Beneficial new limit

The sound of rain in the night and early morning, but by the time I got up at eight, it had stopped, and the cloud was slowly lifting. After breakfast, I listened to 'The Life Scientific with Jim al Khalili talking with Paul Murdin, the British astronomer whose application of measurement protocols from conventional old  Physics made possible the identification of a black hole, demonstrating the reality behind relativity theory which postulated they could exist.  It was an amazing observational breakthrough, but didn't earn him a Nobel Prize, as the work wasn't innovatory, just a thorough application of establish scientific method. He's also the author of many popular books on astronomy, aimed especially at young people. He was mentored and encouraged by the late great popularizer of astronomy Sir Patrick Moore when he was young.

Clare's study group arrived for their session and I went out to mail a birthday parcel for Amanda at the Post Office. Then I popped into the Coop opposite for some tea bags and bananas, and remembered a few other items from the weekly shopping list, and collected them. I had to beg a recyclable plastic bag for the bananas and succeeded in squeezing in the other items, though they nearly burst out on the way home. I sat in the front room and did some preparation work for the next weeks liturgical distribution, having time on my hand until the group finished. It's good to get ahead as it eases deadline pressure and reduces errors.

Clare cooked us tuna for lunch. Then, I went out and shopped for the remainder of the items on this week's grocery list that I hadn't remembered this morning. As I was nearing home, Clare came down the lane, about to go and buy all the items I was going to cross off the shopping list when I arrived. Just as well we met when we did!

I found an interesting item in today's news feed in the form of a press release from the Welsh Government about the 20mph speed limit which is being implemented in residential streets of cities, towns and villages across Wales next Sunday. It's a message of encouragement to Wales from the head of the Spanish national road safety monitoring organisation Alvaro Gomez. Spain introduced the 30kph limit in 2019, and has seen seen a significant drop in accidents, injuries and deaths in speed limited areas. We'll soon get used to it, he says, and won't notice much difference in journey time or congestion as a result. 

I believe in some regions of Spain it was implemented long before it became universal. Having spent so many months driving in Spain since retirement I'm already accustomed to the more relaxed rhythm of 30kph/20mph motoring, and find it less stressful. I hope drivers in Wales will soon give up whinging about the imposition and appreciate the benefit to their state of mind, as well as the improvement in road safety it's bound to bring.

After shopping a walk in the park listening to the news, then supper. Two interesting TV documentaries to watch this evening. Katya Adler presented the first part of 'Living next door to Putin' touring Russia's neighbouring states - Poland, Lithuania and Lativia and interviewing a variety of people whose response to the threat posed by the invasion of Ukraine was worth hearing. Likewise Laura Kuenssberg in the first of a series on the story of Brexit and the UK Parliament, called 'State of Chaos', broadcasted last night. We heard about it from sister in law Ann today and watched on iPlayer. Both were sobering reminders of just how divided and unstable the world now is, under the influence of mass media with such ability to spread lies, confuse people and heighten their anxieties and undermine their confidence.

Time for just a short read of 'Battle for Spain', and then bed.

Secrets of the gut

A damp day with drizzle and occasional showers, but mild for this time of year, eighteen degrees. We got up late, having stayed in bed listening to Jim Al-Khalili on 'The Life Scientific' interviewing Tim Spector whose pioneering research into the diversity of individual human gut biomes is revealing remarkable new insights into the reason why some people can eat whatever the want and never put on weight, while others cannot control their weight no matter what diet they try. The composition of microbes in the digestive tract is a key factor in physical and mental health. Eating more variety of fresh food, and less processed foods is essential for improving gut biome health. 

Advocates of vegan and vegetarian diets have been saying this for decades, based on practical experience. Tim Spector's scientific investigation of differences in health between pairs of twins, identical and non-identical over their life span confirms practical wisdom, but goes much further in identifying particular organisms and how they function as part of the digestive system. It's a scientific breakthrough which promises new effective treatments for some chronic ailments.

After breakfast, we walked down to the beach west of the port. The tide was far out and we were able to walk on the table of bedrock that extends over a hundred metres from red sandstone cliffs containing long streaks of friable grey limestone, as does the bedrock. This is one among many places where the Jurassic limestone of the Welsh coast interacts with the older sandstone of the Quantocks, turning and twisting under immense pressure due to movement in the earth's crust. It looks like a cross section of marble cake.

We bought fish and chips to take home for lunch, such generous portions that I regretted eating too much for the rest of the day. We both needed a snooze afterwards and then went for a walk along the coast path heading east from the other side of the port, as far as Helwell Bay. Here the clifftop path drops down a steep flight of steps on to the bedrock table of the beach. There's a sign that warns walkers of mud on the bedrock, and to beware of the tide cutting off the path. There doesn't seem to be an inland path diversion. As the tide had turned we turned around and headed back, but not before we saw an egret in the distance, and heard a distant oystercatcher.

We walked out on to the eastern arm of the port where the quotation from The Ancient Mariner had been painted last Saturday, and inspected the work, made by a local artist, who signs himself 'Pat'. The sound of a train whistle in the distance prompted me to dash to the station, and take photos of the arrival and departure of the last train of the day towards Bishops Lydeard.

