iPad down and up

A day of respite from intermittent rain hail and cold wind, sunny and warm enough to go out with no top coat, proper spring weather. There were eight of us at the St Catherine's Eucharist. It was Emma's last service at St Catherine's before she goes on three month's secondment to Fairwater Parish. She will be missed, and it generates a certain level of uncertainty about how projects she initiated or catalysed will be able to continue.

I collected our organic veggy bag on the way home, and cooked what I call my Inspector Montalbano tribute lunch. Pasta with pesto mixed with spinach and carrots, and boil in the bag mussels in a white wine sauce, plus a bottle of a organic Sicilian white wine to accompany it. In all thirty of the movies based on Camillieri's novels I have never seen Salvo drink anything other than local white wine. It's not something seen here often but Lidl's had one when we visited yesterday. 

After lunch I collected our weekly grocery order from Beanfreaks, and then took my Sony Alpha 68 with me for a walk around the periphery of Llandaff Fields, equipped with a 11-18mm wide angle lens to take a succession of landscape photos of the trees whose leaf canopy is now almost fully developed. On three of the marked pitches, preparations were under way for evening cricket matches - at a guess, teams of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi players, each group speaking a mixture of English and their national language. If there's a Caribbean team or league hereabouts, I'm not aware of it. It's just great that so much cricket is played. Most afternoons there are players practicing at the mobile nets array in a corner of the park. We're just a mile away from the SWALEC stadium, home of Glamorgan County Cricket, where there are even more practice nets, so it's understandable.

Yesterday, Clare's iPad froze on her. The touch screen stopped working, although it seemed that behind the inaccessible login screen, everything else was still working, but inaccessible. She took it to Turotech on her way into town, only to discover the shop is closed on a Wednesday. When she returned, she left the device on the kitchen worktop. I was pondering on why Apple would fail to provide the equivalent of a kill-switch and means to reboot iPad OS, as happens with all other electronic devices. 

The older iPad has a top edge button that works like a power switch to bring it out of hibernation, but no amount of prolonged pressing would shut the thing down properly. It also has a physical button below the touch screen that can take you back to the home screen whenever it's pressed. I tried pressing the two together. The screen went completely black, then after a few seconds, the Apple logo appeared and reboot started. We were both delighted to find the touch screen worked again and found out something neither of us knew before. But, why it froze when it froze is a complete mystery.

This evening, just for fun, and for practice, I made a three minute video slideshow using the photos I took this afternoon, and accompanied it with the first movement of Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons'. I was quite pleased the result, and uploaded it to YouTube for the family to see.

Parks and parking

A cloudy day without rain with a mild wind to dry out the sodden soil. We need more days like this given the broadening mud slicks alongside all the park footpaths. With so many people out and about every day, socialising without socialising strolling along and hogging the path, overtaking walkers and cyclists drives more and more people on to the grass. Heaven knows how the park management teams are going to repair and restore the greensward to its usual healthy condition. 

The task of keeping the park rubbish free has become a seven day week job, as rubbish bins fill very quickly to overflowing with takeaway cups, pizza boxes, sandwich wrappers and plastic bottles. If a day is missed, the place looks terrible, and more rubbish gets dropped than when it looks clean and tidy. No doubt we'll pay for this with Council Tax rate increases eventually, but such excellent civic amenities as we enjoy are worth paying for.

Talking about the Council - a consultation document dropped through our letterbox this afternoon relating to traffic management and parking locally. A bus lane is proposed for Penhill Road, robbing one side of the road of car parking bays, displacing vehicles into overnight parking down by Cafe Castan. It looks as if we won't be able to avoid a residents' car parking permit scheme for the whole of neighbourhood. There are already too many cars competing for too little space on the street, too many two car households. Will each household be restricted to one permit only? I love our little car, but have thought a lot recently about giving it up, as we used it so little, regardless of lock-downs, we'd be better off hiring for occasional travel needs that can't be met by public transport.

At lunchtime I had a call postponing the telephone consultation I was due to have with a pharmacology expert at Llandough who is said to be off sick. Well I've waited four months for this, and am not dead while waiting. Meanwhile, I'll just keep experimenting with the doxazosin dosage to see if I can minimise the side effects and get my blood pressure nearer to normal.

