Thursday 28 March 2024

Alarming awakening

A rainy day with occasional thunder and even bursts of sunshine. At two thirty this morning the painful nagging bleep of a dying smoke alarm battery disrupted my sleep. I got up and with Clare's help holding the ladder attempted to change the battery, but failed to get the cover off to access the battery. I gave up an hour later and endured the remainder of a disturbed night's rest. 

I woke up at seven, posted today Morning Prayer link to WhatsApp and dozed for another hour before getting up for breakfast. Clare contacted an electrician mate of Owain's, who was helpful explaining how to get the cover off, but I was still unable to locate the slot harbouring the trigger for the cover release. It turned out to be on the side of the device that I couldn't see without taking a dangerous risk as it faced the void above the staircase.

I had to abandon my efforts in order to get to St John's to celebrate the Eucharist, giving myself time to calm down and say Morning Prayer before celebrating. Thankfully Rob, a techie neighbour of ours came and sorted the problem when I was out, in response to an appeal for help from Clare. There were nine of us altogether, including Father Andrew who turned up at the last minute and joined us. I think he was in the back office photocopying unnoticed as I was getting ready for the service.

We had salmon stew for lunch, using the carcass of the filleted fish Clare bought yesterday in the market when I got back from church. Then I went for a walk, and returned at four to meet Paula to finish off the Easter edition of Sway and send it out by Mailchimp. She's got the hang of it now, confident enough to go solo hereafter. Handover complete, job done. A satisfying feeling.

I had an email from churchwarden John in Nerja, with details surrounding my arrival, and a wedding date booked in late May. He and his wife will take me out for a Chinese meal on the evening of my arrival. I can't remember when last I ate in a Chinese restaurant. It's many decades ago.

After supper, Clare and I went to St German's for the Maundy Thursday Liturgy. There were twenty of us on a dark and rainy evening. The traditional rite simplified with the transfer of the Sacrament in silence and then the stripping of the altar was very effective I thought. We got back just after half past nine. 

Then I caught up on the day's events in a rainy Malaga, dipping into extracts on YouTube of the three hour video of the arrival of the Spanish Legion by ship, the march to the casa cofradia la Mena, and bringing out from San Domenico church next door of the huge image of Christ dead on the cross, known as el Cristo del Buen Muerte, for mounting on its trono. 

I've seen the disembarking in the flesh, but not the latter until now. I also listened to an interview with film star Antonio Banderas talking about the cultural, social and spiritual value of Semana Santa activities in our radically changing times, and understood enough to know what he was on about. Then bed early to try and make up for sleep lost last night

Wednesday 27 March 2024

One of my happy places

I woke up to a morning of cloud and occasional showers. After breakfast I went on the bus to St Peter's Fairwater for the only Eucharist of the day, St Catherine's celebration have been cancelled in favour of a service of the Word this evening. As I was crossing the road to reach the 61 bus stop a bus passed in front of me, so I ran up the road behind it, about fifty metres, without running out of energy or getting terribly breathless. Then on the way back after the service, the same happened again, and I caught the bus, quite pleased with this minor achievement, without pushing myself too hard, or hurting myself.

Before the service Fr Andrew played Taize recorded chants, just the instrumental music, used as a backing track for congregational singing. It was a question of guessing the chant to pray with. One I recognised was 'Veni Sancte Spiritus Tui amoris ignam accende' which I learned on a Taize visit nearly thirty seven years ago. When Fr Andrew started singing just before the service began, he sang an English translation of the words I didn't know. It shows how out of touch I am I guess. 

A congregation of about twenty were present, the same number as regularly attend in my experience of taking services there. I may have been the only person attending from neighbouring Canton churches. Most faithful churchgoers are territorial, creatures of habit. If their routine service isn't available, they are reluctant to go elsewhere. They can change, but only if there's no longer any alternative and may just stop attending altogether, as happened during the pandemic closure of churches. I've been used to worshipping in many different ways and places throughout my adult life appreciating both routine and change, but what I seek when I'm on the receiving end is a quality of teaching and prayer from which I can learn, grow and be challenged. It's not getting any easier to find this nowadays, sad to say.

