Bay watch

After preparing my sermon for tomorrow and an early lunch, Clare and I walked along the Taff Trail down to the Bay wetland area, enjoying the Spring warmth, bluebells and cherry blossom. We saw a few pairs of Great Crested Grebes in the wetland area. We saw one couple performing mating rituals, posing to each other, displaying the full extent of their head plumage and elongating their necks. We saw one bird disengage, dive and bring to the surface something in its beak, which it then presented to the other. I thought it might be a fish, but on checking later with a decent bird book, learned that it was fishing for strands of seaweed to offer. 

Being a good fifty meters offshore, my photos were taken almost at full length zoom with my HX300 so the quality and composition wasn't wonderful. Clare remarked that I'd have been better off taking video. Funny, all my Sony cameras make a good job of this, but it never occurs to me to use the built in facility. But I still enjoy the challenge of old school 'hunt 'n shoot'. This is one of the better shots.

We had tea in the Millennium Centre, then caught buses to take us back to Pontcanna, as we were both quite tired after a four and a half mile walk. Later, after supper I watched the third in the  Danish series 'Department Q'. This time an investigation into the disappearance of children from families of Christian religious sects, due to a murderous psychopath convinced he was an agent of the devil with a mission to destroy the faith of true believers by making them helpless witnesses of unspeakable suffering of innocent children. 

It was pretty nasty stuff, but it gave me cause for thought. One of the detective heroes is a practising Muslim. The other is an atheist who claims to hold no belief in God or anything metaphysical. His only conviction is that justice must be pursued regardless of the cost to himself or others, and that no crime victim should go without redress. The conversation is fragmentary and disjointed like the characters themselves. The atheist nearly loses his own life to rescue two kidnapped children, and it's the Muslim who finally catches the perpetrator, and drowns him in the sea in a life or death struggle with the diabolical killer.

Earlier in the film there were images of the religious sect practicing full immersion baptism in church so these resonated with that of the killer drowning as he resisted subjugation and arrest. It reminded me of parents speaking about babies crying at the font when they have water poured over them, as 'crying the devil out'. The film auteur plays with religious themes and symbols, raising the question of whether the existence of evil is more tangible and oddly credible than that of goodness. 

The atheist survives, his unbelief intact, just grateful to see children restored to their widowed mother. It's the religious man who is compelled to use lethal force at close quarters to stop the perpetrator's violence in its tracks, aware of the trail of death left behind him in a hospital. Experiences which will impact upon this kind, gentle and devout man. It's the kind of paradox which is not at all foreign to those who serve in security forces or the military, while the rest of us remain, for the most part unaffected. I what would Kierkegaad, that 'melancholy Dane' have made of this, I wonder?

      

An afternoon in the Garden (National Botanic)

We took advantage of a free sunny day to drive west this morning along the A48 and the M4 to visit the Welsh National Botanic Garden at Llanarthne. It's hard to believe we last visited six years ago, time has just flown by. Most of the early daffodils are now dying back, but later blossoming varieties are in full flower, and primroses are out in force, all offering patches of yellow differently shaded to the grass cover of the terrain. 

Many trees are in blossom, but leaves are still tiny, and for the most part, branches still have that bare wintry look about them. Despite cut-backs n public spending, the place looks well maintained and cared for, thanks to a host of devoted volunteers, as well as paid staff, no doubt. On such a lovely day, we thought the number of visitors would be greater that it seemed to be. Garden visitor numbers seem to be increasing across the country. I'd forgotten that the RHS show was taking place in Cardiff this weekend, however.

One notable addition to the landscape is a collection of giant hardwood tree trunks from Ghana's rain forests, each with histories and names as distinctive as their shapes. These are set in the ground on the south east flank of the giant domed greenhouse. They resemble giant artworks sculpted intricately from wood coloured elephant grey since the bark was stripped from it, leaving it to dry outdoors. They will stay were they've been installed for a very long time, as the wood is very durable, and not always susceptible to degradation by rainwater. There are photos here

I took a number of close-up photos of birds feeding off crumbs dropped from tables in the outdoor courtyard of the restaurant, also of vividly coloured tropical butterflies, kept in the large green house in a corner of the double walled kitchen garden. The greenhouse was there previously, although I don't recall seeing or photographing any butterflies at that time. There are photos here. 

We returned in time to cook supper and relax, before watching the latest Scandi Noir crime drama on BBC Four, Department Q. Sister June says it's part of a series re-run, so I reckon I may have been out of the country when it was last aired. It was complex, 'cold case' story, rather implausible, although I loved the maverick investigators. One character is a devout muslim, probably meant to be Syrian or Iraqui called Assad. That made me smile, being a direct assault on stereotyping Muslims and middle eastern names. A liberal effort to compensate for fallout from the blasphemous cartoon episode maybe?