Self emptying time

Another Saturday lie-in and pancakes for breakfast. Again, overcast with intermittent rain. Clare's new phone has started giving her trouble, with the SIM and SD occasionally not being recognised and then registering but leaving error messages. Is there something wrong with the way the cards are seated on the tiny flimsy tray on which they sit inside the phone, or is the contact fault something to do with phone itself? We can fiddle about with it - and it is fiddly because it's so small, and neither Clare's eyes nor mine are really good enough. 

Perhaps the cards themselves are worn at the edges and now a poor fit? It needs to be examined, which means taking it to a Currys store near us, to start with to get help. Phone shops are allowed to open, but the hours and procedures for engaging with them aren't normal. I had to dredge up the half a dozen emails sent to me from the time I ordered on-line until it was delivered on 5th January in order to find a helpline number, and the place to take the phone to get it looked at. It's the worst possible time, just when we're both so very reliant on using our phones to maintain all our regular contacts. Clare can re-instate her old phone, but that's a big hassle. It's taking her long enough to get used to a new one. 

We both found this mini crisis a distressing experience, exposing our digital dependency and helplessness when it comes to fixing anything that goes wrong. In years past, when all electronic systems were simpler, I learned how to fix lots of things. Now complexity and vendor lock-in makes it much harder, even down to finding the right path to obtaining a fix that won't violate the phone warranty.

I went out for a walk after lunch when the rain stopped for a while. The river Taff at Blackweir was almost up to path level again by the bridge, and huge volumes of spuming water tumbled loudly over the weir at great speed. It's been far wetter up in the Beacons than down on the coast, and there's more rain to come, so will the water rise another 15-30cm and flood the footpath and adjacent field overnight?

I met Jan and Peter watching the water while walking their dogs. Twice in one week? I asked Jan if she'd had any funerals delayed due to the Coroner's office not releasing the body in time, as I have this week with Wednesday's funeral postponed a second time. It seems from what she'd heard that there's a change in protocol involving coronavirus testing of all deaths referred to the Coroner, and this is bound to put extra pressure on the labs, already burdened with dealing with 'surge testing' in areas where new virus variants are detected. 

It's just as well the excess death rate is still dropping, or it would be impossible for the system to deal with the demand for funerals. Inevitably, families are having to wait longer to make arrangements because of the pandemic. Many local authorities have set up temporary mortuary facilities in industrial storage units to deal with the backlog. Public emergency management planning requires this, and municipal land earmarked for mass graves. At least we haven't got to the stage of needing to bury people in in this way, as happened in centuries past, and in some poor countries in our time, overwhelmed and unable to manage in any other way.  What we're going through is terrible, but it could be so much worse.

In one of my old notebooks, I started transcribing the travel journal I wrote when Clare and I visited Jordan in 1998. It's fascinating to make the trip again through my own words at the time. I digitized the photos I took a decade ago. Words fill in detain the photos missed.

This evening I came across a podcast on an American Jesuit website, geared to a young Catholic audience. Franciscan spiritual guide and teacher Fr Richard Rohr gave an hour long interview, in which he spoke of the different characteristics of Jesuit and Franciscan spiritualities, and about the observance of Lent. He makes the challenging observation that our Lenten efforts at self-mastery run the risk of nurturing the ego, rather than emulating Christ's own self-emptying. 

Letting go of everything, recognising and understanding our weaknesses and failures, transcending them rather than thinking we can master or suppress them is better for our spiritual health, he reckons. This stands the traditional 'spirit of discipline' on its head. It isn't by our own efforts that we can 'triumph over evil and grow in grace', but by saving grace alone. I loved it. Listening to this was just what I needed tonight, as I'm tired with watching telly programmes that are only mildly interesting or entertaining. 

Sombre prospects

A merciful return to sunshine, blue skies with fluffy clouds today. What a difference it makes after the penitential grey skies and rain of yesterday! Before and after lunch, walks in different parks filled with kids letting off steam and mums with pushchairs chatting socially distanced (sort of), displacing walkers into the still rain saturated grass. It's quite treacherous in many places, to walk on turf whose surface is suffering badly from lack of drainage - there's a lot of clay subsoil around here. It's like walking on a layer of thick soap. Carefree boys at the end of a park outing are often caked with mud below the waist. Heaven help their mothers!

When our weekly delivery of groceries from Beanfreaks arrived this morning, there was a fine looking organic lettuce tucked in with the order which we hadn't ordered, but wished we had. Clare rang the store and reported this, and ten minutes later, Simon the delivery man returned and collected it. Someone had mistakenly added it to our order. It happens occasionally with our home deliveries, inevitably when you consider how complex a task it is to deal with scores of items for scores of customers a day. 

