirling a hollow tube around, its pitch varying with the rate of pedalling, and a played with sphere composed of large metal disks like cymbals, that could be struck together or separately to make huge resonant metallic sounds.

There was a suite of hollow metal bowls, each containing a metal ball. When rotated, the balls made the bowls sing. Our friends told us that similar singing bowls are traditionally used to accompany yodellers. Strange to say, but before we reached this place, we came across of group of mainly young women, standing by a drinking trough, singing a folk song. Later we heard them testing the acoustic of the landscape, singing out from a grass promonotory - what else could you expect to find here in the Alps but a group attending a yodelling course!

This sound trail - Klangweg in German, is the creative idea of a local musician. He now has several collaborators making suitable sound installations for this environment and sponsorship to develop a music centre for the Toggental. Apart from birdsong and running water, this is such a quiet environment, far from roads railways, airlanes and factories. This enhances the beauty and pleasure of listening. It makes attentiveness easier. The naturally produced sounds of the installations fit beautifully into the setting. It's inspirational. I wonder if it's unique? It's certainly a special feature of local tourism summer and winter.

Rainbow Journey

As I was about to leave for Cardiff Airport this morning for a flight to Zurich, using the new Air Helvetica service, Pauline popped in to feed Ben, thinking we'd left yesteday. We had a quick tea and a chat before she drove me to meet Clare at the bus station. She'd gone ahead earlier on an errand. As we departed, I realised I didn't have with me the Swiss Rail Half fare card which both of us were relying on for reasonably priced travel across Switzerland. Searching my office in a state of panic produced no happy outcome, and put me in a miserable mood. We caught the bus for the airport and arrived in good time, with me still fretting about the lost fare card. I'd done exactly the same thing when I went to Geneva last October, so I was doubly annoyed with myself.

Airport security obliged Clare to exchange her perfectly serviceable plastic ten inch transparent plastic bag for liquid medicines for a smaller six inch bag, something we'd never encountered flying from anywhere else. She had to pay a pound to obtain four regulation sized bags from a vending machine, packaged in a plastic sphere. The bag size rules are set by the security company employed, and there is no prior notification of this. The procedure enforces a purchase on spurious grounds, taking advantage of travellers' vulnerability at this moment, anxious about being barred from a flight. The airport unusually charges two pounds to use a baggage trolley, and a pound to drop off car passengers in the vicinity of the terminal entrance. None of these little annoyances serve as an incentive to passengers to use the airport. So it's no surprise it's proving hard to grow passenger numbers. Major carrier BMI Baby has pulled out of Cardiff. I wonder how long Air Helvetica's new four times weekly flight initiative will last. Our flight on a small-medium sized Fokker 110 jet was only 20% full.

From the comparative emptiness of Cardiff International, we arrived at the vast Zurich - Kloten Flughafen, and unusually had to queue for fifteen minutes for a passport check. Only half the gates were staffed at Friday rush hour time, with flights arriving from all over the world every few minutes. Once through, our bags were ready to be picked up, and we were just a minute's walk from the rail station and travel enquiry desk. My half fare card predicament turned out to be no predicament at all. For five Swiss francs I was issued a rail ticket sized card marked 'halb-tax vergessen' (forgotten fare card), with my card expiry date printed on it. All I had to was sign and present with any ticket bought. The details of my card purchase eleven months ago in Geneva were still on the computer system.

Much cheered, we sped to platform three with five minutes to spare to take the next train to Zurich Hauptbahnhof, where a train for Buchs SG awaited us - an Austrian inter-city express, bound for Innsbruck, no further train changing necessary. The weather was kinder to us than the last time we made this trip. The mix of evening sun and cloud produced an enchanting succession of rainbows over lake and land alike as we sped south before turning east at Sargans for the last leg to Buchs. We only five minutes to wait before a bus arrived to take us to take us the last mile and half to our destination, Grabs, for a happy re-union with our friends Marie-Luisa and Heinz, just four hours after leaving Cardiff.

Letting go

I travelled with my friend Martin and his son Andrew up to the village of Ton Pentre this afternoon, to attend the funeral Mass for our mutual friend Fr Elfed Hughes, who died suddenly at his home in Tonyrefail nearly two weeks ago. There were 200 mourners at St Peter's Pentre, the church where Elfed was Vicar in his early years of ministry, where he had requested in his will that the service be held. Over a quarter of those present were clergy, colleagues from the various places where he had exercised ministry. Bishop David Yeoman presided over the Mass and Bishop Michael Doe, head of USPG, whose employ Elfed had only recently left, gave an address.

The order of service had been prepared by Elfed in advance, containing favourite hymns and prayers for such an occasion. Particularly striking was the use of Wesley's classic 'O thou who camest from above', with its final verse sung three times. At first glance I though it was a typo, but then I recalled Michael Doe's words about "a service carefully prepared" and thought, this is no accident, this is Elfed's Gospel message to us all.

Ready for all Thy perfect will

my acts of faith and love repeat

till death Thine endless mercies seal,

and make the sacrifice complete.

