Blackcurrant jam on Corpus Christi

I woke up early and posted my Corpus Christi Morning Prayer link to WhatsApp  before 'Thought for the Day'.. It's a day that happily reminds me of occasions in Spain when I've witnessed or been part of a street procession with the \blessed Sacrament over the years; in Sta Pola, Nerja and Malaga.  

In the news, Lord Guite Boris Johnson's ethics advisor, has resigned, finally prompted by a request from the Prime Minister to give an opinion on modifying the existing ministerial code of conduct in a way that would neutralise its value. In the eyes of many Boris has done more than enough to flout the code of conduct regarding his own and his ministers' behaviour. Enough is enough for Lord Guite, but will Boris submit to calls for his resignation now? I don't suppose so. He's so self centred, seeing himself exclusively as able to steer the country through this time of change. It's creeping dictatorship, and high time the Tories got rid of him. New Boris scandals keep hitting the headlines, He's become as much of a contentious issue as his policies. Tory credibility sinks further towards un-electabiliy. As the late great Bob Marley once sang:  'Whosoever diggeth a pit; shall bury in it.'

I went to St John's this morning for the Corpus Christi Eucharist along with eight others. Again I wasn't in the rota to do this, but th rota seems to have unravelled a bit in recent weeks, with Fr Colin still recovering from covid, and Frances away, so I was ready to celebrate if needed. Clare had already started cooking when I arrived home, so I went into the garden and harvested a pound of blackcurrants from our small bush. It was just enough to make five small pots of delicious jam. I really know it's summer when the aroma of stewing blackcurrants is in the air. It reminds me of life as a child back home. Dad had several bushes yielding several more pounds of fruit for jam and/or crumble for pudding, and I used to pick them. It's still one of my all time favourite fruits.

After lunch I wrote next Thursday's reflection, ready for recording, then succumbed to sleep for an hour as I didn't sleep so well last night or the night before. Before supper I walked for an hour and a half, and saw the last episode of the season's 'Springwatch' programmes, and another documentary on Bradford's social problems and the people who del with them - PCSOs and the Council's homelessness team. 

It showed the industrial scale farming of illegal cannabis in derelict mill buildings and spoke about people trafficked and locked into a mill with rudimentary bedroom, kitchen and toilet facilities once the vast indoor greenhouses were set up, each at a cost of tens of thousands in equipment. West Yorkshire Police have found and destroyed over a thousand cannabis farms in the past year, we were told. It's a multi million pound business, tax free, completely outside the law. Legalising cannabis, one PCSO said, would change everything for the better. But what British government would be willing to do that?

Money - received and requested

Another Monday with sunshine poking through the clouds. It's starting to get warmer by night as well as day now. After breakfast, vacuuming the carpet, then tidying away a neglected pile of financial papers in my study. This was prompted by puzzlement over a deposit into my expenses account of three hundred and eighty pounds, labelled 'pension payment', not where it originated. I wonder if this is the government's promised subsidy of the soaring cost of energy? The only other government payment into this account is the Winter Fuel allowance. Ah well, gratefully received.

I had an email from Clare at St Catherine's asking for help in completing a request for information needed to fill in an application form for a grant from the Pantyfedwyn Trust to help pay for the repainting of the church chancel and south aisle, which is already under way. It turns out there's a deadline for handing it in, and as Mother Francis is on leave he asked me. It's a dozen years since I last did anything of this nature, involving a brief profile of the church and its mission, but it's  one of those bureaucratic things you don't forget how to do. I quite enjoyed the little challenge.

By the time I'd finished this, it was one o'clock and Clare had just arrived from her first ever Pilates class. I had to prepare a cooked lunch rather quicker than usual, but half an hour later we sat down and ate a dish of mackerel fillets and three veg. Then I walked for a couple of hours, up and down the river, and ended with a visit to Tesco's for a bottle of their quite acceptable bargain Chilean Pinot Noir. It's the first time that I've fancied a drink of wine since the cold started, so it seems like I'm now through the worst of it. But was it a cold? Strangely, Clare hasn't caught it from me. There are reports of this year's pollen conditions being unusually detrimental to anyone who is affected. At the outset I wondered if my symptoms were due to pollen rather than a cold. My strong reaction led me to think it was a cold. Now I'm not so sure.