I got off the bus outside Victoria Park on the journey back, and walked around the park once before going home to fetch the veggie bag to go to Chapter and collect this week's order. Clare was in town shopping at Ashton's for fresh fish to freeze when I returned, so I started making a batch of bread and cooking lunch at the same time. I had more success with getting the dough mix right than I have for a while, so it was easier to work into a nice consistent mass for leavening. Lunch was ready not long after Clare arrived. After we'd eaten she went to Beanfreaks for groceries. I baked the bread, then went to the Co-op for the rest of the food we need for the coming weekend, when we'll have Owain, Kath and Anto staying.

After supper, I spent some time catching up on Semana Santa in Malaga. There's been rain again today, like Sunday, so no street processions apart from a brief excursion by the Jesus el Rico cofradia, which is charged with the official annual ceremony of freeing one prisoner, remitting the remainder of a sentence being served by one prison inmate from the city - imitating the gesture of Pilate freeing Barabbas. It's a Holy Week tradition which has persisted for the past 270 years. Again this year, it was someone serving a three years sentence for drug trafficking who gets early release for reformed behaviour. In the absence of video from today, I watched yesterday's footage on YouTube, and glimpsed a number of familiar places around Malaga's old town in which the processions are set. I have so many good memories of time spent in the city, it's one of those really 'happy places' in my life.

Then I finished watching 'Locked up - Oasis'. Its unnecessary portrayal of extreme violence in gunfights, like a Sam Peckinpah movie, is obscene in my opinion, as well as the plethora of confusing switches between past and present scenes. It was enough to deter me from watching the fifty one episodes of the original series, for which this is some sort of finale. Apart from listening to the Spanish dialogue and being able to understand a fair amount, it gave me no pleasure. 

Tuesday 26 March 2024

Unfruitful?

Clare was up for breakfast before me, preparing for her study group meeting. When they arrived, I sat in the front room, prayed and read the news on-line rather than going out. We shared cooking lunch. She constructed the fish pie and I prepared veg for the steamer to go with it. It's funny how sometimes we can work together at the stove and not get in each other's way, and another time we can't. I have yet to figure out how and why.

After lunch I walked to Llandaff Cathedral and around the Fields for an hour and a half. The crocuses which supplanted the New Year snowdrops on the verges of the road across the top of Pontcanna Fields are now replaced by a prodigious growth of yellow celandines, in the past week. Later daffodil varieties still flourish but early flowering ones have largely faded away. Most of the flowering trees are covered in blossom now, and some have leaves breaking out of bud at the same time, producing an interesting mix of colours. I'm enjoying getting to grips with the Olympus PEN whose auto-focus is quick and sharp, except that occasionally it won't respond to a shutter press first time, as if it's making up its mind.

Construction work on the tennis courts to convert a quarter of the space into all weather cricket practice nets is now complete. It's an indication of just how popular serious amateur cricket is in Cardiff, with Asian, West Indian and British players. Groups play on well after the official match season end into autumn, and as long as the ground isn't too wet, a few go out and practice. A couple of astro turf strips marked with a wicket are placed in areas used for rugby as well, so a separate facility is going to be welcomed all round.

I returned home for an hour and then went out to St John's for the Eucharist, with a visit to Tesco's to buy our Foodbank grocery donation on the way. We were fourteen altogether. Fr Andrew guided us in a meditation on the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree, which was in the Gospel set for today. He asked us to imagine ourselves as a fig tree on a rural crossroad with Jesus passing by lamenting its unfruitfulness and condemning the tree to wither. 

I'm not comfortable with the idea that Jesus was a magician literally able to pronounce a death sentence on a tree, effective overnight. Interpreters see the fig tree as representing the children of Israel condemned to wither by their own failure to keep God's law, as happens in similar Old Testament parables. The evangelist portrays Jesus as divine judge acting out the parable. It's a symbolic rather than literal statement in my opinion.

