Moving better

Another pleasant day and several hours of working on helping my painful back muscles to recover with gentle exercises and walking around the house. I worked on my draft of next Sunday's sermon, got ready for printing the final version of tomorrow's homily at the Eucharist, and started thinking about the Palm Sunday services to arrange, the week after next.

In the afternoon, I walked down to Los Boliches, called Clare again from the church office, walked along the Paseo Maritime, and shopped for more groceries at Mercadona on my way back up the hill. After supper I drafted another homily for next Wednesday, as it became easier to sit for longer without much discomfort. As long as I pay careful attention to posture the painful stiffness in my back slowly recedes. 

I'm grateful for what years of learning ChiGung and TaiChi taught me in order to cope with this. I'm glad that Clare's recent introduction to a short sequence of ChiGung exercises to help her cope with back pain has led her to interest in a regular class, so I've written to Christe my old teacher to enquire if we can join a class in Penarth when we return from here.

A two Mass Wednesday

How nice, a Bank Holiday Monday, with nothing to do apart from a walk around Pontcanna Fields, and look for the Mallard family out and about on the Taff. Even better, another two Mallard families were to be seen out on the river. Apart from this, an unremarkable day.

Nothing to say about Tuesday either, except I made the effort to get to this week's Tai Chi class, despite having done little apart from occasional Chi Gung during the past few weeks, while nursing a shoulder complaining of mis-treatment after sleeping awkwardly. I came away feeling guilty of indolence, failing to memorise moves that I already knew.

Today's midweek Mass at St German's was in the quietness of the Lady Chapel. A late night email from Emma, head teacher of Tredegarville, advised us that the children were doing their SATS tests all day, so we contented ourselves with praying for kids, abused by governmental obsession with academic performance, manipulating the anxieties of parents as well as children into thinking that such results really matter in relation to eternity, let alone eventual adulthood. 

Before the world gets to be run by artificial intelligence, children get to be turned into organic robots by an education system which puts faith in achieving performance above the development of the gifts of the whole person. It's awful that dedicated teachers are no longer trusted to educate children without this horrible intrusion, which so distorts the formative process, and doesn't readily enable children to develop in their own way and at their own pace. We'll be sorry in the long run.

After the Mass, I stayed in the hall long enough to drink a cup of coffee, then walked into the city centre to celebrate the Eucharist for a dozen worshippers a second time at St John's city Parish Church, at the request of Vicar, Sarah Rowland Jones, who's away this week, as is Rhian her part time curate. There were several in the congregation who were there when I was Vicar. It's always a pleasure to worship with them again. It was also a delight to meet Randa, a Lebanese Maronite Christian, who assisted at the altar. She came and made her home here in Cardiff as a refugee many years ago, and eventually she found St John's. 

I met another Sarah too, an asylum seeker belonging to the Church of Pakistan, part of the Anglican Communion, who'd fled Pashawar because of hostility towards Christians there, and the indifference of the the state towards the implementation of its own secular constitution. It gave me such pleasure to find the church which gave so much to me in my eight years there as Vicar, still fulfilling its vocation as a community and a sacred place where all the world is warmly welcomed.

Before returning to St German's to get the car and drive home, I had lunch with Norma in the church tearoom, looking bright and spruce, and now returned to being run by a rota of church volunteers after a break of several years. I'm tempted to offer my services again as table clearer and dish washer, to help rebuild the volunteer team! 

New moves

I slept well, and inevitably ached a little after seven hours sitting on a coach, and my surprise jog from train to bus station yesterday. After lunch, I took Clare to her opthalmology appointment at the Heath hospital, then walked around Pontcanna Fields to exercise stiff legs for an hour, before cooking supper early, so I could eat before Tai Chi class. During the walk, I collected twenty pieces of litter, which made up for yesterday, when I only picked up three piece on my way to and from the coach station.

We worked on some familiar moves during the session, as part of learning a twenty four step sequence of Tai Chi form, an abridged version of the Short Form. The class has been working on this for a few months. Even though I knew most of the individual moves, the differences in order made it quite challenging trying to observe and follow. Learning this will help keep my wits sharp, for sure.