Now that schools are open again to the youngest children, Clare has decided to resume her regular Thursday visit to the Steiner kindergarten to do eurythmy with the little ones, so she's spent quite a lot of time on the phone discussing and planning this today. It means a lot to her, but she's confident that staff are going to be working with high safety standards, and infection risk is far lower with the under sevens in any case. 

An article I read this morning about kids returning to school stated that 12-14 year olds are the most likely to catch covid and transmit it. It also stated that a much under estimated preventative measure is classroom ventilation, leaving windows open and wrapping up warm. Or, classes outdoors. It's something new to get used to, and not easy for generations raised in centrally heated houses and schools whose standard of clothing is geared to 22-24 degrees indoors, rather than 18. 

Lying low

Another day of grogginess and coughing, thankfully without a high temperature. It may sound odd, but I knew I'd turned a corner after a huge bout of diarrhea this morning. It sometimes happens to me near the end of a course of antibiotics. There's no doubt that they can play havoc with the intestinal tract The common cold may be a virus, but some of the nasty bugs that accompany it dwell in the gut, and the horribly runny nose is the body's front line effort to chase them out of the body, I believe. By the evening my nose stopped running, coughing was reduced to getting rid of legacy gunk. It'll still take several days more to return to normal however.

Use of antibiotics tends to disrupt the gut anyway. That's no reason to try them as a cold cure. It was just a lucky coincidence I was taking them. In my days as Guild Chaplain in Birmingham, I recall hearing a microbiology lecturer say that any time he felt a cold was starting, he'd take a dose of something which would quickly result in bowel emptying, as he'd learned the cold would not then develop further. I guess it's a matter of giving the immune system a helping hand.

I took a shorter than usual walk in the park after lunch, and over on the tennis court fence noticed a grey wagtail. It was the same colour as the court surface when it flew down and away from me, not as easy to spot as a pied or yellow wagtail would be, and I've seen both kinds around here. 

I'm impressed to see day be day, how the park's tree management team has cleared fallen branches and trunks from the spell of high winds two weeks ago, tons of timber and branches were felled at the time and in the most urgent cases clearance work started after making the site safe within a few days, but it's been a long job to restore the grasslands to their normal tidiness. 

I learned today that Cousin Ivor's funeral is to take place on Michaelmass Day in a private ceremony at Cambridge Crem, in a chapel without video streaming available. I doubt if he'd have minded that. He always liked to be seen at his best, to make a good impression. After a few years of declining health and increasing dependency on carers robbing him of his pride, this seems appropriate, as is the assigned day. 

'May the angels lead him into Paradise....' 

Fair and fruitful ground

Again, I failed to get ready to leave in time for the midweek Eucharist at St Catherine's, and that was after a long night's sleep too. I don't lack energy once I get going, I seem to have slowed down a lot lately. It may be the impact of the medication, or it could be this blocked ear which stubbornly refuses to yield completely to an otherwise effective wax solvent. I'm impatient, and unused to being impaired by feeling not quite right in myself. I always want to get well at an unreasonable pace. Ah well, I did some writing and then cooked us a veggie pasta dish for lunch. 

Clare returned from her early morning walk with nearly a pound of blackberries she picked, so instead of picking litter when I went out for my afternoon walk, I picked blackberries from bushes along the river embankment, another pound in weight. On the way back, I was in time to see the family of swallows that spends the summer in Pontcanna Fields swooping low over the grass at waist height. That's the first time I've seen them since the evening of my return from Ibiza, when I sneaked a quick walk on my own before self-quarantining. 

Clare stewed both lots with cooking apples and loaded them into her special straining bag, tied to an upended stool on the kitchen table, to make some more blackberry jelly. It shouldn't be long now before the fruit on the park's crab apple trees is ripe enough to pick. But will we have enough empty jam jars by then? Clare likes to use the smallest sized jars for different jams and jellies to give as Christmas presents. She generally stars thinking about Christmas gifts during the summer holidays, and has done all our life together. Start early, avoid the seasonal rush and enjoy more of the festive season is her philosophy. I can't fault it. I'm the one who's prone to do things last minute, however.

