Turns of Fate

Disturbing news to wake up to this morning of the start of the Russian offensive to conquer the Donbass region of Ukraine with four times as many missile attacks as yesterday. Such overwhelming force, with no concern for civilian casualties or the environment. There's no justification for such destructive brutality, except to perpetuate the lies that keep the Putin regime in power. 

In the British parliament today, Boris Johnson has been apologising and making excuses for himself in relation to behaviour by the Downing Street Staff team which contravened public health legislation which government imposed on the nation as a whole. Police investigations leading to the Prime Minister and his colleagues being fined for breaches of lockdown law are outrageous enough in their own right, but more serious that this is the denial to the House of Commons on several occasions by the Prime Minister when challenged that there had been any law-breaking. We think Putin's regime is perpetuated by lies, but is our own leadership any different? 

It's argued by some that Johnson's lies don't have such a serious impact, but this turns a blind eye to the fact that as a journalist over twenty years, Johnson propagated lies about the European Commission and the benefits of leaving the EU which undermined democratic decision making in the brexit referendum. Trump's presidency over America was tainted by lies and mis-information throughout. In each case, it's all in the name of gaining and maintaining power and control. How can the world rid itself of such toxic culture? One way or another, the outcome is violence and suffering, perhaps self-destruction. What does it mean now to endure suffering for the sake of truth? Will NATO countries be drawn into war? Will the Russian people rise against their criminal overlords and change the course of their own history as they did before? So many unanswerable questions. I'm perplexed and troubled, fearful for the future.

After breakfast I walked to Pidgeon's chapel of rest to take the funeral service of a local lady who lived her entire seventy five years in the house she was born in. Not uncommon in a village maybe, but quite exceptional in a perpetually changing inner city area today. She was the widow of a professional soldier, one if whose roles had been the care of the Welsh Regimental Mascot, aka the Goat Major. A family members spoke fondly of times when her auntie and uncle had taken baby goat kids home to raise with bottle feeds - a bit different from the school's pet rabbit or hamster - things a mother gets to do!

Callum, the young man who conducted the funeral told me as we were driving home after the committal at the crem how he'd got the job. Luke, his housemate had been a driver for Pidgeon's after losing his job as an EasyJet pilot during a previous economic recession. He encouraged to 'get a life' by quitting life as a bar manager and do something less demanding and more useful. Callum was taken on and then trained by Pidgeon's, and is happy to have real job satisfaction. Luke subsequently returned to piloting. Post-pandemic, he flies for SAS.

I got home in good time to cook our regular favourite fast food lunch - mussels with brown rice, sweet corn and peas. While I was out Clare has been into town to buy a TENS machine from Boots, hoping it will ease the back pain and enable her to reduce the use of analgesics. The pain is still pretty bad, though less intense than it was last week. Neither of us could have imagined it would take such a long time to recover.

After lunch, a walk to the bank to deposit a cheque. It was closed, with no reason given, although there was a notice on the door stating that the branch would be closing down in October this year. I had to get on a bus and go to the remaining branch in the city centre to deposit the cheque instead. I think there will be only three HSBC branches serving Cardiff in future. Admittedly the switch to digital banking has reduced the demand for branch bank services, but that's of no help to people who aren't mobile or have no liking for modern banking ways. 

Admittedly one can deposit cheques via the Post Office, which now acts as an agency on behalf of some banks, but Post Offices are busy places, often with long queues to be served.  Big banks aren't interested in smaller account holders or serving local interests. Poorer and older people suffer as a result. While new digital banking models are emerging to challenge the market dominated by big institutions, these don't meet local and personal needs. Will a new form of local banking emerge in time I wonder?  

When I got back from town, I slept for over an hour again. One way or another I seem to need that extra hour during the day to feel good. 

In the evening, after supper a fascinating documentary on Sky Arts about the trade in artefacts stolen from an archaeological site in Sicily - a real detective story! Then on BBC2 Wales an intriguing serial story called 'Life after Life', based on a well received novel of the same name. It works with the 'what if' idea of destiny, and portrays alternative outcomes for the main character, and how the lives of those around her are all interconnected.  It takes a while to get used to considering whether you're looking at what might have happened or what actually happened. Odd, but in a way quite entertaining. The portrayal of upper middle class life in the first quarter of the twentieth century is superbly crafted. But, is it of enough interest to watch again next week, or even binge watch the remaining episodes on iPlayer? I'll sleep on it.

Healing progress

I had another good night of sleep in which I only had to get up and go to the toilet once in seven hours. It's such a difference, very much a measure of the continuing healing of the wound in my perineum. I am so grateful for this. This week's Morning Prayer and Reflection link was posted to the Parish WhatsApp at eight, minutes after I woke up, later than usual.