  

Saturday a workshop and a financial drama

I drove to Penarth this morning for a morning's Tai Chi workshop for regular class members in Albert Road church hall. It was a refreshing and stimulating session, and good to meet with several long standing Tai Chi players whom I've got to know over the fifteen years I've been attending Christie's classes. Clare met me afterwards and we walked up to Penarth Head, then down to the pier to have coffee and sandwiches for an al fresco lunch before walking for a while on the beach and then back to where the car was parked. The sun shone and there was cool fresh breeze, a most enjoyable couple of hours after the workshop. I picked up fourteen items of rubbish, mostly from the beach, in the course of the day.

We were surprised at how relatively few people were out walking the promenade or on the beach or the pier given the fine weather. Clare wanted to call at IKEA in Grangetown to buy some curtain material on the way home. When we arrived the IKEA car park was almost completely full, suggesting that the store would be just as full with crowds of weekend shoppers, so we drove out again without stopping and returned for tea. We were out of buns, cakes and biscuits, so I walked to the Coop and bought some hot cross buns. By the time I returned, Clare had made some spicy bun dough and was preparing hot cross buns of her own for next time. Always better than shop bought ones, if you have time to make them.

The last two episodes of 'Follow the Money' were screened on BBC Four in the evening, in which all was satisfactorily resolved and a major financial crisis involving the catastrophic devaluation of the Danish Kroner was averted by our investigative hero doing a secret deal with a powerful British financial 'robber baron'. The baddies got their come-uppance, the selfish and foolishly ambitious were chastened, and survivors returned to family life grateful for a break from all the nastiness. A happy ending, sort of, with just enough key characters making it to the end to make possible a  third series, maybe. 

In one scene, financial crisis was precipitated by speculators betting on a devaluation of the Kroner, which the very powerful had deemed to be over-valued, and used a series of corrupt and illegal initiatives to bring about their aim of profiting from this movement. I found the words "The Kroner is over-valued" chilling, as it mirrored opinions voiced in the media by leading British financiers about the pound in the wake of the brexit vote. It makes me wonder to what extend this kind of strategic financial corruption may have been a driving force in getting euro-skeptics and their media backers to mount an anti-EU campaign riddled with lies and fake news. Anyway, this was well crafted and worth watching throughout, and was good in how it conveyed the human impact of financial crisis on the micro as well as macro level.

    

O unhappy day

At lunchtime yesterday I walked to our GP surgery to acquire a blood pressure monitoring device to wear for the next twenty four hours, so that a better idea can be obtained of the apparent fluctuations in my blood pressure through the day. As long as the doctors express concern, I have to go along with this, though it's hard to see how this can be changed. I've lived well enough with this without my life being impaired for a long time. I accept that ageing means slowing down, and limitations on what's possible to consider doing in life. Yet there's still an enormous amount I can do, as long as I sleep well and eat enough and no more than my body needs, and I'm grateful for that.

Ceri, the Practice Nurse initialised the device, fitted the sensory cuff to my upper left arm. There's a digital monitor connected to a pump that drives the sphyngmomanometer, and it's got flash storage to harvest readings at given periods of time during the monitoring exercise. It's about the size and shape of a 200 gram tub of butter, and is packed into holster with an adjustable shoulder strap. Once kitted out the challenge is getting one's clothes back on tidily without disconnecting the the tube joining the components. I decided not to examine it and see what information it could display, and just wear it for twenty four hours. 

Before taking a reading, the device inflates slightly as a one minute warning to get ready, meaning sit down or stand still while the device is working. No sooner had I walked out the surgery than it let me know its intention. The best I could do was stand still. I stopped until it finished, then walked on. But within a minute, a repeat performance. Within another couple of minutes, another repetition. To me it suggested a read failure. Once I was settled at home, writing, it started again, and fell into a rhythm of twenty minutes between readings. 

I felt there was every reason why I should have a normally active day, and not just sit around waiting for the device to take a reading, so I decided to re-start Tai Chi classes. It would be a good test of the stability of my dodgy knee. There were more presumed read errors walking there and back, although I stopped each time I got the signal. During the class it went off twice at the prescribed time, and I just stood still, always easy to do in class, and it seemed to work as prescribed.