Before settling down for the night, I walked out again around the park to clear my head and get some more fresh air. Over by the riding stables, the cry of a screech owl penetrated the darkness, only a few hundred metres from the busy A48 Western Avenue, Cardiff's inner ring road. Between the large municipal allotment area and the containing stables and paddocks, there's an environment rich in insect and plant life which is very wildlife friendly, just a couple of kilometres from the city's commercial and business heart. We are so lucky to live here - just West of the Centre.

 

Too many mixed messages

A sunny Saturday, with pancakes for breakfast as usual. I went for a short mid morning walk, as exercise and fresh air alleviate the unpleasant sensations, associated with  high blood pressure. Increasing the Doxazin dosage seems to have made no noticeable difference so far.

After lunch we walked over to Diana and Pete's house for a socially distanced up of tea on the lawn in their small garden abundant with flowers. We took our own cups and teabags and Pete supplied the hot water. We shared thoughts about the impact of lock-down on us a our great age, and the challenge of re-emerging into society again when so few people wear marks and observe social distancing rules. 

I received revisions to the eulogy I'd written for Paul's funeral, and finalised Monday's service text. I'll have to be sure when I print it off to print it in landscape mode. I recall, the last time I was at Gwent crem having an A5 service leaflet plus an A4 printout of the eulogy. As the ministers lectern is only large enough for an A5 booklet, I had to be careful juggling between it and the A4 sheet. Indeed, I did end up dropping it after reading, and had to retrieve it during a hymn, less undignified than waiting to pick it up, as I steppe down into the concluding silence. It's so important to minimize the amount of distracting movement at an intense moment like that.  

The government has again swiftly changed the restrictions on public gatherings, in the face of gradually rising infection numbers. It's frightful that there's been such confusing information to the point that people disregard and abandon sensible precaution. The highly popular children's play park on Llandaff Fields has remained locked, even though dozens of others across the city have re-opened following health and safety modifications. This hasn't stopped bigger children from climbing over the fence, and in passive I've even seen parents picking up smaller ones and depositing them the other side, to go an play with their friends. There are no park rangers or police to remind people there's a public health reason for keeping it locked, nor a stated reason for keeping unmodified playgrounds closed. 

I decided to go to bed early, rather than watch the second episode of French drama series 'La Vague' on BBC Four Tonight. Its fictional supernatural fantasy elements are  unreal and improbable to my taste, just as in the French series 'Contact' on Channel Four. It used to be said that religion was regarded as the opium of the people. Nowadays I think it's escapist fantasy fiction which merits this description more and there's so much of it about on a grand ambitious scale thanks to CGI animation.

 

Summer Saturday in the park

A welcome return to blue sky and sunshine today, though the air has yet to warm up to expected summer temperatures. It took me a while to get going as physical tiredness from yesterday's trip to Bristol caught up with me, so it was a day of rest and inactivity apart from daily exercise. It was good for walking and good to see hundreds of people sitting out in the parks. Counting couples, over fifty groups of between two and fifteen gathered to socialise, drink together and eat barbecue food or picnic snacks . Three to four hundred people in all, I think. It's been like this every weekend for a while, says Clare. Few were wearing masks and not all were socially distancing. Far fewer people are going abroad for holidays this year, and hopefully rediscovering the pleasures of home turf. 

No doubt pub and restaurant closures have led to a big increase in the use of our city parks. As for beaches, I don't know, and we've yet to take advantage of the restriction of the five mile travel limit to visit the coast and look. Cafe Castan had a long queue of people outside for take away drinks and snacks, and Pontcanna Street Co-op had a queue outside as well, as it's closest to the park. No queues outside the deli 200m away at the bottom of the street, nor the other Co-op in King's Road. 

It's nice to see the parks so well used, except for the bags of rubbish around overflowing bins, if not discarded in situ. When the wind picks up unsecured emptied plastic shopping bags take to the air and roll over the greensward like tumbleweed until caught by bushes or some vigilant passer-by. In clearings along the river bank on the Bute Park, side groups of people occupy space and dip their feet in the water if it isn't running too fast. You can tell when it's rained in the Brecon Beacons, as next day the full length of the weir has turbid water running over it. Kids who on a normal summer's day would be up on Blackweir Bridge daring to jump off into the pool below, congregate at the side by the fish ladder and splash about in the water when the mood takes them.

