MOT'd

A pleasantly warm sunny day for driving over to Splott after breakfast to take the car to N G Motors for its MOT test. I walked back to Newport Road, took a bus to Greyfriars Road and walked from there to the bus stop outside Holiday Inn, to catch a 62 to Llandaff Fields, a journey of about fifty minutes. I've agreed to celebrate this Sunday's Parish Eucharist at St Paul's Grangetown, so I now have a sermon to prepare in just a few days. Last Sunday was priest in charge Fr Edward's farewell service before moving to North Cardiff. It's a coincidence that when Fr David their last cleric left I was the first locum priest to minister to the congregation in the vacancy. I wonder if anyone in the congregation will remember?

Clare and Owain went out for a walk to Bute Park for coffee and a snack. I stayed behind, thinking about that sermon, intending to join them, but I didn't get around to it, and ate on my own. After they returned Owain and I set off town, walking and by bus. We parted company outside John Lewis, where Owain went to buy a new keyboard and mouse to go with his new work laptop, which wouldn't work with the bluetooth Apple Mac keyboard he used with the previous laptop. Hopefully, work will pay for this.

I went around to the John Lewis entrance on the other side of the building where there's a Newport Road bus stop. A 49 bus arrived, I joined the passengers and go on. Then we were told the (new electric) bus couldn't start as the brake pedal spring had broken, so it couldn't be safely driven. We all got off to wait, and fortunately within a few minutes another Newport Road bus arrived which took me to the nearest stop for the walking round across Adamsdown, over the railway bridge and into Splott. I arrived at the garage just as the garage was about to close. The car needed a replacement tyre, though its companion was hardly worn, suggesting I must have hit something to throw the wheel tracking out of alignment some time ago. 

Our annual mileage is now only 3,000 so rarely do we make long journeys. It's a useful convenience given the price of fuel. It costs about £1300 a year to run. We don't have to take depreciation of value into account. In a few years time we'll be obliged to scrap it anyway and by then I may no longer want to drive. So is it worthwhile? Probably yes if you take into account the cost of the taxis when needed, long distance train and bus journeys maybe car hire. The alternatives require cost time and effort to arrange and book. 

I was back home by half past four. My parking space outside the house had not been taken by someone else, which was a relief. Clare cooked supper. Roast veggies, fish for her chicken for me, apple crumble to follow. I spent time before and after supper reading Zafon's 'Marina'. As I was so preoccupied by my phone screen breakage, I forgot to mention on Monday that two more of his novels arrived in the post, ordered by Kath as belated Christmas and birthday presents. Some good things are worth waiting for.

A new Swedish thriller started on Walter Presents in the prime time slot, called 'Hostage'. It's about a sophisticated electronic hijacking of a transatlantic flight. A bit slow, with lots of flashbacks, but quite an interesting theme. Then bed.

Milestone MOT

Up for breakfast at eight o'clock on a day of clouds and sunshine. When I was saying morning prayer later, I realised I'd made a mistake in selecting the lesson for next week's Morning Prayer video. Today's New Testament reading was what I thought was the one for next Thursday. As a result the reflection I'd written for the occasion was incorrect, so I reverted to the text for that day, amended it, then set about writing a different reflection. I can re-record the lesson and reflection, edit the sound recording and change the accompanying video slide show to suit. Fortunately, I keep handy backups of every recent project, there's no need to re-record the whole thing. When all the changes are made the new version can be uploaded to YouTube. That'll teach me to be more careful next time.

Clare went out for coffee with Diana mid-morning and I cooked lunch in time for her return. We couldn't eat and I had to got to the surgery for another blood pressure check. On this occasion it was deemed to be normal so I was 'discharged' i.e. don't need another.  Hopefully this information will percolate back to the hospital waiting list database containing my pre-op information, though I doubt it will make any difference to the amount of queuing time, already five years. From the surgery, I walked to Cowbridge Road to take a bus into town. As I reached the stop a C1 cross-city bus arrived, which took me to West Grove in Adamsdown, leaving me with just fifteen minutes walking to reach the N G Motors garage to collect the car, freshly serviced and MOT'd for another year, and still with only 50,000 miles on the clock instead of an average mileage of 200,000 miles for a car sixteen years old. I think we've only driven about 8,000 miles since we bought it. I called at Lidl's for some groceries before driving home.