I got stuck conjuring a single image, stuck between the fig tree sticking out of the garden wall of a house adjacent to Thompson's Park with branches hanging over the grass outside almost hidden by bushes, and a giant fig tree in the garden of a rural house I visited in Ibiza, so big it covered an area the size of a tennis court. You could walk around and through it but wasn't on any kind of thoroughfare. Apart from this, I got stuck with the notion of a fig tree with no fruit, as they tend to have fruit on them growing and maturing at the same time for much of the year, if my memory serves me well. 

The question is, do we see ourselves as unfruitful and withering away? Yes indeed, sometimes, but we can never really know how fruitful our lives have been. I couldn't imagine myself as a fig tree which symbolises a religious culture and its history. The question about fruitfulness does apply collectively as it's possible to review the past, but with a single person it's less easy. Think of creative geniuses like Van Gogh who died feeling a failure, unrecognised as the great artist he was. The service continued with laying on of hands for healing, then the Lord's Supper. I was left feeling bemused by this.

After supper when I got home, I did a little homework on the fig tree cursing story, then watched a couple of episodes of 'Locked up - Oasis' which has become more surreal and violent, suffused with reflections on the unforeseen consequences of treating others badly delivered by perpetrators. Is it some kind of effort to get inside the minds of cruel psychopathic people? Will I be any the wiser after the finale? Ya veremos.

Monday 25 March 2024

IDP renewed

Cold and grey again today with occasional showers. After breakfast the weekly round of housework. One of the rechargeable batteries for the vacuum cleaner died. Last time this happened the manufacturers sent a replacement one for free, under the terms of the guarantee. Clare discovered that its expiry date is in a few weeks time and rang the manufacturers help line. A new one will be sent to us within a few days. On both occasions dropping the battery caused its demise. It's large and has four connected cells within, and due to its size it's vulnerable to impact damage. Due to its shape it's no east to handle with rheumaticky hands.

Having read a news article about International Driving Permits no longer being issued by the Post Office after April 1st, I was prompted to go and get mine while it's still convenient to do so, and went there mid morning. There were few people queuing to be served when I arrived. A customer in front of me was applying for one that would cover Canada, for which his passport was required. Fortunately the same does not apply for applications covering EU countries. 

By the time the two of us had been served, there was a queue of customers out of the door. The permits have to be written in by hand at the moment and a photo pasted into the card folder containing the details of the photocard license. It's fiddly and time consuming. No wonder the Post Office is giving up offering this as an exclusive service. In future, applicants will be dealt with in grocery stores where there's a Pay Point bill paying service.

When I got back, Clare had already cooked a lamb chop for my lunch. I took over and cooked sausages for her and veggies for both of us. We had hairdo appointments with Chris in Llanrumney in the afternoon and I drove us there. While he was dealing with Clare, I took a walk around the lake at nearby Parc Trederlech.

We were back home by five, so I had a quick early supper and left for Mass at St German's half an hour later, using public transport which took fifty minutes door to door in the rush hour. Fr Jarel celebrated with fifteen of us in the congregation. I begged a lift back as far as the city centre with another congregation member, then took a bus into Canton and walked the rest of the way home. I spent the evening until bed time watching a couple of episodes of 'Locked up'.

Sunday 24 March 2024

Holy Week, mostly in the pew

Another cold dry day with clouds and sunshine. Up at eight making breakfast, and listening to BBC Radio Four Sunday Worship, which combined extracts from a contemporary open air Passion Play performed in Trafalgar Square woven together with extracts from Bach's St John Passion. I would prefer it sung in the original German to the English translation which doesn't quite capture the harsh agony of the story in a way that matches the music. Apart from the obvious time constraint on the programme, I can't see a reason for omitting the final chorale, which builds from sad reflection to end in resurrection triumph. It was well done nevertheless, a welcome change.