In the evening I watched what I thought was the last episode of Non Uccidere. I thought ti was anti-climactic and slightly open ended, suggesting it will stretch to a third series. When I checked the IMDB website the second series was rated with twenty four episodes with the twelfth being screened last week. So it seems another dozen are yet to come, but not yet revealed on the 'Walter Presents' page. At this length it resembles a soap opera with one dominant lead character, backed by a credible hard working team that gets results, but we never really get to learn enough about them and their backgrounds.

The stories cover a range of complex sordid crimes with family issues running through two thirds of them relating to contemporary social issues touching on poor and rich families alike. One third of the episodes feature crime connected to a closed community - a convent and a monastery, both with rehabilitation as their mission, a new-age sect, and a military unit readying for deployment. An interesting set of observations on what goes wrong with close knit relationships in today's world.

Windy Sunday

After saying Morning prayer, I listened to Sunday Worship on Radio Four led by the Rector of Saint James' Piccadilly, Lucy Winkett. For the Church of England this was the first Sunday in four months that it was possible for public worship to take place in church. This is not possible in Wales yet, but churches will be open for prayer for a few hours on a couple of days this week, which is a start. 

I'd expected the radio service to be a Celebration of the Eucharist but it was something quite different and unusual, an extended reflection on spirituality and music. I imagine it would have taken much time to prepare and record and was probably was planned before it was announced officially that English public worship would recommence. It was very good anyway. 

After breakfast, I watched the Canton Benefice on-line Eucharist with Clare, the first time I have done so since my return and the end of two weeks quarantine. This obligatory exercise for travellers returning from abroad is soon to end, due to pressure from holiday and travel industries. Much doubt was expressed about the value of the exercise by the epidemiological experts, but the Home Secretary ignored this, making it clear that where this government is concerned yet again science plays second fiddle to chaotic, ill thought out policy and political expediency.

It didn't rain today, but a strong blustery wind drove the ambient temperature down below fifteen. The sun shone through the clouds when I went out, giving the impression in our sheltered side street that it was warmer than it turned out to be. I got as far as Cafe Castan and then had to return home and put on warmer clothes as the wind was chilling me to the bone. And this is July!

I went out again and walked in the opposite direction to Victoria Park, visited St Luke's to take some more photos of the shrine established in the entrance porch with an image of the evangelist labelled St Luke the Healer, decorated with a NHS logo on his chest. I did this a couple of days ago and was disappointed to find that the photos I took were poor quality as the camera lens had partly fogged up without me noticing. There were lots of young families out in Victoria Park, plus dog walkers, but few sat around on the grass as it was too cold in the wind.

After lunch and a siesta, another walk in the wind around Llandaff Fields. Amazing to see scores of crows on the grass, grounded by the high winds and squawking at each other, as if complaining about flying conditions. With nothing better to do in the evening, Clare and I watched a Maigret detective story, beautifully crafted, starring Rowan Atkinson, one I'd seen before unfortunately.

Crab apple harvesting

I celebrated and preached at St Catherine's this morning, and we had a christening during the service as well. As I approached the church porch, members of the baptismal party were assembling outside and greeting each other. I could hear Italian being spoken, and realised that Nonno and Nonna were here to welcome the latest addition to their family. They'd come from Sardinia to be with their son and daughter-in-law. A good night's sleep meant that I was fully alert and was able to greet them in Italian, without lapsing into Spanish, which is my default second language these days, after five years of daily learning. The ten month old infant was well behaved, and only just started to grumble when we reached the font. Mum held her as I poured water over her head. She went quiet and looked surprised when I did this, and it caused everyone to laugh with delight.

Kath arrived in time for a late lunch. She has an evening's work tomorrow as a 'Dr Who' film extra up in Ystrad Mynach, my home town. The filming takes place in Tredomen, where Caerphilly Council's new offices are located, or the site of a former engineering works. The engineer's office and laboratory, dating the early 20th century was where my mother's father was based when he was an installation engineer at the works. The laboratory was where I had my first summer job as an assistant in a Coal Board pollution monitoring station in 1964 nearly forty years later. That old building still survives, but is dwarfed by the imposing new glass and concrete municipal headquarters.

Clare left early for her monthly study group, so I cooked for us, and then we went for a circuit of the Taff and Bute Park. Near the tennis courts and bowling green on Llandaff Fields are two crab apple trees crammed with brightly coloured cherry sized fruits, which add a splash of vivid colour to trees whose greenery is fading. A lovely sight.

