Not over until it's over?

Clare and I did our stint of duty at St Catherine's this morning, lesson reading, welcoming and checking in worshippers contact details as they arrived. For me it's quite a change, and one which I enjoy. A great way of getting to know members of the congregation. We were down to two dozen today, as there was an on-line family worship session in the afternoon. Emma reminded us that it was Orthodox Easter Sunday, so when we got home, I emailed paschal greetings to Dr Laura Ciobanu in Romania

After lunch we walked up and down both banks of the Taff, from Blackweir Bridge to Western Avenue, and got back home just after Mark Elton's on-line concert recital at Pentyrch church began. It's the second he's done there with a harpsichord player Despina Homatidou who teaches at RWCMD, and happens to be Greek Orthodox. At the end of the concert she wished viewers a happy Orthodox Easter, which made me smile.

After supper, another lovely episode of 'Call the Midwife', full of kindness and social issues, and then the last episode of series six of Line of Duty, dramatically spun out until the very last with the history of all six series' crimes unravelled and solved, but without finally exposing the deeper level of institutionalised establishment corruption. Too hard, too big to eradicate when, like covid, it's endemic in society  It's supposed to be the end of the saga, although I think I spot one or two loose threads in the narrative which could be picked up in a seventh series if this was decided upon. 

A key absence in this episode was the Asian Police Crime Commissioner. Given there were three black murder victims plus an Asian cop framed and banged up only to be acquitted just before the credits rolled. Surely there's room for a drama about how the police are, or aren't addressing institutional racism. Sure, there are BAME cops in real life as well as in 'Line of Duty' but a dramatic exploration of the issues some of them face would be timely. So maybe next time? Given the huge popularity of this series, I wouldn't be surprised to see another. Thought provoking entertainment.

Profisciere

A weekend of gloriously sunny weather continued today. We went to the Parish Eucharist at St Catherine's and again there were thirty adults and half a dozen children present. After the service, I was able to make contact with the next of kin I needed to speak to in order to prepare the second funeral service I will be officiating at this week. Another service for an octogenarian who was a child in Cardiff during the Blitz, who lived most of her life in the next street over from where she was born. It's hard to imagine that could happen in Britain today.

We had lunch in the garden as it was warm enough, then a siesta, followed by a walk in the park and down to the river. The cricket pitches were busy with practice matches, and the temporary practice nets structure appeared and was in use in a corner of the field nearest the tennis courts. Another wave of trees are blossoming as the first wave sheds petals and sprouts leaves. It's amazing to see how much growth there has been in leaf cover in just the past few days, yet half of the trees have no leaves at all and buds are yet to burst or flower. I don;t suppose I have ever spent so much time observing the arrival of spring in such wonderful detail.

After an absence of a month or longer, there's a heron perched near the fish ladder at Blackweir Bridge, on the lookout for food. I also caught sight of a wagtail on the river bank downstream from the weir, and for the first time got lucky with a decent sharp photograph taken with my new Olympus zoom lens, which is a pleasure to use. It was rather puzzling to identify as it has grey chest plumage fading to yellow around the bottom half and legs. Is it a grey or a yellow wagtail, or a hybrid?

Clare and I chatted with sister in law Ann about Prince Philip's funeral, impressed as we were by both the content and the beautifully orchestrated choreography of the hundreds of participants. Ann observed that when the prayer 'Go forth Christian soul...' was said by Archbishop Justin, the Prince's coffin disappeared from sight. I wondered if this moment had been edited out of the recording we watched later in the evening, but it seems that the catafalque was positioned on top of a neat platform lift, to lower the coffin straight into the undercroft of St George's Chapel, where other royals are laid to rest.

The 'Profiscere' prayer as the 'Go forth' Latin text is called, is a sending off prayer which belongs with the Last Rites prayers said as person dies, but it fitted in this context. It's perhaps better known to music lovers as a text used by Edward Elgar in 'The Dream of Gerontion'. I noticed there was no prayer of Committal in the liturgy broadcasted, and wondered why, but learning about the coffin lift, helped me make sense of proceedings. The public service ended, then the Royal Family members descended to the undercroft with the clergy, where the Committal prayer would be said as the Prince's coffin was put in its resting place. When the Queen dies, Prince Phillip's remains will be moved to wherever she is laid to rest, and that will be where their shared tomb and memorial will be erected.

