Overdue hairdo

Cloudy today with a cold wind blowing from the east. Most of the leaves on the trees have now turned gold, a stunning sight. I slept quite well, but was slow to relax stiff muscles and get going. Today is All Souls' day. Sadly no Eucharist in the Parish. Commemoration of the Departed tends to be translated to Sunday evening. As I went about my tasks this morning I remembered by name generations of departed family, friends and colleagues - the many people who were part of my life in different ways.

Last week, Clare made an experimental batch of marmalade with sweet oranges and lemons to tide us over until the bitter Seville oranges arrive at the end of the year. It was a success, so she decided to make another batch. I went to Tesco's and bought another kilo of golden granulated sugar to add to the amount she already had in stock. 

After an early lunch we took a taxi to Rumney for our hairdressing appointments with Chris. It's been six months since my last visit, My hair certainly needed his expert attention. Since the last time his salon has had a makeover with a completely new stylish shop front. It needed expensive repairs after being rammed by a truck last year in an attempt to intimidate him into selling his business. He's in good form again, having recovered from breaking several ribs during a visit to see his mother in Canada. While Clare was having her hair washed and cut, I walked up Rumney hill to take a photo of a post box with an original example of guerilla knitting. It's the third time I've noticed this post box decorated  in recent years. I set a steady average pace and was surprised not to feel breathless after a ten minute climb. No matter how odd broken sleep may affect me, it seems like I'm maintaining a good level of fitness.

We returned by a 44 bus to the city centre and a 61 from the bus station. I didn't realise the 44 doesn't enter the bus station. If we had got off in Westgate Street we could have got a suitable bus at the stop outside the County Club. I must remember this for another time. It was time for a warm cup of tea when we got home both feeling chilled. Time to switch to a winter jacket for a twenty minute walk before it got dark.

Pre-election rallies are taking place in America, with a shift to Democratic control of congress observed in opinion pools, and Trump's unpopularity already evident. His legal team makes strenuous efforts to undermine the validity of electoral process and the qualification of electors likely to vote against him, in yet another effort to claim the election result was stolen from him, as happened in a previous presidential election. In Israel neither of the main parties have yet succeeded in forming alliances that will give either Netanyahu or Eisenkot the majority needed to form a government. Netanyahu also speaks of the election being stolen from his coalition, in this case by Israeli Arab parties. Blatantly racist rhetoric. Neither Trump nor Netanyahu are prepared to accept defeat and loss of power and blame the electoral process. Once out of office, both will face prosecution for their corrupt actions, and for war crimes committed under their leadership, hopefully.

After supper I watched another couple of episodes of 'Blue Lights', highlighting the relationship between paramilitary organisations and cross border organised crime, exposing how those engaged in undercover policing to stay informed about terrorist plots rarely find themselves satisfied with choices they have to make, tasting the bitterness of compromise and secrecy. And then bed.

Remembering my mentor

After seven and a half hours of sleep out of nine hours in bed, I woke up feeling drowsy as I have done several times lately. I can't blame it on medication now, or not drinking enough water. is this an ill effect of getting up to empty my bladder disrupting rest, or lack of fresh air? Stiffness and pain in my lower back is easing. I can move with little discomfort when I first get up. My neck and shoulders are tense and slow to relax, no matter how much gently exercising the muscles I do. Maybe when the new mattress arrives it will make a difference. I must get myself an osteo-treatment this week.

I went on my own to St Catherine's for the Eucharist, as Clare had arranged a trip to Stroud with her study group members for a recital of Schubert's 'Winterreise' preceded by lunch with Jackie her former eurythmy colleague. Fr Andrew celebrated and preached on this All Saints' Festival Sunday, he spoke of the many and varied ways saints influence others, encouraging us to reflect on stories we tell about the holy who have been part of our lives. When he greeted me after the service he asked if I would write a story about someone I knew for the Ministry Area Facebook page. 

The person who immediately came to mind was the late Dean of Llandaff, the Very Reverend Alun Davies, Vicar of Ystrad Mynach when I was a teenager, a diligent pastor who regularly visited our family home and supported me when I offered myself for ordination, when I was a rather chaotic if enthusiastic undergraduate at the time. I succeeded in missing my ordination candidacy interview, but maybe accepted because I'd met Archbishop Glyn Simon whose son was in the same student hall of residence as I was. I invited them both to tea in my room during a visit, and was known to my Vicar who was also the diocesan Director of Ordinands at the time. There was little by way of rigorous scrutiny in those days. 

When I got home, as Clare was in Stroud, I wrote a seven thousand word tribute to Fr Alun, as I was on my own, keen to get on with writing it. It was past three o'clock by the time I started cooking myself a  lunch of savoury veg with haricot beans with couscous and gone four when I went out for an hour's walk as the sun was setting.

