Season ticket: end of an era

A cold but sunny day. Paula came by after breakfast to rehearse one tricky aspect of Sway, go through the Mailchimp routine and send it out from her computer. She's mastered Sway quicker than I did. Mailchimp is another story, however, and take getting used to. We'll continue to meet next week and the week after to repeat this together for practice, but in effect I'm now hands off, free of the editorial role. Now I can relax and ponder on the future of my own ministry in retirement for the first time in ages.

Coincidentally, Clare went early to the surgery for a blood pressure check-up this morning, and I went too later, just Paula and I parted company. Thankfully both of us are showing normal range readings now, but Clare has been prescribed a different hypertension medication for the first time, and so far no side effects.

Our National Trust membership cards expire at the end of the month, so we drove out to Dyffryn Gardens for a snack lunch and a walk around the estate, clockwise for a change instead of anti-clockwise. It gave a set of views of the garden landscape different from the ones we're familiar with. The grass is decorated with a sprinkling of Celandines just now, tulips are coming out and as the magnolia blossoms fade and fall other flowering trees take their turn to show off their colour. 

The place is ready for Easter holiday visitors and children's Easter egg play activities, and the grassed parking area outside has acquired stretches of metal decking to denote walkways next to which cars can line up and park. A pleasant three hours in the middle of the day. We've decided not to renew our membership as we don't use it enough to justify the expenditure any longer. If we return on occasions, we'll have to pay the normal entrance fee. After we reached home, I walked to Tesco's to get flowers for Clare.

I've been struggling to get used to my Lumix TZ95 lately. It took some lovely photos at Dyffryn, but it doesn't always behave in a way I understand. It's very sophisticated in what it can do, and its menus are complex so I'm unsure of what I am doing. It has a touch screen which allows one to determine the focus point of the subject you are photographing. The trouble is that when you look through its viewfinder, your nose touches the screen and sets the focus point in a place you may not want it to. Sometimes touching the screen causes the camera to bleep, which I take to be an error message, but what kind of error isn't obvious. Finding and retaining the setting that will deactivate a facility I don't need or want is proving very frustrating. Googling the subject is unhelpful. I will have to work my way through the handful of video talks about the camera on YouTube and hope to glean the information I need to prevent my nose from setting the focus point.

While I was investigating this, Clare was cooking supper. We had baked potatoes with lava bread from Ashton's in the market, with smoked herring from Tesco's, a delicious combination of seafoods worth trying out. I carried on searching after supper and made a little progress, but not enough to feel I have any real control of the camera. I stopped at nine to watch this week's new episode of 'Astrid - Murders in Paris' and then continued writing this until bed time.

On the twelfth day of Christmas ....

Such a pleasure to wake up to a blue sky rainless sunny day. By the time I surfaced, Clare had prepared our Saturday pancake breakfast, and started cooking the second batch of marmalade. It was midday by the time another eight jars were filled and cooling ready for storage. We drove out to Dyffryn Gardens for our first visit since last April. We used to go three or four times a year, and last year downgraded our family membership, as the grandchildren are no longer young enough to enjoy it as an adventure playground and not yet old enough to enjoy a historic building and landscape. 

Only recently we decided to cancel our annual subscription, now over a hundred pounds, and not without justification, given that one visit a year for the two of us costs only twenty five pounds. Well, the National Trust benefited from our subscription for the last fourteen years anyway, but we've not used it by visiting any other property in the last five years. We don't do that kind of leisure travel often nowadays. Clare finds long car journeys more and endurance than an enjoyment. Our horizons are shrinking with age. It saddens me. I don't mind travelling on my own if I have work to do, but leisure travel is for enjoyment shared.

Both the regular and overflow car parks were full of cars. There are a few charging points for electric cars near the garden entrance, and the place was busy with families, as well as old folk like us. Scaffolding has been taken down from the building, now that weatherproofing has been completed, but the main rooms of the house have yet to re-open. Only a day room looking on to the garden is open at the moment and used to showcase latest restoration works. Snowdrops are already in full bloom, and early daffodil shoots above ground. Some, though not all of the flower beds have been tidied and made ready for planting. On such a bright day, the leafless trees look striking against the green of the lawns. Leaf buds are appearing earlier than usual, the trees are ready in their own way for the surge of new life to come.

