A resounding farewell

Overcast again today, with the occasional shower at 20C. I got up just after eight o'clock and made the breakfast, after a disturbed night's sleep with minor worries surfacing in light sleep. At last, the Israeli government has yielded to international pressure and is allowing air drops with undertakings to let lorry convoys with aid into Gaza. With Palestinian adults and children already dying of starvation, suspension of hostilities by the IDF will reduce the risk to aid workers but not eliminate it, as Hamas fighters can still wreak random havoc, and hijack aid for civilians for their own purposes. Three distribution centres in places under Israeli control, but lorry convoys have yet to begin. The coming week is going to be critical, a matter of life and death for undernourished victims.

I went on my own to the Eucharist at St Catherine's as Clare decided to attend the Welsh Eucharist this afternoon. In addition to thirty members of the regular congregation, a group of about seventy smartly dressed people came for a baby's Christening. They arrived early and stood outside chatting, and were rather slow to enter and settle down. At least they were well behaved eventually. 

I felt for Fr Sion having beginning the service without a  quiet moment to start with. Some of the attendees seemed unused to participating in ordinary worship. Choir numbers were reduced, so the congregational response was somewhat muted throughout. While it's good to celebrate baptism in the Parish Eucharist, the form and content of the event isn't exactly geared to newcomers. At the end of the service Colin the organist played 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious'  from Mary Poppins. I found it very distracting, and am not sure what this was meant to convey. Sion left straight after the service for a coach to Bristol airport, on his way to Leipzig to help his daughter return from a course of studies in the university there. I'm standing in for him this Wednesday.

After a coffee and a brief chat in the church hall I went home for lunch and slept in the chair for an hour after. Then I set out for Jan Gould's farewell Mass at 'The Res', walking down to Cowbridge Road East to get a bus. I just missed an 18 which would have taken me right there, but it was followed by a 13 which dropped me near to bottom of Grand Avenue, giving me a 20 minute walk to the church. It was packed with parishioners, colleagues and friends from far and wide, over four hundred I reckon. Jan celebrated and Bishop Mary preached a highly appreciative and reflective sermon. 

The singing in such a full church was uplifting and invigorating, such a contrast to this morning's Eucharist. Some of the hymns were new to me, though not their words, resonating with the best of social gospel aspirations. It made me realise how out of touch I with contemporary developments, worshipping in churches which use traditional hymn books, revised of course. There was a farewell party in the church hall next door afterwards. I wasn't in the mood for socialising in a huge crowd and headed for the nearby bus stop. I met Peter and Hilary who gave me a lift back to Llandaff Fields, and I was home by six.

After supper, I set about downloading our flight passes for the cruise, but was unable to with the information available from Kate our travel agent. I realised she didn't have the EasyJet account email which I habitually used and created a new account with the one she did presumably use. But this, plus the holiday booking reference yielded no results. I emailed her a full account of the problem, and home this is not going to be a problem. I suspect that using the wrong email address to send to an account which didn't exist at that moment has resulted in an un-noticed error message. There's nothing I can do about it. I just hope she can sort it out. Just as well there's still a fortnight to go before we travel.

I went for a half hour walk in the park at sunset, in need of cooling my brain following the frustration of the past couple of hours of futile troubleshooting. Then I headed straight to bed.

Unique guitar concert

Clouds and intermittent rain for most of the day. Clare's study group arrived mid morning. I didn't fancy going out in the rain, so I stayed in the front room out of the way, read and started work on next Sunday's sermon until they left. 

Then it was time for a light lunch and early departure for the Royal Welsh College, where we were invited to the Principal's Tea for Connect supporters. A cuppa and cake with a clarinet trio playing in the background. Then a speech by the Principal, Helena Gaunt about the life of the College and its students, and the big announcement of the College taking a 99 year lease from the City Council for the Old Library in the city centre, at the far end of the churchyard garden from St John's City Parish Church. It will be used as a place for performance, rehearsal, lectures showcasing the work of the College to visitors and citizens alike. At last a really worthwhile use for the whole of this landmark listed Victorian building! 

The Tea concluded with an impressive performance by post graduate percussionist playing the Marimba, using its subtle tones and dynamics in a way that compelled me to listen attentively. Then we walked back home across Bute Park and Pontcanna Fields, thankfully without being rained upon.