I was listening to Radio Three on the way back, and just as I arrive home Beethoven's Ninth symphony was about to play, so after eating the lunch I cooked earlier, I sat and listened to it for an hour. Ashley rang after it finished. It's a month since we last talked. We chatted for half an hour, then I went out for another walk before supper.

I did the necessary work to amend next Thursday's prayer video after supper and post a new version to YouTube. It took me an hour. Then I watched this week's episode of 'Disturbing Disappearances' on More Four, about the abandonment of a new-born child and disappearance of its teenage mother. It was unconventional, both a police procedural and a family drama at the same time, touching both bases successfully, hitting the feelgood factor in its happy ending.

Unintended consequences

I drove to Newport at lunchtime today for an appointment with Kay, our family osteomyologist, my first treatment since last summer. Kay has treated all of us at different times over the years. She checked her notes, and we were both surprised to find it's been over the past fifteen years that she's been helping our tense muscles and mis-aligned bones to return to the way they're intended to work. Recently, with the slow closure of my wound, many of the physical stresses on the rest of me seem to have diminished, though it's not stopped me worrying about my neck vertebrae being out of alignment, so this session turned out to be as reassuring as it was therapeutic.

On my way back across Newport, a 'low fuel' indicator light nagged me. I found a supermarket filling station, but to my horror, found I couldn't get the protective flap covering the fuel pipe to open. Something must be jammed I thought, but there was no way I could prise the flap open, and panic set in. I thought the best thing I could do would be to drive on until I could find a garage and get help, risking running out of fuel in the meanwhile. I made it across the conurbation and on to the rural stretch of the A48, a rather safer place to break down if I was going to. 

I passed several filling stations, but these days they have one-stop shops attached to them rather than mechanics' workshops. I made it to Newport Road, a mile away from NG motors garage where the car gets serviced. Indeed, they found it for us. I rang Phil, who told me to look for an emergency cord pull in the boot that would release the flap. I did but none was fitted on such an early version of this model of VW Polo. The last mile'd driving in heavy traffic was un-nerving, but I made it OK. A cheery young mechanic came out and diagnosed the problem in just a few minutes.

It was a case of 'unintended consequences'. Somewhere in its previous history an unresolved fault with the electric windows. After we bought it, the only practical solution to emerge after several attempts to resolve the issue in the absence of spare parts for an eighteen year old car, was to exchange the central locking and window mechanism from the driver's to the passengers side. The available substitute mechanism on the driver's side was one from a passenger side door. It works fine, except that central locking has to be done from the passenger side. This is seldom an issue as Clare and I almost always travel together, and with the development of her glaucoma, I am now the sole driver. 

On this occasion, I drove to Newport alone. The central locking system locks me in while driving. I don't like it, but Clare says it gives a female driver an enhanced sense of security from unwelcome advances from assailants. When I get out of the car all three remaining doors stayed locked. What I didn't know was that embedded in the central locking system is a magnetic device which locks the petrol cap. Normally on a car, the driver would get out to fill up with petrol and the cover flap would automatically unlock, but not on our car, unless Clare is with me and gets out to go and pay, or stretch her legs. We've always been together when visiting a filling station before, and it must be six months since I last bought petrol. From the garage I had a three mile drive on nearly empty to fill up at Pengam Green Tesco's, and made it OK.

Well, now I know what I needed to know, but that was an upsetting nerve wracking experience which took me some time to get over, so I walked later than usual in the day. Coincidentally my two phones and fit-bit all drained of power within the same few hours. As a result my so-called fitness record for yesterday says that I walk less than half of what I actually walked, and only slept for a couple of hours, both of which are untrue. No doubt the analytical algorithm will generate a reproach for being unhealthy, which will annoy me. So many smart info devices that aren't really a match for real experience. Such foolishness to rely on them for anything. 