Clare had a drink and a sandwich, but I didn't feel like eating, absorbed with taking pictures with my Sony Alpha 68. I wanted to take my Olympus and/or my new Panasonic TZ95 with me, but found the batteries in both needed charging. I've used them very little in the past three months, a reflection of how little there is that's new and catching my attention in my unchanging daily routine. I'm not bored with photography as much as bored with the sameness of it all, but not yet restless enough to do anything about it.

We were home again before sunset, so I went out and walked again for an hour, to complete my daily round. Clare thawed out and heated what was left of the chestnuts in red wine casserole from Christmas dinner for supper, enough for the two of us with brown rice and brussels sprouts. Still tasting good! Our dear friend Gill called us from Geneva, and we enjoyed a half hour chat with her. She told us about the costly building development project being undertaken at Holy Trinity Church. Phase one was an interior refurbishment of the worship space, phase two is the excavation of another suite of rooms beneath the present basement level church hall. This is apparently justified by the recent expansion in youth ministry. 

It was good to hear that the Chaplaincy now has a half time curate, who is also a half time representative of the Anglican Communion with UN agencies in the city. He served his title at St Andrew's Moscow, but had to leave when Putin declared war on Ukraine. Having a young married priest is apparently going down well. HTC like most other chaplaincies tends to have an experienced cleric in mid-life ministry. HTC will benefit from having the best of both worlds. 

On BBC Four this evening the 2021 move 'Parallel Mothers' from Pedro Almodóvar. An great unmissable story beautifully told by one of the greatest film makers of our age. It combines the story of two mothers which give birth on the same day, whose babies are swapped while undergoing post natal observation. It's something which has been known to happen. The one mother is young enough to be the daughter of the other, and they become friends. 

One child suffers cot death, and it's many months before the truth comes out. But that's only half the story. The other is about a village which has ten of its men murdered in the first weeks of the Spanish civil war, and how an investigation relying on the detailed memories of village elders enables their mass grave to be uncovered. The stories are linked by a fleeting encounter by the older mother with a forensic archaeologist who fathers her child. Both narrative threads are emotionally powerful. It's about identity, memory and the way truth comes out eventually, no matter how much it's resisted. 

Best of all, once I'd tuned in to the way the Spanish was spoken, I found that the vocabulary and language used was more accessible than I expected. Subtitles confirmed what I heard and understood, rather than substituting for my lack of comprehension. That gave me as much pleasure as the stories told.

Dyffryn Scaffolded

After our usual Saturday pancake breakfast, we drove to Dyffryn House, our first visit since January this year. The entire house is covered with scaffolding at the moment, renovation work on the limestone facade of the building is under way, essential for long term conservation. Even so, the cafe was open and we had lunch there before walking around the grounds, noting the changes that have taken place over the past nine months. Some of the trees have changed colour, but most are still green and haven't lost many of their leaves yet.There was a light rain shower as we arrived, but it didn't last long, and there was no more rain for the rest of the afternoon. You can see the pictures I took here

After we returned, I went to the shops for some wine and cheese, as we're expecting both Rhiannon and Owain to visit in the next couple of days. Clare had a siesta, then baked a chocolate cake. In the evening I watched a travelogue about Tuscany and then two episodes of 'KaDeWe' on BBC Four, continuing to tell in detail the development of a rich girl - poor girl lesbian relationship against the backdrop of the Nazi rise to power. There was less soft porn obstructing the narrative flow this week. The portrayal of unstoppable monetary inflation and its impact during the Weimar republic is particularly striking, likewise the treatment of homosexuality as a form of mental illness. It's taken a century since for this view to be retained by only a minority of people. As for inflation, it's back with us. Controlling it is now a major issue issue, and political opinion deeply divided about the right way of doing this.

With no service to take tomorrow for the first time in a while, I've had no Sunday sermon to prepare. It seems rather strange, to be able to relax and look forward to a Sunday in the pew for a change. Tomorrow afternoon, an opera matinée!