I think the device was programmed for a longer timing sequence when I went to bed, as I only recall it taking readings as I was falling asleep, and at first light. There may have been more, but after a marvellous class, starting to learn a new sequence of Tai Chi movements, I was very relaxed and slept well. It didn't seem to be active during breakfast, perhaps it was still programmed for night sequence. I noticed its clock was still set at GMT rather than Summer Time. When I started driving across town to St German's for the week's 'class mass', it started working again, with the same pattern of presumed read errors, and this continued during Mass as well.

After the service I went to check on the office PC, still downloading and installing a year's worth of updates at a stupidly slow pace. If this continues, I'll just take the thing home and update it where I can make sure it doesn't keep choking on the process. I took my jacket off while I worked and in the hour that followed noticed that the device resumed working normally. That was how I discovered that the cuff doesn't like any kind of coverage. The sleeves aren't tight by any means, but basically the device won't work underneath anything except the lightest clothing, which implies that it's usage is going to be restricted to quiet stable environments, unlike real world conditions. At home or in a hospital ward, it's going to be fine, but taking readings from a normally active no sedentary daily life, is another matter altogether. Ah well, now I know. I wrote a note to my GP about this and sent it with the device when I returned it to the surgery.

I walked to Chapter Arts Centre before supper to collect this week's organic veg order, and collected thirteen pieces of street litter on my way there and back, most of them flattened discarded cans from the gutter, including four Carling lager cans strung out along the street where they'd most probably been drunk in between purchase and home. And so many energy drink cans too. As if imbibing their content impairs the awareness of the consumer of the proximity of litter bins, or of any conscience about fouling the environment. A dozen pieces yesterday and Monday as well, while out walking. It's hard not to feel angry about such greedy self-centred carelessness.

Today the formal notification of the UK's intention to quit the EU was delivered. I've listened to the minimum amount of news as the endless reportage on the matter is like having sandpaper rubbed endlessly on the skin. I am angry, frustrated, powerless at the electorate being conned by lies and phobic propaganda from the mass media and the politicians. Around three million expats refused a referendum vote and a matter of high concern for them as UK citizens abroad, and a referendum vote on a simplistic majority rather than a two thirds majority, as is common in other European countries. 

Even the Church in Wales has a two thirds rule for electing a Bishop. The process failed to deliver in Llandaff diocese, and the Bench of Bishops has made a mess of using its executive powers leading to the whole process now being subject to legal scrutiny. Falling just short of the two thirds majority could have been read by the Bishops, if they couldn't agree on an appointment, as a sign of the need to re-convene an Electoral College and let them try again. Or even not appoint until the Electoral College can agree. It may come to a re-run of the Electoral College anyway in the end. If it does, it won't be without rancour and bitterness en route. 

Narrow simple majority voting is like a statistical game of chance, and the margin in either direction can fluctuate, for all sorts of reasons unconnected with the purpose of the vote. When there's a clear consensus speedily reached, it's reason for rejoicing. But life isn't always so simple, so reaching a consensual position in any kind of decision making may take more time and be inconvenient, but it does causes people to think further, to be more aware of a breadth of issues and consequences which may be obscured by fears or ambitions at the the start. 

Changing habits

A quiet uneventful start to the week, with a few hours in the office on Monday, but not on today. When I don't have anything much to do, I idle the evenings away watching missed programmes on TV catch up. Increasingly, I use the Nexus tablet, which is the slickest and most convenient portable device after the Chromebook. I have two Windows 10 machines, for work and personal purposes, but find I'm using these less and less. 

Only when I need to work using specific software employed by our office system, is it worth retreating to the workstation in my study upstairs. More often than not, I can examine and retrieve files from MS OneDrive for sending, on one of the Google devices or even my Blackberry wherever I am in the house. I was delighted, when I was in Spain to be able to access our business banking site, retrieve and file a statement on OneDrive from the Blackberry, so good is the connectivity it provides.