On my walk Thursday afternoon, I gleaned a raincoat pocketful of them within reach on lower branches of the smaller tree. This yielded over half a pound of fruit. Clare found a recipe, then I prepared and stewed them to pulp in a pressure cooker, and strained off the liquid through a mesh bag overnight. With sugar added and further cooking, we ended up with two jars of a delicious spicy jelly.

Kath and I tackled all the branches we could reach on the larger of the two trees, even more densely packed with fruit, and came home with four pounds of fruit. It took ages to prepare them for cooking, and the mass of pulp left straining overnight was the size of a melon.

I went to be early after supper, as I needed peace and quiet to write a special letter of greeting to an old friend from Geneva days, Philippe Chambeyron, who turns seventy at the end of this week. He and his wife Julia, were part of the small group who worked to build the mission congregation at Gingins, and develop the now thriving La Côte Anglican chaplaincy between Lausanne and Geneva.

We've stayed in touch since, but haven't visited them for seven years. Lack of a car when we were in Montreux in summer 2018 prevented us from visiting them at home, due to the difficulty of getting from the train at Nyon to the village of Vésenex outside Divonne les Bains where they live. It was the end of 2000 when we left Geneva. We continued to visit most years even after I retired, but then I started locum duties in Spain and the years simply seem to have sped by since then.

What can birds see?

Crossing Llandaff Fields on my afternoon walk, I noticed in the distance a flock of about fifty birds flying in close knit formation, then settling on the ground to feed, before repeating the action, and then flying into the same tree. They were smaller and more agile in flight than the resident flock of pigeons. When I stood under the tree I could hear the characteristic chatter of starlings, and this was confirmed by a ground photo taken at fifty yards distance, in which the typical underside markings of a starling were visible. I noticed another flock of starlings coming out of another large tree a hundred yards away. I haven't seen so many starlings in one place for several years. Such a lovely sight.

I was examining the photo I'd taken when an lady walking her dog stopped to ask me what I thought they were, and the chatted about the variety of birds that are to be seen in the city centre parklands. She then told me a story about swallows flying low over muddy puddles, hunting insects, and how she and her partner were standing watching them when two birds came surprisingly close to them and hovered, as if inspecting their human observers for a short while. An unusual, wonderful moment, but when her partner died three months later, she started wondering if it had been some kind of omen. 

Do we ever consider, I wonder, that other creatures may be more aware of us at different levels, than we are of them. We tend to think of nothing more than the instinctive fight-flight reaction we share in common. It's already been observed that dogs with their acute senses react to the presence of cancer and maybe other ailments in human beings, and this has inspired researchers to take breath analysis to a deeper level as a diagnostic tool. It's amazing to how birds of prey react to movement, and the heat signature of a creature way below them on the ground, because of how their eyesight has evolved differently from ours. Can birds see things about us that we're incapable of noticing? There's so much potential for awe and wonder in this, that supernatural considerations seem unnecessary.

It's one year today since, I was examined and then operated upon by Dr Cotton at Quai Santé Medical Centre in Montreux to relieve the swelling in my right buttock caused by that perianal abscess I didn't know I had, as it hadn't been diagnosed in the two back-end examinations I'd undergone back home in the months beforehand. 

It's been a miserable and frustrating year, tied down in this miserable country by waiting for scans and then surgery, plagued by delays. Would the significant worsening of my condition last autumn until Christmas have been prevented by a course of antibiotics from day one? Would earlier referral for treatment by the district nurses have made a difference/ We'll never know. There's no point in looking back, even if the future of this course of treatment is still uncertain and gives nothing to look forward to yet. Maybe things will be clearer as a result of the third round of surgery in nine days from now. I hate not being able to make real future plans. I can't live off dreams.

Easter Week blossom

I returned to St German's yesterday to celebrate the Wednesday morning Mass for nine people, but on this occasion no Tredegarville school children as it's still their Easter holiday time. Most of the congregation weren't there on Monday evening, so it was a pleasure to be reunited with a different small group of the faithful, who help make the church such a friendly welcoming place. 