At tea-time Clare and I rehearsed together our version on the Beatles' song 'I saw her standing there', and then recorded it with a birthday greeting for Rhiannon who'll be seventeen next Monday. Kath has asked for video greetings from family and friends to edit together and show during their home celebration. Clare learned to play a basic piano accompaniment by heart, part of her jazz piano learning, so she can still keep playing when she can no longer sight read. 

She's also got the hang of recording videos as well, though she gets very annoyed with her new phone, which she thinks is fussier and more complex than the previous one with an earlier version of Android. Both of us composed 'Rhiannon' limericks to record and send as well, just for fun. Clare had the idea and that spurred me to creativity for a change. Apart from taking photos I haven't done much that's creative recently, so this little effort has done me good.

Today's news again reports reduction in the rate of infections and deaths, and discussion on the easing of lock-down restrictions which are still the main factor driving down the numbers. The mortality rate among elderly people has dropped sharply and this is the first indication that vaccination is having an impact. It's not surprising that infection rates among children, teens and young adults are still high, even if they tend to recover quickly from covid19, have mild symptoms or none at all. 

The trouble is, they can transmit the virus to older and more vulnerable people in the general population, so re-opening schools, even in a phased way with regular testing regimes in place is still a risky business. Observing the way children and teenagers behave outdoors with few wearing masks and little or no distancing makes me wonder just how the transmission of the virus can be reduced to the point where the general risk is very low.

Testing for the virus and population sampling for variants is going to become even more important as a result of the ability of covid19 not only to produce new ones, but also to combine variants that have survived into even more effective versions that are more efficient at spreading and vaccine resistant. This may happen randomly. Most 'recombinants' may not survive to spread, until one does and wreaks havoc. 

Preventing the spread of new forms depends on continuing to do what is already recommended to be done: mask wearing in enclosed spaces, social distancing, hand hygiene etc., even for the vaccinated. This is going to be tough for everyone, but we'll run the risk of promoting our own extinction as a species if we don't. Global warming is not only melting ice-caps but producing conditions favourable to the evolution of many more kinds of virus we may not be able to prevent from harming us and robbing us of our future.

Going through this Lent, reading scripture, reading the unfolding story of this pandemic and the world's heroic efforts through medicine and scientific research to see an end to this plague, is going to be the stuff of my spiritual endeavour. Would that there was something more practical that I could do.

Ash Wednesday

After an unusually good night's sleep, only having to get up twice in the night instead of four tines I had breakfast, then read Morning Prayer, Litany and Eucharist. Clare met Emma returning from her walk and was given a special Ash Wednesday prayer card with cross drawn in ashes on it. A nice gesture on the part of the clergy team. 

I received a delivery of fish for freezing from Ashtons while Clare was out. The bones filleted out of the salmon get turned into a fabulous soup. The house smells of fish soup during into the evening. And there's a treat of laver bread with bacon for supper. Not exactly abstinence, but certainly something to give extra thanks for. The must be extra room for praise and gratitude in a season of penitence.

Clare asked me to pay for the order using our secure on-line banking set up. It's not something I do often and in between times forget exactly how it works. The action buttons menu is clear enough when you know where it is and what you're looking for. I didn't, and tapped something that ende up in an endless maze of information pages with no route back. I had to log out and start again, which rather uoset me. My suspicion that inconsistent web behaviour, is a result of accidentally running into a malicious intervention runs very high, even on a site with high security entrance protocols. A glitch in data flow is usually the cause of anomalies, or else poorly designed pages using esoteric terms, but these also happen with malicious sites. It all feels to me like hostile territory nowadays. Perhaps I know too much about web security issues to trust and rely on cyber things.

I spent the morning trying to get Linux to work on an old Netbook having reinstalled it and then found the hard drive wasn't recognised. A hardware fault? Or an Installation error due to the hateful early UEFI firmware being improperly configured? I had to physically remove the drive and check it on another device using a hard drive caddy. No hardware errors, found. I downloaded the latest version of Linux Mint and used it mounted on a USB card to do a fresh netbook install. This time it was bootable despite throwing a system boot error first. Something to do with UEFI.

The system functioned but couldn't be updated. It wouldn't accept root password I'd assigned to it. It's so frustrating, I'll have to reinstall and reset, if I can figure out where I've gone wrong. Something to do when I'm not busy.

Light rain came at the end of the morning and persisted non-stop into the evening. It was quite mild and there was no wind, but walking over to and then around Victoria Park, then crossing over to Llandaff Fields was a miserable wearing experience, as if I was carrying a heavy load. I was tired when I got back, and hadn't walked as far as I thought, but my rainwear was sodden. I went out again after supper when the rain had reduced to a drizzle, to complete my daily distance in the dark.