I went to St John's and celebrated the Eucharist with seven others this morning, then returned and cooked lunch in time for Clare's return from her eurythmy session in school. Straight after eating I had to leave on foot to get to Pidgeon's Chapel for a funeral service, after which I was taken to Western Cemetery for the burial. It just started to rain when we arrived there, but with a big funeral director's brolly in hand I didn't get too wet at the graveside.

When I got back I drafted my Sunday sermon before eating an early supper to enable us both to get to choir practice at St Catherine's in time. I really must remember to take a torch next week as I had extra difficulty reading the music, despite the church lights being full on. I just seem to need a lot more light to read printed pages by these days. Then, back home and a couple more 'Crossing Lines' episodes before bed. It's really rather addictive, with a variety of photogenic European locations setting the scene for different and sometimes original stories, even if the use of advanced hi-tech devices and travel time compression risk the plausibility of the tale.

Never a dull moment

Another broken night's sleep, but at least it's less unpleasant now it's warmer. After breakfast, I had a phone call from Pidgeon's about a funeral in two weeks time. It's of the widow of a man whose service I took exactly three years ago. Her memory was failing at that time and she moved away to the South East to be near her daughter. They want her service to be down here, as they lived in Cardiff for thirty years in later life and it's where their friends still are. When I heard the surname, I recalled all the essential detail immediately, much to the funeral arranger's surprise, and mine for that matter.

As I was jotting down the date and time, a lens dropped out of my specs. Yet again, awful design, although it's my fault for taking them off so frequently, when I don't need them. They took me ten minutes to fix, and lateness panic started to set in. I get distressed if I think I'm losing my grip. Kath drove me over to St German't to celebrate their midweek Mass, and despite traffic we arrived on time. 

It's something I agreed to do before I had any idea of the impact of the operation. I didn't want to cancel unless I was incoherent and drained of energy, and as I have been feeling well despite the discomfort, I thought it would be a test of my recovery. I've done this before over the past two years. It's demoralising to have to cancel and it can undermine confidence, if you're afraid you can't do something when you can. All went well. It was good to have an opportunity to celebrate a Corpus Christi Mass in anticipation of tomorrow's feast, even if there were only four of us present. 

Kath waited to take me home, but instead of staying for the service, wandered off down to Ruby Street in Splott, where she spent her first intense year of training to start her higher education Contemporary Dance course in Coventry University. A little trip down Memory Lane for her, and a photo on Instagram of the dance studio, to mark the sentimental journey.

After lunch Kath and Clare went to town on a clothes shopping trip. I stayed home, with my weekly tasks of collecting our food shopping orders, also Friday's funeral and a eulogy to prepare, and a recording for tomorrow's on-line Matins and Reflection. Jan called about a funeral at 'the Res' while she's on leave too. 

Somehow the afternoon slipped by and after an early supper, Kath took her leave, hopefully rested by her four day break. It was so refreshing to have her with us. Finally, I got around to editing what I'd recorded earlier and uploaded it to YouTube, ready for the morning. This took three hours, by far the hardest task of a busy day, as I was getting tired and unable to sit at my workstation without the distraction of discomfort. I needed stand or kneel at my desk, to control the Windows video editing suite properly. I used audio plus some photos as audio markers. I've done it before to my satisfaction. Being unable to sit and record video was enough reason to repeat the exercise. 

I don't know what consumers think of this. There's little by way of feedback apart from the odd 'Thank you'. It'd help to have an evaluation session involving consumers and users of on-line Parish content, not least to find out who find what's thought easy or hard to achieve. I've noticed a recent switch by producers to video delivery via YouTube with a What's App link. I may not have triggered this, but I experimented with this months ago because of my antique phone hassles. Nothing has been said agreeing to this as policy, we just carry on muddling through. 

I ran out of time for evening exercise, and only walked for an hour today. I acknowledge I'm impatient with myself, but having lived so long with this affliction, getting as close to normal as I can does my heart and mind good, better than medicaiton.

A friend in deed

Another damp day, but ten degrees centigrade all day from before dawn until well after sunset, as if the clouds were trapping a large mass of warm air, and there was no wind to shift it. Curious.

I set out in good time to drive to Thornhill for this morning's funeral, but found the car wouldn't start. We have used it so little recently, and simply not left it running outside the house long enough keep the charge level up and prevent the battery from draining. It could have been bump started, but with nobody around and the contagion risk entailed in asking anyone to help, not enough time to connect the battery charger and top it up just enough to get it started, and not enough time to be certain a taxi could come soon enough to get me there on time, and the possible risk of taking a taxi anyway, I started to panic.