 

Rush to judgement

How annoying! When I got up this morning, I didn't switch my phone on until after breakfast, and so  missed the calendar alert to take the car over to N G Motors in Splott early for today's MOT text. This left me with not quite enough turn-around time to go to St Catherine's to celebrate the Eucharist. Fortunately, Clare was free and able to do this instead of me. I could just as easily have forgotten to look at a paper diary and have found Google's Calendar app an invaluable replacement in retirement now I'm no longer steered through the working week and year mostly by a set pattern of events. There's a fair amount of routine in my life even so, due to interregnum duties. Just enough to balance the freedom I also value.

Eighteen years today since the destruction of the New York Word Trade Centre towers, an event that changed the modern world irreversibly, and not for the better. It was a violent revelation of the failure of dialogue between modernity and traditional culture, festering wherever people felt marginalised and powerless, and emerging in pathological form in islamist extremism. The Gospel at the Eucharist was that of Jesus a the deaf mute man, a story which for me is chiefly about a miracle of communication which is revealed by his extraordinary ability to look at people and understand what's needed to get through to them, reaching into their isolation and setting them free. He looks, listens, then acts and speaks. He looks without prejudice, without stereotyping the other person, and this is what transforms the man's life.

I arrived at church from listening to a Radio 4 feature about Amanda Knox, accused of the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia twelve years ago. It took eight years for Knox to be acquitted of a crime there was no forensic evidence she had a part in, and for which she was initially tried and imprisoned. Her involvement as an accomplice in the crime was attributed to her attitude when confronted by interrogators. She was out of her depth as a 20 year old, and didn't know how to react it seems. 

A psychology research project demonstrated how it's possible in a high proportion of cases to identify a guilty party under interrogation from their body language, whereas this is not so with an innocent party, whose reactions are naturally more ambiguous and influenced by confused feelings about being under examination. An interrogator may read this confusion as evidence of guilt or complicity, but it's a presumption which may not survive scrutiny. It's all down to how we look at and listen to someone, and whether we think we already know about who they are and what they think.

In this era of sound-byte news when information is over-simplified for popular consumption, it's no wonder that Britain is in such a mess of brexit. Dialogue is overwhelmed by simplistic confrontation, and extremists are pushing the country towards open conflict. Parliament is wildly condemned by some for betraying 'the people', who just want to 'get on with it', whatever that means. Parliament is struggling, despite efforts to curtail its responsibilities, to maintain dialogue in a situation of great complexity which cannot be reduced to simplicities, that take time to ensure justice for all. It's taken three years so far and may take much longer to resolve in a way that achieves true common good.

The country's most senior lawyers are considering whether Boris Johnson's proroguing of Parliament for such time is legal or not, and opinion is divided even at the highest level. What best serves the common good? is the issue behind the legal debate. How is is possible to look at this with fresh eyes, without prejudice, without vested interest, without presuming this is typical rather than unique. It's a conversation which needs to happen between people of opposing views throughout our divided land. Urgently.

Longest day

I walked to the wound clinic for my weekly visit, and then walked across to Splott to collect the car, which has been there nearly three weeks, in an attempt to diagnose and fix an electrical fault which left the nearside car window half shut, and the central locking system working, but in a somewhat eccentric manner. 

Our very experienced VW mechanics had no success, and took it to a specialist auto-electrical company, which also failed to diagnose the problem. The locking system works, but needs checking each time the car is opened from the passenger side, and the window is shut. We need to avoid using it for the time being, while the garage tries to source a complete functioning door mechanism from a car of the same age, going for scrap.

Passing through the city centre on my way there, I stopped to take some photos of St David's House site clearance, and got chatting to one of the workers letting lorries in an out of the site's only gate. He told me that once the rubble had been cleared to ground level and excavation to remove buried concrete foundations of the old structure were getting under way, an archaeologist had been working there to see what was still there from the Temperance Town area levelled in the sixties to make way for St David's House.