Elfed once told me that he had learned to live with two potentially life threatening conditions, one related to the kidneys and another to the heart, either of which could kill him quickly. Throughout the thirty odd years of his ministry, he considered he was living on borrowed time, and lived it to the full, right up to the day when he returned to his Tonyrefail home from London where he'd been working, preparing to move on, and died in a place where he always felt he belonged. The service reflected faithfully his spirit as a missionary pastor. I love his own words, quoted on the back of the service sheet.

"The whole emphasis should be on celebrating life

of which my death is yet another God-given experience.

If there is grief, I hope that it will not centre on pain and hurt

but merely the difficulty of letting go."

After the service we stood and chatted for a good while outside, meeting briefly with colleagues not seen for years. I don't envy Bishop David his role in retirement. He is often called in to officiate at funerals for former colleagues, some of whom he'd have been very close to, over decades of ministry together. This gives an extra layer of sadness and remembrance to the grief awakened by as Elfed stated, 'the difficulty of letting go'.

We didn't go to the service at the Crem - another hour's journey away in Bridgend, but returned to Cardiff straight away. Martin returned home, to a house full of guests, and I went in to the office to put things in order before taking a break from work.

When I arrived, I was greeted with news that City Centre Manager Paul Williams, who'd been interviewed for his own job, as part of Council re-structuring has been passed over in favour of someone more senior  in the Council's job pecking order, who doesn't have the same experience of ten year's day to day city centre management in the face of total upheaval. By the time the appointee has learned to job, it'll be time to retire. I think many people working in the city centre will be questioning the wisdom of such judgements in the next few days.

Uncertain future

This morning, I sang the Solemn Mass at St German's, for the first interregnum Sunday there, and Archdeacon Peggy preached very well on St Thomas the Apostle. It will be the first of many visits to St German's in the coming months, before Fr Dean Atkins is licensed to the combined charge of the Parishes of Splott St Saviour and Adamsdown St German's. In its heyday between the wars, the parishes of of this urban priority area, had as many as half a dozen clergy. It will now have just one full timer, serving a total population of 19,000 in the two electoral Wards. While there are a dozen or more other churches, mosques, temples etc catering for the pastoral needs of the area, if no preference is expressed by a bereaved family, usually it's the Anglican Parish priest who is called upon to officiate at funerals. With an ageing population, this call of duty alone can keep a full time cleric very busy.

At Fr Roy's retirement do on Wednesday last it was reported that he'd done 399 baptisms in fifteen years as Vicar. That's roughly one a fortnight throughout. The number of weddings will certainly have fallen to a few dozen in those years, but baptisms and funerals in church still feature as part of community life. Fr Dean will be adding this to the work he already does in Splott, which is twice the population of Adamsdown. Both Parishes have been developing lay ministries in an encouraging way. However, many lay people have full lives and limited availability when it comes to sharing the pastoral load, and freeing the priest to take missionary initiatives in the locality. The drastic reduction of numbers of full time serving clerics that's been happening this past decade offers a special challenge to the church in urban working class areas where vestiges of traditional community life that still touch upon the church can make a difference when it comes to community renewal. This is true up in the Valleys communities too. A this stage it's not easy to envisage what the future will be for both Parish churches and the area they serve.

Yesterday evening, my Swedish friend Sara, whom I met in Geneva not long before we left there arrived this evening with her husband Gunnar and three children at the start of a week's holiday touring around Wales. It's her first trip back to Britain since before she got married five years ago, our first opportunity to meet with  Gunnar and the children. We shared a meal and briefed them about some of the local visitor opportuunities before they went off to find their B&B on the embankment opposite the Millennium Stadium. They came back for supper again this evening following a somewhat unsuccessful expedition to find Barry's best beaches. I forgot to register 'Barry Island' in their consciousness, and the quality of the tourism signs in the vicinity of the town leaves something to be desired by way of information which publicises the town's best family asset. Tomorrow they are off to the Gower, much better briefed.
  

Birthday outing

Today was Owain's birthday - we going to go out into the countryside for lunch, but we got delayed, as he set about installing a new PC in the morning, and ran into wi-fi problems, so my journey to pick him up turned into a trouble-shooting session, during which a friend arrived to greet him and give him a present. By the time we were ready to leave, we decided not to risk being too late for lunch afer our journey and ate at Oscar's around the corner instead.

Then we drove out to Southerndown for a walk along the beach. I did ten minutes' Chi Gung on the beach in the sunshine until the tide was lapping at my feet. Then we walked around neighbouring Dunraven Castle gardens, a place we'd never been before, but which was known to Owain. The Vale's unspoiled Jurassic coastline along this stretch is one of its best natural assets, especially in perfect weather. I counted three falcons flying around in the same section of cliff face above a small inaccessible beach, possibly all of the same family. Both Owain's sisters rang him on his mobile phone - one from Kenilworth and one from Canada, so he was able to speak to them, and his nieces as well. This year uniquely, Owain is exactly half my age. How life whizzes by.

 

Priest, pastor, pedagogue

After a few late afternoon hours in the office, I walked over to Adamsdown to St German's Church to join the three hundred strong congregation celebrating the 43rd anniversary of Father Roy Doxsey's ordination to the priesthood, with a solemn Mass, followed by retirement speeches and a presentation, bringing his fifteen year ministry in the Parish to its conclusion. Roy looks and behaves somewhat younger than his seventy years, but seventy is the compulsory retirement age for Church in Wales clerics, and that's that. He's had a home of his own in the hamlet of Bethlehem near Myddfai in Carmarthenshire for more than a quarter of a century, but he won't be retreating from Cardiff, having taken a small apartment in the neighbouring Parish of Roath, so that he can continue to play a part in the church's life and witness in the city.