I called Pidgeons and explained what had happened, and bless 'em, an empty stretch limo pulled into the street ten minutes later, kitted out with anti-covid screens (a thousand quid a go, said Paul my chauffeur), so I travelled in style and peace to Thornhill and arrived with twenty minutes to spare. Paul is one of Pidgeon's long standing drivers. He used to be an emergency recovery vehicle driver, and sometimes now has to go to crash sites and recover bodies. Unflappable, good humoured, always willing to help. After the service, with his boss's permission, he drove back to Pidgeon's garage, collected his jump leads, drove me home and got the car started in just a few minutes! I hope he enjoyed the thank ou pot of home made marmalade I gave him.

I did most of my walk before lunch, then went out again down to Blackweir later in the afternoon, to see if the onset of rain in the Brecon Beacons, as warned by my weather app, was reaching us yet. It was much the same as normal, but with a rainy night ahead who knows about tomorrow?

I had a long chat on the phone with Ashley in the evening and during our talk, signed off the penultimate set of audited accounts for 2019, the last trading year for CBS. In 2020, the year of covid, there's been almost no account activity. Auditing these accounts will be very simple and the next task will to audit them and wind up the company. Thanks to some very careful stewardship the company will be wound up owing nothing, all bills paid, electronic and other physical assets properly disposed of, if not written off, nothing left in the bank, no directors' payoffs. We always believed this is how a voluntary not-for-profit business should conduct its affairs - honourably.

I said we signed off the audited accounts. In former years each of us signed the paper version, but on this occasion Ashley received an email from our accountants which contained a link to access an online document service where an applet allowed us to append a signature to the correct place in the document and then submit it for printing. A jpeg of Ashley's signature was accepted by the document portal, but not mine. This was one of three options available. If I'd been viewing on a tablet I could have used a pen and given a live signature, but as this wasn't possible, a third option, was to type in the constituents of the forename and surname I use in signing. It shows on the document in a quaint cursive copperplate script! If ever interrogated, about this I can say 'Yes I did this, and it was a surprise to me how it came out! 

All this was done standing up with my Chromebook on a chest of drawers while we talked on the phone. I never had to do anything like that before! Electronic submission to Companies House had already happened by the due date, as law requires if you're registered for Corporation Tax. We didn't owe any as our turnover was well below the threshold. 

Trump had announced his farewell ceremony, boycotting Joe Biden's Presidential inauguration, will take place at Andrews Airbase when he leaves office tomorrow. A twenty one gun salute and a final speech and then off to Florida to live. I guess the world is wondering whether he'll have anything else contentious or inflammatory to say.  

Off-line working, old time style

I had a call this morning about a funeral in ten days time. The next of kin had to fly over from Ireland to make the arrangements as the deceased spouse was in a hospice over here. She was due to arrive at Pidgeon's office at one, so I arranged to go and introduce myself and discuss the service. It would be unthinkable to my mind, just to turn up at the crem with only a brief telephone contact beforehand. As most of the family are Irish Catholic and a few left over here indeterminate Protestant, I was glad to be able to brief them face to face.

On my afternoon walk the much warned of change in the weather started as the sun was going down, a clear blue sky slowly filled with clouds from the west. High winds and rain were expected, but there was no sign of that up to bed-time.

I occupied myself with more negative film scanning. I'm impressed by how stable my Windows Vista machine is, working with the scanner, permanently off-line these days because it doesn't need to be on-line with its outdated insecure browsers and antivirus. It boots into a functional state quicker than any comparable modern machine because it doesn't have to attach to the network, do security scans or software updates. It's still a useful working tool because it does what I need it to do without fail. Isn't that what tools are supposed to be?

 two more packs of photos from Monaco days, and reminders of just how many family and friends came to stay with us while we were there despite the dark days of conflict and rejection I endured in the last three months. The pain of that experience has long dissipated and I look at the photos with measure of detachment. I'd forgotten just how many photographs, film and digital, I took in those days. I guess I was comparatively well paid there and so able to afford to buy film and get it developed. 

Digital photography changed everything for me, even though initial investment in fast evolving cameras was expensive. I used an Olympus Trip travel camera in those days, and it gave excellent results. Digitally scanned negatives are superior in quality to the digital photos I took in those early days,  once they have been edited. I can see why there has been a resurgence of interest in old film cameras and photography. It may be more expensive than it ever used to be, but in some conditions the quality of digitised film delivers desirable results worth the expense and effort.

Communication hiccups

I was coming to the end of Morning Prayer after breakfast when the car arrived at ten to ten, to take me to Thornhill Crem this morning for my second funeral of this week, a 68 year old spinster. There were ten of us in the smaller Briwnant chapel. The brother who was next of kin asked me to choose some music which I willingly did. Then, last night his daughter rang me, anxiously asking if any music had been chosen as he'd forgotten he'd asked me. I reassured her it was taken care of and she seemed pleased about the selection I'd made.