After the service I went over the Splott to visit my old friend Graham Francis, who lives just around the corner from St Saviour's Parish Church, where he's happily made a home since his retirement a few years ago. He's living with stomach cancer nowadays and faces this truthfully, stoically with admirable courage. His energy level is much diminished, but not his interest in life, or ability to talk about this of mutual interest. We both share an interest in the variety of Christian groups from the Middle East and Asia that meet in South Wales, if not Cardiff itself. As I've been thinking lately with Roy Thomas about reviving the Spiritual Capital research project, it's great to have someone like Graham around who is a mine of current information as I'm hopelessly out of touch eleven years on from the last publication of our research data 

To be there on time I needed to cancel a clinic visit, but with a slow improvement I'm getting back to a state in which a daily visit isn't strictly necessary. We need to be careful not to run out of medical supplies at home, and with a weekend trip to Kenilworth coming up it was essential to check and stock up more than usual.

In the afternoon, I went to UHW to visit 92 year old Sheila, to whom I was introduced two years ago by Dr Laura Ciobanu, during her annual visit here from Romania. Laura arrives on Mayday, and we plan to meet. She's aware that Sheila hasn't long to live and had recently asked Laura to ask if I'd get in touch with her, as she'd like me to officiate at her funeral. Her son and daughter in law were at her bedside, but despite being frail and weak, she recognised me, and in a no nonsense way asked if I'd take the service, and proceeded to discuss the hymns she'd like. Although she'd only met me once, she said she thought we'd made a good connection at the time. I reassured her that I was willing and felt honoured to be entrusted with this task. And then, we said our farewells. She's due to go into the Holme Tower hospice in Penarth tomorrow, a lovely place to spend her last days in this world.

Today, Russell and Jacqui came over for an early lunch, unfortunately overlapping with my clinic visit. Coincidentally, the timing was just right for me to catch a 61 bus in both directions, so I wasn't away for long. The walk is part of my daily exercise regime and if I take a convenient bus, it's due to leaving it a bit late to leave the house and needing to be punctual. Not that it matters, as often the schedule runs late, especially in the afternoons. Anyway, I did get out for a walk in Llandaff Fields later in the afternoon. The leaves on the park's many chestnut trees are growing rapidly to full size and covered with tall white 'candle' blossoms. A magnificent sight. Pink and white cherry blossom has dropped this past few days due to wing and rain, their colour briefly transforming nearby grass. It's one of my favourite times of year.

Snow day two

It snowed more heavily today than yesterday, but intermittently. We went out for another bracing walk after lunch. As the wind wasn't quite so severe, many more people were out walking streets empty of cars, the air noticeably fume free for a change. Few people in the neighbourhood have tried to take their cars out. The main road from town to Llandaff is driveable, albeit snow covered until there was a late pass by a snow plough, sullying the pristine snow. 

None of the shops were open, just the pubs and some cafes. Youngsters were sledging on the hillock at the far end of Llandaff fields. Some were sitting on the sled, others were lying flat, emulating the skeleton riders in the Winter Olympics. We were very  impressed to see a teenage lad standing on his tray-sled, as if he was on a snowboard. I wonder how many more we'll see trying this next time there's snow.

We went for a cup of tea to Canna Deli, one of the small retail units developed on part of the site of the Old Dairy, now mostly taken up by the Co-op. The address is Pontcanna Mews. I wonder if this pays homage to stables once on the site for the milkmen's horses? The place offers select niche market food products to buy and half a dozen tables for those who want a drink and a classy snack. Clare said she went out yesterday to get some porage oats from the Co-op, but found it was closed, as the staff were unable to get in. Canna Deli, however, was open and busy un-freezing customers with hot drinks. She asked if they had any porage oats, and initially was told they didn't have any. As she was leaving, however, the mager hailed after her and declared that he had a packet of Co-op porage oats he could sell her - presumably from kitchen stocks. How enterprising!

Not long after we'd got back home, and shed our outdoor clothes, I realised that I'd not yet taken my three month medication prescription to the Pontcanna pharmacy in KIng's Road, in preparation for my stay Malaga. A phone call established it was open, and I had half an hour to take the prescription there. So, I dressed up again and retraced my steps back to where we'd just been drinking tea, as the pharmacy is nearby, opposite our GP surgery. It was important to do this, as occasionally pharmacy supplies temporarily run out after a spate of demands. Deliveries might be delayed by the weather conditions if that happened, and I might end up short of supplies to fly out with on Tuesday. I should have thought of this days ago when I collected the prescription from the surgery, but I was on my way elsewhere at the time. I was thankful to be able to collect immediately. Number one on my travel preparation checklist now done.

