Yet another lovely day waking up to sunshine and a clear blue sky after a fair night's sleep with a clear head which remained quite clear after taking my meds with our Saturday pancake breakfast. I received a message from Veronica saying she had heard from a local church leader that a new Costa Brava Chaplain has been appointed. It seems my visit to celebrate the Eucharist with the congregation at Madremanya last May was remembered, and that I would be welcome to join the congregation for the licensing of their new pastor. It would be a lovely pretext for another visit, but given the uncertainty about my condition, plus the fast rising cost of travel and insurance it's not a prospect I can envisage. I'll be living off happy memories of ministry on the Costas and my locum photo albums in future.
I felt sleepy after lunch and slept in bed for half an hour before going for a walk in Llandaff Fields, busy with children playing and family groups enjoying a post-Eid picnic. I found it an effort to sustain a modest pace. I wasn't breathless, my legs felt leaden, but not painfully stiff. I don't know why. It rather spoiled a pleasant hour in the afternoon sun.
Military installations overlooking the Straight of Hormuz have been destroyed by American forces. Iran has retaliated, firing missiles which didn't succeed in hitting their target, the Anglo American base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. Britain's military bases are being used by American warplanes as a contribution to the defence of Gulf States, the Straight of Hormuz and UK military bases.
British resistance to being sucked deeper into a conflict it didn't start and is slipping out of control with far reaching economic consequences, will be made clear by Parliament voting to endorse the government's defensive initiative and its justification. Trump ordered attacks on Iran unilaterally without formally presenting war aims for endorsement by Congress. He has criticised and insulted NATO allies for not following suit. His potential allies are less than willing to trust his judgement because he is unpredictable.
After supper, I watched another feel-good episode of 'Lolita Lobosco', a delightful mix of crime thriller, domestic comedy and romance. The final scene was set on the quayside of Bari's ferry terminal with a huge ship with the 'Piraeus' written on its stern. It awakened the memory of taking a ferry back in 1967 to Piraeus from Brindisi, seventy miles south of Bari after a day and a night's train journey from London to Athens with a pioneering student travel business taking us to a month's backpacking holiday in Greece. The romance of that adventure and the wild beauty of my first rural Mediterranean country was for us a treasured life changing experience, the beginning of my love affair with the rich diversity of European life and culture.
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