Houses were built on land freed for use when the river Taff was diverted from its course to its present location, when Brunel's navvies constructed the GWR line and Cardiff General Station. As well as tenement building foundations, iron-work and pottery shards, whole fireplaces from cellar rooms were uncovered. After Newtown, on the other side of the South Wales line from here, this was an area much settled by immigrants from Ireland or deep rural Wales. It's an era documented by photographs, in a way that the old course of the Taff, and the ruins of St Mary's and its churchyard, prior to the railway, never were.

After lunch and a much needed siesta following my 3.7 mile walk to Splott, I felt fresh enough to go out again for a few laps of Thompson's Park, to bring my day's total up to 5.4 miles. I'd like to sustain this, if not improve on it. The extra exercise this week has done me good, I know.

Faulty windows - with a small 'w' for once

This morning I had to take the car to N.G. Motors in Splott to get the front passenger side window fixed. On Saturday, on the way to Penarth after the funeral, I opened it and found the electric winder had stopped working, leaving the window open a couple of inches. Nothing we tried could persuade it to shut. Annoying, as we've had rain twice since then, and needed to drape a protective bin bag over the seat to prevent it getting wet. The same thing happened with the driver's side window about six months ago. Coincidence or a design fault? Getting it fixed is urgent, arranging a slot for this at short notice isn't easy. As we don't use the car that much, and have nothing planned for this week that calls for car use, it's fine to drive it there and leave it with them to fix when they find they have time.

I walked the mile and a half back to Canton Bridge stop and caught a bus the rest of the way. It gave me an hour and a half free before being collected to go to the Vale Crem, where we were on Saturday to take today's funeral. There was a congregation of thirty, about average for a nonogenarian with just a couple of offspring and their families.

Two grand daughters and spouses were the chief mourners, arriving from Bristol. Unfortunately, they mistook the place of rendezvous with the funeral cortege. Instead Pidgeon's Funeral Home in Canton, they drove to the Care Home in Barry where Gran lived for a few years until her death. They weren't too far away from the crem, perhaps ten minutes or so, when this was conveyed to them. They arrived three minutes after the appointed hour instead of ten minutes before. As the tributes were fairly lengthy, the service was bound to be a tight fit for the slot assigned. We finished just three minutes late, and the congregation left and dispersing without delaying the next 'late' arrival.

I was home by two. Clare was out, so I cooked lunch, and had a siesta, then went for a walk before supper, and watched telly before turning in early, tired after a busy day.

  

Different kinds of wires crossed

Clare took the car into the garage this morning, as the same fault affecting the central locking system and electric window on the driver's side has returned to haunt us. It's a puzzle. Something has worked loose or perhaps damp is affecting the wiring loom. It'll take a while to find out so it's just as well we have no need of the

I was surprised to receive a phone call from the Cardiology department at the Heath Hospital after breakfast calling me in for an ultrasound scan. Surprised, as I'd been told in a 'phone call Thursday last that the anaesthetist didn't consider I needed one for my postponed operation to be performed. I asked if there were crossed wires again in hospital communications and was reassured the initiative arose as a result of the pre-op, as one of the heart consultants reading the report noticed that I was overdue for a heart check-up.

My GP referred me for this after I complained of palpitations, which turned out to have been triggered by drinking too much coffee, or perhaps something digestion related at that time. The cardiologist at that time gave me a clean bill of health, stating that my heart condition was normal and healthy for my age. He said he'd I'd get another check in two years, and that was that. But when did it happen? I couldn't remember, so checked back through old blog entries, only to discover that it's three years since my first scan. 

How time flies! Has the checkup system been slow in catching up with me? Or did the cardiologist say two years when he meant three? It's a mystery, but now is as good a time as any for a follow up check, so I have an appointment booked for Thursday at eight forty. It's early to be out and about as I'm usually needing a change of wound dressing around breakfast time, but we'll figure out how to manage this. As the car's unlikely to be returned before then, and buses to and from the Heath in heavy traffic are unreliable. I have walked the distance in about forty minutes, but the weather may not be in my favour, so I'll need a taxi to get there.  At least I won't have to wait long so early in the day, and the scan only takes twenty minutes. Here's hoping.