I drove to St German's to join the congregation for Fr Jarel's first Sunday Mass with his new congregation, a full Palm Sunday liturgy, starting with a procession from the church hall. I was pleased that he preached a brief and fitting homily for the start of Holy Week. There were over forty of us in church. I counted four clergy in the congregation, with Fr Jarel with Fr Richard as Deacon at the altar. Afterwards I introduced Basma to her new parish priest, and welcomed him myself. Afterwards over coffee we considered how to cope with the uncertainty presented by the wait to hear about official confirmation of her residence permit, when she is so keen to be baptized next Saturday. It's hard having to wait so long for certainty but from the church's standpoint, whenever she can finally say she's ready to proceed, there will be a ready response.

It was twenty to two by the time I reached home for lunch kept warm for me by my ever patient Clare. After a couple of weeks recovering from a horrible coughing virus she went to the St Catherine's Eucharist this morning. After eating, I went for a walk with my new Olympus PEN, fitted with the 14-42mm lens bought with the OMD E-M10. It's a long while since I used it, as I prefer a longer telephoto lens. The wide angle lens requires more physical movement to position yourself for the best shot. It means a change of habit to get used to this. There's only a rear screen, no viewfinder. Even so, it's a nice camera to handle.

After supper I uploaded the handful of photos, did some writing and watched 'Antiques Roadshow'. Then I found a Spanish crimmie to watch, which is the latest in a series of stories about women in prison called 'Locked up'. I didn't watch the series when it first appeared on 'Walter Presents' a few years ago as I didn't think my Spanish comprehension was adequate, but now I find I can understand most of the dialogue. The fact that some of it is mumbled means I need to check the subtitles for details. The series was shot in the Almeria desert where many spaghetti western moves were made. The story is about a group of female crooks intent on a high status jewel theft during the wedding of a narco crime boss's daughter. It's presented confusingly, switching between present and past keeping you guessing, but is meant to be a sort of homage to movies about male banditry shot in the same area. Anyway, it's a good way to get my ear attuned before I go to Nerja, that's for sure.

Saturday 23 March 2024

New new start for St German's

Another cold and sunny day, getting up late, then Saturday pancakes for breakfast. I made another attempt to fathom the Lumix TZ95 camera settings, but with little success, despite watching a YouTube tutorial on how to change settings. Too complex for me. I'm after the simplest configuration as I use most cameras on Auto setting and tweak them if I'm not satisfied with the result. At midday I cooked an early lunch in an effort to go to St German's by public transport for Fr Jarel's licensing service at two.

I caught a bus to the city centre then went to the Beanfreaks shop in Royal Arcade to pick up a supply of vitamin B3 tablets ordered by Clare, to use in an effort to reduce the rate of glaucoma advancing.  Then I went to Cardiff Camera Centre in the Morgan Arcade to buy a new battery for my TZ95. The one that came with the camera (a display model bargain) isn't holding charge for long - fifty shots instead of three hundred. When I passed by the Olympus camera display case, I saw a Pen E-PL8 model on sale and asked how much the camera body alone would cost - I have three Micro Four Thirds lenses already. At £279 I thought it was affordable. The Pen E-PL8 has been on the market seven years and is praised for its image quality and portability. I was surprised to find it was in its original box with accessories. It looks as if it's had very little use. It's the same technical specification as my ten year old Olympus OMD E-M10.1, so there's no learning curve.

I didn't anticipate buying a camera when I set out, it took me longer than I expected to complete the deal. Rather than hanging around for a bus to Adamsdown, I walked to church in just twenty minutes and got there in good time. The church nave was full to capacity, and once the forty strong choir and procession of clergy entered, the chancel and nave crossing were full too. Over three hundred people! Between the clergy in the congregation and those who wore their robes for the occasion, a quarter of those present were clergy, including a contingent of Cardiff Methodists (Fr. Jarel is an ex Methodist), and many visiting from London where he was involved in theological education at St Mellitus College. He's going to be a breath of fresh air for St German's and the Ministry Area.