When I arrived, the chapel attendant wasn't there. I checked the schedule sheet on his work station in the cramped side room next to the lobby where the officiating minister can also change and leave a coat. There was no mention of my music choice. I panicked a bit and asked the funeral director if he could find the attendant and sort something out asap. When he arrived, he turned over another sheet of paper, on which was written my special requests. They had been emailed through after all, by my email to the funeral director had not been acknowledged by the office staff. I must give them a gentle reminder about this, to save panicking the guy in charge of the funeral and the minister! Thankfully my choice of music was deemed appropriate and acceptable.

Clare was out for the morning, so I cooked us both lunch, followed by a clinic visit, then a siesta and a walk around Pontcanna Fields before supper. There was a noisy floodlit cricket match on at the SWALEC stadium. Clare returned from choir rehearsal to a late supper and we listened to the Archers on BBC iPlayer, both of us having missed it as we were both out. The choir gives a concert at Insole Court this coming Saturday evening. I should be singing with them, but just don't have that special energy to discipline myself for singing at the moment. That's the draining effect of living with a still open wound. And still no word of an appointment to come. Another case of déjá vu, I'm afraid.

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.

  

Coping with ups and downs

We celebrated Candlemass a day late at St Catherine's yesterday morning, with the blessing of candles. I walked straight to St David's hospital for a wound dressing change afterwards, then a made a quick trip to the shops before returning home for lunch.

After a siesta, we walked out on Llandaff Fields together before Clare turned back to get ready for a visit to Capel Salem for an evening service in Welsh with our friend Diana. I continued walking around Pontcanna Fields for another hour, enjoying the sunset birdsong, and still evening air, milder than the last few days.

After three fairly quiet days of wound comfort, I had a distressful set-back today, just when I needed it least, having to officiate at a big funeral in St John's, mid-morning, and had to cope with pain and discomfort from the start. It came in a seemingly random way. Clare thought it was nervousness on my part but that kind of physical distress coming unexpectedly triggers the familiar shock reaction, when there's impact on the vagus nerve. It's happened far less over the past six weeks, but it's still very disruptive. It made methodical preparation to leave for church rather difficult, but I was outside the house waiting to be picked up, only half an hour early - I'd entered a leaving time in my diary as if I was walking to St John's, not being collected. By the time chauffeur Paul arrived, my pulse rate was back to normal and the sense of panic was receding.

After that, everything proceeded in order, as planned. The church was full, and I had enough energy to guide people through the service in the best way possible, despite ongoing wound discomfort and pain. The funeral concluded at the Vale Crematorium. It's eighteen months since I was there last to attend Auntie Ivy's humanist funeral, and almost three years since I last officiated there.

Rather go on the busy main road to Barry, Paul took an old country road beyond Caerau to reach the crematorium, and on the return trip used a different one via Dinas Powys, rather than queue in traffic. It's no faster, as country lanes make for slow driving but it's much more pleasant. Paul used to work as a recovery truck driver covering South East Wales, so he knows the region's roads in detail, and has many stories to tell about situations he encountered in the course of work. He is one of Pidgeon's long standing employees and quite a character. Like the rest of them, he's utterly reliable.

In the afternoon, I went to the bank, then across to the river, and came back along the Taff Trail, as the sun was setting, walking for over an hour, needing to exercise despite the wound not yet calming down. I spent the evening half watching a crimmie on TV, while relentlessly doing language drills on DuoLingo to distract me from the pain and discomfort.

I can still say honestly that I'm having more good days than bad ones at the moment. I just hope the balance stays like this until the operation.

Funerals present and long past

This morning, I attended the Eucharist at St Catherine's, then returned home and changed, ready to be collected for a funeral service at Pidgeon's Chapel, then the crem. It was well attended, as the deceased had been a member of Canton Liberal Club for over forty years, and worked locally as a painter and decorator. It was an unusual occasion, as immediate family members made comments to me and each other during the service, in quite a participatory way, as they might if they were in the audience at a club stand up comedy event. There was no disrespect intended and it wasn't disruptive, it was just inhibited good humoured participation, as it does naturally in pentecostal churches as well as comedy clubs. It was a refreshing change from the stony passivity of congregations at most conventional funeral services. I think it encouraged me to be more relaxed and spontaneous, in my usual quite formal exercise of ministry among strangers.

When I got home, I started thinking about the router access problem, which has been bugging me for days. There was one thing I hadn't done, which I've had to do several times when attempting to log into wi-fi when first arriving at chaplaincy assignments in Spain and that's take a photo and magnify it to see if I misread anything. Sure enough there was. The ambiguous password letter wasn't zero or big O but Q with a tail printed so tiny it looked like a blemish on the label. Instant success revealing nothing out of order, normal functioning, confirming lousy connectivity. Thank heavens for this much at least.