After supper, we watched an episode of 'Call the Midwife' together, which combined insights into the impact of Pacific nuclear testing on service personnel and their families, with an elderly nun experiencing what she describes as 'the dark night of the soul'. Set in the year we got married, it was very evocative of our shared experience of life and its concerns in those days. Then another episode of 'Line of Duty' ending with another cliffhanger, and more plot twists and turns than you can count. The story line had a strong elements of the Stephen Lawrence case, and the murder of the Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. a couple of years ago. Enough to keep the media commentariat busy for another week until the next episode, no doubt!

Digital birthday

I slept longer than usual, tired after yesterday's extra long walk, but came down to breakfast to a table, half covered with food and half with cards and presents. It's hard to believe that I'm seventy six today. As well as cards from the family I had digital greetings from Sara in Sweden, Valdo in Switzerland and Connie in Germany. That says a lot about the friendships I've made over the past thirty years.

There were thirty of us at the St Catherine's Eucharist. Mother Frances announced the re-starting of the Thursday morning service at St John's. Suitably it will be a requiem Mass for Prince Philip. After a lunch of salmon and roast veg with a bottle of Chianti Reserva, a siesta before walking up to Llandaff Weir and back. My fitbit phone app tells me that I have slept ten and a half hours since yesterday, compensating for the additional exercise I guess. That's how I really know how old I am!

At supper Clare presented me with a special vegan birthday cake made mostly of chocolate, fruit and nuts. It was delicious. Such a pity we couldn't share it with the family, but never mind, next Saturday we'll all meet up in Cheltenham for a picnic lunch.  Just like last year, wt eight we had a family Zoom conversation for nearly an hour, but so much happier to sit at home with Clare at my side. Then, the fourth episode of 'Line of Duty' with lots more bewildering intrigue and a dash of high melodrama. I'll have another Zoom meeting tomorrow afternoon, for a Eurodiocesan Safeguarding training session. I wonder what else will crop up this week?

Low Sunday blues

I woke up early and went to the eight o'clock Communion service at St Nicholas' Parish Church. I sat outside beforehand, on a park bench saying Morning Prayer from my phone. I'd have felt rather self-conscious fiddling with my phone in church, where it's customary good manners to switch off and attend to God without digital support.

Much to my surprise, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer liturgy has been supplanted by a select Easter booklet derived from the CofE Common Worship prayer book data store. A youthful looking retired priest five years or so older than me took the service and preached an excellent resurrection homily. I couldn't help but notice that congregational numbers are now down to twenty, having been thirty plus on previous visits. There can be a variety reasons for this, including a changing profile for the church going constituency with perhaps fewer older traditionalists attending. Older people may stop getting up so early, and move to the main service of the day, whether they like modern liturgy or not. Still, in this heartland parish of protestant middle England, I sincerely hope that use of the 1662 BCP hasn't entirely been abandoned.

Apart from me, everyone got up late. We had a late breakfast, and then after a good walk through Abbey FIelds and around Kenilworth Castle and back, lunch mid-afternoon, before parting company and heading down the M40 to Beaconsfield, for a night in a Travelodge hotel prior to the Memorial Service for a friend from Geneva days, John Meredith. He died last summer, six months after losing his wife Elizabeth. It's been lovely to get away, as we have done, but how tiring these days we find both the displacement and the effort.

Surprisingly, wi-fi had to be paid for in the hotel, but the phone signal was good enough for this not to be necessary. I leave mobile data on these days, and find I rarely if ever exhaust my rather meager weekly allowance, since I don't need to stream music or video. The room had a telly, we we were able to watch tonight's episode of 'Line of Duty', and be kept guessing for another week about the identity of the most corrupt cops of all - although I bet there are some corrupt politicos involved in all this as well.