This evening I went to the Chi Gung class, but didn't stay for Tai Chi, as I didn't feel that I had the right level of energy and concentration for two sessions - something to do with lack of sleep. I can get by on six hours but function so much better with eight or nine hours. I suspect I spend too much time on line, reading, writing or editing photos. Too much time spent in the head can disconnect you from the body. In Spain I five or six miles a day, but here a couple of miles is more normal and that's not nearly enough to keep me rooted in my body. It's something I'm more aware of the need for as I get older, but I'm not really doing enough to change my habitual lifestyle, so I only have myself to blame.

Unexpected call of duty

A special Saturday morning treat today, a three hour TaiChi / ChiGung workshop in Penarth's Albert Road Methodist church hall, where I used to attend regular Thursday evening classes. The best thing of all was that Clare came to join me, first time ever. There were two dozen of us present, from all the different classes Christie runs so it was good to meet with some people I haven't seen for a year or so. Despite initial apprehension, Clare enjoyed the experience, so I'm hoping it won't be for the last time.

We had lunch afterwards in a Windsor Road arcade restaurant we hadn't visited before, with quite a diverse menu, and on our way home, we visited several home and garden stores to consider furniture for our recently paved back yard area, but found nothing suitable.

Later I had a call from our Area Dean Bob Capper asking if I could help out with some extra services, as Fr David Morris, priest in charge of Grangetown, has to take leave due to a sudden bereavement. It is further complicated by the fact that he has been managing the interregnum at St Mary's Butetown. So, I have taken on three additional funerals in the next ten days or so. As the first two are Monday and Tuesday, I will have to fit in home visits to make myself known and explain why I've come. It's nothing that I can't manage, even if this is the busiest time of year. I can console myself that I'm not having to prepare for annual meetings and reports or PCC elections, and just concentrate on caring for grieving people, against the backdrop of Holy Week services.

A new Danish crime drama began tonight on BBC Four, called 'Follow the Money', and although it begins with a detective investigating an accidental death on a wind-farm, it soon turns into a far bigger story about exploitation of migrant labour, corporate fraud and corruption in public life. It's promising to be another attention grabber.

On line government admin

Monday was a quiet uneventful day, spent doing CBS office work at home. I also went on-line to renew my European Health Insurance Card (aka EHIC), and while the NHS website was accessible enough, I ran into trouble straight away. Using the email address EHIC staff used to notify me that me card was on the way five years ago, I put in a lost password request, and found that my email address wasn't recognised. I tried registering from scratch, again the email wasn't recognised, and the error message thrown up stated categorically that it wasn't a valid email address format.

Just as I was starting to get really grumpy out loud, one of fortnightly home cleaners said "I had that trouble too renewing my Dad's EHIC recently, but they did it over the phone for me, automatically." Finding the number on the website was no trouble. I was put through to a robotic answering device, the kind that normally makes me even grumpier, but this was quite exceptional! The clarity of the procedures and the accuracy of the voice recognition software astonished me, and within minutes I was promised delivery of a new card within seven days. If only the website promoted this as the only sensible and efficient alternative, instead of leaving a less than functional registration page in place.

My day was otherwise notable for finally getting around to emailing golden wedding anniversary invites with 'how to get there' maps for a couple of dozen people, near and far, that we know are coming. There should be around forty of us on August 6th.

Today I had to go into the CBS office, and register a new internet banking facility to manage the BCRP Board finances, since a bank card and a new security device had arrived and needed to be registered for account use. There were charges to pay in relation to the Crime Manager's salary, tax and National Insurance. I was dreading it, but delighted as I discovered how user friendly the HMRC web payment facilities are, and the job was quickly done.

I also needed to do some leaflet design using an ancient copy of MS Publisher, which I don't have installed conveniently at home at the moment. As we're now using some additional types of radio handset equipment, user guides need re-writing to accompany them. It is far less rare that I have recourse to this kind of work nowadays, and it takes longer than usual to remember how to make use of some of the available features. As a result I left the office for my double Chi Gung / Tai Chi class later than intended and was twenty minutes late entering the session, annoyed with myself for not baling out earlier and leaving the job unfinished.

   

St David's day login crisis

On this St David's Day, I was invited to address a Mothers' Union branch meeting at St Martin's Roath and spoke about the role of women in the life of the church down the ages. The preparation for this took quite a while, partly because of the need to edit the text down to a sensible length, as I found there was plenty to write about, even at the superficial level of a historical overview. Eleven women were present and expressed appreciation for my effort afterwards over a cup of tea, and gave me one of their MU branch centenary souvenir mugs as a present.