The in-house internet wasn't working for most of the day, but we were able to alert the proprietor of this, and he went off and rebooted the system. It worked thereafter very slowly, and for three hours it was impossible to upload the photos I'd taken. I suspect dozens of other holidaymakers were attempting to catch up after the outage at the same time. I needed extra patience to complete uploading the forty nine photos I took today. And then it was time for bed again.

Analysing sleep

Periods of heavy rain were again forecasted throughout the day, though it started with the sun appearing through breaks in the big cumulus cloud, so I went out and walked while I could before the downpours started. Then I completed this week's Thursday prayer video and uploaded it. I walked again during an afternoon gap between downpours, and didn't get wet either time. 

With two funerals this week, there were orders of service to prepare and eulogies to look at, and this I did after supper. As we're on holiday in two weeks time, I also have to prepare material in advance, ready to upload while I'm away, rather than let work take up relaxation time. I enjoy doing these things if I'm not busy, especially the biblical reflections.

I found time to listen to last week's Radio 4 'The Life Scientific' podcast with Jim al Khalili interviewing a sleep researcher, Dirk Jan Dijk about a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding how sleep is related to health and performance effectiveness. It seems that too little or too much sleep can impact on the brain and may even contribute to to development of dementia. It doesn't have to be continuous for six to eight hours either. It's the overall quality of sleep that matters, even if it's broken and spread out. Significantly the universal habit over the past century and a half of artificial lighting, turning night into day, affects the circadian rhythm in some way. 

Common knowledge that people sleep poorly if they spend too much time before phone, computer and television screens has led to the incorporation of software that reduces blue screen light glare in the evenings, and this helps mitigate the effect. It's better to switch off much earlier, which I admit I rarely do. I only find it hard to get to sleep if I'm travelling next day. That's excitement at the thought of doing something different.

Deep in the dark vale

The temperature dipped down below freezing again overnight then went up to 6-7 degrees, under cloud with rain showers for much of the day. The cold clammy atmosphere left me feeling colder than when it was minus one. After breakfast, a walk over to Lidl's in Leckwith to get supplies of several kinds of nuts, as we'd run out. I walked again after lunch and for a change, trod unfamiliar streets in the housing area of Llandaff Parish adjacent to Canton Benefice. 

The oldest houses are fine original late Victorian mansions spread over a wide area of land. Each probably had extensive grounds originally, but between and after the wars in the twentieth century, detached and semi-detached houses in laid out in streets took up what once would have been rolling south facing slopes. Some roads seem to follow the line of older tracks, while others are part of the layout of a small housing estate with similar houses. Some of these have acquired extensions in this century, garages, attic rooms and so on. It's interesting to see the variety of domestic architectural styles, reflecting the period of their construction. 

The older the houses, the more use is made of coloured brick and Pennant sandstone, then plain red-brick is used, and then white painted concrete rendered exteriors, as the decades pass. There is just one house, entirely built of Pennant sandstone, enclosed by a carefully planned garden which looks as if it may be from earlier in the nineteenth century, maybe a farmhouse, with a terrace of half a dozen small labourers' cottages next to it. Some of the street names suggest this was once orchard terrain, and domestic gardens in the area still have surviving fruit trees.

I looked at these things keenly as the streets were new to me. They held my attention and made me think about local history with fresh eyes. Not a bad thing on such a dull cold day. 

The grim threshold of a hundred thousand people dying from covid has been formally noted in today's news, one of the world's worst infected populations. The true number of excess deaths to date  may be even higher. Epidemiologists reflecting on the past year admit responses to the pandemic Europe wide, not just in the UK, was too slow at the outset in imposing restrictions to curb virus spread. 

Llandough and Heath hospitals have experienced sharp spikes in hospital generated contagion. It's said that people who don't know they are infected are coming to hospital seeking treatment for other ailments or accidents, not being diagnosed in advance to prevent them from infecting others. We're still not making a priority of universal regular testing for covid infection. Expensive to achieve maybe, logistically complex, but much needed. Hope are pinned on vaccinating as many people as possible as quickly as possible, but that won't stop the lethal spread among the un-vaccinated. It doesn't make sense.

I've been asked to do a funeral in two weeks time at the graveside, not in church or chapel of rest. Back in my first curacy days, it wasn't uncommon to have prayers in home of the deceased and then go straight to the grave or the crem. I struggle to recall if I've ever done a funeral which is simply in the open air, and will need to give it some thought. Given the restrictions on using places of worship let alone homes for a service it's not surprising that a common sense decision has been made. Graveside only services have been around since time immemorial, but not in my ministerial experience. Being outdoors in a natural setting is possibly consoling to a group of mourners, although bad weather could have the opposite effect. I just hope there's no strong wind or heavy rain. 

It was consoling this evening to watch the nightly nature programme 'Winterwatch' on BBC 2, with some lovely landscapes and closeup shots of birds, voles, beavers and otters. The enthusiasm of the presenters is delightful. Likewise the enthusiasm of Professor Jim Al-khalili on the BBC Radio Four 'Life Scientific' programme. Each week he talks with a leading scientist from a wide range of disciplines. It's a half hour of intelligible conversation about scientific discovery and the careers of the discoverers themselves. He's by far the best interviewer the BBC has. I wish he was used on news programmes. In my opinion, few of the present generation of news presenters and interlocutors are really good enough for the job.