He preached with great humour, telling the story of his life in ministry and witnessing to the faith that has sustained him in a moving way. He began: "I'm fighting off a chest infection today, but I'm very glad this is my farewell we're celebrating, and not my funeral." The congregation came from all periods of his life in ministry - colleagues, parishioners, community leaders - I counted half a dozen Tredegarville teachers there, from the role we shared as school Governors. Most of Roy's ministry involved him one way or another with education: school chaplaincies, warden of a Zambian ministry training scheme, and latterly school governor and pastor. Yet, he left school with no qualifications. When his vocation emerged, he was sent to study at Ystradmeurig College, near Strata Florida in the wilds of Cardiganshire, a long gone institution where aspirants were helped through a catch-up educational process to prepare them for tertiary theological study. 

The church lacks such institutions nowadays. Once they offered spiritual formation through life in a small community of prayer and study which brought out the best in students and built confidence in their ability to carry on learning at a higher level. Roy, a self confessed rebel, was among the last generation of ordination candidates to take that route. It made an admirable missionary pastor out of him, without ever quenching his challenging spirit or his sense of humour.

Preparation of this kind is now done through evening courses at F.E. colleges or seminaries. Aspirants don't have to uproot until they start a full time training course. It keeps them in the everyday world, and this can impose additional pressures on them as learners, as I have seen with a few of the part time theological students I've received on parish placement. I wonder if it gives such a substantial spiritual formation as can be gained by the close contact afforded in a residential community of prayer and study. Well, I guess I'll find out this autumn. I've accepted an invitation from Peter Sedgewick, Principal of St Mike's to explore becoming part of his team of personal tutors, working with a small group of students as they face the educational challenge of preparing for ordination today.

  

Tech support

I spent today getting my friend Father Graham Francis' new laptop purchase up and running. Wednesday last we met up at John Lewis', where he is store chaplain. Their summer clearance sale was about to start, and up in the top floor technology department, there were some bargains to be had. As Graham is none to sure how he will get on with a laptop after eight years of using a desktop machine now running at a snail's pace, partly because his ISP is AOL, and his broadband is supplied by a sluggish USB ADSL modem. So, he bought a decent enough entry level Compaq machine at a rock bottom price, enough for his modest office needs, and dozens of times fasted than his existing kit.

Next day, I went down to get it working for him. This turned into a nightmare because the laptop would not recognise the USB modem, and the installation disk, failed. It was probably designed for Windows 95. There was no way of getting on-line to start the process. A call to the AOL help line was helpful  in understanding the problems, and enabled us to acquire the correct user access details to hook up. I went to the office and brought back a couple of spare wireless broadband routers to try and establish a connection. Two more calls to the helpline politely concluded that the helpful staff were not trained in the technical arcana of either of these industry standard devices. In the end, Graham rang them again and expressed his dissatisfaction with not being able to get on line with his new laptop. Before he could threaten to move to another supplier, an offer was made to mail him a replacement 'proper' AOL wireless router, and award him a substantial discount on the service provided for the next year. If only we'd known that six frustrating hours earlier!

The router arrived over the weekend and today I went down a second time and succeeded in setting it up very quickly, and installing some of the programs that he could use to work on his existing data. Since he began using a computer he'd stuck with Word Perfect, and long ago lost the installation disks. There was no version he could download, but an early version of Lotus Symphony I found some time ago offers a high degree of file compatibility - albeit imperfect. Imperceivable minor changes in fonts and layout left some of his carefully crafted page files in need of tidying up to fit presentably. Once saved, the new format would not be accessible on his old machine. So much for file format interchangeability - an area in which some measure of agreement has been reached over the years between the big players.

Most users just want something that works without needing to tinker. Nobody willingly puts extra time into learning how to use a different set of software, unless it's a route to earning more. Volunteers and occasional individual users with limited skills want to put all their time into being productive, not relearning how to handle tools with which they thought they were familiar.

Thank goodness for the Free/Open Source software community, which understands this and does brilliantly in providing a means for people to get what they really need, rather than what some corporate program designer presumes they must use in the interests of profiting from built-in software redundancy.

Once I'd got Graham's laptop properly up and running, I returned to the office for a couple of hours, then rode over to St Dyfrig and St Samson's to celebrate the evening Mass, to allow Graham to go to another friend's silver jubilee Mass in Aberdare. There was a welcoming congregation of eight women, one of them an Anglican who was also a Methodist lay preacher - a pretty good turn out for a Monday evening. And I was glad to have the opportunity to remember my friend Elfed among the departed for the first time.

Home to sad news

When I woke up after the gig yesterday morning, Clare was out in the garden putting the finishing touches to the installation of a set of curtains she made for Rhiannon's Wendy house. It was a lovely surprise for her when she arrived home from an overnight sleepover at her best friend's Imogen's house. Imogen also has a Welsh granny who visits and looks after her from time to time.