Finally, a letter giving me a date for surgery on Valentine's Day, a month from now. Here's hoping there'll not be another cancellation. I don't know how I'd cope. Diagnosed as needing surgery on 18th October, it's taken three months to get this far, and four to the op - for minor surgery they call it?

  

Sub zero days

It was around freezing point when we walked energetically to St Catherine's Sunday morning, where I celebrated the eight o'clock Eucharist. We returned home, and didn't go out for the rest of the day, although the weather was bright. With such a chilling wind neither of us felt like venturing far. Even though the days are lengthening noticeably, even though we have plenty of warm outdoor clothes, we seem to lack the motivation to go far. Except in imagination that is. My mind drifts south toward Málaga, where it's eighteen degrees by day at the moment.

Monday morning, I had to take the car in early for its pre-MOT diagnostic at our Golf specialist garage N G Motors in Splott. If it needs lots of costly work doing, we really will have to make the effort to buy a new one in the coming week before I leave for locum duty in Málaga. I caught the 61 bus back from Adamsdown as I couldn't establish where the nearest stop was over in Splott, so I had to walk about a kilometre to where I knew I would find one. There were three women waiting at the stop, and I let them board the bus before me. The last one, a lady about my age turned to me as she got on and said: "Thank you there aren't many gentlemen around these days. No please and thank you either" lamenting the lack of common courtesy that seems to pervade some aspects of life today.

Tuesday morning, I had a phone call from Mike's widow Gail, in response to a letter I'd posted to her yesterday with my written personal tribute to my oldest friend. She said she'd like it to be read at his Memorial Service, as she felt that I'd well captured the person she knew and loved, and expressed it beautifully. Indeed, as part of my mourning him, I put time into crafting and editing the text, so it would be beautiful. As a poet and writer, he so loved words. It was our shared delight. I wanted to do him proud. 

I suggested making a recording of my text for use in church. Gail liked this proposal, so I did just that, using the Windows 10 voice recorder app, and the Audacity sound editor to render the output into an MP3 file. I tested in on PC and Smartphone, and played it through my office HiFi, to check sound quality. I was pleased with the result, and emailed it to her straight away. Happily she thought the result was fit to use, and asked if I'd be willing to contact the Vicar, Fr Andrew Todd to arrange it with him, once she'd obtained his email address.

Later in the day, the garage called to say the car didn't need as much attention as I'd feared, given that it's 23 years old. With one minor welding repair, it passed its MOT and is fit to be re-insured and taxed again for another six months. This gives us longer to consider a replacement, and find a keen DIY enthusiast who might be glad of it for a restoration or race 'modding' project. After receiving the call, I had call from Fr Rufus to bring me up to date with his parish news. We chatted for so long that I no longer had enough time to go by bus and retrieve the car before the garage closed, so it had to wait until this morning.

I had to be out of the house and on a 61 bus by eight thirty to make the 45 minute trip to Splott, amid flurries of snow at minus four degrees. Still, the bus was warm, and this was far more relaxing than having to drive through rush hour traffic. The return trip in the car took twenty minutes, and Fr Mark arrived for a chat, and to hand over church keys, just after I got back. I was good to talk face to face, before I went to St Catherine's to celebrate the Eucharist on his behalf. It frees him for other duties in a crowded schedule, working without a colleague. I feel somewhat ashamed of my divided loyalties, going away to do similar duties abroad, leaving him here overburdened. There's need whichever way you look.

While I was out collecting the car, Gail called with her Vicar's contact details. This meant I could email the MP3 voice file to him. A little later, I had a reply, asking if I could provide it on a CD. He explained that there were few people around he was confident would be able to manage an MP3 player with the church public address system during the service. Having a CD guaranteed to play of typical church legacy equipment would be for him the line of least resistance. This is something I understand only too well, from bitter experience. 

Thankfully, I still have a small supply of blank writable audio CDs so was able to set about the task promptly, and post it to him later in the day. My only problem was working out how to burn an audio CD in Windows 10. This aspect of the system interface has changed considerably since the last time I needed to use Windows for CD burning. In fact, I have relied on a Linux driven computer to burn CDs for ages, as its old fashioned app interfaces are simpler, more straightforward, although just as feature rich. It's fit for purpose if you understand how it works and can control it without needing to spend too much time learning new features and layout. That's half the trouble with a lot of Windows products.

