Figs in the park

I woke up and half past six and couldn't get back to sleep, so I posted the Morning Prayer YouTube link on What'sApp, listened to 'Thought for the Day' and got up for breakfast earlier than usual. I had a voicemail from Mother Frances at eight thirty to ask if I'd celebrate St John's Eucharist, as she was afflicted with a severe migraine. I walked there early enough to shop for food bank items in Tesco's on my way to church. Most of the regulars were away. It was just David and I when we started, but my sixth sense was at work, telling me our number was incomplete. Half way through, another person arrived, who attends from time to time when her work schedule permits. Two or three gathered together around the Lord's Table. Funny how this happens.

I returned home, feeling tireder than usual, losing an hour's sleep. I rested in the chair but couldn't doze off, so I got up and worked on next week's Morning Prayer video, while Clare cooked lunch. I had stopped to eat lunch then completed the job and uploaded the video after eating. 

Father Stewart emailed me the dates of Sunday duties he wants me to cover in the third quarter of the year. It won't be weekly as his regular pattern of duty cover required me to fill fortnightly slots, so I can offer the remainder of dates to Area Dean Fr Dyfrig, in case they are useful to him for covering our local double vacancy. According to this week's parish newsletter, he's going to be the interim Ministry Area Leader until an appointment is made. As if he didn't already have enough work on his plate with Eglwys Dewi Sant, Welsh Language Advisor and Area Dean in his brief! 

Anyway, it looks as if I'll be able to celebrate Christmas in the parish this year rather than crossing the city to St German's, as I have done previously. We're hosting the annual festive banquet this year. Then, a few days later, Kath and Anto are off to Australia on a long planned visit to some old friends of theirs.

Clare succeeded in getting a full coat of paint for the shed out of tin we bought, but another is needed for a second coat, so I walked down to Cowbridge Road and took a 17 bus to the top end of Heol Trelai in Caerau then walked the last half mile uphill to B&Q to buy one. I was lucky to wait only five minutes for a 96 bus outside Western Cemetery, which brought me back into Canton, and a fifteen minute walk home. Before supper, I went out again and walked to Thompson's Park, where I checked out the fig tree which overhangs a back garden well next to the park.  

It was covered with baby figs which will take a year to grow and ripen, plus a couple of dozen large figs on overhanging branches unreachable high up. These had over-ripened to the point of going rotten and attacked by wasps. But I found one big nearly ripe fig concealed by leaves on a low hanging branch, which I took home and left to finish ripening next to a large nectarine, due to be eaten tomorrow. A small treat, thanks to our warmish wet summer weather. Next year's fig crop from this tree should be fantastic, if they survive long enough to ripen.

Just as I was going out to the park, Pete the tree surgeon husband of Mandy, a school friend of Kath's came by to inspect the Damson tree in our garden. It's suffering from an infestation which is causing its leaves to curl up. No chance of fruit this year I suspect. Investigation and diagnosis is now under way.

After supper we watched the first episode of 'I Claudius' on BBC iPlayer. It's a classic TV drama made in 1976 with a stellar cast, and amazing acting. I'm not sure we had colour TV when we saw this back then. It was shot on videotape according to Wikipedia. It's acclaimed as one of the best ever TV dramas from the BBC and still looks surprisingly good, especially when you consider its age.

Saint Clare's day

Another warm and sunny day. I worked on my Sunday sermon in the morning, and then we drove out to B&Q to buy paint to do up the garden shed, and a disc sanding attachment for a power drill. As we set out, I was struggling to make myself comfortable in the car seat and hurt my back with the same involuntary movement that strained the same muscles earlier in the week. I had to be very careful not to make things worse after that, getting out of and into the car and walking, and needed a painkiller and a massage later. When we got back home Clare discovered she already had the same sanding tool hidden away among her jewellery kit, but forgotten about.  But at least we have paint for the shed and for the front railings as both need refreshing, weather permitting, soon. 

We had a delicious salmon soup for lunch, prepared by Clare before we left for B&Q On my afternoon walk through Pontcanna Fields, I saw several extended family groups equipped for a picnic, gathering on the grass, groups of men separate from women and children. So many pushchairs in one place! I've seen this before on a Friday if not a Sunday afternoon. Asian Muslims enjoying the park together in free time at the weekend. Two hundred metres away in a different field, I saw two teenage girls in burkas dancing to music from a portable sound system, making their own statement about what they prefer to do after Friday prayers. One of those moments that make life in this part of the city a delight. 