One of those attending was Cecily, the widow of Archbishop Derrick Childs, welcomed me back into the Church in Wales as USPG Area Secretary. She is now in her nineties. and although frail, is still alert and interested. She found a certain notoriety as Archbishop's wife, due to the resemblance between her and Margaret Thatcher, in both looks and bearing. For this reason, thirty years on, she is still readily recognisable.

After the meeting, I went to the office for an hour, and installed the mug as a desktop pen container, as it's more of a decorative piece than a congenial drinking vessel. There was just one job to do, and the reason for it started early this morning, when I was alerted by email notification of a password change on the office email account.

When I checked with Ashley, it turned out that he'd started to have trouble with his brand new Samsung S6 login, and had changed the password, thinking that this was only to do with his phone, when it had a system wide impact. Whilst a password change was due, it was doubly inadvertant that in the confusion of the phone not responding as expected, he'd altered the password to one used for another account.

Anyway, we agreed a further password change, and then I set about implementing this on the devices with memorised passwords at home which I use to check email - two phones, two tablets and two computers, each with Chrome and Firefox on them. Eight changes in all. Then I had to make sure that office machine memorised passwords were also updated, to head off a panic in case there were log in issues when Ashley and I were out of reach.

Mission accomplished I headed home to get ready for my double class of Chi Gung and Tai Chi. How nice to be travelling homewards before the sun has set! It's still wintry cold, but the brighter evenings make all the difference to morale.
   

The other Figaro opera

After my Monday afternoon walk, I was less stiff and tired than I thought I might be, but nevertheless was glad not to have much to do before walking to Tuesday evening's Chi Gung and Tai Chi double class in St Mary's Church Hall. Today, by contrast, was busy with the St German's midweek school Mass, then the Ignatian meditation group at noon, followed by a funeral at Pidgeon's Chapel straight after, just down the road from where we were meeting.

Then in the evening, we went to the Millennium Centre for the Welsh National Opera's performance of Mozart's 'Marriage of Figaro', definitely one of our favourite operas. I thought I'd be disappointed that it wasn't sung in Italian, but this particular English free rendering of the original is very good and gives added value to the comedy element, such that people laughed aloud more than they normally might. 

At the climax of the final scene, in a thoughtful and moving moment, the Contessa with a philandering husband, declares she has pardoned him, and speaks of forgiveness as calming troubled hearts. She who is most persistently betrayed. Just right for an evening in Lent, as thoughts turn to Christ's passion. Superb singing throughout. We came away feeling joyous and enlivened in spirit.

In the foyer beforehand we bumped into Peter and Mary Barnet fitting in a night at the opera in between a West Country visit and returning to their home in the Gower. Peter succeeded me as Team Rector of St Paul's in Bristol back in the eighties, and we've met up occasionally over the years since then. We also bumped into Bob and Mary Hardy, St John's bell ringers, attending an event in the concert hall. We've bumped into them at Dyffryn Gardens on a couple of occasions. Finally, we bumped into Dafydd Elis-Tomas in the interval. We usually meet each other walking to the Llandaff Fields bus stop, as their house is in a neighbouring street to ours. Sometimes we don't see a soul we know on our Millennium Centre visits for the opera. Tonight was a happy exception.

We decided not to book for the third in this season's trilogy of operas focusing on the character of Figaro, entitled 'Figaro gets a divorce', it's hard to imagine how something with such a depressingly post-modern theme could deliver delight in the way that Rossini and Mozart's offerings do. Just a bit too contrived a theme concept to my mind. There, exposing my age and my values. 

  

Shrove Tuesday

The sun appeared through the clouds periodically this morning, the wind and rain was a much lighter than it has been for several days. Clare cooked a lentil dish for lunch, followed by traditional pancakes spread with Nutella for dessert. I finally left the house to attend my double session of Chi Gung and Tai Chi, back to back. Both classes were unusually poorly attended. I wondered if days of bad weather was deterring people from venturing out.