After supper, I took the 18 bus from Cowbridge Road East to 'The Res', for a concert by the City of Cardiff Symphony Orchestra, a group of sixty plus amateur musicians of which Jan the Vicar is a member. The orchestra filled the choir, sanctuary and side aisles it was so big, and when it played the first piece I found it deafeningly loud, but where I was seated, I was hemmed in. The acoustic echo of the building is about a second long, making it difficult for everyone to hear each other, a conductor's nightmare. Loud ensemble sections were coherent enough, and made the church seem as if it were four times the size, due to the echo. In gentler, harmonically fine grained sections, the difficulty in retaining cohesion showed.

I went to the concert because the highlight of the evening was a rare performance of Rodrigo's Concierto Andaluz para Cuatro Guitarras, something I'd never heard before. The guitarristas were four Royal Welsh College students, who performed superbly, bright eyed, smiling with pleasure, and had two encores to themselves. As an interval followed after this piece, I decided to leave, as my ears had taken as much as I felt I could cope with for one night. Within five minutes a 17 bus arrived, and I was home by a quarter to ten playing a YouTube recording of the Concierto to Clare from my phone. It was good to have seen Jan and Peter, and have a brief sharing of concerns about how the Ministry Area is going to cope after Frances leaves. We're agreed that an interim Minister is needed to cope with some complex management issues in the MA, but how to convince the hierarchy it's urgent and necessary? 

Time for bed already.

Hairdo time

A cooler cloudy day today, but quite pleasant nevertheless. After breakfast, I drove over  to the University School of Optometry to collect two new pairs of glasses and buy some computer printer paper in Lidl's next door. I'm surprised at how quickly Clare and I get through a ream of paper in this so called paperless digital era. 

We had an early lunch before an afternoon hairdressing appointment with Chris over in Rumney. He treats us both very well and we have great conversations with him. Usually while Clare is being seen to I go out for a walk in Parc Trederlech nearby, but I didn't feel like it today, perhaps because there was much to say after Martin's birthday party on Sunday.

After we got home crawling in tea time traffic, Clare went off to her meditation group, and I went for a long walk in the park. I met Jan and Peter, out walking their Bedlington terriers. It was great to chat with them as they walked their neatly shorn dogs. Jan is hosting a symphony concert at the Res next Tuesday featuring a lesser known 'Concierto Andaluz para cuatro Guitarras' by Joaquín Rodrigo in its programme, enough reason to go. It's one I've never heard before. The guitar soloists are from the Royal Welsh College and we'll be in the College for tea in the afternoon anyway, as supporting members.

I had supper on my own as Clare are before going out. After she returned, I spent the remainder of the evening writing a reflection for next week's Morning Prayer and preparing for tomorrow's funeral.

Eventful Monday

Our recent run of sunny early mornings came to an end today with all over cloud cover, and a chilly wind from the east, but fortunately the cloud started moving west and the day got lighter and brighter as it went on. By early afternoon the sky was  all blue again. I woke up remembering I had a music playlist to send to Pidgeons for tomorrow's funeral and while I was at my desk, straight after breakfast, prepared orders of service for the next two funerals, and printed off the one for tomorrow. Then notice of another funeral arrived in two week's time.

Then Morning Prayer and housework. Clare went for a GP appointment about the agonising wrist pains she's coping with at the moment, and been ordered an X-ray to see what's going on inside the joints. This is rheumatoid arthritis, but it could be exacerbated by a side effect from the calcium injections for the osteoporosis in her spine. The many frustrations of getting old!

I cooked pasta with butter beans in a sauce with mushrooms and Swiss chard for lunch according to one of my own recipes. Then I started work on a second Morning Prayer video for Friday this week, standing in for Fr Rhys, who's away on a course. According to the CofE Calendar it is both the feast of St Columba and that of St Ephrem the Syrian, but the Church in Wales Calendar has moved St Ephrem to the 10th for no discernable reason. Ephrem died of plague in Edessa on 9th June 373. Columba died at Iona on the same date in 597. Both are of equal significance, Columba, as the evangelizer of Scotland and Northern Ireland, and Ephrem as a great poet, writer and teacher of Christian faith grounded in the Nicene Creed. He was the John and Charles Wesley of his day combined, with over 400 hymns to his credit. I have an extra affection for him since my explorations and travels discovering Middle Eastern Christianity in Syria and Palestine thirty years ago. 

I set out to write a reflection on Ephrem for Friday's Morning Prayer, and found out much more in a brief internet search than I did back in the late 1990s, when all that was available was to be found in several well researched books for a select academic audience. Since then, the rise of the internet and Wikipedia, allowing expert collaborators (and sometimes eccentric idiots as well) to build an on-line account of a person's life and all their work as comprehensive as one could have wished for back then, or now.