I spent much of the day trying to process video material shot at last night's concert, with little success, as the computer I was using was underpowered and crashed from overheating when asked to work hard. I couldn't use my little portable, perfectly up to the task, for long as I forgot to pack the power lead. I learned hands on about the frustrations of converting video files from one format to another. It's a tricky business at the best of times, and hard to explain simply to those who can't be bothered to get to grips with the complexities of proprietary software, happy to stick with products only if they work 'out of the box', as they should do. 

To my mind there is not enough interchangeability between the formats different hardware manufacturers use. Their philosophy is: to keep customers loyal, make it as difficult as possible for them to switch and use the digital output of their video camera on another system. With the arrival of Windows 7 it's become easier to play back and edit different video formats, but for those still using Windows XP, it's just an obstacle course.

I began today with a walk to Kenilworth Parish Church for the eight o'clock Eucharist, then we breakfasted together late and hear about Kath and Anto's duo gig in Lichfield last night, for which we were enlisted as babysitters. We took a picnic lunch out to the Abbey fields and sat on the grass, where we attracted the nerve racking interest of a series of curious dogs being walked by their owners. Then it was time to drive home to permit Clare to spend the end of the afternoon helping clear up after the Steiner School summer fair, taking place in St Catherine's church nearby, while I cooked supper.

I found a message on the answering machine which led to a call to the our local USPG advisor, my old friend Chris Reaney, to learn of the death of Father Elfed Hughes. Elfed has worked for USPG in Wales before he got a headquarters job in charge of USPG's affairs in Britain. Failing investments and declining revenue has plagued USPG for the past twenty years, and led to a drastic downsizing of the organisation in order to keep as far as possible its funding commitments in the Third World. Elfed was one of those who made sure that the crisis was faced in a positive and creative way. He had recently volunteered to become redundant and was on the hunt for a new job. Before the weekend, a friend in London saw him and described him as looking well, full of life hope for the future. He was found dead, most likely from a heart attack, in his Tonyrefail home yesterday. From his days as a young priest, when I first met him, thirty years ago, I was aware he suffered from two life threatening conditions, either of which could overtake him at any time. His walk of faith was always on the tightrope between them. It's the only way to explain his exuberant adventurous faith.

May he rest in peace and rise in glory.
   

Lament at Warwick Arts centre

Having missed the Tuesday Chi Gung class this week to go the induction service at St John's, I went to the Tai Chi class in Penarth's Albert Road Methodist Church yesterday evening instead. The huge church building is up for sale, and a church hall renovated and converted into an attractive multi purpose sanctuary and social centre. It's a pleasant place for our mediative learning activity, and the class was en enjoyable experience. 

I did the first section of Short Form Tai Chi, which the class is learning, from memory for the first time in months without making a fool of myself. The class did me a lot of good, and filled me with fresh energy, so much so that when I got home, I wrote up the morning's meeting minutes and still got to bed by half past twelve. I slept well and slept late, which was annoying since there were errands to be done before setting out for a weekend in Kenilworth, and we arrived there only just on time as a result. I was rather sad that this crowded morning meant I was unable to attend a St John's Day Eucharist anywhere. It leaves me feeling that my retirement lifestyle still falls short of being satisfactory.

Kath and Anto's band Lament were on stage for a gig in the studio at Warwick Arts centre, a few miles away, and with Rhiannon enjoying a sleep-over with friends, Clare and I got to watch them perform live for the first time since I retired. There was a good sized appreciative audience there, and the band performed superbly. It has developed a tremendous musical cohesion, hugely confident in its own compositions and arrangements - playing vibrant swinging latin-jazz with the tightness you'd associate with a top string quartet. I took video footage on my new camera as well as photos, and drained the fully charged batteries of this and my back up camera in the course of an hour an a half shooting. The next job will be to get the the best footage on to You Tube, for the world to see!

And indeed, here's the link!

Each in their own world

I took minutes for the monthy meeting of the CBS Radionet users group this morning, and was hardly surprised at the frustration expressed by some present at the lack of progress in dealing with occasional problems arising from evening gatherings of street people for food hand outs in Charles Street. Security staff from the stores in St David's centre are often first responders on the scene when somebody driven to nasty behaviour by drink or drugs becomes threatening or violent to members of the public or to other vulnerable people out there.  

The nightly presence of a Police officer in this vicinity nightly would make all the difference to other professionals' concern for the security and safety of others. But the Police, they said, are rarely around or available when needed. Cut-backs in policing budgets, if it leads to any change in operational priorities, show no sign of bringing improvement to this situation. It's been the same for years.

Knowing something of the fruitless efforts made to resolve the problem by the Street Carers Forum and City Centre Management at the request of the Police, I could explain what had happened. Re-location of food handouts is not yet practicable, as there is no useable space in the city centre where street people would feel safe to gather. Like every other citizen, they have a right to be in the centre, much as many would like to see them cleared out. They gather in public places because it counters the sense of isolation and insecurity. It's at their place of need that food distribution can happen most effectively. The best solution would be a small drop in venue /feeding station, run by volunteers right in the centre. But who is prepared to invest in providing such a place?