I watched the last of the Scandi-crime series 'Rebecka Martenson - Arctic Murders' on Channel Four this evening. A sad, but rather ambiguous ending, ambiguous enough to leave open the possibility of a second season. The biggest unanswered question is the back story of the eponymous lead character orphaned young, raised by her granny in a hamlet in the far north of Sweden. How did she become a city lawyer? While temping during home leave in her childhood locality as a public prosecutor she shows a flare for unorthodox but successful detective work. Instead of returning to Stockholm to grow a new reputation, in the last frame of the series, she quits. Is it a love affair with her homeland? Or another character, who may or may not be dead at the moment? All will be revealed in due course, no doubt.

Chance encounter

After a lazy uneventful morning, in which the only unusual thing I did was paying our domestic water rate bill on-line, I made an effort to get out of the house to enjoy blue sky and afternoon sunshine and hunt for wildlife with my camera along the east bank of the Taff. As I approached Blackweir bridge, I was hailed by a neighbour, who was walking along with a friend, who greeted me as if he too had recognised me. But I doubt if he would have done had he not been told who I was. We'd not seen each other for fifty three years. 

Roger Hacker was a classmate in Pengam Grammar school, a sixth form Chemistry student as I was. After A levels I went off to study in Bristol Uni, and he'd taken a job selling ice cream for a year, while he waited to go to Aberystwyth Uni. We'd never seen each other since the results were announced. He'd emigrated to Canada, spent his career there in teaching, then eventually moved to Australia to teach, and that's where his he and his family now live, although he also retains his links with Wales through a family house in the Gower. What an amazing coincidence to have just bumped into them like that, when I'd wandered down to the river across the playing fields for a change, rather than by the usual path. 

Life is full of surprises, I mused to myself as I walked on. There was a Cormorant keeping watch on top of the pillar from which Blackweir bridge is suspended. It's not a nesting place, but is a safe place to roost and enjoy the sun. Sometimes two birds are up there. Beneath the east bank below the weir a heron surveyed the swirling waters hopefully. I got within ten metres of it before being seen, but wasn't quick enough to get a photo as it spread its magnificent slate grey wings and fled downstream.

In places there are still bright yellow leaves attached to trees, even some that are still pale green, all looking luminescent in the low afternoon sun. Squirrels are very active in the woods, both at ground level and jumping between trees or bushes as they forage for food to store for winter. I spotted one of the Jays that inhabit both banks of the stretch of river by the SWALEC stadium, but in the only photo I obtained the bird's head was perfectly obscured by a leaf not yet fallen. The photos are never as good as I hope they'll be, but it's fun to try.

I walked for over two hours in a chilly breeze, so I walked to the Tesco superstore and then to Staples to browse for bargains and get warm again before heading for home, by crossing the Taff in order to walk down the long tree lined avenue bisecting Llandaff Fields from north to south. The sun was just reaching the horizon by this time, and there were snatches of birdsong, blackbirds and tits plus others I didn't recognise. Sometimes huge flocks of starlings occupy these trees whistling and chattering among themselves. Other times, you hear a solitary thrush or several blackbirds announcing themselves to each other in song at this time of day. Maybe it was too cold, or I was a little early, but although birds were making noises, it was hardly a delighful song-fest this evening.

How fortunate we are to have such a large stretch of well managed parkland with wild areas plus a fine clean river running through it, as a defining feature of the city centre environment. The main shopping streets were decorated for the festive season early this month. One notable addition is a group of four wire metal sculptures of reindeer, painted gold and covered with lights. Quite tasteful really, in stark contrast to the alternative to a traditional Christmas tree, a plastic conical structure said to be 40 feet high, whose gold coloured surface is meant to represent a host of golden baubles. Spectacularly tacky, and meeting with general disapproval from people on social media. It's on hire for £10k per year for three years, according to the Western Mail. What an embarrassing disaster, when seasonal decorations are, for the most part, pleasing to the eye.