Yesterday evening and tonight, Channel 5 has treated us to a feast of archaeological discoveries, excavation projects as they are happening this year. It's hosted by actor Tony Robinson who hosted the archaeology programme 'Time Team' for 25 years. He's an enthusiast for what he's presenting, and you're naturally drawn in by his fascination. The photography reveals stunning landscapes in gold green and blue colours, enough to get me pondering about a trip to Egypt. Tony talks straight to camera, and is followed into the most awkward of physical locations. There must be a strong bond of trust and mutual respect between him and his

Tonight's episode was filmed mostly at the Necropolis on the hill above the Nile at Aswan. Previous digs over the past century have uncovered many sites which indicate the grandeur and status of this city of the dead, but so much more is buried under drifting sand after twenty centuries. The site dates back 4,500 years and may contain thousands of tombs, some with grand processional entrances yet to be uncovered. I wonder what sort of ritual and ceremonies were carried out on the day a tomb received its occupant? What's so amazing are burial chamber walls covered with frescoes that have not seen the light of day for three to four thousand years and yet appear fresh and bright as they did on the day the tomb was sealed after burial, if not when it was robbed. I wonder if there'll be any more programmes to follow up, after this outstanding two-parter?

Llys Esgob garden party

Midweek Eucharists again at St Catherine's and St John's again on Wednesday and Thursday. Apart from that, much quiet enjoyment of hot sunny days. I had another bereavement meeting today, at Pidgeon's funeral home, for a service a week today. The deceased had worked as a young mother as a domestic cleaner in Llandaff, for a Mr & Mrs Rees of the Old Registry, I learned from preparing her eulogy. The address seemed like a familiar echo from the past, and so it turned out to be when I rang her daughter daughter to check. 

She told me Mum had worked for the Reverend Geoffrey Rees and his wife Lil, who was Principal of St Michael's College when I was training for ministry there. As a toddler she'd accompanied her mother to work early in the morning, and been taken by Mr Rees across the road and into college for breakfast in the big Refectory with the students "Who spoiled me rotten!" she recalled. This was seven years before my time, but nevertheless a lovely connection with my youth, under the caring eye of a priest and pastor for whom I grew to have the highest regard.

In the afternoon, Clare and I walked to Llandaff for a retired clerics' tea party with Bishop June at Llys Esgob. It was lovely to meet a variety of former colleagues and chat with them in the garden, even if it was occasionally difficult to fit names to faces. Just as we were about to finish, the skies darkened, the temperature dropped and we were treated to a few drops of rain, so we caught the bus back home instead of walking. Well, Clare, with her folding brolly, carried on into town on the bus for a quick piece of shopping, and I returned and cooked supper in time for her return. 

Afterwards I watched another episode of Dicte - Crime Reporter, plus a couple of episodes of a new BBC Wales mystery drama 'Keeping Faith' on iPlayer. Excellent acting with an authentic portrayal of a South Wales family stricken by the husband's sudden disappearance. It's now being screened again on BBC One to critical acclaim. Quite something for two serial dramas made in Wales to be screened in the same season.
  

Rachel's Homecoming

Much of our Monday was spent getting ready for Rachel's arrival tomorrow, although I met with a bereaved family at Pidgeons funeral home in the afternoon, to prepare a funeral service with them for a 94 year old, who'd served on HMS Renown as a teenage carpenter during the World War Two, and met Sir Winston Churchill, who travelled on the battleship to secret meetings with Allied leaders. Like many others, after demobilisation, he was happy to settle down back home, raise a family and stay in the same job for forty years. Many youngsters are far better travelled by the time they are twenty these days, but is their life experience of consumer holidays and educational visits as rich and powerful, leaving them as content with stable ordinary life?

Rachel's flight arrived slightly ahead of schedule enabling her to get the coach she'd booked on with ease, so she got home, joyful but tired in time for lunch. Afterwards she insisted that the first thing she wanted to do was to walk along the Taff and through Bute Park. She much prefers the cooler British climate, compared to an Arizona summer, and misses the extensive summer greenery which we take for granted. It was lovely to see her so happy to be home, even if we are going through what passes for a heat wave (28-30C) here at the moment. I've got used to hot weather this past few years so this level of heat is just about right for me, while others complain about getting in a sweat.

Annoyingly, Rachel's hold luggage didn't arrive with her after a change of flights in Houston, so she needed to borrow from Mum and buy some underwear, but it wasn't too long before she took out her guitar, checked the spare one Anto had brought for her to use last weekend, and was re-tuning them to the special settings she uses for accompanying her songs. Then, out came her Grandpa's beloved 'cello for some improvised duetting with Mum on the piano. Such a domestic delight!

The best made plans ....

Normally I offer a few improvised reflections on scripture at a funeral, but I woke up this morning thinking that I should prepare carefully something to say, aware that the death of a young person is going to bring into church a whole generation of contemporaries, family, friends and acquaintances. So, I spent a couple of hours writing a brief address to fit the occasion. While I was doing this, I received an email with a revised text of the eulogy, which I also needed to print off before leaving for church.