It's minus four tonight. Probably too cold to snow, even though it's overcast. Many parts of the UK have been disrupted by snowfalls. All day rolling news coverage about the weather makes this sound like the major crisis it isn't. Snow has always temporarily brought normal life to a halt in Britain and we moan and worry rather than do something about it. We don't manage adverse weather conditions to make daily life weather resilient as they do in the Alpine. It's a huge anxiety generator, along with brexit, if you listen to the news reportage. No wonder so many people resort to medication to cope with the impact on their emotions.

      

Unhappy meal

This bank holiday Monday morning, I walked into town, as the crowds slowly began to drive in and queue for city centre shopping car parks. I needed to visit the office to retrieve a file which was meant to sync to OneDrive, but once more failed to. Microsoft puts more effort into driving people to rely on cloud based storage without being able to provide necessary total reliability. For years I carried all I needed to work on around with me on a flash drive. I've rather got out of the habit this past year, but the inconsistency of syncing operations on OneDrive, on which we rely so heavily for work, are causing me to re-think. Oddly enough, Google Drive never seems to present any problems, although it's helpful or otherwise insistence of converting everything in and out of Gdrive format for editing and sharing is rather annoying when all you want to do is work with your chosen tools in your own work setting in your own way.

Once in the office, I got drawn into entering data on recent acquisitions into our newest database, and testing a barcode scanning application that I'm hoping will ease the task at little cost. Then before I knw it, Clare was calling, wondering when I'd be back for lunch. Hours slip by very quickly in the fact of a pile of detail to be attended to.

After lunch we drove to Bristol to see Amanda and James. Her new wifi printer has failed to work since the batch of replacement inks purchased with the equipment are not recognised as present by the machine. The inks are genuine enough, but it's as if the sensor meant to recognise them isn't working. It's going to be difficult getting this sorted, as they don't have the means to get to the nearest branch of PC World to sort it out. Frustrating and very disappointing.

As we were approaching the Seven Bridge on the drive home, I suddenly noticed that the car engine was overheating, and stopped underneath the junction with the M49 to see what was wrong. I wasn't yet another leak, but apparently no fluid was passing through the radiator, suggesting either a blockage or a radiator thermostat stuck in the shut position - probably a legacy of using radiator sealant compound to cope with previous leak problems which eventually turned into a head gasket rupture. Once the engine had cooled enough, we drove over the bridge to Magor services, and called Green Flag services for help. In an hour a mechanic arrived from Abergavenny, confirming my tentative diagnosis. Then we had another hour to wait for a tow truck collect us, arriving from Stroud, on the way home to Newport,. 

We'd promised ourselves fish and chips for supper, for a change, and the only resemblance to this to be found was a McDonald's 'Happy Meal' from the one fast food outlet still open late in the service area. A little bag of over salted dry stick-like frites and another bag containing three fish fingers. Another bag contained a couple of plastic kids toys. The frites would have make a Belgian lose the will to live. Why on earth? A children's meal was the only way it was possible to obtain a few small pieces of fish. The plastic toys pulled apart into to sections, one of which was the right size for a small child to get in its mouth, swallow and choke on. Incredible! It has to rate as one of the worst and most ill conceived meals I've ever had. It may even have been the first time I've ever eaten McDonald's style and it'll certainly be the last. Next time I'll go hungry.

By just after eleven we were home safely, enjoying a little cheese and a glass of wine before bed. It's rather strange to think that on my third journey to and from Bristol in a row there have been problems with the car's cooling system. Last week we went to Monmouth without any cause for concern, plus trips around down in traffic. Let's hope that this'll be the last occurrence, or else it'll be time to say goodbye to our beloved ancient Golf.