If that can't happen, a fresh initiative is needed to manage the present situation better, with neighbourhood meetings of security pros, Street Carers' Forum reps, City Centre Management, social workers and Police to identify core problems and agree remedies. I was surprised to discover that no security professional knew the social workers working the city centre. These experienced carers are often better at dealing with difficult clients behaving badly than the Police. Another case of people occupying the same social space, coping with the same problems separately but living in their own worlds, without reference to others.

The temporary re-siting of the city's main work with homeless and vulnerable people - the Huggard Centre and Tresillian House - to the old Custom House Building, close to several hotels and John Lewis store, caused uproar initially. The operation has been well managed however. There are regular meetings with the posh neighbours, and two weeks ago the Custom House team joined Radionet, and is in touch not only with neighbourhood bosses, but also workers on the ground concerned for public safety and security. A similar meeting in the Charles Street neighbourhood might prove useful.  I wonder what I can do to make sure that happens?

A new start on Midsummer Day

I woke up early this morning and for the second day running found myself able to work on the book I am trying to write. Once I'd completed additions to a chapter that I woke up thinking about, I switched to digitising a roll of black and white negatives belonging to my sister June, taken in the 1960s. Some of the photos were taken from her office in the City of London at the time the Barbican centre was being built. Others were taken on holiday in Florence. I was pleased with the result and uploaded them to her Picasa web album site, and later received a delighted email full of reminiscences.

After lunch, it was time to put on a suit and tie and spend a late afternoon hour in the office before making my way with Ashley to St John's City Parish Church for the induction and welcome celebration of Liz Griffiths my successor as Vicar. Nearly 250 people were present including several dozen clergy, with Archbishop Barry, plus the Bishop of Swansea and Brecon and the Bishop designate of Salisbury, currently at St Martin in the Fields. Both of the latter were former incumbents under whom Liz worked. Everyone was so delighted the deputy Mayor made a brief speech of welcome on behalf of the City that she received a round of applause. This kind of positive bonding with the City 'fathers' prepares the ground for a ministry that will engage her with Local Authority members and officers from the outset. I'm glad to have had the opportunity to make the case for this in the last three years of my ministry, and now to see it have good support from church leaders.

Ashley, Clare and I sat right at the back of the nave together. It was not an occasion for me to dress up and parade with clerical colleagues. But it was a time of happy re-union with members of the congregation that I haven't seen for many months. It's like being part of an extended family. I so hope that Liz soon experiences their warmth and openness towards her ministry. It was also an occasion to feel a sense of completion of closure. It was right to retire when I did, right for the church, right for me. But I felt less right about leaving when there was no early appointment, and when I was given to understand how difficult it was finding suitable candidates to interview. Nevertheless, when the time was fulfilled, the right person appeared. 

It was so good to see how pleased Archbishop Barry was to announce the appointment of the first woman incumbent in the eight hundred year history of St John's. Yes, but not any woman priest, rather one with strong experience behind her of the kind of ministry she is about to start exercising in a full leadership role at St John's.

Inspector Tony Bishop attended the service in full dress uniform, representing the Police. His retirement begins on Friday. I'm sure he won't miss the unsocial hours, but I wonder how he will feel about no longer being in the public eye? I know I don't much miss it. But I do miss that sense of being part of a community that prays and cares for each other. Wherever I go on duty, I'm welcomed, but I'm a visitor, just passing through. I have to learn how to belong all over again, now I'm not appointed to belong anywhere in particular.

  

Paternal pride

We attended the Trinity Sunday Eucharist at St John's Canton this morning, then walked to the Riverside Market to shop for the week's organic veggies. We returned with a couple of kilos of organic strawberries and cooked them into jam after lunch. I walked over to the Cathedral for Evensong, and the house was fragrant with the aroma of strawberries when I returned. This inspired me to bake some bread to accompany our first tasting. Owain came around at tea time, bearing a Father's Day bottle of Rioja as a gift, which the three of us then proceeded to drink together over supper. Rachel rang me from Canada. Kath and Amanda texted me greetings. As fathers go, I consider myself to be well blessed.

Le quattro volte

We went to the shops on Cowbridge Road this morning and it started to rain, so we took refuge in Chapter Arts Centre for a cup of coffee. There we noticed an interesting Italian film 'Le Quattro Volte', and got tickets for this evening's early screening. We lunched at Oscar's on Wyndham Crescent - our first visit there since the former 'Le Gallois' was taken over by the Cowbridge restauranteur. It was an enjoyable experience, though not one we could afford to repeat too often. Food prices have certainly risen recently, and the overheads of running any restaurant, let alone starting a new one, makes any new eating place a risky venture, now that people can afford to eat out less than they used to, 

At Chapter cinema, we were surprised and delighted to find ourselves sitting in the same row as Clare's teaching colleague Jackie and her husband Russell, and Jan, Vicar of 'the Res' with Peter her husband - all of us, I suspect were attracted by the unusual nature of the film. It portrayed in a very simple way a sliver of life in a Calabrian hill village. The place initially gives the impression of being suspended in another era, fifty or sixty years ago. Attention to detail reveals that it could have been set any time in the past twenty years. It's just that the village is a poor, left behind sort of place, with a way of life and landscape little touched by the passage of time.