Dyffryn's wintry gardens

After our usual Saturday pancake breakfast, we drove out to Dyffryn Gardens for our first visit of the year on a rather cold, dull morning. The house is still closed to visitors for adaptations and restoration work and the tea room annexe only serving take-away snacks and drinks to consume at picnic tables on the terrace.  The garden layout is still in the process of revision or restoration of original Edwardian design features, so some areas are cordoned off. 

A noticeable number of trees have been felled in the woodland area, removing older damaged ones to let in more light and make space for new trees to grow. In the vegetable garden, information panels explained how different ground cover measures were in place to reduce light, suppressing weeds and promoting healthy soil. One technique involves using biodegradable permeable matting leaving ground fallow for several years, the other a plant that generates thick ground coverage, then dies back and nourishes soil.

It's been cold enough this week for a skin of ice to form on the garden pond and the fountain pool. Small kids took delight in fishing out chunks of ice and skidding them across the surface. A few bushes had buds ready to burst open and camelias were in full flower. Flower beds in front of the house were empty apart from patches of snowdrops, and just a couple of daffodils in full flower - the first of the year! Daffodils flower a month earlier compared to when I was young because of climate change.

After a sandwich and a drink for lunch we returned home. I went out and walked for another hour down to the Taff. I counted four football and one rugby game going on at the same time in Pontcanna Fields, a sign of a return to normality, as covid the omicron covid infection case rate keeps dropping. I dare to start wondering when international travel controls will ease off to the point where the risk of booking a flight to somewhere south of here will be worth taking.

Fr Stewart, Roath Ministry Area leader, now responsible for St German's has been in touch about rota assignments for the next quarter. Responsibility for the Tuesday 'Class Mass' will be taken in future by his ministry team, freeing me from a weekly trip across town. I'll miss the fun of working with kids but, to be honest, not the effort of being out of the house and driving an hour earlier than usual. Mthr Frances has also asked me to cover several services at St John's on days when she has training days to attend. I hope, for her sake that these are worthwhile, given the extra demands of being one short in the full time clergy team.

After a delicious fish pie supper, I completed tomorrow's sermon with a break to watch half an hour of comedy recordings of the Morecambe and Wise show from fifty years ago. Much of their comic routine relies on the fact that they were both great actors with immaculate timing. From working the stage in the musical halls they moved to working the TV camera at close quarters brilliantly. Much of their material is corny, unconnected from our day and age, almost innocent in its use of mockery, never savage. It's the drama of their comic interactions which still makes it watchable.

Level Zero

On this day of sunshine and intermittent showers First Minister Mark Drakford declared the end of covid crisis management restrictions in Wales, a couple of weeks behind England, with more measured clarity, retaining the obligation to wear masks on public transport and indoor public places, but no longer are there restrictions on the numbers who can meet indoors or at events outdoors. He still encourages citizens not to go crazy and presume everything is OK when the virus is still spreading among un-vaccinated people and this seems to meet with general approval.

The big difference in made for us today is that, after out Saturday pancake breakfast, we were able to drive out to St Nicholas and visit Dyffryn Gardens without needing to book a visitor slot on-line. We could have done that in months past, but I felt that if demand needed to be controlled in this was, it would be better to leave all those booking slots for those who needed them more than us, when we have big parks close by. It was such a delight to arrive there and see how things have changed in the two years since our last visit.

Some of the trees obscuring the view of the house from the car park have been removed, opening up the approaching vista. The entrance to the garden has been relocated in the place formerly occupied by the refreshment area, with a new access path into the grounds. The patio where the outdoor tables sat is now occupied by racks containing plants for sale, and only one refreshment area, next to the house is open at the moment. The house itself remains closed as work is undertaken to adapt visitor routes indoors, with health and safety in mind.

The biggest change, however, is in the landscaping of the grounds. The area to the front and one side of the house and down the western side of the long garden used to be dominated by huge old leylandia trees. These have gone and some of them replaced by dwarf versions. The hugely improves the overall view of the house from every angle. Some sections of the cultivated gardens are closed and under reconstruction. 