I drove the car across town to N.G. Motors our VW service garage in Splott this morning, hoping that the car wouldn't overheat on the way. Almost every traffic light was red, so I switched off the engine while I waited. It was just up to normal temperature by the time I arrived and handed it over. Then a walk into town, during which I discovered that the Lidl store on Tyndall street which offers a handy place to shop on my way back, has been demolished, and the adjacent land cleared for new buildings, one of which will be a new improved Lidl, to open by the end of this year. I wonder what the neighbouring buildings on the site will be?
   

Classic Car Funeral

Monday morning, I tidied the house, cooked lunch for Clare, then collected her from her train at half past midday. Later, a phone call from Kath revealed that Rhiannon had passed her Grade Three flute exam 'with merit', which she took the day Clare arrived. It's lovely to see her making good progress and following in her mother's footsteps. She was learning flute at Rhiannon's age, and still uses it to play occasional solos, as well as singing with their Latino band 'Sonrisa'. On one occasion, Rhiannon was out at a gig with them, and played a solo of her own, much to everyone's delight, and was perhaps less nervous about being on stage than in an examination studio. She just loves performing.

Tuesday morning, I took the car in for a belated MOT, as its tax is due for renewal by the end of the month. Then I walked over to Tredegarville School to touch base with the head teacher about their Holy Week school service in St German's and tell her the news about Fr Dean, one of the school's Foundation Governors. I walked from there to the CBS office and used our new on-line banking facility to pay out Ian's tax and salary for March, against a payslip provided by our accountants. 

Then I had a message to say the car was ready, and walked back to the garage to collect it, in good time to get to St German's, where the funeral of a man who was a friend of the previous incumbent, Fr Roy Doxsey was taking place. I'd invited him to join me in taking the service, such a rarity these days for two of us to share a funeral. David had been an engineer and classic car enthusiast. He'd owned and maintained the same MG Midget since he first bought it 45 years ago. His motoring friends turned up in their outstanding vehicles, XK120 and XK150 Jaguars, a Ford Cortina Mk 1, a Ford Capri, a Ford Escort RS2000, a MGB open top, a Triumph TR4, a Sunbeam Talbot saloon, and a couple more I cannot now remember. They reminded me of the collection of Dinky Toy models I'd had of such cars when I was a child. A dazzling display of old cars escorted the cortege from the church to the crem. He would have been delighted. My dear late departed brother in law Eddie would also have taken great pleasure in such a grand display.

I drove home to rest for a couple of hours before attending the evening's Tai Chi and Chi Gung classes. Just before I was due to leave, a lengthy phone call delayed me. Then, as I was rounding the corner into Romilly Crescent, a 61 bus into town was halted by the lights. Impulsively I started to run, although I knew it was most likely the bus would sail past me and the stop about a hundred yards further on. Fortunately, the driver responded to my gesticulations and compassionately halted, some thirty years away from the bus stop to let me on. This took ten minutes off my walk to St Mary's Hall, so I was only ten minutes late, if pleasantly breathless, and warmed up ready for the session.

Baptism on the feast of Christ's Baptism

On may way to St German's this morning, I had a phone call from Amjad, driving down from London to take part in Hamid's baptism. He'd missed the Almondsbury interchange turning and was approaching Ross-on-Wye on the M50, still an hour away. When I got to church, we made plans to defer the rite of Baptism until the end of the service, in case Amjad didn't make it in time. Thankfully, he arrived just as I was about to read the Gospel for the Feast of Christ's Baptism. Without rehearsal, Hamid's baptism proceeded as intended, with Hamid making his baptism promises in Urdu. Before the service, I finally got to read through with Hamid the transliteration of the baptismal formula into Urdu Amjad sent me, to check my pronunciation, and completed the rite without error, thanking God for having a good musical ear and memory.

Amjad brought his wife and three delightful young children with him. He is Pastor and Teamleader of the Kushkhabri Fellowship, whose 'Right Way' outreach projects helps people of Muslim origin enquiring about Christian faith, and supports converts. The fifty strong St German's congregation welcomed them warmly. Some expressed delight in being part of an event unique in their experience. Churchwarden Peter and doyenne of the congregation Gwyneth were Hamid's sponsors. She befriended him from the outset. "She is just like my grandmother" he said to  me on one occasion. Afterwards, Gwyneth said what a lovely experience it had been. She handed him his baptism candle during the ceremony. Hamid is a quiet man with a warm smile and smiling eyes. Today he was radiant.