Later, we watched another interesting archaeological programme on More Four. In suburban Newcastle upon Tyne there once stood a Roman fort. The sight was partly excavated before the houses were built, and the site of its gatehouse was left exposed. An investigative team came to the area with a theoretical maps of the fort and the civilian settlement adjacent to it, with a view to digging exploratory trenches in people's back gardens to search for evidence to confirm the mapping. Local residents were happy to give permission and took a great interest in the findings. 

It brought to light the history of how in the couple of centuries after it was built and established as a garrison gateway in Hadrian's wall, the civilian settlement grew up and over time grew closer to the fort itself. The findings suggested a prosperous cosmopolitan community had flourished there until the Romans retreated from Britain in the third century. I wonder what will be left to show of our settlements in two thousand years from now, given the threats to existence from pandemics and global warming we now face?

Dydd Gwyl Dewi

Unfortunately, observance of the First Sunday of Lent takes precedence over the fiesta of our national patron, so the Church Catholic is out of step with the nation, celebrating Dewi tomorrow instead. I'm sure he wouldn't mind Lent observance had been going on for about a hundred and fifty years before he was born. He'd give it priority over all else, quite naturally.

I celebrated and preached at St Paul's Grangetown this morning, with a congregation of over forty adults and children. A couple of youngsters read the lesson. A lad of about seven read the story of the Fall with some difficulty. It was a good effort for someone learning to read, halting with occasional stumbles, but nobody minded. The congregation followed from a pew sheet provided, happy to see one of their kids confident enough to get up and try reading in public. Many of them wouldn't have the confidence to do that. It's marvellous that small children are encourage to have a go and try hard things. Clearly it works. The second lesson from St Paul on the second Adam is a closely argued text. It was read with clarity and impressive comprehension by another lad, nine or ten years old. We gave both of them a round of applause. Such a joy!

Before lunch I walked to Tesco's to get a bottle of wine, as Sunday is not a day of Lenten observance. The length of Llandaff Road was closed off for re-surfacing, and a fleet of lorries came with tarmac and left empty. The heavens opened and soaked me on the way back. Huge clouds of steam rose from the newly rolled surface after the rain. The smell is so evocative.

A walk to Blackweir after lunch revealed river water levels only slightly higher than usual. The fields have also drained of surface water very quickly. The force of the water flow over the past week has shifted hundreds of tons of pebbles into a long tear drop shaped island in the middle of the riverbed. In fact, its shape today was different again from what it was earlier in the week. Two cormorants were perched on stones on the furthermost edge of the island, surveying the waters. The entire tree that was washed downstream under the bridge last week has disappeared. The riverbed seems quite clean and bare after a couple of weeks of heavy rain. At first, huge amounts of wood was carried downstream on the flood, timbers from industrial pallets and crates, tree branches and logs, plastic crates bottles, containers. All of this ends up in the Bay where hundreds of tons of rubbish has to be removed daily as part of the effort required to release water from the marina into the Severn Estuary.

After the walk, I made an effort to sort out my possessions and pack them for travel. First, making a pack of wound dressings to occupy a corner of my case - this time last year, I recall us taking a large separate bag full of medical stuff with me to my sister Pauline's 90th birthday celebration in Weston. Progress! Next, trying to decide which gadgets I'm going to take, and finding the chargers to go with them. Then selecting clothes, and then assembling just the right amount of blood pressure medication packs to cover the time away. Next, sorting out essential documents in addition to passport tickets driving license and IDP. Usually, I'm doing this on the day I start travel, but this time I'm unusually nervous and keen to get it all right in advance. It's eighteen months since I last travelled abroad, and it's less easy to get going than it used to be.
  

And so Lent begins

It's later than usual this year, almost as late as it can get in fact. I celebrated the Penitential Mass of the day at St Catherine's with ten others, including the Reverend Emma, whose day off it is, but as she said to me on Sunday, how right it would be to be on the receiving end, in the pew. Instead of an off the cuff address, I prepared a brief homily last night, to stop me rambling on as long as I can do. I didn't want to be out of the house for too long in case the surgeon rang, which she didn't. After lunch, however, walking back home from the wound clinic, my mobile rang and I had a good ten minute chat with her.

She has my next round of surgery booked at week eight as stated at the outset, but given that the hospital outpatient appointment booking system is so overloaded currently, she is arranging to see me at UHW in a ward consulting room, on a day when she will be doing her round of patients! It's a nice piece of lateral thinking. And the date? March 19th, St Joseph the Worker's Day. It's only a few days later than when I was expecting to be seen. 