After supper I watched another episode of 'Blue Lights'. Set in the years after the Good Friday Agreement, the dialogue was pretty intense. Arguments and agonising over undercover policing decisions made which cost lives during the Troubles, still affecting policing operations against organised crime gangs years later. An outstanding TV drama series featuring the same characters through the early years of their experience as reponse police officers. It has the same high standard of dramatic story telling as 'Line of Duty', soon to return for a seventh series.

Halloween bed buy

A decent night's rest despite the usual sleep loss from getting up to pee. Clare was up before me cooking buckwheat pancakes for breakfast. We took a taxi to IKEA in search of a suitably supportive single bed. Our taxi driver was an Iranian woman. We chatted about music, she played us a track of a popular Iranian artist singing in Farsi, and then an artist singing in Turkish as we drove down to Grangetown. I find the layout of IKEA daunting to navigate. It has a certain logic to it and lots of informative signs perhaps too many. There are shortcuts between sections if you're sure where you want to go and no natural light. I felt disoriented and unsure of how to reach the exit, by passing the tills if you're not carrying a shopping basket as you can't see the escalator clearly from a distance. There was a good choice of beds to try, single and double, firm and medium firm.

After we'd chosen a bed and arranged delivery we had a payment nightmare. Clare used a credit card to obtain cash back on the purchase, but forgot the correct pin number and was locked out. I used my card on the same account and was also locked out even though I had the pin written in a secret file on my phone. I hadn't used any credit card since before covid struck. The pin number I had recorded may have been for the CBS company card last used before covid and cancelled when we wound up the business. I must have removed the wrong pin number from my secret file. In the end we used a debit card to pay, then took a bus into town. Fortunately Santander bank was open so we were able to take immediate action to order new pin numbers. They'll be posted to us next week. Neither of us uses a credit card often. If we did, it would be for occasional on-line purchases rather than a substitute for a debit card. 

On our way to take the bus home Clare visited the St Mary Street Tesco's to buy a bag of sweet treats to hand out to trick and treat visitors after dark. I was tired when we got back and slept for twenty minutes in my armchair before going for a walk at sunset. In the neighbourhood houses are decorated with imitation cobwebs and pumpkins or spooky lanterns. Clare carved a face on the pumpkin she bought last week after removing the flesh and making soup and a pumpkin pie with it. Having it lit up after dark guaranteed visits from kids in fancy dress accompanied by parents. Supper was interrupted several times as a result. She ran out of sweets and raided the chocolate biscuit tin and her store of small food bags for the last couple of visitor treats. So thoughtful, and an opportunity for her to enjoy a few moments of playfulness with kids of the age she used to work with in eurythmy classes.

Another episode of 'Blue Lights' to finish the day

Bed hunt

A fair night's sleep, but not good enough to prevent me from feeling stiffness in my neck, shoulders and back. The lower back pain is easing so I didn't need an ibuprofen to get mobile.

Tragic news in central Spain where a high speed train near Toledo crashed into a stationary one yesterday morning killing 69 people. It's the second high speed train crash this year, following one which killed 46 in Cordoba province in January. There seems to have been a signalling failure and a communication failure between the control room and the driver. A shocked country is in mourning with football matches cancelled and election campaigning suspended. Spain's transport infrastructure is modern, reliable and well used for business and leisure, but this has badly shaken public confidence.

We had rice with tofu mushrooms and onions for lunch. It's the first time I've cooked tofu. I tried to make it taste interesting  with ground ginger, cardamom, coriander, and coconut aminos sauce - fermented sap from a coconut palm, an alternate to soy sauce I found in the kitchen spice cabinet. Tofu texture is bland, with a flavour so subtle it's hard to identify. My attempt to enhance its taste wasn't successful. It needed a pinch of salt to improve it.

After lunch Clare expressed her determination to tackle the twin bed mattress issue. We spent half an hour rearranging the beds in the room I sleep in, so that the second bed could be conveniently set up whenever needed for guests without occupying space at other times. Then we walked to the 'Bed World' superstore in Leckwith Road near Ninian Park train station to try out the options. The challenge was to find one comfortable enough to lie on, but with a firm edge to support my weight without stressing my back when I get out of bed. The beds on display are double beds. I need to test single bed mattresses rather than double bed ones to be sure they provide the kind of firm support my back needs. Almost all the mattresses on display were large or smaller doubles. Mission not accomplished.

We stopped at Chapter for a cup of tea and cake on the walk home. Ashley called which we were there, continuing the chaotic story of his attempts to get hernia surgery, compounded by administrative errors at UHW. Clare left me and went home while I was on the phone, so I returned by a longer route to complete my daily distance. I don't enjoy walking in the dark due to my impaired vision. 