During the Peace, I relieved him of his baptism candle and certificate, given during the ceremony, to allow him to circulate and greet one another. I handed it to someone else, and later I couldn't find it. Hopefully it will turn up sooner rather than later, as I need to countersign the certificate to establish its status for the benefit of his Tribunal hearing, this coming Thursday. Many a slip 'twixt cup and lip, as the saying goes.

The congregation sat down to an excellent three course lunch in the church hall after the service. There were more than expected, but plenty of food to go round, thanks to the generous imaginations of the cooking team. Hamid, Amjad and his family, also Jim Stewart his wife and toddler son sat down to lunch together and chatted. Jim is Wales Evangelical Alliance Welsh Assembly liaision officer. He started with EA when I was still at St John's, and has now been in post ten years. He and Amjad have recently got to know each other, as both work on advocacy relating to the freedom of people to convert to another faith. It's a subject fraught with social and political difficulties throughout the world.

After the meal, I drove over to Bristol to deliver Amanda's new computer kit, and set up for the first time a wireless printer. Not difficult once you know how, but something of a puzzle when you have to read small print on a sheet that's set out in six languages. The printer is an entry level Epson XP-235. Google Chrome's cloud print facility is something I'll have to get used to. I have tried setting up a wired network computer to work with a Chromebook via wi-fi, with unsatisfactory results, but that was a couple of years ago. Amanda's Chromebook and printer seemed to talk to each other as intended. If it goes on strike, I don't fancy troubleshooting.

As I was approaching Southmead, the car indicated that it was overheating again. I pulled into a garage and steam was issuing from the overflow tank. I put three litres in and drove carefully to Amanda's, then added another litre or so later when it had cooled. I returned home gingerly, to say the least, stopping four times because the overheat warning light kept flashing. The engine, wasn't overheating however, but I suspected the cooling system was far from full. I stopped at a garage and bought some radiator sealant, but the coolant level hadn't dropped enough to add any. The last leg, from Newport I did on the old A48, as a precaution, though heaven knows why, apart from it being safer to stop in an emergency as there are few late evening buses travelling this road late on a Sunday evening. I made it home OK. Tomorrow the car goes to N G Motors for repair.
        

Breakdown in the rain

A domestic morning - shopping, banking a cheque, finally getting my hair cut - then, a flying visit to the CBS office to sort out an office equipment malfunction, and prepare some documents for debt chasing, before going to College for the weekly tutor group meeting attended by only two of the five students, as to are away dealing with bereavements and a third is unwell. With no Chi Gung class to go to this evening, I had time to collect my spare printer/scanner and deliver to Owain at home. The rain didn't let up all day, so it was pretty unpleasant. I was consciously avoiding puddles as I drove home, aware of the trouble I had last time I was out driving in heavy rain, but to no avail.

The car stopped once just after I turned off Western Avenue after splashing through one small puddle - it always seems to happen where there are double yellow lines - but I got it started only to have it die again, just as I reached the Penhill Road traffic lights. I rolled down the hill, trying to bump start, but to no avail, and had to park on double yellow lines again, opposite the junction with Llanfair Road, just five yards short of a legal parking space. How annoying!

At least I could go home to phone the Green Flag rescue service - the first time in the four years we've had the car. It was seven o'clock. It was gone nine when the tow-truck arrived, and I'd cooked and eaten half my supper. The mechanic told me he'd attended nine calls in two hours. "I always goes mad when it rains like this." He said cheerily. It didn't take long to diagnose a broken High Tension coil, as opposed to auto-electrics which have been temporarily inundated with water, which soon dry out if the engine. 

So, with my bike on the tow truck back seat, we took the car down to Splott and parked it outside NG Motors, then I cycled the two miles back home and ate the other half of my supper. Not exactly how I'd expected to spend my free evening.