I tested my home Audio/CD player with music from my phone before the church started to fill in, and was pleased that the sound channelled through the radio hand microphone was good quality  and wouldn't let me down. Nobody arrived as promised before the service with a phone containing the required downloads, however. The cortege arrived late, and I had to hunt around among the chief mourners to find out who had the device. 

Eventually, someone handed this over to me, and when I asked who was going to take charge of operating it received no response, as if it was so self evident that there was no need to consider my question. The fact that it was an unfamiliar iPhone, a smaller one, difficult to read, even with reading glasses on, was disconcerting. I plugged it in, prodded what might have been the play button - I had no way  of knowing - and nothing happened. Then I noticed that the phone had been set in flight mode, and clearly my injunction about the necessity of having proper downloaded tracks either not understood, not passed on, or ignored. 

Just at the point of discovering this, the congregation stood up. I looked around to find that the procession of the coffin into church was already inside and ready to proceed. Rather than make a fuss about the lack of music, I led the procession in, and began the service. There was a congregation of four hundred, and half of them were under thirty. In welcoming people, I explained the unfortunate glitch and said that perhaps it was just as well, since a sudden tragic death stuns us all into silence.

The family had invited a gospel singer to give her rendering of 'Amazing Grace' unaccompanied. Familiar, and effective.  I was able to work with the theme of saving grace in relation to both the readings and my prepared homily. Then, I asked the gospel singer for a repeat performance, before beginning the prayers and final farewell. As we got ready for the exit procession, someone stepped up and managed the phone, and started the music stream, a little too late for good effect, however. Despite careful planning, there was an element of mild chaos, as the family's good intentions were overwhelmed by the immediacy of their grief. Funeral directors are much more used to this than I am. Making things right despite everything tending to fall apart is their strong point. Without their calm support I'm not sure how I'd cope.

The congregation was quiet throughout and after we left the church, all seemed absorbed in grief and mutual comfort. Very few people spoke to me outside church, or at the graveside and then only a few words. I'll never know if any of them understood what I was saying to them. There was a huge crowd at Western Cemetery and the leading men took part in 'back-filling' the grave, as it's referred to in funeral jargon. Thank heavens the weather was warm and sunny with little wind. I meant that people could stand around, take their time, come out of their shells a little, before driving off to the wake. I was grateful to return home and fall asleep on the sofa after a late cooked lunch gone cold.

I'd intended to go to a Tai Chi class tonight, but the events of the day robbed me of any energy to do more than watch the final episodes of 'Rough Justice'. It concludes with closure on all the story lines, just leaving one loose end to retain the possibility of a second series, eventually or not, as the case may be.

  

Check up and catch up

I had my six monthly dental check-up this morning. No repair work was needed. I was home in time for Clare to have the car to drive to her dental check-up at the same surgery. We agreed to ask them to re-schedule our appointments ensuite next time, so we can arrive and depart together with just one journey. Unfortunately Clare scratched another parked car while leaving her parking place on the way home. Making contact with the owner isn't going to be easy, but a passing neighbour helped her to make the first move, as the car owner is away at the moment. What a bother! And all due to me arriving home early enough for her to take the car just as she was about to leave to catch the bus! There can be unforeseen consequences behind every action we take.

I was collected and taken to Pidgeon's chapel to officiate at the funeral, and then we went up to Thornhill cemetery for the interment. With nothing else planned for the rest of the day, I decided to do some catch-up watching. I discovered that I could access a series of episodes of NCIS season 14 which I haven't seen on MY5. Being away for three months without being able to watch UK telly means there's a much greater variety of catch-up programmes to choose from. Funnily enough, living without telly, I find other things to occupy myself, and grow less inclined to to spend quite as much time being entertained as I used to.

   

Visitor time

Tuesday afternoon, our friend Saralee arrived from Seattle to stay. Autumn, two years ago, she and her husband Mark came over and we spent a week together in the Llyn peninsula. This week Mark is lecturing in Vienna, and next week, he's at a conference in London, a good enough reason for both to make the trip to Europe. After she'd settled in, we walked around Pontcanna Fields. The village of tents to accommodate surplus visitors for this weekend's UEFA Champion's Cup final continues to grow, and the physical security cordon around the city centre and even across Bute Park speaks volumes about the disruption to come this weekend for pediestrians and car drivers alike. When did citizens ever get to vote on things like this?

Wednesday morning, I slipped away to St German's for a couple of hours to celebrate the weekday Mass for the last time before the interregnum ends. As it's half term, there were no children in church yesterday morning, so I celebrated in the Lady Chapel with half a dozen regulars - quite appropriate as today is the feast of the Visitation of the BVM to Elizabeth. Afterwards, we walked the Taff Trail to Llandaff Cathedral and had lunch in a cafe in the village. It's always a pleasure to take visitors there, and share the experience of a place which has so much meaning for me, from teenage years through to ordination and beyond. 