An assessment of healing progress will apparently determine whether one Seaton's suture or both are removed. If one, then there'll be another procedure later on. She couldn't be specific about the repair she'd done without having her case notes to hand. It's 'complex', is all anyone has been prepared to say who has examined me since mid December, and getting it right is vital to prevent recurrence. It's a matter of waiting, but now, waiting with some sense of direction, thankfully.

I am temperamentally prone to impatience, and have had to learn how to wait, train myself to some extent, to take a long view and work towards goes with care and attention, not always successfully. Being a patient for most of Lent ahead is imposed on me. A suitable penance? I wonder how I can make this fruitful for soul as well as body?

  

  

Old assets, new uses

With a trip to St German's for Mass and Christian Aid Lent lunch at the end of the morning, I woke up thinking about the church hall wi-fi connectivity problem, then went hunting through my stored redundant technology bits and pieces to see what I could find. There were four Powerline adaptor plugs and ethernet cables, plus a box containing a complete wi-fi router, redundant after our broadband upgrade last year. That was about the time when I bought a wi-fi extending Powerline adaptor set, which was incompatible with the slower originals. I had to lay out more than I expected to complete the upgrade, and thus had a spare set working, in any case at a decent speed.

After Mass and lunch, I installed the kit and found that it worked as planned. The spare wi-fi extender that had been bought also connected, enabling the signal to travel to the furthest extent of the long steel and concrete building. This little success brought me no end of good cheer. I hate to see good working kit go to waste. There's still a lot more I wish I could find a use for, however.

On my afternoon walk, to the shops and the post office in two separate outings, I continued my Lenten 'wombling' effort, collecting this time thirty eight separate cans, paper cups, glass and plastic bottles, along my 3 km route. That's an average of a dozen pieces discarded per kilometre, much the same as I estimated yesterday. The number of slim energy drink cans among the detritus is remarkable, some of them tossed in the few days since I last passed by. As these beverages are marketed to sustain people who are being unusually physically active, I wondered if there's a correlation between this and total disregard for one's physical environment. 

As I was entering Tesco's, at Canton Cross, a mum and a granny emerged with a kindergarten age child in a strop, who dashed a small yoghourt drink from her lips, which hit my coat and splashed me with drops. They apologised but the child refused to, and refused defiantly to pick up the carton and take it to a bin two metres away. After I'd passed them I thought too late what I should have said to the child to bring home the fact that this behaviour was unacceptable - all the situation needed was to say "I'll tell your teacher you've been naughty!"

Within ten metres of the store entrance, curiously, there are no fewer than three litter bins, yet one can walk several hundred metres along Cowbridge Road and side streets leading off it, and rarely find a bin. It's no wonder people have got out of the habit of using them.

After supper I went over to St Catherine's Church Hall to collect some church keys I inadvertently left at St John's yesterday. The Parish youth club was in full session, with table football, ping-pong and an assortment of other table games being played, by over a dozen youngsters, and watched over by several parents, plus Fr Phelim. As the hall is a 19th century wooden building, an original temporary mission church in good repair, still finding use in the church grounds. I felt as if I was stepping back in time forty years to my days as a Curate. Even in these days of electronic devices and games, it's great that there's still a social space in which physical playful activities still continue to give pleasure and forge bonds between children that might even last a lifetime.

  

A question of sport

A Eucharist followed by a funeral at St John's this morning, with a trip to St Catherine's first to collect the baptismal register to deliver to someone at St John's en route. Despite testing a copied CD at the house of the bereaved last week, it didn't play on the church's CD player, for what reason I don;t know, although it does suggest that the device is showing its age, as more modern equipment is able to read different formats, although copied CDs will still occasionally fail to play on more sophisticated equipment due to the digital rights management equivalent of watermarking. It's frustrating, and as with other aspects of the new technologies there's no simple comprehensive solution to cover all possibilities.

The service concluded with burial at Thornhill. It was bright and sunny, albeit with a chill wind. This motivated me to get out of the house for an afternoon walk along the Taff, armed with a plastic shopping bag to collect litter I noticed. Just walking from the house to the park, I collected a dozen pieces of litter and another fourteen pieces around the Fields. Some pieces from their condition are recently dropped, including a milk bottle containing fresh dregs. Others are dirty and battered, indicating that they'd been there and ignored for a long time. 

The SWALEC stadium has a strip of managed garden along its perimeter road. From there, I fished several bottles and a couple of plastic beer 'glasses', issued by pubs only on big match days when public drinking occurs on a scale that encourages neglect of the environment and lack of civic pride. 

Sports celebrities have engaged with commitment in campaigning to keep racism out of sport, it would be marvellous is some could take up campaigning to keep litter dumping out of our streets. Not only on match days, but every day, everywhere.