The pergola adorned with grape vines dating back maybe a century at the far end of the garden has had them all removed, initially much to my disappointment, but then I learned that in recent months, new vine-stocks have replaced the old. These are already growing and winding themselves up the pergola columns, but it may be a few years before they bear fruit. I'd like to think the new vines are adaptable to a changing climate and will provide eatable fruit, or fruit that can be fermented to give even a tiny volume of 'Chateau Dyffryn' in due course.

It was such a pleasure to use my Olympus OMD E-M10 there for the first time, and add another fifty odd photos to the hundreds I have taken there over the past decade. I'm minded to go back through them and select a series taken from the same viewpoint at different times, to show how the gardens have evolved since we've been going there. Just for pleasure.

We had a snack lunch in the refreshment area. Clare bought a few little Christmas presents, and three pots of herbs in the gift shop on the way out. It's still in the same place near the exit gate. We made a detour to B&Q on our way home to buy compost and plant food, and then I went for a walk around the park before supper - mussels and stir fry veggies and rice.

The on-line National  Eisteddfod concert was on after supper, with an interesting assortment of music that included Catrin Ffinch playing a duet with a Senegalese Kora player, and a funky brass band, whose style of rock seemed to me far more innovative than much of the retro sounding hard rock/heavy metal Welsh pop groups that still seem typical of the scene, but to my hear hark back three or four decades and offer nothing new apart from lyrics s belted out hoarsely in Welsh. C'mon boys bach, we can do better than this surely!

Then, time to print off tomorrow's sermons and head for bed. Early start tomorrow.

Back to the garden

I went for my weekly visit to the wound clinic, mainly to collect supplies, and update the duty nurse on recent events. A man, and an elderly lady were waiting for treatment. She stood uncomfortably, leaning on her walking stick. Either the physical act of sitting down on the queuing bench was too painful for her, or as I've been so often, sitting down was painful enough to want to avoid unless necessary. There'd been some appointment mix-up. She'd arrived an hour early, when I was due, and the nurse was in any case running late, as often happens, given the demand. The supplies I wanted weren't available as none had been delivered (again), so after a brief word with the nurse I skipped my appointment and returned home.

As the weather was fine, I took out my Sony Alpha 68 and several lenses we drove out to Dyffryn Gardens for lunch and a wander around the grounds, which are looking wonderful. Recently, some of the enclosed gardens have been revised according to the original 19th century master gardener's plan. Best of all, the water garden which runs the length of the main lawn in front of the house has now been completely restored, and filled with a variety of different coloured water lilies. The fountain in the pond at the far end of the lawn is working again, and beyond it, the sunken garden which for years was like a wilderness, is re-ordered and populated with plants. What a lot has been achieved by the team of fourteen gardeners and scores of volunteers over the past year. And more is to come.

Attempts to trim and restore the hedges around gardens on the west side came too late to bear fruit. Some of the bushes will never grow back as desired and others have died after pruning, or maybe due to old age. These will be uprooted and replaced in coming months, and large sections of hedge will then be grown from saplings and re-trained to reflect the originals. It'll take some years to complete, but will be worthwhile. 

There's also renovation work to be done on the south facade this autumn. So good to see a distinctive and beautiful building and its setting restored to former glory. Originally it was the home of an elite landowning family which could afford the artists and staff. Under the ownership of the National Trust it belongs to everybody in different ways - workers, volunteers and tens of thousands of visitors. It was indeed a busy place today at the height of the summer holidays. The rest of my photos are here

  

A medical movie and a mail muddle

Just after nine yesterday morning I had a call from the surgeon's secretary to check that I could make the next scheduled appointment for 4th April, as it had been changed from 29th April. Naturally I was utterly delighted to confirm this was a most welcome advancement. But, I hadn't received any notification of the latter appointment date, so please could I have written notification of 4th April. I was promised the letter would be in the mail first class post today. 

The last time this was said to me on a Friday, the letter arrived the following Tuesday - such is the mail-out chaos. And that letter, although promised to be mailed first class was sent second class. So I mentioned this mischievously, and put the 4th April in my diary straight away, after doing a little dance of joy around the house. It seems the necessary procedures to be performed are back on schedule for the next step at least.

At midday the snail mail arrived with a letter from the surgeon, recalling the content of the briefing she gave me when we met two weeks ago. An accompanying second letter was the appointment for 29th April now superceded! Anyway, I was pleased to share the good news when I visited the wound clinic later on.