    

Not so happy Easter

This morning, I presided and preached at the St Catherine's Easter Sunday Eucharist, with about sixty adults and a dozen children present. Despite the lovely weather, and the enthusiastic efforts of the choir, somehow I felt the general mood of worshippers was subdued. We had, after all, woken up to news of mass murder by terrorists bombing churches in Sri Lanka. I found it hard to awaken the kind of responsiveness that's often possible in celebrating Christ's resurrection, perhaps because of so much disturbing news. I was pretty tired on my way home after, and throughout the rest of the day.

Owain came for lunch and spent the afternoon with us. We exchanged greetings with Rachel out camping this weekend with Jaz near Flagstaff Arizona, and Kath, Anto and Rhiannon in wet and stormy Santa Pola. We've had far kinder weather than both, for a change. After Owain returned to Bristol, I caught up with 'Follow the Money', and then watched 'Line of Duty', which yet again was too explicitly violent and gory at the end. It's simply un-necessary, detracting from the complexity of the plot lines. 'Follow the Money' has its share of nastiness on top of its complexity, but it's handled with greater care in my opinion. Thank heavens mainstream news broadcasting is generally more circumspect in what it shows of horrifying incidents.

  

Post-op Sunday day three

We went to the Parish Eucharist at St Catherine's this morning. Given the uncertainty I felt about coping with the new wound, I decided to stand throughout with my back to a pillar of the nave. This worked out well, reminding me of having to stand while attending Mass at one of Málaga's churches in Passiontide last year. Memories of that Semana Santa are still vivid in my daydreaming without needing to look at the photos I took.

After the service, I went to St David's clinic for a dressing change. I was delighted to see that Tracey was duty nurse, as she's seen me at least once a week since last December. She wasn't alarmed at the dramatic new wound. She said this was nothing unexpected after the operation and reassured me that it would heal normally in coming weeks. So, it's more of the same. Thankfully, it's not painful, just a little tender to sit on directly. It means that I'll be blogging lying down with my Chromebook for a while to come.

This evening, as Clare wanted to watch 'Victoria' in the 9.00pm prime time ITV slot, I went to bed watched the second episode of BBC One's 'Line of Duty' on the Chromebook. It was full of surprises again, and like missions of other viewers I was left puzzling over which corrupt suspect was being fingered in final a tense interrogation scene. Great entertainment.

Sleepy Sunday amnesia

Having put the clocks forward early, we got to bed with midnight showing on the clocks, if not our array of digital devices. I woke up having slept only six instead of eight hours, which rather defeated the object of getting an early night, to be sure to be ready for church in good time. It wasn't anxiety as much as never being able to predict how my bowels will function, and consequently when I'll be ready for a wound dressing.

It's horrible for one's life to focus around bodily functions in this way, but it's not nearly as troublesome as it was in the last two months of last year. Anyway, we got to St Catherine's on time, and a congregation of about sixty adults and a dozen children assembled for this quarter's United Benefice Eucharist. 

Immediately afterwards I walked to St David's hospital, pleased to have the duty nurse confirm that the wound is continuing to dry out, albeit slowly. I have to be careful with it, but can move towards a lighter looser dressing in the next few days before surgery next Thursday.

After lunch I was inevitably tired and had a long siesta before taking my Sony Alpha 68 out for a walk in the afternoon sunshine. I didn't take a lot of photos, but on return was most annoyed to find that I'd forgotten to replace the SD card after yesterday's outing to Dyffryn Gardens. The downside with cameras of this type is that the hardware doesn't have an on-board photo file storage, as is the case with fixed lens digital cameras. Even if a memory chip can only store half a dozen photos, it does rescue the user from complete futility on a SD cardless expedition.

Thinking back, this has only happened to me without my noticing a couple of times over the past year. I usually carry a spare card in my wallet for an emergency, but it occurs when I don't feel the need to review a photo I've taken, and don't register the error message generated.

Along with millions of others, I watched the much anticipated first episode of 'Line of Duty', series five. It certainly fulfilled expectations. Then, although it was late, I watched an episode of 'Baptiste' on iPlayer, since my sister June enthused about it while it was broadcast live. Now I can watch all six episodes without having to wait a week between each.