Thursday morning, I walked to St John's to celebrate the Eucharist for half a dozen people. Clare took Saralee to Dyffryn Gardens after lunch. I walked to Llandaff North for a dental check up, and returned home with an unexpected new filling, having met Pavel the newest member of the practice dental team. As I stood at the bus stop opposite the surgery, I was surprised to be hailed by Paul, the driver of one of Pidgeon's funeral limos, on his return trip from the cremation ceremony for ex-First Minister Rhodri Morgan, whose public funeral was held yesterday at the Senedd in Cardiff Bay. AS he was on his way back to the funeral home at the top end of the Parish, he gave me a lift to Canton Cross, enabling me to go straight into the city centre from there to meet Ashley for an update on all the security preparations for the weekend's big game. As ever, it seems that information distribution is patchy and not all those recruited to keep the city centre safe and secure are adequately briefed. Sadly, that's nothing new.
   

  

Funeral contrast

The car arriving to take me to St Dyfrig and St Samson's for today's funeral arrived a little earlier than anticipated, just as I was about to sit down to lunch, so I abandoned the idea of eating, remembering the unexpected delays of yesterday's rendezvous, and was taken to the church with twenty minutes to spare and time to familiarise myself with the place and the way of carrying out the service. 

Only then did I realise that I'd walked out of the house in haste, and hadn't picked up the bag containing the photo and CD for the service. The funeral director was relaxed about my little crisis, and told me not to worry. Their driver took me back home at quite legal speeds all the way and competed the round trip in eighteen minutes. Very impressive road-craft, and to my surprise, the average journey time was exactly what Google Maps said it would be, when I was searching for the required address.

In total contrast to yesterday's service, there were half a dozen mourners, two church members and the funeral team present. Just two of the six children of the deceased attended, the family had broken up a long time ago, and lost touch. It's not infrequent in modern urban society that individuals who are aged and sick all but disappear from the society in which they lived and worked. It's understandable when people move around a great deal, and much sadder when their lives are spent in the same Parish where they were born and lived. The sun pushed back the clouds a little as we journeyed to Western Cemetery for the burial. I don't imagine there'll be many visitors to this man's grave in times to come.

After catching up on lunch, I relaxed and caught up on lost sleep - I've been going to bed too late quite lot recently and am no good on less than seven hours. Then I took the bus to town and walked to St German's again for the Mass of the day. Tonight, instead of a dozen there were four of us. It's not the first time in my experience that this Tuesday Holy Week evening service is poorly attended, and I've never figured out why. I preached ad extempore again and enjoyed doing so. 

There's just so much wealth of themes and issues to draw upon, the challenge is not to go on for too long. It doesn't help when the RCL (Revised Common Lectionary) Holy Week readings aren't identical each night this week as the ones in the Roman Catholic Weekday Lectionary, which I have used since 1975, when I was given a copy as a leaving present by the congregation of St Michael's Bartley Green in Birmingham, where I helped out during my free time as Chaplain in Birmingham University. For the most part the readings in the two lectionaries are almost identical. But every now and then, I get taken by surprise if I didn't checked in advance. At least today, I found out before I got to church!

     

Nightmares revisted

Another day of respite from rain, allowing me to walk down to St John's Canton and celebrate their mid week Eucharist with eight regulars. Then, after lunch, I was picked up and taken by car to Pidgeon's chapel for a funeral service. As the chief mourner was entering, I discovered that the person meant to be giving the eulogy had backed out. This really threw me into a minor panic, as I'd gleaned no more than an outline of the deceased's life in a rather reticent conversation at the meeting I'd had earlier in the week, so I was relying on someone else to tell his story.

It took me a few moments at the start of the service to get a grip on myself. I stumbled over the surname, having opened my service text at the first prayer, not at the title page. Even with forty plus years of experience of leading public worship behind me, I can still be tipped off balance. The sudden feeling of no longer being in full control is quite distressing and reminds me of the occasional nightmares I've had about leading worship throughout my ministry.

After the crematorium service, rather than go home, I was taken back into town and dropped off outside the Motorpoint Arena, so that I could spend an hour in the office before walking over to St German's to take a rehearsal for tomorrow's wedding. This will be the first full wedding at which I've officiated in five years. In many parishes nowadays, church weddings are few and far between, and as long as there is a Vicar, a retired priest rarely gets called upon to offer this service.