Down at Blackweir, in addition to the resident cormorant, I saw an egret and a pair of Canada geese on the island of stones in the middle of the Taff. A family of six young goosanders, were swimming upstream, then drifting down with the current. Occasionally several would break out across the current and dive momentarily. I think I saw one with a fish in its mouth when it surfaced. We don't see these birds up there that often. Maybe they just show up when they know there's food to hunt for,

Recently I've seen Japanese Knotweed flowering there, an invasive species giving cause for concern. Its roots will help stabilise the island of pebbles which changes shape under the power of the water flow. The more the stones are bound together by root systems the more the island becomes an obstacle which can increase the risk of flooding. I hope river management people are keeping an eye on this change.

After supper I read for an hour, then watched this week's episode of 'Disturbing Disappearances'. This week the setting was Lyon and the surrounding rural area. All the cases are interesting, complex and very difficult to resolve, often involving personality clashes resulting from the emotive nature of the cases, and so far, all have a happy ending of sorts. I like the fact that the series depicts different regions of France. It's a worthwhile difference.

Tonight sees the peak of the Perseid meteorite shower. The sky is clear, but I'm too tired to stay up and keep vigil on the off-chance of seeing a shooting star - not like when we were young, holidaying and on the way across France by night for a fortnight's camping in the sunny south. Wondrous memorable times.

Holy Week Tuesday

Seventy two years old today, and feeling grateful to be fit and active, blood pressure notwithstanding. After a lazy start to the day, I spent a long time on the phone with my sisters - Pauline 88 and June 82 - still their younger brother, with lots of memories to share. Then I drove to Dinas Powis to collect Clare from her study group, and then go to B&Q at Culverhouse Cross to buy compost and bedding plants. 

As we approached the junction at which one turns off into the superstore's car park, a car crash happened about 20 metres in front of us. I didn't see the collision, only the immediate aftermath. One car stopped in the land ahead of me with pieces falling off its front end, and another car in the adjacent lane a few metres further on with a smashed rear end, including its rear window. A woman emerged from the car carrying a child in a safety seat, heading for the central reservation where the other car was, rather than the roadside. It seemed nobody was injured, just very distressed. At that moment, I didn't see there was anything I could do to help except drive very carefully around the cars and out of the incident zone, to make way for police and emergency services to arrive, and relieve the congestion.

Thankfully, that busy area is well covered by Police traffic cameras, and I knew the incident would have been picked up on very quickly, perhaps even before a 999 call was received. We heard sirens about ten minutes later. By the time we emerged from the store, an ambulance was on the scene, as well as a police car, and traffic was moving past the incident zone. The stretch of the A48 from Culverhouse into town is almost always busy, and the speed limit is mostly 40mph, and mostly monitored by radar controlling cameras. I think this is rather too high for the traffic flow through a built up area, and tend to stay at 30mph as a precaution, but there's no guarantee that someone behind overtaking won't misjudge their position and rear-end my car, but I'm grateful it's not happened to me so far.

After a late lunch, I visited Fr Mark our Vicar to go over the outline plans for the coming months, when I'm here and able to help him out, after Fr Phelim moves to St German's. Until there's a new bishop, the thought of a replacement parish priest is not on the agenda, the same as Fr Phelim's licensing. It's a most unfortunate consequence of the failed election process and subsequently stalled appointment by the Bench of Bishops. It may be nothing will happen now until after the Church in Wales' Easter meeting of the Governing Body in Easter Week. Under the circumstances, the bishops may feel the need to report back publicly on all that's happened in the full glare of the publicity surrounding events. Well, we'll see. The Church in Wales is in uncharted waters. There have been failed electoral processes followed by episcopal appointments in the past, but not in a world where social media and citizen journalism have powerfully voiced concerns over accountability.

When I returned home, Mary from across the road came over bringing scones for tea. Clare had bought a chocolate cake as an interim birthday cake. I get the official one on Sunday - an Eastertide Simnel Cake, one of my all time favourites. After an early supper I drove over to St German's to celebrate the evening Mass of the day, for half a dozen. Then, an hour's telly, and bed earlier than usual, to make up for early rising these past few days.

  

Bush transplant

The workmen arrived to make a start on the garden at nine on Monday, and set about breaking up all the old concrete and tiles, and wheelbarrowing it out along the narrow back lane to be taken away by van. I provided tea and coffee. The task must have been rather un-nerving, as two of the garden boundary walls in houses opposite ours are leaning at a dangerous angles, ready to collapse. This is a consequence of letting trees close to them grow too large, and it'll be difficult to remedy. I suspect the property owners are somewhat in denial about their state. Thankfully, the weather's dry at the moment, but I could foresee both walls coming down and blocking the lane after a bout of rain and/or frost. By lunchtime the men had done all they could for the day and departed.

