Another day of blue sky, brilliant sunshine and the temperature rising from 25 to 30 in the afternoon. It's proper holiday weather, encouraging me to relax and linger late in bed. It's rather a waste of morning, even though there's nothing booked in my diary to get me going early. I had a nice half hour chat with Kath as she was on her way to work. She always calls on Thursday to speak with one of us while she's driving, bless her. Rachel tends to ring as we're about to go to bed, which is the time she's just got up for breakfast in Arizona. Owain often rings once or twice a week, as he walks around Greenbank cemetery cum wildlife haven after work. We're so fortunate that they keep in touch with us.
I escaped the house and walked in Llandaff Fields for an hour before lunch. Delicious baked mackerel with roast veg today! After we'd eaten, I made the video slide show to go with next Wednesday's Morning Prayer, and uploaded it to YouTube, then I went for a walk to Thompson's Park, regretting that I hadn't put a hat on, as the sun was fierce. It was good to see the Luffkin coffee shop open again. Although the lease has surrendered several months ago, the guy who used to run the place has agreed to continue to remain a keyholder and open ad lib for the time being. The Council acknowledges it's been a popular amenity in a spot where after school socialisation for parents with small children is now a feature of local life. Tenders for another coffee shop leaseholder are now invited, and it suits the estates department to have someone on hand who knows the place and can answer enquiries. A win-win arrangement.
One of the moorhens was swimming at the end of the park pond near the grass verge. When I looked more closely, four very tiny black fluffy chicks were standing on the stone ledge by the water. I don't think I've seen them so young before and I've no idea where the nest in which they were hatched is located - in the shadow of the surrounding trees somewhere nearby I guess. What a delight!
After an early supper, I walked down to Cowbridge Road and took a bus to take me to St David's Church in Ely to join a congregation of twenty celebrating the feast of Corpus Christi. Given today's hot weather, I recalled as I travelled the Corpus Christi Mass at San Salvador in Nerja last year with a procession through the streets to San Miguel Church. I arrived at half past six and spent quiet time before the service saying Evensong. Fr Rhys and Fr Jesse accompanied by Deacon Sian Parker, soon to be ordained priest, leading the congregation of about twenty in worship. After communion, a procession with the Blessed Sacrament around the exterior of the building, with Sian carrying the sacrament in a monstrance and offering Benediction to the congregation after the procession.
Conventionally in Catholic tradition, carrying the monstrance in procession is reserved for (male) priests in order of seniority. Anglo-Catholics accepting the priestly ordination of women have already disposed of convention and there's no reason why any ordained Deacon should not officiate in this way, so the congregation was witness to an unusual up-ending of convention, perhaps without realising. In small ways the church adapts and adjusts to changing times and expressions of pastoral leadership, perhaps without realising it's doing so.
I didn't stay long after the service for the glass of bubbly offered at the back of the church. I just wanted to get home and relax. There's a bus stop opposite the church, and I only had to wait a few minutes before an X2 country bus appeared and took me to be bottom end of Lansdown Road Canton, with a fifteen minute walk back home. I found Clare watching a fascinating programme about recent advances in scientific examination of Stonehenge and the wider area around it, which is filled with burial sites and processional ways. It seems that the monuments represented an important place of status and power, not only for the British Isles but also for north western Europe, thanks to the importance of Britain's rare accessible silver, gold and tin mining assets, from nine thousand years ago. Extraordinary examples of bronze age artifacts made of precious metal revealed how remarkably skilled people were, even at a time when the best tools they had for cutting materials were fashioned from flint. It seems possible that some tiny gold objects were made by keen-sighted children. Amazing!
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