I had no desire to wear ministerial robes and sit with the clergy, for the service and sat right at the back instead to enjoy the service without being on display. Singing was magnificent, and Bishop Mary spoke well, rising to the occasion with good humour. The reception afterwards in the church hall was equally crowded, and it gave me an opportunity to greet old friends and colleagues. Jarel was busy greeting his visitors, so I didn't have a chance to introduce myself to him, but it can wait until tomorrow as I intend spending most of Holy Week at St German's, hoping and praying that Basma's residence permit will be confirmed in writing this coming week so she can be baptized a week today.

It was half past four by the time I left and caught a bus to the city centre. From there I walked through Bute Park to Blackweir and then home by half past five. At sunset a nearly full moon was rising in an almost clear sky. There were just a few fluffy clouds turned pink by the setting sun. It looked as if the moon was sailing through them at a leisurely pace. Later, when it was dark there were no clouds, but a high level haze which made only a few stars and planets visible from the loft window. At least the city horizon is no longer tinged yellow by sodium street lamps. New LED lighting is installed if possible to avoid upward glare to reduce light pollution. As time goes by, hopefully with electrification of all forms of transport, atmospheric pollution will reduce allowing the sky to be more translucent to light from heavenly bodies. My much moaned about TZ95 gave me some good moon shots, with enhanced auto setting on full zoom.

Apart from writing this, I spent the evening setting up my new camera and charging the battery. Looking forward to taking it out with me tomorrow afternoon. And to end the day, I read a few more pages of my Spanish novel.

Friday 22 March 2024

Season ticket: end of an era

A cold but sunny day. Paula came by after breakfast to rehearse one tricky aspect of Sway, go through the Mailchimp routine and send it out from her computer. She's mastered Sway quicker than I did. Mailchimp is another story, however, and take getting used to. We'll continue to meet next week and the week after to repeat this together for practice, but in effect I'm now hands off, free of the editorial role. Now I can relax and ponder on the future of my own ministry in retirement for the first time in ages.

Coincidentally, Clare went early to the surgery for a blood pressure check-up this morning, and I went too later, just Paula and I parted company. Thankfully both of us are showing normal range readings now, but Clare has been prescribed a different hypertension medication for the first time, and so far no side effects.

Our National Trust membership cards expire at the end of the month, so we drove out to Dyffryn Gardens for a snack lunch and a walk around the estate, clockwise for a change instead of anti-clockwise. It gave a set of views of the garden landscape different from the ones we're familiar with. The grass is decorated with a sprinkling of Celandines just now, tulips are coming out and as the magnolia blossoms fade and fall other flowering trees take their turn to show off their colour. 

The place is ready for Easter holiday visitors and children's Easter egg play activities, and the grassed parking area outside has acquired stretches of metal decking to denote walkways next to which cars can line up and park. A pleasant three hours in the middle of the day. We've decided not to renew our membership as we don't use it enough to justify the expenditure any longer. If we return on occasions, we'll have to pay the normal entrance fee. After we reached home, I walked to Tesco's to get flowers for Clare.

I've been struggling to get used to my Lumix TZ95 lately. It took some lovely photos at Dyffryn, but it doesn't always behave in a way I understand. It's very sophisticated in what it can do, and its menus are complex so I'm unsure of what I am doing. It has a touch screen which allows one to determine the focus point of the subject you are photographing. The trouble is that when you look through its viewfinder, your nose touches the screen and sets the focus point in a place you may not want it to. Sometimes touching the screen causes the camera to bleep, which I take to be an error message, but what kind of error isn't obvious. Finding and retaining the setting that will deactivate a facility I don't need or want is proving very frustrating. Googling the subject is unhelpful. I will have to work my way through the handful of video talks about the camera on YouTube and hope to glean the information I need to prevent my nose from setting the focus point.

While I was investigating this, Clare was cooking supper. We had baked potatoes with lava bread from Ashton's in the market, with smoked herring from Tesco's, a delicious combination of seafoods worth trying out. I carried on searching after supper and made a little progress, but not enough to feel I have any real control of the camera. I stopped at nine to watch this week's new episode of 'Astrid - Murders in Paris' and then continued writing this until bed time.