Then I did some further checking and realised that Friday's liturgy is in honour of Columba exclusively, so I had to abandon my new findings for another occasion, and write something relevant to Columba instead. It wasn't difficult, as it gave me an opportunity to speak about the surprising and unexpected path which is followed when the Gospel spreads spontaneously. Today we're all so full of plans and strategies that we fail to realise that the seeds of the Word once sown, grow naturally organically. It's all there in scripture and is simply ignored, to the discredit of modern church leaders, out of touch with the grass roots and the lessons learned from two millennia of church tradition.

I wrote while Clare was having her siesta. When she woke up she reminded me were going to make bread today, so I stopped writing and got to work on making a batch of dough and putting it in tins ready for the over. Then, I went out for a brisk walk to Aldi's and back to buy some of their wine for a change. When I returned, Clare had baked the bread and turned them out of the tins, looking good. Very satisfying. Straight away I left for Cowbridge Road and caught a number 18 bus to take me up to 'The Res' for a concert, part of the national 'Churches Unlocked 2023' public relations exercise. 

Jan the Vicar, is a professional standard strings musician,  and with two collaborators, playing organ, piano and singing, put on an hour long programme of accessible music in church, just for pleasure. There were meant to have been four of them, an oboist as well, but she got sick at the last moment, and Jan had to play all the oboe pieces unrehearsed to hold the programme together, and did so superbly. There were about forty there in the audience, among them, four from St Catherine's who'd come by car driven by Stephen, who gave me a lift back to Pontcanna, and invited me and the others back to his house for a drink afterwards. A delightful summer evening surprise.

I was back by nine, but had to spend nearly an hour investigating the failure of our TalkTalk 'You View' digibox device, leaving us without telly. It hadn't died, but it took that long to realise that the wall plug with its built in transformer wasn't fully inserted, even though it appeared to be. If only I'd thought to look properly at the power source first of all, I wouldn't have wasted so much time! 

At the end of quite a busy day, glad to turn in for the night at last.

Just in time - with Cardiff bus

Up and breakfasted in time to drive to St Peter's Fairwater to celebrate the Eucharist at ten fifteen with twenty two others. During the coffee morning after the service, Fr Colin the former Vicar came around to get some plants from the community garden, looking well and relaxed, enjoying his retirement. He'd come over from celebrating Mass at St Augustine's in Llanrumney. It's what we do, use retired clergy, fill in the gaps, when incumbent clerics are overloaded with demands.

I drove home again, to collect the empty veggie bag and then went to exchange it for a full one at the new veggie bag depot in the courtyard of Chapter Arts, as it used to be before covid. For the past three years the pickup place was in the front garden of a house in Eton Place, but the woman who hosted it there is now moving elsewhere, and Chapter has agreed to host the depot once more. Clare was already in the throes of cooking prawns with veggies and rice for lunch when I returned, nice and early, as I needed to go to 'The Res' in Ely to celebrate their midweek Mass at two fifteen.

I decided not to go by car, for fear of losing our street parking place. This often happens when there's a big event in town, as people driving in from elsewhere for major sporting events, tend to park away from the immediate city centre and hi-jack neighbourhood parking spaces and walk into town. Beyonce was starting her latest world concert tour in Cardiff this evening at the stadium. Clare feared our parking space might be nabbed, so I resolved to take to 18 bus up to Grand Avenue where the church is instead.

I walked to the nearest Cowbridge Road East bus stop for an eighteen bus and was there by just after one thirty. A succession of four westbound buses passed me, none of which was an eighteen, the only one to go the length of Grand Avenue, past the church. In town, because of the concert, there was traffic chaos, with people from all over Europe, let alone Britain arriving for the concert, and the buses having to make their ways through heavier than usual traffic.

Last in the procession of westbound buses, nearly twenty minutes after I reached to bus stop, came two number 18s, nose to tail! I had no clear idea of how long the journey would take so I found the email address of Carol, one of the steadfast long standing members of the congregation, and sent a message to warn her I might be delayed. We had an eccentric bus driver who sang silly songs and made lame jokes all the way there. It certainly cheered up an otherwise tense journey! Carol was looking out for me at the gate when I arrived. I actually ran a hundred yards from the bus stop down to the church, the first time I have been able to do that since I sprained my ankle last December, with no ill effect. By leg behaved itself surprisingly well today, and I arrived with couple of minutes to spare.