The road is being dug up for work on the gas main at the crossing of Llandaff and Romilly Roads. The regular traffic lights are out of action, replaced by temporary ones operating in a different sequence. The result is congestion and confusion under the cover of darkness. The surrounding pavements are an obstacle course with safety barriers, generators, contractors vehicles and temporary traffic lights. It was difficult to negotiate on foot in the dark. Ill-tempered commuters were honking car horns at others struggling to navigate poorly lit road works at the crossing, and escaping into side streets at unsafe speeds. It was such a relief to reach home safely.

Another excellent episode of 'Blue Lights' on BBC iPlayer to end the day. portraying through the storyline how Protestant organised crime gangs operate, extorting 'protection money' from businesses in cash used to buy guns hidden in secret arms dumps during the Troubles and bartered for drugs sold on the streets. 

A questiion of trustworthiness

I had a better night's sleep and made sure to drink a pint of water when I got up to improve my chances of a better start to the day without a foggy head. Sunlight penetrated a thin layer of mist-like cloud at the start of the day, which thickened by the afternoon. In a morning spent reading, I came across an interesting article legally challenging the requirement to use AI by an academic of Humanist convictions. He was granted an exemption from using Large Language Model apps on 'religious' grounds. As a believer in the "human part of life" he argues that using AI tools violates his conviction that doing so meant outsourcing his thinking to tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot. 

Critical studies of AI are revealing inaccuracies in advice and opinions offered, and an ability to deceive as well as be deceived when fed false information, or distinguish falsehood from truth when it comes to information without precedent absorbed by its algorithms. The more data AI learns from, it is argued, the smarter its reasoning, the more accurate and credible will be its output. But is this appeal to increased and expanded knowledge trustworthy in itself? 

AI algorithms originate with human programmers, subject to social, cultural and ethical bias, which only comes to light under deep scrutiny of the output by human observers and thinkers. Processing large amounts of specific scientific data derived from medical imaging, astronomical, geographical or anthropological data can be beneficial, provided it is objective, consistent and simple in nature at the outset. That's not the case when it comes to beliefs, opinions, values, whose content needs to be interpreted before objective, simple and consistent data can be derived from it for processing. The subjective element comes with an element of risk, and the question of reliability of what we put our trust in. 

While I was pondering, Clare went out to buy groceries. I cooked veg to go with cold sausages and chutney for lunch. Then a visit to the medical appliance shop on Cowbridge Road to buy a urinal bottle. I pee so much and so often at night that I'm taking a risk using a kiddies' beach bucket when I'm half asleep. It's made of plastic, so much lighter than the ceramic one my bedridden grandpa Harris used when I was a teenager. I remember with distaste having to empty it for him. Glad I don't have to ask anyone to do that for me. 

Then I went to Llandaff Fields to photograph progress in removing the fallen tree. A national cross country running event is being hosted here the weekend after next, so this is a priority job for the Council's tree management team. A couple of years ago I remember a tree beside the course being felled and removed days before the event took place. With hundreds of runners going past, it may have been diseased and potentially unstable to justify this precaution. I returned home for a cup of tea and my blood pressure pill of the day. Then I went out again to complete my daily step count. The high cloud thinned out and turned pink as the sun met the horizon, so beautiful. 

We had an hour's chat with Rachel after supper, still striving to make a home in her cramped new apartment. On her to-do list is constructing a garden shed out of wooden pallets, of which there are plenty, to use for equipment storage. Resourceful as ever!

Then, another episode of 'Blue Lights' before finishing the day.

St Simon's Baptist Mills last Parish Priest remembered

Overcast and damp today, two hours' sleep lost again to emptying my bladder  in the night. I didn't drink as much as I thought I needed to when I got up and suffered with a foggy head from mild dehydration. It creeps up on me before I realise. I went to the Eucharist at St Catherine's, remembering Saints Simon and Jude today. It's a day when I remember the Parish Church of St Simon's Baptist Mills, Easton in Bristol. 

As Rector of the St Paul's Area Team Ministry St Simon's was one of the five inner city parish areas which was merged into one before my time. Saint Agnes Church my home base, was the first to merge with Saint Agnes across the other side of what later became the M32 Parkway roundabout in 1956. The building was sold to the Greek Orthodox community in 1960. The church's ornate Anglo-Catholic high altar reredos was installed  in the south west corner of the nave of St Agnes renamed St Simon's chapel and used regularly for Masses. A few remaining elderly members of St Simon's congregation worshipped there regularly on weekdays until they died. 

My first experience of Orthodox Liturgy when I was an undergraduate was accompanying a fellow student who was Greek Orthodox to his church during the 1964 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Ten years later we were living and working from in the former St Agnes and St Simon's Parish vicarage five minutes walk away. 