Wedding blessings in Spain are different, the marriage must be registered in a civil ceremony before the celebration to qualify. A church wedding in a British parish requires the officiating priest to act as registrar. I'm always a bit nervous until a ceremony starts and everyone stops fussing and relaxes. Then I can relax and enjoy doing what I love to do. But, filling in the registers beforehand was something I hated about weddings, as doing it consistently, with three copies of the register entry to write, made me tense and more error prone. Another of my professional nightmares.
       

High winds

A request from Fr Mark arrived over the weekend to take the funeral of a parishioner next Thursday. This morning, I made contact with the deceased's partner and arranged a meeting to discuss the service. It wasn't convenient to make a house visit, so funeral directors Pidgeon's kindly gave us a room to meet in at their place. 

I walked there as I had a couple of tasks to do on the way. It was raining and the wind was gusting sharply on times. It's odd to be hit by a sudden gust as you're walking, which blows just your leg off course in mid stride, without buffeting your whole body, and nearly causes you to trip. Spiro, the hairdresser, was standing in the road opposite his salon, watching a couple of roofers replacing tiles that had been ripped off the roof earlier. "They weren't keen to come out," he said, "but I insisted. With this wind I could lose the whole roof in a couple of hours."

Later, I braved the wind again and went to the CBS office to re-establish the spare computer for myself in the vacant workspace, and generate an invoice for a new RadioNet subscriber. Jobs done, I headed for the comfort of home, and an evening working on material for my daily Lenten blog on prayer, which I'll start tomorrow with an introductory posting. 

 

Providing for rites of passage

At the end of the morning, I was collected and taken to Thornhill Crematorium to officiate at a funeral - my seventh in the Easter season. The fact that I've been asked to do this so often says a great deal about the diminishing availability of overburdened parish clergy for duties of this kind. What troubles me greatly is that churches seem to be making no effort to address the issue. 

Whether it's social convention being maintained by funeral companies, or a genuine desire on the part of bereaved families to call upon the pastoral services of a minister of religion to officiate at a funeral doesn't matter. One way or another, a need remains for families and communities to make their farewells to someone who has died with an appropriate rite of passage. Even if the majority have little connection with organised religion, it's a religious celebrant who's entrusted to occupy the role in most cases. It's not a role requiring a priest to perform. Any lay person can fulfill the role, if they are entrusted to act by the bereaved family with the support of funeral companies. Some Parishes and congregations make use of their lay preachers, though there are never enough personnel available in times of need. 

What needs to be developed hereabouts is a specialised lay ministry like the French Catholic church has created in the past quarter century. Pastorally gifted people are trained in bereavement counselling, and in the arranging and performance of funeral liturgies. As the number of active clergy in France is a small fraction of what it needs to be to meet the pastoral needs of even a minority church in a secular state, a lay ministry of this kind is a key element of the church's continuing missionary engagement in society. France makes a lot of ideological noise about being a secular state, but functionally speaking, Britain is no less un-religious. Yet, religious rites of passage, for better or worse, still occupy a significant social  role in our way of life. So why not put some effort into sharing the pastoral burden by training those who are willing to take on this role?

 

Wet Ascension Day

A bright start to this great day, but colder, and then clouds and rain to dampen the festive mood. I had intended to go to the Eucharist in the Parish at St John's Canton, but lost track of time when I was writing emails leaving it to late to arrive there, so I cycled to the Cathedral instead as it had a service half an hour later. About twenty people were in the congregation including three fellow clerics. One of them drew me into conversation as I was about to leave, as a funeral request for them had been re-directed to me. I got the impression from tight lipped sotto voce conversation not quite in my presence that it's not a happy place at the moment, despite recently welcoming a new Dean. But for as long as I can recall, there's always been someone having a moan about something not approved of in the mother church of the diocese. It's not immune from the voices of disaffection that are endemic in the wider church today.

Meanwhile, back to business. Pidgeon's funeral car collected me at lunchtime for a service in their chapel. I met their new funeral Manager John Cammell. He's putting on a reception to meet the city's clergy in a few weeks from now. Pity I can't go, as it's on a Chi Gung evening. I learned that their other new recruit, Luke the EasyJet driver was off work already with a broken foot from playing football one evening after work. The chapel was full with a few standing at the back. It was raining and windy when we finished and hardly let up for the journey to the new part of Western cemetery, for the brief damp committal ceremony.

After a brief cup of tea back at home, I headed out in the rain and the evening traffic to the Legacy International Hotel on the edge of Tongwynlais, to meet up with Philippe Chambeyron and two of his daughters arriving from Geneva, mother-in-law Barbara and sister-in-law Debbie arriving from West Yorkshire for tomorrow's funeral. I arrived just ahead of them, and it was then just a matter of double checking all the arrangements and preparations for Ivor's funeral tomorrow at St Mary's Whitchurch.

I was back home in time to eat supper, then drove Clare to her group meeting before going on my Tai Chi class. A welcome work-out after none too cheery day.