This story has people trafficking and international organised crime as core themes. It's set in Amsterdam's sleazy quarter, with subtitled dialogue in French and Dutch, as well as English. It's the kind of movie I enjoy, to keep me thinking about contemporary concerns and social trends, for good and for ill.
 
TV on demand, to fit with one's cycle of busyness and boredom I find a great asset. It also means you can find out about any series before watching. There's nothing worse than wasting time on something whose promise fails to deliver. To my mind, a great deal of scheduled TV falls into this category nowadays. Even so, I'm binge watching, simply because my active options ae limited at the moment. I so look forward to being able to travel and explore different places once again, one of these days.

Keeping the feast

I was grateful for a little longer in bed than usual this morning, as I didn't have an early service before going to St German's, especially as I had a sermon to prepare before retiring to bed after midnight. We were thirty five in church for the Solemn Mass of Easter Day. Such a low attendance is to be expected until word gets around about the arrival of a new Parish Priest, and the establishment of a relationship between a new pastor and the local community. It was, in any case, a joyous celebrations, not lacking in enthusiasm at all.

After Mass, a crowd of more than sixty arrived for the baptism of Skyla, whose mother brought her to church on a Sunday within a day of her birth, several weeks ago. Great-Grandma is a regular attender at church, so Skyla's first appearance was a special moment for the congregation, and her mum kept on bringing her subsequently. I returned home feeling full of the new life of Easter.

Owain came over to join us for lunch and to stay overnight. We had Paschal Lamb, and a lovely bottle of Bourgogne Pinot Noir, one of our favourites. After several hours of idleness following lunch, we had a walk around Llandaff Fields, and later enjoyed the latest twists and turns in this week's episode of 'Line of Duty' on TV before bed.

I'm pleased with myself that for the four main Masses of the Triduum I wrote fresh new sermons, without any need to re-visit stuff in my archives. I'm amazed at how insight comes, thought it may not be a coincidence that the given liturgies of each day have been supported by experienced teams of servers, making it possible for me not to have to divert energy into forms of worship, being comfortable with what the others involved were also comfortable with. Being able to produce an original sermon for the occasions is related to not having to worry about the rest of the service.

    

Parking puzzle

Up early on this bright sunny Passion Sunday morning, walking down to St John's Canton to celebrate the eight o'clock Eucharist with ordinand Sam and three others. I picked up nine items of litter in transit, and there were more that were too wet to handle, still drying from overnight rain. There's always more.

Then, on after breakfast to St German's for the Solemn Mass. Numbers were down there as well, but we did welcome a visitor from Germany who comes over at least once a year to stay with friends and joins us for worship. With the sun flooding the building with bright morning light, leading worship was particularly uplifting.

Feeling rather tired after lunch, following yesterday's workshop and walk, I went by car to the coach station in Sophia Gardens to buy a coach ticket for tomorrow's trip to London to see sister June. I found a parking space easily, and was stopped by a puzzled visiting motorist querying if the Pay 'n Display parking regime extended to the road outside the enclosed car park. I couldn't see a notice nearby. It was only when I walked fifty metres towards the ticket office that I saw one.

I hadn't seen the ticket machine serving this zone as it was located across the road and inside a bus-only lane leading into the coach parking and passenger pick up area. A rather unsafe location for pedestrians, to say the least. It was thirty metres away from the zone it served, and from afar it was hard to determine its purpose with no accompanying sign board or information panel. It looked like it had been put there as an afterthought, or was a job abandoned half complete. By the time I'd fully taken this in, I reached the booking office, and as there wasn't a queue, I was back in my car and driving out, in the same amount of time as it would have taken me to get a ticket from a machine in the car park.

The rest of the day we spent at home, quiet and uneventful except for another remarkable episode of 'Line of Duty' which boasted a twelve minute police interrogation sequence, economical in movement and camera angles, with continuous dialogue, possibly shot entirely in one take, producing a peculiarly intense and claustrophobic atmosphere, like a stage performance. Great telly.