This morning the Lent blog went live with the first scheduled posting at 10.00. I'll schedule this time for each day's posting, to provide an element of consistency and rhythm. Even at the planning phase, I'm finding the exercise making clearer to me things about my own spiritual journey. I hope I can sustain my interest right through. Without that I cannot expect to interest others in what I want to say. You can find and read the Lent blog here.

More on connectivity

Monday afternoon, I went into town, and hunted for a new office PC, in John Lewis and PC world, but didn't find what I was looking for. All in One HP desktops with touch screens are now retail flavour of the month. We don't need the touch interface for work purposes. An hour in the office re-examining the Cloud file sync problem, revealed that as long as you log in with proper MS Account details every time rather than an alias username and password, there's no problem. When Windows Update requires a system re-start, logging in with an alias won't deliver synchronisation. There's no warning. Get into the habit of accessing using an alias, your files get saved on your machine and local network, but not in the Cloud. It's obvious, but not obvious. There are so many useless bells and whistles to annoy Windows users, but a helpfully placed notification here would lower resentment and blood pressure levels.

Tuesday, I was going to extend my hunt for a new office PC, but as I was about to leave, Mary, our neighbour came over and asked if I could come and check her PC, as something was stopping her from accessing her emails, and she thought she'd done something wrong. She has an old slowish XP machine and was exercise by the thought of having inadvertently disconnected it from the router, but wasn't sure how to check this. Physically it was fine. The error messages were all of the 'network not found' type, and compounded by a confusing browser install of AVG 'Safe Search', which detracted from the simple browser set up she was used to. The problem didn't show immediately until I re-booted the router. No broadband. After Clare joined us for a cup of tea, the red light on the router had turned blue again, and all was back to normal. Back at home, I learned about an inexplicable spate of BT broadband outages across the country during the day. Not linked to any cyber attack. Is the weather, sunspots or what?

Earlier in the day I spent a couple of hours thinking about doing another daily Lenten blog. Last year's was quite demanding to sustain but worth the bible study and mental exercise it entailed. This time, I'd like to write about the venture of prayer, especially bearing in mind that I'm currently working with a newly baptized Christian convert. He is coming to Lenten activity afresh, a first time experience, both of prayer and participation in Liturgy. I have to keep Hamid in mind as I write, even if his English is far from adequate to understand what I write. On a one to one basis ideas can be communicated more simply than they can in writing.

I enjoyed my double class of Chi Gung and Tai Chi this evening, and wasn't nearly as tired at the end of it. So much so, that I set up a new blog page and wrote for an hour, in readiness for the weeks to come.
     

Back to Tai Chi

More rain today, and a morning visit to the Dentists' in Llandaff North for a check-up. Clare needed the car to go to her study group. Not trusting the timetable, I left in good time, and arrived at the bus stop as one was pulling away, but the driver stopped and let me get on so I arrived over half an hour early. To while away the time with a cuppa I walked to a nearby cafe. Afterwards, I waited a quarter of an hour in the rain at the bus stop opposite the surgery, but arrived at home, the same time as Clare. We cooked lunch and ate together, as both of us were going to be out at supper time.

Having accepted invitations to speak at two different Mothers' Union branch meetings in the coming months, I spent the afternoon working on something to say to them, though not necessarily the same to both, as the branches are in quite different social settings with different issues to address. Then, for the first time since my return to classes, I attended my regular Chi Gung class, and then the Tai Chi class which follows. It's back to basics for me, and I was pleased to find my memory of the opening moves of the short form hadn't forsaken me, although as ever it'll need working on. There's always something to learn through executing even the most familiar of moves, not just about technique, but about your own state of mind.

By the time I'd walked home after the classes, my trousers were soaked through, and I ended the evening watching 'Silent Witness' on iPlayer wearing a dressing gown. I felt a bit decadent not bothering to change properly after a couple of hours work-out. I think I shall ache a bit tomorrow. All that concentration tires the muscles unaccustomed to the extra demand. 