After they'd finished for the day, I noticed that the concrete flower bed kerb had been removed and the Rosemary bush it contained was leaning with some of its roots exposed. We'd already discussed what to do about the bush, to no conclusion. It was a treasured retirement present to me from St John's Sunday School, and has flourished in our garden. It survived re-location once, but now is a bit too big to take different place in the garden, so I suggested obtaining a large pot and keeping it in our miniscule front garden. An hour later, after an excursion to B&Q, the tree was being helped into its new home in a front garden pot, where it will partially conceal new Council provided dustbins we now have to keep out front rather than wheel through the house on collection days. I was cheered by the effort. It'll need further trimming to restrain its growth, provided it survives the transplant. 

The workmen returned on Tuesday, just a bit later, complaining of traffic delays. A third man joined them, and together all four of us easily lifted the garden shed off its plinth and put it on the lawn, affording an opportunity for the rest of the paving area to be cleared and levelled with a mechanical tamping machine which made the house tremble as it packed down a fresh layer of hardcore, ready for tiling to commence.

I went into the office for a couple of hours in the afternoon, to show Ashley a website re-build I've been working on slowly this past couple of weeks, then returned home early to get to Chi Gung on time, though not early enough to prepare supper on this occasion.
    

Shed woes

Last Friday we ordered a shed from B&Q. We were meant to have been called about a delivery date by Wednesday. Nothing doing. Clare rang the number provided only to find they had no record of the order we'd paid for in full being placed. We got on to the store, and I drove down there to be sure. Fortunately they had a record of the order that matched our purchase. Whether ours had never been sent, or simply got lost in the extremely creaky in-store IT network various store workers have complained about to us previously, we don't know. But now we have to wait until next Monday to chase up a delivery date. How very frustrating. At least it gives me extra days to perfect the leveling of the slab foundation on which I'll erect the shed when it arrives.

I noticed the film of 'The Da Vinci Code' was on TV, and I started to watch it but very quickly gave up, out of sheer annoyance, not only with the offensive and absurd plot presumptions, but also with the way so much of it is shot in semi darkness, making it quite hard to watch on TV in a lit room. The way it frames the Catholic Opus Dei organisation bears no resemblance to the socially enterprising wholesome outfit running a Boys' Club in the house on Wandsworth Common opposite to where my sister June lives, producing decent, well educated responsible young citizens with a Christian faith and commitment to serve others. The difference is so great that the film is exposed as no more than a crass sensationalist tale, neither enlightening nor entertaining. Glad I didn't pay to see it when it was breaking box office records.
 
In last night's veg box from Riverside Market Garden arrived a big bag of green tomatoes, perfect for turning into chutney. When I got back from the office this evening, the house was full of the aroma of spicy vinegar. To my senses, it's a whiff of autumn, every bit as much as woodsmoke.
      

Paving pursuit

We loaded the dismantled bike shed into the car and took it to the Steiner school after breakfast. Then I went on an expedition to both B&Q stores on the West side of town, in search of some paving slabs to lay as a base on which to construct the garden shed I have yet to order. At the Culverhouse Cross store I found a stone slab called Derbyshire terracotta - except that it was pink, but I thought it would go nicely with the existing tiles in the garden, and thankfully, Clare approved. Despite my correct calculations, on the area needed to house a shed, the location suggested a larger base would be desirable, so I had to make a return trip for another three. 

With each slab weighing five kilos, requiring four separate lifts and a carry of twenty yards, getting the job done was a bit like a weight training session in the gym. As I don't go to the gym any longer, I had to be extra careful to lift correctly, but my back ached and I was pretty tired by the time I'd finished. I then had to go into the CBS office to load ten crime reports into the database, as I didn't get around to doing it after the RadioNet users group meeting last week.

On the BBC ten o'clock, news correspondent Frank Gardiner gave a presentation on the background to the terrorist outrage at the Nairobi Westgate shopping centre. He was paralysed as a result of an attack when he was working as a reporter in Riyadh several years ago. This time, he stood in front of a large screen while talking, supported by a frame around his legs. It was an amazing display of his courage and confidence in continuing to be a major interpreter of and contributor to world news. I don't know how long he's been broadcasting on his feet like this. It's so good to see the Beeb making such a positive affirmation without feeling the need to draw attention to it. He recently give an interesting interview on Radio 4 about how he came to terms with disability. Now his triumph over adversity is visible to the world, and those who sought to take his life are shown not to have won.