Sta Lucia, the old Winter Solstice day

This was the first Sunday morning in recent times when it rained hard when we were setting out for the Parish Eucharist. Even so there were as many people in church this week as last, undeterred by weather. Mother Frances preached about the impossibility of organising a perfect Christmas dinner, despite one's plans and best efforts, because, she reminded us, we're not perfect. Then she turned to the John's Gospel passage for the day about the testimony of John the Baptist to the Messiah, and how when questioned as to whether he was the One to come insisted "I am not.". No matter how gifted and competent we each may be, we are not perfect, not God. A good point worth making in a world which entertains the idea of superheroes not only in comic book mythology but in everyday life where popular stars are idolised.

At home afterwards, I received an email from Sara in Gothenburg with a web-link to the Swedish telly annual broadcast on the morning of Sta Lucia. It's an hour of Advent and Christmas Anthems and Carols sung by an excellent youth choir and by a group of primary school kids. The teens, in white ceremonial dresses sang to camera, socially distanced as one might expect. I seem to recall this was what happened in previous Sta Lucia day concerts, as all the girl choristers are carrying candles! It's set in the hour around dawn, whether live or not I don't know, but it's enchantingly beautiful. 

It makes me realise just how close we are musically across the North Sea. Not least because so many Scandi composers have studied and worked in Britain I suppose. Melodies, influences, composers, the style, the energy in singing - I love the warm soft edged tone to the voices, clear yet tonally precise, distinctive, different from the UK young choral sound. A pre-luncheon Gaudete Sunday treat, and great tonic for the week leading up to winter solstice. 

I didn't realise until later in the day when I heard on a radio programme that 13th December in the Julian Calendar was Winter Solstice. This explains something of the significance of the candlelight ceremony that is a popular feature of Scandinavian culture.

I went out for my afternoon walk in the rain. It then stopped for an hour, and started again as I headed home, but at least it wasn't cold, and the wind wasn't strong. The Taff was swollen and the fish ladder by Blackweir bridge almost inundated. The field of football pitches to the north west side of the bridge was filled with an unusually large number of white gulls with grey wings, a couple of thousand of them, all feeding in large groups and moving around the field. Our usual urban gulls are bigger and to see them in such very large numbers in one place ground feeding would be that typical, except at a rubbish dump. So I concluded after seeing photos on-line that they were herring gulls on the move between fishing spots, maybe thrown off course by the weather.

The bare trees in the avenue alongside Pontcanna Fields was thronged with several hundred birds, not so unusual just before sunset, although normally large numbers got to roost in woodland the other side of the Taff, and can be seen there in large numbers visible from afar. But not many starlings around at the moment. I wonder where they are? Walking past the two crab apple trees I noticed one tree had been stripped bare, and the other still had a lot of berries, higher than we could reach when we harvested fruit from the lower branches back in October. There were a dozen or so in the grass, unspoiled, so I picked them up and brought them home. It's a puzzle, that one tree should be stripped presumably by birds, and the other only raided by humans. The stripped one is closer to other trees, so the leaf cover would shield birds from predators while picking, whereas the other was more exposed, only worth the risk when food becomes really scarce later on.

In the evening I watched a police procedural drama on ITV based on a real life murder called 'Honour' and the difficulties of investigating the honour killing of a twenty year old woman by members of her family, including her father and an uncle of Iraqi Kurdish origin. Painful to watch, and to think that it's not uncommon for long standing residents of Britain could harbour such violent and vengeful impulses towards family members, immune to the influence of a host community which offered them security freedom and self respect. Not that the UK is a stranger to its own variations on gender based violence, of course. How do we rid our world of every kind of interpersonal violence when it's so persistent. and the subject of so many games and movies that entertain us?

Sunday Wagner

When the skies are overcast, the weather is mainly damp and cold, and I have nothing in the diary, or no shopping errands to get me out of the house, life becomes very uneventful indeed. It becomes an effort even to get out and walk for a breath of fresh air. I suppose a time of quiet inertia counts as rest and recuperation from the demands of other activities, and earlier this week was fairly busy, but I'm glad to have Sunday duties to look forward to, and a sermon to prepare each week.

This morning I was up early to celebrate the eight o'clock at St Catherine's for a dozen of us, which is double the usual attendance. The Parish has, for the time being, gone to having just one early Eucharist each Sunday instead of two, on rotation between St Catherine's and St John's, hoping that worshippers will travel to where the service is held. I was pleased to see that people were willing to make an effort to go somewhere different. Services on rotation between churches are difficult an alternative to adjust to. I find it harder, as I'm always having to look at my diary and check where I have to turn up next. Yet, in a way, this inconvenience makes the decision to attend regularly much more a conscious one, which can't be bad, failures notwithstanding.