After supper, I watched the second of the Iolo Williams nature programmes about  Anglesey wildlife on iPlayer, and then 'Springwatch' live. Most amazing was the sight of a reclusive Bittern, a waterfowl which hides in reed beds, heard but rarely seen. It was filmed on the wing with its unusual fluid graceful wing movements. What a treat! Finally, this week's new crimmie 'Sherwood', set in a Nottinghamshire ex-pit village over thirty years after a miners strike which divided workers and residents of some villages in a way which many involved still haven't forgotten and moved on from. It's an unusual setting for a murder mystery - superbly acted, even if on times subtitles would be useful, as the accents seem quite authentic.

Before switching off for the night, I visited the NHS website and submitted a digital application for both Clare and myself for the new GHIC card which post-Brexit replaces the EHIC card giving you access to basic medical treatement in EU countries. I was pleased to see how simple and straightforward the process is, as with the new generation of .gov websites. The cards are free, but money still needs spending on full travel and health insurance cover for my stint of locum duty and subsequent holidays abroad we decide we can afford. That's a chore for another day.

On track again

I woke up late in sunshine after going to bed early, and reading for an hour, then losing sleep due to coughing when eventually I lay down. The sore throat has gone, replaced by disgusting heavy catarrh which will probably last for days, I was slow getting started for church and arrived a couple of minutes late for the St Catherine's Eucharist. There were eleven of us. I stayed for coffee and chatted with Clive and David until it was time to return for lunch. Fortunately, Clare was in the last stage of cooking lunch, happy not to rely on me, now her back is improving except for when heavy shopping bags from the Coop were delivered and needed bringing in. Sensible precaution.

After eating I started work on next week's Thursday prayer video upload with the texts Ruth provided for the purpose. It's Corpus Christin next week, sparking an idea about a reflection, which I wrote, recorded and edited in an hour. Then I went looking for a replacement fit-bit in shops I didn't visit yesterday. Sadly, no luck, but I did find a Huawei Band 4 activity tracker which does all the same things in W H Smith's of all places. It costs half the amount of a replacement fit-bit and as I had £1.50 left on a gift card to make use of, I got it for even less.

It's slightly larger with a different user interface, and more flexible in that it can be worn on the writ band provided, or in a clamp which can be attached to a laced up shoe, or an ankle strap. A useful addition. Setting it up wasn't  straightforward. A user guide which needed a powerful magnifying glass to read, was equipped with a set of QR codes sending you to app installations on Huawei's own cloud service. 

The Blackberry wasn't happy about the security of this and refused to install anything with dire 'be it on your own head' threats. Fortunately Google Play Store provides the necessary apps for phone and tracker cleared by its own Play Protect software, so after much trial and error I got the thing running with one minor annoyance. App update notifications, directing me to the Huawei cloud service which the Blackberry doesn't like, with no updates available on Play Store. As the device user interface is different, it will take some getting used to. It remains to be seen whether or not its strap is as durable as the Samsung one I had to replace.

After supper, another edition of 'Springwatch', all about nesting birds and badgers under surveillance by webcam, This was followed by a nature documentary on More Four about the river Clyde. Another tale of a river which for more than a century couldn't sustain a fish population returning to life with the demise of polluting industries, just like the Taff. There were some remarkable pictures of a century old hydro-electric power station under a sixty metre waterfall, still going strong, house in a white painted industrial building with huge windows letting in natural light, and a big panel of dials monitoring the generator output, a classic design. All for show nowadays, as the plant is now watched over by digital devices from a laptop. Worthwhile watching.

State of Alarm - day Fifty One

Another warm and sunny day, also the day of this month's full moon, a month when it looks a little larger in the heavens because it is a little closer to earth in its elliptical orbit. It's called the Flower Moon because this is the month which is arguably the best for flowering plants. The moon sets on my local horizon at about six in the morning at the moment. An hour or so earlier, it emerges from shadow to paint the bedroom with moonlight when there are no clouds. I don't bother with curtain closing, as the external shutters are set just right to let me enjoy this early light. I then tend to drift off to sleep again until it's time for BBC Radio Four's Thought for the Day, if I'm not already up and making breakfast.

