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.
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
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