   

Change of pattern

Chi Gung classes re-started Tuesday evening. I was delighted to hear that there was going to be a Tai Chi class afterwards from now on. Since Clare's Thursday evening study circle stopped, I've given up going to the Thursday Tai Chi class in Penarth. After a long break, the chance to re-start learning the Short Form on the same evening is most welcome. It'll be fairly tiring, to do one class after another, but that's an incentive to take it easy during the day, in preparation. I can still remember most of the Short Form, and this'll be my third time to start again, but I'm happy with this. There is such a depth to the postures and the movement in any Tai Chi form, that there's endless room for perfection of the art, and for self-discovery through the learning process.

I couldn't stop for the second class this week, as Clare and I had decided to eat at Stefano's restuarant after the first class, rather than cook hurriedly on her return from choir and mine from Chi Gung, as we usually do. Clare had swordfish, and I had a huge plate of lasagne, more than I needed for an evening meal. If only it was really convenient for both of us to eat our main meal in the middle of the day. Our eating habits remain much the same as they were when the children were young and returning home for a main meal after school. Now, although we're not in employment, we're both busy in the middle of the day, and don't always overlap in eating lunch together. In some ways, retirement life patterns are more varied that the ones we had when both of us were in a work routine.

   

Meditation pleasure

A special treat this morning, in the form of a meditation workshop with other members of the Rising Phoenix Tai Chi Group in the Albert Road Methodist Church community hall in Penarth, where I used to attend Thursday evening Tai Chi sessions. We did some Chi Gung warm up exercises and then three guided 'sitting' sessions, with a group 'sticking' exercise before the final sitting. It's a good space in which to move about and to be completely still, with just occasional background sounds from the wind and rain outside, and a drama group rehearsal in a basement hall below. Nothing that could distract us from the work of silence in hand. I love group meditation in every shape and form. Next Wednesday, by way of contrast, we will be hosting the Ignatian Meditation group session at home, and that too will be refreshing to the spirit.

After lunch I walked into town along the riverside, more for the exercise than anything else. There was nothing really that I set out to purchase. It was very busy and I soon got bored and headed for home. The sounds of Mozart operatic themes have been in my head a lot recently, and in the evening, I found a full performance of 'The Marriage of Figaro' recorded in the opera house at Florence, on YouTube, and listened to it while I worked on a sermon, and pottered about further with OneNote to see if I could adapt it for my purposes. Then another couple of episodes of the long drawn out crime saga which is 'The Bridge III', bizarre bordering on the bewildering. It mostly seems to be set in semi darkness, and I keep on wondering how many more hard to decode twists and turns must be endured before the baddies are defeated, whoever they are. A 'penny dreadful' type tale doesn't really make our kind of winter darkness any more endurable.

Lately I've been reflecting on the nature of darkness. Winter here means much low cloud and rain. Back in Geneva days the cloud cover could sit a few hundred metres above the lake for months at this time of year. It could feel stifling, but at least it was possible to drive up to a col, and rise above the cloud layer, to see sun, or moon and stars in clear sky above. It doesn't happen here, sad to say. Thinking of the darkness St John of the Cross speaks of, like the mystical 'cloud of unknowing' in English tradition is about adventure within, or above and beyond thought, being taken out of oneself, absorbed in wonder love and praise, just 'being'. That's a liberating idea, in contrast to the many shades of grey and darkness associated with enduring grim weather. 

Then I was reminded of nights under a clear sky, summer or winter, whether here or in countries around the Mediterranean by the sea or in the mountains, away from urban lighting. Nights of that kind draw you out of yourself and encourage a kind of 'eyes wide open' meditation or communion with creator and sacramental creation. I try to remember that it can be like that sometimes, but now I have to settle for delving within, until the heavens above are returned to us, like a fresh gift.

  

The cure for excess mental exercise

It's Michaelmass today. No opportunity to get to Mass, so the liturgical readings of the day had to suffice as food for the soul. The alternative Old Testament passage is from the story of Tobias and the Angel (in the deutero-canonical Book of Tobit). It's not about Michael, like the mainstream passage from Daniel, but about the Archangel Raphael, who ministers healing. It's quite a beautiful poetic passage, which I can't really say I've noticed before, perhaps because this was not a book I ever studied during training.