This morning as I lay there pondering, I had this idea for videoing the discursive prayer I am now in the habit of writing weekly for the website, using the backdrop of the sun rising behind the trees over the arroyo/torrent beside the house. By the time I'd found a suitable position for the camera it was a bit later than I'd planned and the result wasn't quite as satisfactory as hoped for. A car passed by while I was recording. It didn't drown me out fortunately, and when I listened to it, I decided not to re-record it, simply because the passing car is a small sign of return to normality, and that's what I was praying about. 

I'm getting the hang of the simple editing app to prepare a video for upload to YouTube, and today's didn't take long. After breakfast I starting having ideas for next week's bible study, and started writing them, rather than getting out early in the morning time slot permitted for walking. It's a pity that my use of time can be erratic. I do have routine, but it's quite flexible, as I like to work on fresh ideas whenever they emerge. 

In the afternoon, I thought I'd do some garden tidying. The prickly colonising plant which spreads in the subsoil and then climbs over any plant it can get started on starts to spill over from lawns and flower bed on to the path, and gets more annoying. It's hard work to remove, as I learned last time I worked at ground level. Today I tackled the raised flower bed, which has a hibiscus bush in one corner entirely covered with this spiky horror, and the result was satisfying. Removing tiny shoots in the raised bed is important before trying to sort out weeds from established bushes and plants. I wish I knew more about gardening!

While I was donning gardening gloves I noticed there was a gecko in the bottom of a plastic bucket in the gardening closet. It seemed unable to climb the sides and escape. Geckoes normally have no trouble climbing vertical walls and running upside down across ceilings due to the extraordinary physical properties of their foot pads. Their adhesive power is due to microscopic static electricity charges enabling them to attach to other surfaces. Could it be that the plastic surface of the bucket didn't or couldn't hold a static charge I wonder? I turned the bucket on its side to let the creature escape and hide, and wondered what impact being unable to scale the bucket side would have on it.

I walked again before supper, exploring the edge of the ravine in the stretch of woodland between it and the road. Near the road crossing it's about fifteen metres deep, 400 metres long it's twice that with dangerous steep edges. Just before the road enters a the next urbanizacion there's a place which specialises in breeding poultry, with various species of hens, geese, ducks, guinea fowl, turkey and even peacocks visible when you pass by. I hadn't realised just how large the place is until I found one of its boundary walls, running down into the ravine enclosing an extensive area where various fowls are being kept, also some small cattle. It explains why the cries of the peacock can be heard a lot closer than seems reasonable given that it's almost a kilometre away by road. The sound travels up the ravine, along with the sound of several breeds of cockerel in the early morning. Intriguing!

After supper, and chatting with Clare, I started work on the Sunday service and sermon. I went out on the terrace just before bed and saw the full moon climbing up above the trees opposite. I wish I could identify the sounds of the night birds I hear. Definitely not poultry!

State of Alarm - day Forty Six

It's the first day of tentative lifting of restrictions. I must decide what to do first - walk for an hour on local country lanes, and then domestic tasks, like taking out the re-cycling, and going down to San Antonio to withdraw some cash, both requiring the car. It's a round trip I could easily walk in an hour and a half, but that exceeds the allowed time. Enforcement efforts will doubtless have to focus on beaches and parks, but who knows what other surveillance measures will be put in place. 

The daily news reports large numbers of fines and arrests on lock-down regulation transgressors of all kind, people with money to burn, willing to pit themselves against regulations they resent. Britain came late to the business of fining offenders, after many weeks of appealing successfully to people's good-will and common sense. British policing relies on consent more than compliance and is done on a more regional and local basis. Spain has its legacy state-wide enforcement systems, to be used for the common good these days, hopefully.

Clare came up with some good news from the gov.uk website. It seems travellers returning from abroad are expected to self-quarantine, keeping a close watch on state of health, but able to exercise out doors, do essential shopping and keep a safe distance from others. That's a weight off my mind. It means I can continue my established routine without interruption.

I walked for an hour up and down the unmetalled track opposite in the two hour morning window of outdoor time for over seventies. I saw a family of four plus dog out together on the main road, one oldie like me with a younger companion. A jogger went up and down the track several times and a couple of young cyclists were out enjoying their freedom under a blue sky and air temperature in the low twenties.