In his years after retirement The Reverend Father Ephah Garmons Ryle Hughes the last Vicar of St Simon's was admitted to a care home. Beryl, a faithful member of his flock told me he had not been receiving Holy Communion and asked if I would take the Sacrament to him, which I did willingly as we'd never met. I don't think he was getting pastoral visits from local clergy. I remember him sitting in a chair waiting with a Book of Common Prayer in his hands, opened at the office of Morning Prayer. It was not long before he died.  I was most fortunate to have served in a place with a history of grass roots Anglo-Catholic mission and ministry, surrounded and supported by such committed lay people.

Fr Hughes was Monmouthshire born, as was another East Bristol Anglo-Catholic priest of that generation Fr Tommy Price. I wonder how this came about? If they trained in Oxford, as some Church in Wales clergy were, and been influenced there by Catholic spirituality, there may have been more opportunities in English dioceses than nearer home to serve in a high church parish.

Ashley called me as I was drinking coffee and chatting after Mass to say his hernia surgery appointment had been cancelled, with some excuses made relating to the pre-op assessment. From what he told me, his medical interview report was full of errors. Justifiably, he has made a formal complaint to the hospital management.

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon and evening updating two Windows 11 laptops. It's many months since I last did this. I've had little occasion to use them since I stopped producing a weekly video for the morning prayer on WhatsApp. My Chromebook suffices for consuming video content and emailing. Updating it takes place automatically any time there's a need. All I have to do is reboot it when told. At the moment I have no inspiration or call to create content. I'll keep the laptops updated in case of need.

Before sunset I walked up Chestnut Avenue in Llandaff Fields to see if the path had been cleared of tree branches, and took some photos. A neat pile of logs stood on one side of the path from the branch that had fallen across it, leaves and twigs had been removed, probably turned into wood chips and mulch. On the other side of the path, clearing the much larger group of branches which had fallen on the grass was still a work in progress. All will look different when all that remains is the shattered stump of a forty foot chestnut tree.

Israel has seen nine political parties contending the election, which has led to a stalemate with the main contenders Yashar led by Eisenkot and Likud led by Netanyahu needing to form coalitions in order to take power. Only then will the verdict on Netanyahu's regime be apparent from the support his efforts receive. Israeli Arabs are regarded as 'kingmakers' in this process, perhaps willing to back Yashar, but not entirely united. They are diverse in political opinion and not united except on the issue of justice for Palestinians 

After supper, I watched two episodes of 'Blue Lights' exposing the moral dilemmas of everyday policing to which trainees are exposed, and the struggle to remain humane and compassionate revealed in mentors and trainees alike. Thought provoking and insightful

Signal outage corrupts Android

I woke up in bright sunshine after a night with two hours' sleep loss. There was a short cloudburst while I was in the bathroom. More rain followed with dark clouds coming and going. The EE mobile phone signal came and went randomly causing both our phones to malfunction and reboot. Clare used the landline to call a taxi which took her to Penarth for her study group meeting after breakfast. I wonder how taxi firms were managing given drivers' reliance on mobile phones to direct them to new clients.

I went to Llandaff Fields to take daylight photos of the big tree branches that blew down yesterday. There was no sign of the city's tree management team at work. I imagine priority is given to clearing rural roads. It seems there was heavy congestion in and around Pontcanna in this morning's rush hour due to additional traffic light controls at road works.

By the time Clare returned home, I had lunch cooked and ready to eat. My lower back pain is almost gone. I didn't need an ibuprofen to get started today, but there's still lingering stiffness in my neck and shoulders. I lay flat on my back for half an hour with a book under my head, relaxing and gently stretching listening to a program about the legendary escapologist and self-publicist Harry Houdini.

My phone continued to misbehave throughout the day. The network outage report web page showed that EE had gone through a period of outage. EE's web page provided no meaningful data at all to indicate that I should have a 4G signal or otherwise. It was most confusing. The phone would start up, throw an error message and automatically reboot. I went for another walk in Llandaff Fields as I knew where I would be able to get a strong signal, but there was no change in the phone's behaviour. On several occasions I got a message telling me that an Android startup file was corrupt, and that a factory reset was required. 

I told the children the phone wasn't working properly and to use the landline using WhatsApp in the brief period after startup before it crashed again. Then I set the hour long 'factory reset' process in motion. It was nerve wracking as there were identity checks and sign-ins at every step during reinstatement of the operating system and app downloads. The appearance of the restored user interface is slightly different. An assortment of apps appeared which I'll never use needed deletion. It indicates a full Android update, which was probably scheduled for download when I switched on this morning, but failed when the EE outage occurred, corrupting the operating system leaving it an endless reboot cycle. It's a relief to have sorted out my phone. Clare's phone will have to wait until tomorrow. I'm exhausted now and need to sleep.