I joined the congregation of nine for coffee and a chat afterwards, and we had a great laugh together recalling the days of our young. Almost all were in their late seventies or eighties, and talked about the places they frequented in their youth in Cardiff. We talked about first experiences of foreign imported food, and a man and his wife told the story of how he turned up the collect his wife for their first date in a red London bus whose brakes he'd just serviced. He'd gone to collect her from home driving the bus to pick her up and take her to town. Unfortunately her parents weren't impressed, but there they were some sixty years later, anyway.

Back home on the 18 bus to Canton once more, realising on the way that I'd taken off my specs in the sacristy and left them there. Carol will bring them to the Ascension Day Mass at St Luke's which I will be celebrating tomorrow night. Our Basque neighbour Miriam was on the bus. We walked home talking in a mixture of Spanish and English. She works in a special needs school with severely disable kids the other side of Ely Vale from 'The Res'. That was a nice surprise.

After arriving home, I did some shopping, then went for a walk around the park, getting back just in time for the Archers. Afterwards, I spent the evening writing a sermon for tomorrow evening. All in all, a busy but enjoyable day.

Demanding but nevertheless rewarding

I didn't sleep as deeply as I needed, perhaps wondering unconsciously how well I'd cope with a really busy day. First the Eucharist to celebrate at St Catherine's with eleven in the congregation, the taken by car to Pidgeon's chapel of rest for funeral number one, with burial in Llandaff Cathedral cemetery to follow. One of Pidgeon's drivers then took me over the 'The Res' for the second one. 

I needn't have been worried about delays in between. I arrived with three quarters of an hour to spare, time to get acquainted with the church layout and covid protocol, and get to know the verger and her husband, and the organist who sang a charming song version of the 23rd Psalm. The family had chosen two sixties pop songs as the only other music, but Jan told me Geraint the organist would be willing to sing a hymn from the organ console, so I asked and he was happy to oblige. He has a very nice voice.

After the interment in Western cemetery, I came home to a late lunch at a quarter to three, feeling very tired indeed. I had a rest before going out for a walk, but my legs felt like lead, and when I got back, I went to bed again and slept for an hour and a half, while Clare was listening to a WNO Friends Zoom presentation on the work of the company's costume designers and wig makers. I think it was interesting, but I couldn't fight sleep. By supper time I had enough energy restored to watch the evening's Lieder recital competition at Cardiff Singer of the World. 

Another glorious treat, this time in the concentrated form of storytelling through the medium of song, with five contestants singing in eight different languages not just English French German and Spanish, but also Welsh, Malagasy, Xhosa and Kosovan. It was the South African soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha who captured the hearts of the jury, with deeply emotional singing expressed by a powerful flawless voice. She's also in the main competition finals on Saturday evening.

I guess that's the longest spell of intense concentrated activity I've had other than walking in a very long time. I felt like I'd swum a mile, or run ten. But at least, I didn't feel like that when I was officiating and didn't make any mistakes or lose my nerve at any stage. I need to think about doing some gentle fitness training to improve my overall bodily stamina. My legs are good and strong but the rest of me needs working on, now that my healing is progressing the way I've long hoped it would. 

Surprise gift

Couldn't help waking up thinking about my homecoming from Ibiza a year ago today. And in this year, two operations against the odds, given the enormous backlog for surgical attention as a result of the pandemic. It's nineteen days since the removal of the Seton's suture, and each passing day I notice minor improvements. The internal bruising is fading away and discomfort is minimal. The sense of freedom I experience is wonderful. I have so much to give thanks for.

I celebrated the Eucharist at St Catherine's this morning with eight others, and then after lunch went up to 'The Res' to celebrate the Eucharist again for a congregation of a dozen, as Jan is away on leave this week. In the post, a book arrived for me from Jan's husband Peter, written by one of his PhD students Claire Gilbert. It called 'Miles to go before I sleep' The author is suffering from a form of blood cancer that is being tackled experimentally with stem cell therapy. It's not known if this will lead to a cure or if it will prolong her life. She writes to her friends about what she's learned from suffering, knowing she may not have much longer to live, and as it is, she lives in constant pain. Peter thought her writing would resonate with my experience. I look forward to reading it next week when we're relaxing in Aberaeron.

I finished recording and assembling the components of tomorrow's Morning Prayer video and uploaded the finished product to YouTube. Then I started work on next Thursdays video for St John's the Baptist's day, so that I can have that ready for publication next week. Our holiday cottage as wifi, we've been told.