This morning, another appointment letter arrived with the corrected date of 4th April. The secretary had been true to her word and made sure this went out with a first class stamp. Surgery this time will be in effect a maintenance procedure I believe - a change of suture and modifications to both that will make sitting much more comfortable. This has often been a painful and unpredictable problem over past weeks. Each of the wires attached to my body has attached to it to all intents and purposes, a small moveable piece of wire twisted around it to serve as a handle, though what exactly is meant to be manipulated using these devices is anybody's guess. The sutures themselves are nowhere near as hard to live with as these handles. These are due to be changed for something with lower impact. Here's hoping!

We took advantage of the warm sunny weather and clear skies to drive to Dyffryn Gardens for lunch and a walk around the grounds this afternoon. The blossom and bursting buds and early flowering plants astonish with their beauty. My photos are here.

In the evening BBC Four's Euro movie slot delivered an unusual offering from Wallonian auteurs. 'La Fille Inconnue'. It's about a young GP who has an out of hours surgery call from a young African girl in distress, but fails to answer the door. The girl, of whom nothing is known, ends up dead nearby. This distresses the GP greatly, so she starts enquiring, through her patients in the locality who the girl is. She can't bear the thought that he'd be laid to rest unknown in a paupers grave, and hunts until she succeeds, where the police aren't. 

It's not a murder but a concealed tragedy. What held my attention was its portrayal of the GP, aged between twenty-five and thirty. Thoughtful, diligent with her poor working class clientele, not presenting herself ostentatiously in any way, she's a model young professional woman, without any superficial glamour. We're given no hint about her personal faith or convictions, but her compassion and respect for people shines through - dead as well as alive. 

The movie commentariat speaks of the GP as obsessed with finding out the dead girl's name. It says more about them than it does about a character portrayed with moral fibre. An obsession is a pathological state of mind, but this character portrays wholesome human decency in her concern. It's a perverse tendency, denigrating the motives of others which don't fit easily in our world-view, and it happens when we fail to put ourselves in another's shoes, even in the case of fictional characters.

   

Vale visiting

Yesterday, we took Rachel for a visit and lunch at Dyffryn Gardens via Tinkinswood and St Lythan's burial chambers, at her special request. Last time we visited, five years ago, Jasmine was with us and she was in a stroppy mood, refusing to return to the car with us from the Tinkinswood site, as she wanted to stay on top of the capstone and play, which rather spoiled it for Rachel. Here on her own, she was free to indulge in communing with her primaeval forebears, while I took photos.

I got some super bird feeding shots from my usual spot in the Dyffryn front cafe window, also some good dragonfly photos at the the ornamental pond in the grounds. It's looking great there at the moment. These photos are here.

This morning I celebrated the Eucharist with five others at St Catherine's, and then spent the rest of the day working on video song edits. I've done sixteen of Rachel's original songs which she sang last Friday.  That's an impressive achievement. There were a few 'cover' songs by other artists as well, but these are not for upload as there's always possible performing rights issues involved. Best avoided. Amazing to think that we have two song-writing performing daughters. Rhiannon seems to be following the same path, being interested in acting and making music. She passed her grade four flute exam this week, something we're delighted about. Jasmine is learning musical instruments in school too, saxophone and guitar.

Dyffryn Gardens summer outing

As today's another Bank Holiday, and a sunny one too, we decided to visit Dyffryn Gardens. Not surprisingly there were double the number of cars parked outside as on a normal weekend. Even so, the estate seems able to absorb huge numbers of visitors, it rarely feels crowded. If we didn't have to queue long to get lunch, it's because a large number of visitors brought picnics with them. 

In the foyer of the house there was an exhibition of watercolours of British stately homes and gardens by Japanese artist Takumasa Ono who's lived in the UK for 17 years. His style is intriguing, as he brings to the genre a sense of perspective originating in his home culture, which not that of Europe post-Renaissance. HIs paintings resemble images taken using a fish-eye camera lens, with an element of curvature in them rather than receding parallel straight lines. He was just setting up his exhibits when we last visited at the beginning of December last year.