Clare came to St Catherine's too, and got some croissants, pain chocolat and pain au raisin for free on her way home, by using the accumulated points on her Co-op card, which meant we could have a continental breakfast together before I set out for St German's.

When I arrived at church, the grand daughter of one of the regulars arrived with her new born daughter, just 48 hours old. She'd been in church with her other daughter at the midweek Mass several times, as this was normally more manageable for her. On this occasion she made the effort to come, so Grandma could see baby Gayla. I was delighted to have the opportunity to bless both at the end of Communion, and to pencil a date for the Christening into the parish diary. It should be just before the interregnum comes to an end after Easter.

After the blessing at the altar, on impulse, I took mother and baby with me down into the nave, where Communion is given to St German's eldest member Gwyneth in her place, so that she could greet this youngest new churchgoer. One of those irresistible special moments of blessing for the whole church to be part of. Catholicity breathes continuity, across the world, across the generations.

After lunch, I had a quiet afternoon to myself as Clare was attending her study group in Bristol. I switched on too late to watch Ski Sunday, so watched an earlier episode I'd missed, and the latest one on iPlayer. After supper we watched Wagner's 'Das Rheingold' in a fine performance recorded at this year's BBC Promenade Concerts, beautifully produced, wonderful singers and orchestra, and to my mind benefiting from all four scenes being done in continuity, without an interval. The performers were not in period costume but dressed in variety of semi formal attire, which served to distinguish between their roles. The TV production cleverly and judiciously added some atmospheric graphical backdrops to suggest context and mythical environment, but it was left to the skill of the actors to conjure up the scenes with body language and minimal mime. Absolutely marvellous! Gorgeous music, compelling to watch. The whole Ring cycle is to be broadcast. What a treat!

The opera overlapped with the second episode of 'Good Karma Hospital' on ITV, but I discovered that we could watch it on the ITV+1 stream on channel 33, something I'd not done before. It saved having to fiddling about to find it on ITV Player, useful though it is on other occasions. These digitally available repeats make a considerable difference to life, freeing one from the necessity of adhering to the live programmer's broadcast schedule. The telly is made for man, not man for the telly, after all, to borrow the Lord's own phraseology. It wasn't like that forty years ago, when the early evening broadcast of 'The Forsyte Saga' was cited as a factor contributing to the death of evening services. Well, it seemed a good excuse at the time ...

           

Coronation day remembered - just

It was very pleasant to walk in the sunshine down to St John's Canton this morning to celebrate the Eucharist with nine regular attenders this morning. It was only after the service it occurred to me that today is the 63rd anniversary of the Queen's coronation. I was annoyed with myself for not remembering to mention this in the prayers during the service. I was eight at the time, listening on the radio, and some of our lessons at school explained what it was all about. We didn't have a telly to watch it on, but went to Ystrad Mynach cinema a few weeks later to watch a film of the ceremony. The music and imagery still evoke a defining moment of my childhood, that captured hearts and minds with the romantic notion that we were now new Elizabethans.

After lunch I was driven to Thornhill for a burial service in the Wenallt Chapel, the larger of the two, and the only one available for that time slot. It can hold four times the number that actually attended. By the time I'd processed in with the family the congregation had settled in the back five rows. As charmingly as I could, I appealed to them to bridge the gap and take seats just behind the family. To my surprise, every one moved forward without a hint of awkwardness. Talk about 'ask and it shall be given'.

The service included a warm tribute to the deceased woman from a nephew, including some of his childhood recollections. He spoke of the deceased as being a strong woman, holding her own in an extended family where men unusually outnumbered the women. A song was played as a slideshow of selected digital photos of the couple's sixty plus year life together was displayed on the screens that are now a feature of chapel furnishings. It was a fitting prelude to the prayers and act of commendation concluding the service. We had to drive to the grave as it was some distance away from the chapel in a new cemetery section. I think a few mourners got lost on the way there. 

The sun shone, and there was no wind, making it fairly easy to get the frail nonogenarian widower to the graveside for the committal in an unhurried way, supported with strength and gentleness by their two sons, one on each arm. Unselfconsciously, perhaps unaware he was speaking aloud, the old man made quiet appreciative, affectionate comments during the service and at the interment. It was most moving, and I felt privileged to be there and share this with the family.

On the return journey, my chauffeur dropped me off in the city centre, so I could visit the office and complete a couple of necessary tasks, as Julie is on leave this week. I was home for supper just in time for The Archers, an an evening of telly, viewed on my Nexus tablet, using one of a variety of different Android apps to cover the different channels that interest me. Increasingly I find this a more convenient thing to do, as it lets me move around the house and do other things meanwhile. 

Listening to the programme is generally more essential and convenient for following the story than constantly watching a screen in a corner. Like an enhanced form of radio. One time this doesn't work is when subtitle reading is essential to grasp the dialogue. The other time is when the noise of the kettle boiling drowns out the sound, even when wearing earphones!