By accident or design?

I slept for nine and a half hours last night and woke up refreshed. All thanks to Kay's osteo work on my legs yesterday. There was an email from Pidgeon's confirming a funeral booking for two week's time, and a message from Frances asking me if I'd take tomorrow morning's Eucharist at St Peter's Fairwater. Clare and I then worked through the music we're singing for next month's Early Music concert and she cooked lunch while I uploaded and edited some photos from the past few days. 

For the first time I also made use of Microsoft's Clipchamp Video Editor for a clip taken yesterday of a golden leaved tree by Blackweir Bridge, to find out how easy it would be to learn. I've made slideshows using a few different apps, but relied on old school Movie Maker for years on odd occasions when I needed to edit video, as this could be used without internet. The revised version had too many features to make it worth re-learning how to use it, so I didn't bother with it, found and installed the Windows 7 version on previous devices instead. I've not needed to tinker with video footage in the past few years, so I'm pleased to find something simple and handy for my limited needs.

It rained most of the morning, but had stopped when I went out for a walk after lunch, and looked as if the sky was clearing. Appearances were deceptive however, as more rain clouds swept in from the west. Ten minutes into my walk, the rain started again and didn't stop for more than a hour. It wasn't very heavy so I kept going and just got wet slowly. 

We had an early supper before a choir rehearsal. I thought it was going to be in St Catherine's and I had to open up the church and put the chairs out. But we got the week wrong, it was in the Rectory instead. The choir WhatsApp message board has a great many messages to read in a busy spell, so it's easy to become overwhelmed with excess detail and

I got to church at six, opened up and put some chairs out in a semi-circle for the choir to use. Clare came a little later, then when nobody turned up at six thirty, she rang a choir member and discovered our joint diary error. Then I had to put away the chairs, lock up and then we walked to the Rectory at Victoria Park, and were half an hour late joining the others.

Kim offered us a lift home in her car, as she lives nearby. We were amazed to discover that she runs a classic Morris Minor, in excellent working condition fifty three years old. Brother in Law Eddy ran the estate car version of this when we were all a lot younger, inherited from their father Francis. As David and Anneke grew up and needed more space, he traded it in for an Astra. It's probably forty years since we last rode in any Morris Minor. It's the sight and sound of a bygone era.

We returned home to news of missiles hitting a rural area 8km inside Poland's border with Ukraine. Russia denies it was theirs although the nearby Ukrainian city of Lviv was among the places hit with a hundred missile strikes on energy infrastructure targets today, as has happened daily this week. 

Missile guidance systems rely on satellite navigation, but any missile can malfunction mechanically. It's also possible this was an Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile colliding with a Russian missile. It seems that both sides use the same basic weapon, adapted for different purposes. Only thorough forensic investigation of airspace surveillance records will reveal the truth of the matter.

If it was a Russian missile, this strike could be a random failure, or be aimed at provoking a reaction, since Poland is a NATO member country. Putin could well be testing NATO's willingness to take action  collectively given that 'an attack on one is an attack on all' is a founding principal of the charter. I don't imagine NATO member government defence ministry staff will get much sleep tonight, with a meeting to review the situation tomorrow.

Traveller's tales

Only a few days now before we set out for Spain, and another spell of locum duty in Fuengirola for me, so it's been a busy few days in the office, with lots to achieve and preparation to make to make remote working easy and effective. Preparations for the NATO summit continue, and the high steel fence down the middle of the road in front of the Castle, and the temporary armoured barriers across the entrance to Queen Street and across St John's Street impose an unpleasant atmosphere which has everyone talking about this imposition from outside.

Tuesday morning I had a parting acupuncture treatment, before making my way out to Gabalfa Vicarage where Area Dean Bob Capper and his wife Roz offered retired clergy a very pleasant and sociable lunch as a thankyou for all the locum duty help given during the year. It was good to catch up with old friend and mentor David Lee, whom I haven't seen for a couple of years.

Wednesday morning I celebrated the midweek Eucharist in St Catherine's, reflecting on the life of St Bernard of Clairvaux, and then walked very briskly to the far end of Canton for an Ignatian meditation group and lunch. We heard stories over lunch about the founding and development of a South Wales branch of the British Emmaus community, which originated in France from the work among the homeless poor of the celebrated Abbé Pierre, who only died seven years ago at 95, and was active in ministry right into old age. A great inspiration to all of us in retirement.

This morning I celebrated the midweek Eucharist at St John's. We remembered the Diocese of Freetown Sierra Leone in our intercessions, very timely in view of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa at the moment. Over a cup of tea afterwards, the only man in the congregation, one of the regulars, thanked me for this mention. "I was there at the end of the War, when I was just twenty." he said, and then proceeded to tell us of how he'd enlisted with the Royal Army service Corps, and sailed in a troop ship, a converted captured German merchantman, sleeping in hammocks, getting seasick on the way. It was, to his mind a chaotic insanitary place. He came home early, having caught TB. "Better than Ebola." he said  with a wry grin, pleased to have survived to eighty nine.

And now, off to the airport.

Steeling ourselves for NATO

Yesterday morning early I took the Megabus coach to London to see my sister June. The journey was only three hours as the coach got in fifteen minutes early. It was somewhat different on the way back. The coach left twenty minutes late, and made up some time getting as far as Newport, but all the M4 section around Newport was closed off, as preparations are in full swing for the forthcoming NATO conference based at the Celtic Manor hotel, and other venues in Cardiff. The coach was then more than half an hour late arriving and the last bus had gone, so I had to walk home. A long day.

A temporary 'ring of steel' is being constructed around the Celtic Manor domain, also around Bute Park in Cardiff. It's a security fence, meant to thwart terrorist guided missile attacks, or something. Such a huge and expensive show of force to impress hundreds of visiting dignitaries from all the partner countries imposes unwelcome restrictions on two of Wales' key cities and the Principality's major economic artery. The disruption to normal life in both cities is causing a great deal of resentment. What are tourists to Cardiff going to make of the barriers down the middle of the road outside the Castle. What unintended message do they convey about the perceived trustworthiness of the general population in the eyes of those in power?

Will this generate more anti-military protest than usual, one wonders? This is a time when NATO's strength and potential for action is vital to resist the ambitions of aggressors whose ways are foreign to liberal capitalist democracy - whether Putinesque or Islamist dictatorships. Alienating the good will of ordinary citizens is not a good idea politically speaking.

Actually it's not a security fence at at all, but an insecurity fence.

I had a funeral at St John's Canton this afternoon. A congregation of over two hundred gathered, many wearing rugby shirts, to say goodbye to a man in his early fifties whose death was unexpected. Afterwards, a brief visit to the office, before a visit to St Luke's Canton to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption with a small prayerful group of half a dozen. Couldn't help thinking this fiesta is the one with which summer holidays end in Europe, and families start making their ways home to get ready for the resumption of school.