Also on display upstairs were some beautiful Edwardian pictures of the house and gardens by Edith Helen Adie, an eminent watercolourist of the first half of the twentieth century. High quality reproductions were on display, as originals were long ago removed from the house and are now in galleries or collections. Some of her best known paintings of Dyffryn now belong to the Royal Horticultural Society.

As it was dry underfoot much of our time was spent visiting the arboretum, a wonderful place for children to play hide and seek. A large clearing in the woods has now been developed as a children's play area, making use of huge trunks and branches of trees which needed to be felled, trimmed and sculpted into useful playground shapes. It's a marvellous addition to the estate, a hidden asset for parents with lively kids under seven.

On the journey home, we called into B&Q for a couple of plant purchases in addition to one made at Dyffryn House, including a new hanging basket for a bracket just outside the back door. I returned to poster design, on the basis of feedback from Rachel. Now it gets harder, a matter of correcting and eliminating error. I'm quite good at getting the big picture right, but proof reading is for me a nightmare. Luckily, I have eagle eyed Clare and Kath to call upon.

     

Saturday Outings

A trip with the new camera to Dyffryn House and Gardens this morning. It's as much a pleasure to hold as the Alpha 55, quicker to focus, and offers photos to play with which are 50% larger. I used my 18-55 kit lens around the house and gardens, and switched to the 18-280mm telephoto lens at the end of lunch in the cafe, to snap birds feeling at the table outside the window. This was where I was most hoping the upgrade would be worth it. I wasn't disappointed. An excellent longish lens and high-res photo size will produce better results than the HX300 with three times the magnification and 20% smaller file size, as it can focus and shoot faster. Learning how to get the best of this combination is going to be a photographic adventure for me.

The Gardens are mostly tidied up for winter, and bulb planting has been done With such a variety of trees, even without leaves they add colour to the landscape. Some are budding earlier than usual and winter flowering specials are already about their business. The vegetable garden is an array of vivid rows of green and purple Brassica varieties, with a dash of orange. An amusing sculpture trail with pieces themed on the song 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' is laid out, for children of all ages to discover with the map provided. Such a delightful way to sustain visitor interest in a quieter part of the year.

In the evening, we went to a concert performance of Fauré's Requiem, which was meant to be at Eglwys Dewi Sant, but had to be switched to nearby City URC due to a church heating breakdown. The choir had evidently rehearsed hard, but the last minute switch of venue can't have helped. It was accompanied by piano and organ. For acoustic balance, the organ could have done with being more in the background, not so much loudness but choice of stops used. The choir lacked the emotional energy to make the performance sparkle. I couldn't help wondering how many choristers, mostly of a certain age, were familiar with the meaning of the text, and where it fits in Christian devotion, and in Fauré's case, theological discussion, as he had a slightly unorthodox take on its finer meaning. 

Ours was the liberalising post war generation when the influence of established Christianity and religion in general on society became noticeable, and this affected education and religious literacy. Controversy over the critical interpretation of scripture simply led to more ordinary people being deterred from taking seriously or receiving its inheritance of biblical and liturgical information. Ignorance, like a disease has spread down the generations since, and affects attitudes to many things including classical music. People of any kind of informed committed religious faith are perhaps no more than ten percent of the UK population these days. There's an awful lot of muddled religious belief out there, as well as agnosticism and ideological atheism. The muddled that worry me most.

When we returned from the concert, I watched the French crimmie 'Witnesses - Frozen' on BBC Four, have seen last weeks episode on iPlayer, earlier in the week. I had a most annoying time trying and failing to convince the telly that I was an already registered iPlayer user. Perhaps it would  have helped to get the password right, still on a piece pf paper on my desk, and not in my password book. But, it still let me watch, so really what's the point?

The French spoken is mostly with a Pas-de-Calais, if not Wallonian accent, nice and clear to follow, not quite making the subtitles redundant, but rather making them less than vital to keep up with the dialogue. I'm not convinced about the practical plausibility of the plot, about a serial killer with ritual magic and child sacrifice overtones. Too many lingering shots of women staring aimlessly. I've not returned to watch the second series of the previous Spanish crimmie, as it had become so implausible as to be annoying. So much for entertaining Spanish conversation listening practice.