Another glorious evening of singing in round four of 'Cardiff Singer of the World'. One of the singers, an Icelandic woman (for the first time) was obliged to drop out and self quarantine. With twenty four hours notice Claire Barnett Jones a mezzo soprano from Somerset was recruited to take her place, and despite strong competition from the other three singers, from Kosovo, Madagascar and another English mezzo soprano. Nevertheless she won, much to her own surprise. She has formidable voice, and she'll do well in Wagnerian roles in times to come. A marvellous evening.

Back on the buses

The sun shone again for most of the day, and it was warm. I had an uncomfortable night and felt as if I was jet-lagged. Maybe a delayed after effect of the anaesthetic? My head only cleared properly after a spell of exercise in the afternoon.

As I'm still feeling cautious about driving, I took a 17 bus from Cowbridge Road East to Glanely to meet Jan for a briefing on taking services there. I should have taken the 18, bus that goes there from town on an anti-clockwise route from Glanely to Caerau and back, as the journey is ten minutes shorter than the 17 which goes clockwise via Caerau to Glanely. Lesson learned. Ten minutes extra of very bumpy ride at speed, or so it feels. We talked for over an hour and a half. 

By the time I got home, Clare had been for a hospital appointment, returned and cooked lunch, which I expected to do. But tben Jan and I did have a lot of catching up to do, more than we can ever achieve when I meet her and Peter walking their dogs out in the park. She's all bubbling with happiness because her fabulous 'La sistema' youth orchestra project has continued to develop and recruit new teachers during lock-down, and now socially spaced rehearsals can resume. Just wonderful!

In ten days, I'm doing a funeral at the Res, which is partly why I went for a briefing. After lunch and a siesta, I called the chief mourner of the bereaved family and arranged to meet with them on Thursday morning. Then at five I started making my way to St German's by bus to celebrate their six o'clock Mass. I missed the 61, walked to Canton Cross and mistakenly got on a number one that goes to the city centre via the Bay taking much too long for me. I got off it in Grangetown, and picked up a ninety two that got me to the bottom of St Mary Street, then from outside the New Library, a third bus to Pengam Green that dropped me off by the Old Infirmary, five minutes walk from St Germans's, so I got there in time by five to six. Nobody would have guessed at how convoluted and haphazard my journey had been!

After celebrating with three others, I took an X59 bus from Newport Road to Dumfries Place and walked there rest of the way home across Bute Park and up the west bank of the Taff, and got back by half past seven.. For cross-town journeys, to St Germans, I'll be glad when I can use the car comrfotably again, less hassle and safer than some of the buses. There's always a minority that won't wear a mask or don't wear one correctly, ignoring the resentment of other passengers, ignored by despairing drivers, who try their best to get passengers to comply with safety rules. The bigger the bus the more likely, it seems to me, there'll be a few flouting the law insouciantly.

After supper, we watched the end of a seven year old episode of 'Fake or Fortune', then this week's NCIS new screening of a series 18 episode. Then it was time to turn in. But it's still hard to get to bed before midnight.

State of Alarm - day Thirty Eight

It was a little warmer and not so overcast today, with longer, cheering spells of welcome sunshine. I caught sight of a lizard's head poking out into the sunshine from beneath the iron door of an outside closet used for gardening equipment. After walking past several times I got a few pleasing photos to prove what I'd seen. With the increase in warmth I've seen many more lizards, especially smaller ones, dashing across the path, in and out of the undergrowth today. Lizard populations in Ibiza are not quite 'at risk', but approaching it apparently, perhaps because of the use of toxic fertilizers in some places? It would be great to see the Chaplaincy house garden managed as a mini conservation area, as there seem to be such a lot of them around.

An email notification arrived from Peter Sedgwick about an interview on The Tortoise Podcast, an independent 'slow news' website, with Jan his wife the Vicar of Glanely's Parish Church 'The Res' in Cardiff, a place where she has done marvellous work in local youth music education, developing an orchestra on the lines of the Venezuelan 'La Sistema' model. Now she is doing marvellous pastoral work as the community is hit hard by coronavirus and the knock on impact of unemployment. 

Fourteen funerals this month, four of which were suicides of men no longer able to provide for their families, and several more of people in care homes dying of the virus. She speaks of her pain having officiating at crematorium funerals with just ten mourners when this is a community still with large extended families, and where it is normal for 'The Res' to host funeral congregations of three to five hundred. I know that's true as there are times when I've stood in for her. Glanely one of those places where the traditional pastoral model of parochial community still works. The podcast is well worth a listen. It's strong stuff. You can find Jan's interview here.