The film portrays the daily life of an elderly goat herding peasant who dies on Good Friday after the via crucis is enacted in the street outside his home; the birth of a kid-goat and its struggle to survive in the open  with the herd; a traditional folk ritual involving the erection of a huge felled pine tree on the village square; and a group of charcoal burners at work. The Guardian review gives a superb précis of the story.

What made it special for me was the absence of music, not that it was a silent film. The sounds were those of its natural setting - wind in trees and grass, bells attached to a herd of goats, church bells, an occasional vehicle, hubbub of people talking without their conversation being audible. The camera recorded scenes like a still photographer composing a view, whether of a landscape or an intimate close-up, but then staying with it for minutes at a time, registering all that happens from this perspective, before switching to another. No use of zooming or fading shots, just gazing contemplatively at what happens.

It was a meditative observation of the basic elements of life. Indeed, the title of the film in English - the four turns - comes from the Philosopher Pythagoras of Samos, who founded a religious sect in the southern seaport city of Crotone in Calabria 2500 years ago. He spoke of needing to know aspects of four lives within ourselves - mineral, vegetable, animal and human. This is what inspired director Michaelangelo Frammartino to create a docu-drama of great beauty, capturing a way of life that persists where wealth and power hardly reach to turn the world up-side down and disconnect its inhabitants from their environment.

The film reminded me of the Greece got to know as young island hopping backpackers in the sixties, before the advent of mass tourism and modernisation, or even the remoter agricultural parts of Haute Savoie today, still untouched by the encroachments of the ski industry. Some may regard these as 'backwards places' in the new Europe, because they seem unable to move beyond subsistence. Yet, in a way, they show how some folk are at ease with having just enough. No matter how hard their life and work may seem in our eyes, their closeness to nature makes contentment possible.

Singer of the World week

I spent lunchtime today in St John's tea room today, as the team was lacking a couple of workers. It's the first time in a couple of months that I've been germ free and available to go in and help out. In addition to helping with the washing up, I made a batch of BLT sandwiches, and cooked an appreciated vegetable soup from prepared frozen ingredients, and then served it up to customers. A great pleasure - the first time I've been let loose like that at the stove. That's how short handed they were.   

It was good to be back among friends, especially as they look forward to the induction of their new Vicar next Tuesday. Thirteen and a half months of an interregnum has been a long time for the community to hold itself together, and it's been successful in this. Everyone is now ready for the new beginning with a new pastor.

Afterwards, I went over to the office and did several hours work before returning for supper, followed by the last round of the Cardiff  'Singer of the World' competition on TV. It's been thrilling to hear and/or watch on the radio or TV this past few days - so much wonderful young talent, such marvellous musical choices made by the twenty performers. All those selected for Sunday evening's finals are so good, it's impossible to imagine how the judges can choose between them.

Clare went to a Welsh book launch last night. The family and friends of the North Walian author found that hotel rooms in the city centre were double the usual price because of the extra demand for rooms generated by the singing competition. It was disturbing to hear that the author's elderly father, booked to come for the launch had been taken into hospital, and was refused a refund, even though there would doubtless have been other potential takers. If I could find out which hotel, I'd be eager to name and shame. There's no excuse for making a family's distress that much worse. This does the city's hospitable reputation no good whatsoever.

Surprise acquisition

Yesterday morning we took a trip to the recycling centre to drop off a kid's bicycle, and then decided to stop off for lunch at M&S in the new Leckwith retail centre. Browsing the technology section, as I habitually do out of curiosity in any big store, I spotted a bargain, and bought a bargain Sony laptop on impulse. It was the last thing I expected to do when I left home, although I have been looking with interest for a potential replacement for my regular desktop machine for some time.

Setting it up was a smooth and easy process, but I ran into time consuming trouble attempting to install the Libre Office Open Source productivity suite of programs. Getting the installer to play with the in-built Windows 7 security was difficult enough, but eventual successful installation routine failed to leave me with a program that worked. No amount of on-line research last night and this morning has yielded either a solution, or another person with a similar machine and the same problem. 

The arrival of usable on-line office productivity suites like Google Docs makes this far less of an issue, but I'm left wondering why this occurred. I read and followed meticulously the 'Readme' instructions accompanying the downloaded installation file. I've been a Open Office and now a Libre Office user since the former was launched, and this is the first time I have ever experienced such an installation failure.

Apart from this, I'm glad to have piece of kit that will give me a good viewing experience when catching up on missed TV programmes on BBC iPlayer.

  

Worship in Spirit and in truth

I managed to wake up early enough to go to the eight o'clock at Kenilworth Parish Church this morning. When I arrived the church was open, but a notice at the entrance announced a grand Pentecost Family Service in the open space of the Abbey Fields below the church at eleven. The church was unusually quiet and empty, apart from the Vicar who greeted me. I said I'd come for the early service as I wanted to spend the rest of the morning with the family. He talked about the later event without actually stating that the eight o'clock was not taking place. "Oh you've come for Communion, sorry." he said, and invited me to stay and enjoy the silence. He seemed preoccupied with the gloomy weather, and whether to move the event indoors. True to form, by eight fifteen it started to rain.