Travels Ahead

A quiet Friday, not going out anywhere, with a Sunday sermon and funerals for the coming week to prepare. Just as well, as the weather was glum. Clare and I started discussing a holiday break after Easter. Although we'd mooted the prospect of spending time in Santa Pola, what both of us had been thinking about was the possibility of another cruise, this time on the Rhine. It's probably too late to get anything in May now. Last time we booked nearly a year ahead too. We can but dream ...

Well, this morning, we decided that the Koln-Basel was what we wanted to do, and sooner rather than later, so we went ahead and booked a very expensive cabin on a mid May trip, which was all they had left. Again we'll go with Riviera Travel, as last May's Danube experience was so enjoyable. Perhaps that week of total photographic indulgence made the memories extra vivid, but on dreary days, I think of many things I enjoyed and the insights gained into Eastern European history and culture, without needing to open a Google Photo album to refresh my memory.

The Rhine has a history with which I am more familiar, largely because of our past travels in Eastern France and Germany, also, having grown up after World War Two with all the stories recounted in the family, the documentaries and movies on telly. It's one period of history, perhaps too raw to have been covered in Pengam Grammar School classes at that time, which I read several thick historical books over the years. This cruise will put some of that narrative into geographical setting, but much more, because of the amazing history of Rhineland cities over the past millennium of European history.

I shall resist feeling guilty of extravagance. Working away so much over the past year, we haven't had a lot of time for holiday leisure travel, so it's a matter of quality time together rather than quantity, doing something we both delight in. I feel privileged to be act as a locum pastor abroad, to be able to live in Spain, and discover another language and culture in more depth than I could if it was holiday. Nevertheless, it is work. I'm on duty when I'm there, no matter what else I get to do when I don't have work things to do, and sometimes loneliness is the price to be paid in order to keep on working in this particular way.

Much cheered by our decision, we drove out to Dyffryn House and Gardens for lunch and a winter walk. Much work done pruning bushes and trees, and renovation work on ponds, since our last visit. With so many flower beds cleared, the seasonal contrast is vivid and helps me see things about some vegetation I wouldn't usually notice, just because there are so many flowering plants and bushes attracting the eye. I got some great photos of coal tits, blue tits and chaffinch feeding at the bird table, perfectly placed outside the restaurant. I just can't believe it's six months since we last came, judging by my photo albums, though Clare thinks we may have come for a walk one day before Christmas when I forgot to bring a camera, or brought a camera without SD card or charged batttery. I believe her, though I can't pin down when. Put it down to memory lag.

The other good thing about today is that I've received requests for locum duty in Malaga for June and July, and Mojacar over December and January. That's a lot to think about, all in one day, and a great deal more to look forward to.

   

Garden outing

A warm sunny day, and time for a summer excursion with a picnic to Dyffryn House and gardens. There were many cars parked outside, and lots of families walking about enjoying the place, though the place is so spacious that it doesn't feel crowded. Each season we return, the variety and the colours of garden sections change as layouts are varied or new sections restored to use. It's one gigantic labour of love for all the enthusiastic National Trust volunteers who work there in so many ways to support full time staff and raise necessary funds. 

Last weekend, at our Golden wedding celebration, my cousin Ros presented us with a plant voucher to spend at Caerphilly Garden centre, plus another voucher for Afternoon High Tea for two, so after a few hours in the sun at Dyffryn, we drove to Caerphilly, and were treated to an enormous tea, with scones, cake and sandwiches. Had we known it would be quite so splendid we wouldn't have bothered with the picnic lunch as well! We came away with an Everlasting Sweet Pea, which can grow up the edge of the trellis in Clare's very varied and colourful flowerbed.

There wasn't much of interest to watch on TV apart from Olympic sport. Whilst I'm delighted that all those hard working British athletes are doing so well, the broadcasts sap more attention and energy than a bi-lingual crime drama with subtitles to watch, pumped along as they are by hysterically excited commentators working so hard to earn their crust. I better liked the days of my youth when broadcast sport commentaries (with the exception of horse racing) were delivered for the most part with far less emotion and wasted words.