Another bereavement visit this morning, followed by several hours of work on preparing services and eulogy/obituaries on behalf of the families, as in neither case did anyone feel able to take on the task. Then I had to prepare for the Wednesday morning 'school Eucharist' at St German's, honouring the patron saint himself whose body arrived back in his native Auxerre on 1st October, after his death in Ravenna, sixteen centuries ago. A nine hour road journey today took sixty one days that long ago. 

Then I had to start work on a Harvest festival sermon for next Sunday afternoon when I preach at the lovely Patricio church, at the head of the Grwyny Valley in Monmouthshire's borderland. So, there was no time to spare to complete the painting job, and barely enough time to start preparing supper before I went to Chi Gung class. I felt pretty tired and stressed out, but the hour's workout was just what I needed to get me down out of my head and on to my feet.

     

Back into routine

Feeling quite tired yesterday after a busy weekend, so had a lazy morning, catching up on uploading photos to Picasaweb. Already last week's active leisure time enjoyment recedes into the distance. I went into the office in the afternoon to complete preparations for the evening's BCRP Board meeting. Chairman Gerry arrived early and briefed us on recent meetings with various interested parties, giving me a head start on things he wanted to say to the Board. Very helpful, as I am the default scribe for the meeting. It was a lively meeting securing our plans for a Business Crime Manager appointment and an annual meeting with a timetable. More work for me in pushing forward the publicity element of who we are and what we do, to my mind rather neglected until now. Having an active and interested management board makes all the difference.

After another tired and lazy morning, I turned to my scribbled notes from yesterday's meeting and set to work on producing a coherent set of minutes. Three hours later, despite enduring a fifteen minute migraine aura which came and went without further consequences, the job was complete. I was quite surprised at how much detail I did recall, once I joined notes to emerging thoughts. Sometimes it seems that I forget minor details very quickly, but the reality is that things are slower to register, but can be recalled, given time. Just like an old hard drive with little empty space left. For the moment however, I can still turn out a decent job, providing I work hard enough.

This evening I rejoined the Chi Gung class in St Mary's Church Hall. It's a year since I last attended, and it did me a power of good. There were were a good mix of familiar and new faces, and Christie was on excellent inspiring form, gentling us all back into action. A perfect antidote to excess mental effort. It was dusk when I walked back home. How the nights are drawing in. The chill of autumn promotes brisk walking rather than a leisurely stroll.

  

Finding Tremorfa

How good it is to have sunshine again, and be able to dress appropriately for a summer month!  This morning I had a funeral service to prepare for Friday, then a home visit to make in Tremorfa district of Splott. It's the first time I've ever had to navigate my way around this inter-war industrial suburban housing area. I needed to use a map several times I discovered St Philip's Parish Church in passing, looked after as a 'church plant' by the team at St Mark's Gabalfa, because church life has been difficult to sustain in this area for decades. It has been re-branded as 'St Philip's Community Church'. The external surface of the 'east' wall of the brick building is remarkable in having a crucifixion scene carved in bas-relief on to it.

Many of the streets there have names which end in 'Muir' (Clare's mother's maiden name), which is the Scots Gaelic word for Moor. This area of Cardiff was an ancient Severn Estuary flood plain known as East Moors, and once contained a large steel works and other heavy engineering industries. Most of the twentieth century employment legacy has gone. The steel works closed in 1978 and has been replaced by retail parks, distribution depots and light industry, employing far fewer people and fewer manual labourers. Unemployment is high. Tremorfa is a quiet backwater, away from main roads, slowly being gentrified as older generations of tenants and home owners are supplanted by first time buyers. It's a more pleasant environment now than half a century ago, when the air would often have been heavy with industrial pollution from the steel works.

After lunch I went into the office for a few hours. More enquiries are needed before an employment decision can be made. There's not a lot for me to do right now, until I have the new recruit to brief personally, hopefully before I leave for Spain. After supper I attended my last Chi Gung session for the time being. Christie, our teacher is experimenting with making a sound recording of her classes. Once available as a podcast via the Rising Phoenix Tai Chi website, this could be a useful accompaniment to a regular work out in future.

This evening, following a recommendation from Kath, I listened to two podcast  episodes of the 'Coffee Break Spanish' language course. It's very enjoyable and allows for lots of practice repetition of pronunciation. I think this is going to be among my favourite sites for the weeks ahead.