Thank God for a good memory that still retains the old prayer book Liturgy and a church well equipped with decent modern pew Bibles. I prayed the Eucharist by heart, and read the appointed scriptures for the day, enjoying the silence. I've done the same before when visiting places where there's no church. The Vicar came and went several times during the half hour I prayed there - no doubt worrying, the way I used to if I took a risk that looked as if it wouldn't succeed. I felt sorry for him. Was he waiting for me to leave in order to lock up? I wondered. I stayed the full half hour. I'm as allergic to mornings as I ever was. Getting up for early Mass even in bright summer time is always a struggle against Brother Ass. However, even if a little disappointed, I left the church refreshed.

It's a worthy idea, to have a united public open air act of witness, but witnessing to whom? Non-churchgoing parents taking their kids to the swings or dogs for a walk? A better location would be the market place, albeit a lot harder to organise well and successfully. A non-eucharistic service is supposed to appeal to those on the edge of, or outside the church. It goes down well at Christmas with carols making a bridge to popular culture, but on a cold damp English midsummer day, how do you engage any except the most steadfast faithful people? 

There's only one service for Anglicans of Kenilworth Parish all day: 'Family Praise in the Open' (like in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost) - non Eucharistic, not in church. Nothing for passers-by like me, or those who can't fit into the main plan for the day. Why pick one of the four Sundays of the year the Book of Common Prayer designates for Communion celebration? There can be every good reason to break with tradition on times, but on some occasions, doing so makes me wonder if were not losing touch with our roots, and aren't looking at the way the world works with sufficient clarity.

I know how difficult it is to be innovative and attractive in the offer of public worship, and how strong is the desire to reach out and share the most important things about life with others outside the community of faith. In the end, the community of the Spirit grows and extends through the relationships people make with each other and with God, and every effort is made to make these meaningful and relevant. Kenilworth Parish is very good at this. An occasonal liturgical flop is survivable, and shouldn't quench creative intiative. However there is still much to be said for maintaining a default pattern of worship, no matter how taxing to ensure this may be.

 

The art of service

This morning, I went to Coventry by train to join Clare, looking after Rhiannon. The journey up the Severn estuary at low tide under a bright blue sky was just beautiful. It was enhanced unusually by a rather original ticket collector. He made traveller announcements over the train's loudspeaker system and in person in a hip southern American negro drawl delivering or should I say rapping his message in rhyming couplets. 

"Are your tickets fine for the Birmingham line?

Gimme a sight and I'll check if they're right."       And so on..

Whether he was American or not I don't know, but his skin was as black as his uniform. He had a big warm smile and radiated charm and good humour. He played the part of a cool yankee train conductor to perfection and passengers loved him. Some even joined in and replied to his poetic banter with rhymes and couplets of their own, and the carriage rocked with laughter from time to time. It made a change from curt if not dour actors whose passing speech is limited to "Tickets please".

This was a fun mini-theatrical experience. I wondered if Cross Country Trains were training other operatives to deliver their sevices with such originality and panache. The last such memorable experience that I could call to mind was crossing Switzerland by train, and being sold refreshments from a trolley by an guy of Indian origin whose sales patter switched continually between English French German and Italian, all in the same sentence. No doubt he could have switched into a few Asian languages as well, if needed. Excellent, confident relaxed communication from someone takng pride in doing very well what many would regard as a menial job.

People like this really do enhance the quality of life for others, simply by making them smile more often.

  

Severn crossing

Owain came over for a final breakfast with his sister, then she packed up and set off for her motorway rendezvous with her Aunt and Uncle. Three quarters of an hour later she rang home in a panic. Had she just driven past the service station in question? It no longer seemed to be called what Uncle Geoff called it. To hell with marketing and ownership and the name changes this imposes. To those of us (myself and Uncle Geoff included), who remember it being built and the opening of the first Severn Crossing, the place will forever be 'Aust Services', named as it was after the nearby village, from which cars were ferried across the Severn to Beachley near Chepstow during the 32 years before the Severn Bridge opened.

Fortunately I knew the route well enough to be able to give Rachel instructions that took her up to the M5 interchange, back down the M4 and then turning on to the M48 to reach the Aust turn-off, the service station, and a happy extended family re-union. "Thanks for being my personal sat-nav." she said.

When we lived in Chepstow, during my time working for USPG, Clare commuted to Bristol daily, accompanied by Rachel and Owain, who attended the Steiner School there. So that piece of motorway was familiar territory in some ways, yet it's so different being a passenger struggling to wake up on the way to school, than it is being a mum with your own child to look after in the back of the car while you navigate. Certainly no time for memories on a journey like that.

 

Exhaust-ing crisis

Yesterday, sister Pauline and her husband Geoff proposed to drive over to join us for lunch, in order to see Rachel and Jasmine. We waited with increasing anxiety for them all afternoon. At six we had a phone call to say that they'd lost their car exhaust on the motorway, and it had taken five hours to get it fixed. Neither of their mobile phone numbers responded to our calls, perhaps because of reception problems were they'd stopped. Also, Pauline had forgotten to take her contacts book with her - she hasn't yet mastered adding them to the phone memory. As is often the case, tech things that are child's play for the young are not so for those in their eighties. Anyway, all's well that ends well and Rachel will rendezvous with them on Monday at a mutually convenient motorway service station en route for Kenilworth.

