Sad news

I made it to eight o'clock Eucharist at St Nicholas Parish Church this morning, still with several dozen regular attendees who seek out early morning peace and quiet. 

Other worshippers, not just the Vicar, make an effort to greet strangers like me. It's great they bother, but in my case, most of the time, it's not what I need. Silence and simplicity in conventional liturgy is what I crave most. I think the whole church still struggles with this notion, as if it doesn't trust the power of Word and Sacrament at its most basic to commend itself. 

Rhiannon was content to play in her home environment for most of the day, apart from an afternoon expedition to Waitrose's. I cooked my paella to match Kath and Anto's return from their Leicester performances at supper time.

During the afternoon, I received messages from my cousin Alan and my sister June telling me of the peaceful death from lung cancer of my cousin Gareth at Holme Tower hospice in Penarth in the middle of the night. He was seven years older than me, the first and eldest of our generation of cousins, active in his local Parish Church for decades until he became too sick to attend.

I'm grateful for the opportunity I had to see and pray with him there three weeks ago. May he rest in peace.
  

Fictional take on reality

We took Rhiannon to her theatre workshop at Warwick Arts Centre, then returned to Kenilworth, taking a brief look at the (mainly French) street market in the old town above St Nicholas' Parish Church. |

A wedding celebration was being concluded as we walked past. The bride, we noticed, radiant in a white dress, was in a wheelchair.

We then made an expedition to the Waitrose supermarket in Kenilworth's modern town centre to shop for the ingredients of a paella to cook for Sunday supper.

Kath and Anto arrived home, delighted with the success of their day's performances and we ate fish and chips together. Everyone apart from me wanted to watch 'Strictly Come Dancing' and 'The X Factor'. Thankfully, there was a second telly, so I was given leave to feast on the first episode of the third series of Inspector Montalbano, one slice of telly I find utterly engaging.

I'd wager the opening sequences have either been re-shot meticulously, or re-mastered by way of a digital editing suite, as the colour display seems far less bleached than the original. The sound track also seems a different take from the original score. Positive signs of producer pride. A new actor is playing Livia, Montalbano's mostly absent fiancée. The Radio Times critic complained she was too young to reflect the passage of time in her long-standing unfulfilled relationship with the detective who never loses his obsession with the crimes he investigates. I disagree. Lina Perned portrayed Livia as a well-preserved independent female Italian forty-something - the kind of woman who doesn't show the signs of having endured the trials of motherhood. Just right, in context. One up for casting, one down for the critics.

Andrea Camilleri's storylines are as complex and puzzling as ever, yet worth the attention. If you don't get it the first time around, thanks to iPlayer, you can review the bits you didn't get. The diversions into Sicilian culture are entertaining, sometimes illuminating, rarely distracting. But, it's those plot-lines disclosing criminal intent in the strangest of places that sometimes need revisiting, to be sure you've really got it. And then, you're left with something worth reflecting on.