Overcast again today, with the occasional shower at 20C. I got up just after eight o'clock and made the breakfast, after a disturbed night's sleep with minor worries surfacing in light sleep. At last, the Israeli government has yielded to international pressure and is allowing air drops with undertakings to let lorry convoys with aid into Gaza. With Palestinian adults and children already dying of starvation, suspension of hostilities by the IDF will reduce the risk to aid workers but not eliminate it, as Hamas fighters can still wreak random havoc, and hijack aid for civilians for their own purposes. Three distribution centres in places under Israeli control, but lorry convoys have yet to begin. The coming week is going to be critical, a matter of life and death for undernourished victims.
I went on my own to the Eucharist at St Catherine's as Clare decided to attend the Welsh Eucharist this afternoon. In addition to thirty members of the regular congregation, a group of about seventy smartly dressed people came for a baby's Christening. They arrived early and stood outside chatting, and were rather slow to enter and settle down. At least they were well behaved eventually.
I felt for Fr Sion having beginning the service without a quiet moment to start with. Some of the attendees seemed unused to participating in ordinary worship. Choir numbers were reduced, so the congregational response was somewhat muted throughout. While it's good to celebrate baptism in the Parish Eucharist, the form and content of the event isn't exactly geared to newcomers. At the end of the service Colin the organist played 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' from Mary Poppins. I found it very distracting, and am not sure what this was meant to convey. Sion left straight after the service for a coach to Bristol airport, on his way to Leipzig to help his daughter return from a course of studies in the university there. I'm standing in for him this Wednesday.
After a coffee and a brief chat in the church hall I went home for lunch and slept in the chair for an hour after. Then I set out for Jan Gould's farewell Mass at 'The Res', walking down to Cowbridge Road East to get a bus. I just missed an 18 which would have taken me right there, but it was followed by a 13 which dropped me near to bottom of Grand Avenue, giving me a 20 minute walk to the church. It was packed with parishioners, colleagues and friends from far and wide, over four hundred I reckon. Jan celebrated and Bishop Mary preached a highly appreciative and reflective sermon.
The singing in such a full church was uplifting and invigorating, such a contrast to this morning's Eucharist. Some of the hymns were new to me, though not their words, resonating with the best of social gospel aspirations. It made me realise how out of touch I with contemporary developments, worshipping in churches which use traditional hymn books, revised of course. There was a farewell party in the church hall next door afterwards. I wasn't in the mood for socialising in a huge crowd and headed for the nearby bus stop. I met Peter and Hilary who gave me a lift back to Llandaff Fields, and I was home by six.
After supper, I set about downloading our flight passes for the cruise, but was unable to with the information available from Kate our travel agent. I realised she didn't have the EasyJet account email which I habitually used and created a new account with the one she did presumably use. But this, plus the holiday booking reference yielded no results. I emailed her a full account of the problem, and home this is not going to be a problem. I suspect that using the wrong email address to send to an account which didn't exist at that moment has resulted in an un-noticed error message. There's nothing I can do about it. I just hope she can sort it out. Just as well there's still a fortnight to go before we travel.
I went for a half hour walk in the park at sunset, in need of cooling my brain following the frustration of the past couple of hours of futile troubleshooting. Then I headed straight to bed.
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