Llandough on time

This afternoon we took Rachel to the coach station to start her journey to Kenilworth, where she'll not only be staying with big sister Kath this week, but making some song recordings with brother in law Anto in the attic studio where he composes his own sound track music for AKM Music and has recorded their own Sonrisa band albums. Getting quality recordings done in the USA would be not only more costly but maybe also a more chancy process, where you can't be sure that the people you're dealing with want to help you or take advantage of the fact that you're a foreigner. Working on home ground has its advantages! Unfortunately, her coach suffered a door closure malfunction, leading to a departure delay of over two hours.

Clare and I went to Llandough Hospital after dropping Rachel at Sophia Gardens, as I had a first examination and briefing about having an endoscopy inspection. I'm impressed by the improved way the hospital appointment system now works, checking and rechecking by text message, that you still want and can keep the appointment. This strategy aim to cut down on time wasted by those who fail to notify of their need to cancel or postpone. 

For good or ill, there are always reasons why a scheduled booking has to be changed, or cannot be taken up. While there's little excuse for not letting the hospital know in good time, I guess with a range of older, less capable patients, some of whom may be supported by busy careers, additional effort to communicate and obtain a response is worthwhile. I was also impressed by how everything ran to time. We were on our way home again within three quarters of an hour of arrival.

I was interested to find the specialist I saw wasn't entitled Dr or Mr but Lt Col, a military surgeon, not in the reserves, but on active service. As a ranking officer, leading or managing a team he spends time in a civilian hospital alongside military duties to maintain his level of professional competence when not on operations. That's a comforting thought now.

Over the weekend, I started watching a series of French crimmies called 'Dead Beautiful' on More Four Walter Presents. They feature Thierry Godard, who plays the Parisien flic who co-stars in the brilliant long running 'Spiral' series. Instead of being a team member, he's Le Commissaire in this series with the usual complex personal and family life which seems to be built in feature of the narrative in so many police dramas, representing the exacting demands on the individuals who serve in law and order roles.

As the generic title suggests, this is a series of stories about women who are victims or perpetrators of violent crimes. Wealth and privilege also part of the scenario, and the power politics surrounding the judiciary aren't really a feature. Each is a two hour watch, quite tough going, and each has a few surprise twists in the past ten minutes. Best of all, my comprehension of movie mode French seems to have improved, perhaps because I have been using the Duo Lingo app to revise French this year, in addition to maintaining my Spanish. Half to three quarters of an hour's language drills daily is a quite a routine to maintain, but I'd rather that than doing Sudoku or crosswords. It seems a bit more useful, while I'm still able to travel and live abroad for decent periods.
       

O Oriens

On this the shortest day of the year, we started our return journey from Kirton to Cardiff, driving up the A14 early under a clear morning sky, taking our niece Anneke with us as far as Ipswich County Council Headquarters, where she was to interview for a job at ten. 

Bright sunshine at the start gave way to overcast skies and rain, but by the time we reached home, the skies were clear again. We followed the A14 beyond Cambridge to the M6 to Coventry ring road, then followed the A46 to Stratford. This took us past Kenilworth so we stopped for an hour to visit Kath, Anto and Rhiannon, before following our usual cross country route enter Wales via the M50. 

Anto is in the throes of migrating a large amount of data from his current website to one that's being designed for him. For technical reasons outside his control, it's become labour intensive job demanding much hard concentration. I feel for him, having spent so much time myself recently migrating an even smaller dataset to a new software platform. I'm amazed he can be so cheerful about it. He's looking forward to a new enhanced website launch early in the New Year with added features.

After supper, I brought this year's new Christmas tree indoors for installation in the lounge, and then we decorated it together, so that it's ready for when the family arrives. It's a good while since we did this together as usually there are younger people around willing to do it. I really enjoyed doing this. Such an appropriate thing to do as the longest night enveloped us. 

My Blackberry Accuweather app, told me that the sun set over Kirton at 15h45, but in Cardiff at 16h06. I knew there was a time difference across the country, but had never quite realised how much until today.

This week's BBC Radio 4 edition of 'Beyond Belief' was all about Christian and Pagan observances of the Winter Solstice. Something more I learned from this programme was that the sun's position on the horizon is as southerly as it can get today. It's the same until Christmas Day, when it begins its ascent into the northern skies again. Good enough reason, I suppose for the great 'O' antiphon of the day to be about the rising sun, symbol of both the birth of Jesus and his resurrection.

 O Daystar, you are the splendour of eternal light and the sun of justice. O come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

The dawn of a new day has been received as a sign of hope by the whole of humanity down the ages, regardless of religious belief and culture., and by analogy also, the dawning of a new year.
     

Remembering

We've had Kath, Anto and Rhiannon with us for the weekend. Anto was playing a gig last night at Chapter Arts Centre just down the road from us. It was a night of re-union for 'The Third Uncles' a Cardiff 1980s rock band in which Anto had been bass guitarist before he and Kath married. This was their first gig in 23 years. The band was good enough to be signed by a big record label, then later dropped. This experience of the music business in those early days of electronic sound samples being added into live performances gave Anto a taste for making and recording his own music. This was how his post teaching career, running his own library sound track production company AKM Music began.

Clare and went to the gig, played to a packed house in an upstairs studio, a hundred or so of mostly middle aged people, re-united around their youthful memories, of bonding over loud music. The band played their hour long set with their hallmark tight precision. Either the protective earplugs I was wearing or the sound system balance muffled the vocalist, so the sounds retained their indistinct unfamiliarity. It wasn't really my kind of music, to be honest. I much prefer the Latino music Kath and Anto are performing these days with their group 'Lament', soon to be more cheerfully re-branded as 'Sonrisa'. I can even sing along to some of their songs. Thankfully, the gig didn't finish too late, so I was able to walk home and watch the first half of  the last series two episode Inspector Montalbano on iPlayer before bed.

I was up early for an eight o'clock Mass at St David's Ely, followed by the nine fifteen Mass at St Timothy's. As it's Remembrance Sunday, I considered going into town for the Cenotaph ceremony, but by the time I was ready to leave church, it was already too late to arrive on time, so I listened to the Whitehall Cenotaph ceremony on the car radio as I drove home. Strange to miss out, after so many years of habitual attendance at Remembrance parades. But, if things had worked out differently in the summer, I might still have been out in Spain, where remembering victims of past conflicts is still a painful little mentioned issue for many.

After a family lunch and departures, I drove out to Tongwynlais to attend Evensong and hear Philip, one of my tutor group members preach his first sermon since arriving in College. He did well with both content and delivery, a promising start. The service was the much loved Prayer Book Evensong, seventeen people present, with four of the hymns sung traditionally sung at Remembrance-tide. I enjoyed it, not least because I found myself remembering my father who had attended my first ever preachment at St James' Taff's Well, the other church in the Parish, just a mile away. He'd spent some of his childhood living and going to school locally. It was easy to imagine his presence, and casual enjoyment of worship in this way, hardly changed since he was a boy nearly a century ago.