 

I covered for Father Graham at St Samson's this morning, while he took a weekend off. An 8.00am said Mass and a 9.30am Solemn Mass, fifty people between the two services. Recently the church has welcomed an influx of young Indian Christians who have rented houses in the vicinity, working mostly as nurses - some may well be students. Their quiet intense devotion and warm smiles are an encouragement to this mainly ageing congregation. They seem quite at ease with the relaxed catholic pomp that characterises the liturgy. It's a rewarding experience to lead them all in prayer.

After a motorway journey yesterday, Rachel returned with our car sounding like a tractor. Thankfully it hadn't fallen off, although one bump would probably have seen it off. I had to drive delicately to church. Instead of meeting up with the family down at Riverside Market after Mass, I had to drive straight to Quikfit and replace the middle and tail-pipe sections of the exhaust, so that Rachel can drive a safe and legal borrowed car away with her when she leaves tomorrow. The service I received was, as ever in Quikfit, excellent, and so I was home for lunch in good time.

An expensive family co-incidence, don't you think?

 

It's a wireless world

Before the weekend, I brought back from the office an old laptop of mine which I set set up some time ago to provide me with a reference filing system for looking up things while working on my regular computer. It hasn't proved its usefulness - there are some things that would be easier to look up from a hard copy print out than having to switch keyboards and focus of a different screen temporarily screens in mid-operation. After half an hour trying to recall the combination for the security tether lock, I finally succeeded in liberating it, took it home and ran the necessary updates to the operating system. 

Not having used it much recently, I'd forgotten just how spritely this seven year old machine could be on all basic tasks, with 512k of memory, 40gb hard drive, and early Celeron 486 processor. It had become so desperately sluggish running Windows XP with anti-virus that I installed a dual booting Linux system before finally wiping XP and settling for Ubuntu with the LXDE desktop environment, tailored to run on old machines with less hardware resources. It works a treat, deploying the decent wifi card without need for more than a prompt for router i/d and password. I settled on using the Chrome internet browser, as it's quick all round, and it works unfailingly.

I get teased about my investment and interest in technology. Grandpa and his computers is a family joke, but this didn't stop Kath bringing her laptop for wi-fi troubleshooting (too many helpful wi-fi assistant programs clashing while trying to compensate for the obtuse but far from ineffective Windows XP wi-fi set up routine). I've had several goes at this on visits to Kenilworth, with no success. This time, with more free time to focus and experiment - success! What followed was a shy request from Rhiannon (sent by text from her mother's iPhone). Did Grandpa have a spare laptop for her?

Well, she's seven now and starting computer use in school. All Microsoft Windows machines, of course, so I wouldn't want her to have problems as a result of working on two different systems. But then, hopefully, she's mentally agile enough to take this in her stride. So with this in mind, I set up the Lubuntu laptop with her user name, and a password she wouldn't forget (even if she had to be reminded how to spell it). Then, we tried websites she'd been accessing on her mother's laptop - the horrid if brilliantly designed Barbie website, the Mini-bugs website (linked to homework on garden insects), and the 'Sing Up' website, designed to teach singing together to primary school kids. Chrome under Lubuntu simply delivered these with no glitches - a nice clean simple reliable interface. All that's necesssary for an easy introduction to computer use.

When they returned to Kenilworth, the laptop went with them. Today Kath emailed me a photo of Rhiannon and her friend, happily installed with her new acquisition. That laptop came into my life the year she was born, and it's still working well. You don't have to upgrade every other year if you claim the benefit of using Open Source software. Just don't expect anyone in the shops to tell you that.

Ascension Day

With an opera booking for this evening, it was necessary to keep the feast in an morning Eucharist, so I joined the two dozen faithful at St John's Canton for their 10h30 Ascension service. After lunch, I went into the office for the first time this week, since my catarrhy cold has left me less than functional over the past few days. We had an important strategic planning meeting to attend in County Hall, as well as catch-up paperwork.

As we'd booked three tickets for the evening performance of 'Cosi fan tutte', it was possible to take Rachel and our neighbour Mary to the performance, leaving Clare to take care of a Jasmine who was happy to have her grandma to herself.

The opera was arrestingly original in the setting given to the essential plot, which tells of the ultimately disastrous experiment made by two soldiers to test the fidelity of their betrothed beloved. The action was placed in a Welsh seaside resort in the 1960's. As the soldiers were portrayed disguised themselves as holiday camp Redcoats, the inference is at the town in question is Pwllheli. The rubbish bin into which the chip papers of the principals were stuffed in the first act had 'Sbriwiel' written on the side. (I wonder if they change that when they go on tour?) 

The translation of the opera from an Italian context is not so far fetched, if you think of the widespread Italian migration into Wales in the 20th century - ice cream parlours, coffee bars, restaurants set up in the wake of migrating coal miners, and the soldiers as visitors from the New Europe with its military alliances. The tale of temptation, betrayal and infidelity works in any context - just as it does in the Bible.

The singing was outstandingly good. The theatrical experiment added something special to frame the music for a contemporary Welsh, if not British audience. My companions were much taken with our discount front row seats. It's one of the best things we ever do. Well done WNO, as ever!