By lunchtime  the weekly service was complete and sent to Dave for web uploading. I didn't get around to using the car for errands as intended, but I did get around the mending the broken trousers pocket I've put up with for months, and added an extra hole to my belt, having lost my spare tyre altogether.. I've shed 4-5 kilos since I've been here to my surprise, and am roughly the same weight and shape I was when we married 56 years ago. I wonder if I'll put weight on again when I am no longer having to cook for myself? Time will tell.

In the afternoon, I spent half an hour tackling some of the tangled dried out vegetation covering a section of a garden lawn which got overrun by colonising weeds which project roots and shoots in all directions before exhausting itself. It's hard work without a rake, and a small scythe, so the biggest effort I need to make is restraint, not trying to do too much at a time. Slow and steady may yield a measure of tidiness eventually.

When I was passing by, I disturbed a gecko in the bbq pit. I pursued with camera but without much success. It's hard to get a sharp photo of one, perhaps due to their peculiar skin, which changes colour according to its environment, like a chameleon. Later I saw a baby gecko crawling among the cinders left from the last time the bbq was used, almost the same colour, noticed only because it was moving. I got a photo before it disappeared into hiding, but yet again not a good one, although the HX90 autofocus seemed to work.

It's not motion blur or shaky old hand, I don't think, but the way the creature's skin reflects light. There's a similar issue with capturing detail of red flowers that's to do with the way the particular bundle of red light wavelengths is registered by a camera sensor. The variety of angles from which each petal reflects light adds to an equation which the human eye deals with far better than most commonly used cameras. The increase in ambient temperature seems to have brought more birds to the area, judging by the increase in birdsong. I am seeing more and more tiny lizards too. This must be the time when they hatch out. Convenience food for some birds too I imagine. 

State of Alarm - Low Sunday

Another warm day, but cloudy. Lots of time today for prayer and reflection while walking my first hour. This morning I noticed that four of the six tiny snails observed gathering over the past few days have disappeared, either moved into hiding, or perhaps taken as food by a night predator. As it's a bit more humid there are several more larger snails out and about. I found one on the path with an edge of its shell broken off. It was surrounded and covered with tiny back ants, and was making an attempt to get away from their efforts to exploit its vulnerability. 

I'm fortunate enough to be in contact, one way or another, with people here and back home in Cardiff every day. I woke up this morning to another lovely round robin email from members of the St Catherine's Wednesday morning Communion group - all keen to stay in touch during lockdown and share news. I hear occasionally from Canton parish clergy too.

The times of solitude and silence in between exchanges by phone or messaging are rewarding, allowing memories and ideas to surface and provide fresh food for thought. I wish there was enough time to write about many more things from past experience I now have time to revisit. AS time goes on, I listen to less live radio daily, and listen to music instead, or just enjoy a world of silence, punctuated by occasional birdsong and a passing car.

Yesterday, Clare WhatsApp'd me a little video of a guy with a fine operatic tenor voice standing at his front gate in a street of similar appearance to ours, either in Canton or Cathays across the Taff, performing on the anthemic non-conformist devotional classic 'Arglwydd dyma fi' to the street, with a soprano lower down joining in. English translation 'Lord here I am ....etc' Perhaps you have to be a Welsh speaker or learner to appreciate this fully, but the musical energy would be recognised in any part of the world under lock-down.

Then, while I was in the garden yesterday evening, I heard a woman's operatic voice, singing loudly a wordless melody. At first I thought she might have been singing a saeta, but not so. The sound came from a house in the estate to the north of where I am, out of my sight, 4-500 metres away, reaching me as she sang from the roof of the house. The sound varied presumably when she changed direction standing there. Intriguing what occurs under lock-down. Last night there was a big global media celebrity concert of people performing from home under lock-down, but grass-roots musicians and artists performing spontaneously for people in their barrios has been happening ever since the restrictions were imposed.

I walked in silence and enjoyed the sounds of nature this morning, just to have some thinking time, then this afternoon I listened to 'Vengue', the debut album of Ojos de Brujo eighteen years ago. It was characteristic in many ways of their initial development of a Spanish electro pop fusion with some interesting songs, but the  'sound' was lighter, and didn't convey the same conspiratorial 'in yer face' sound of all their other albums. It seems that they parted from the record production company with which they made 'Vengue', probably because they could afford to go independent on the back of their success. Doing things on the bands own terms certainly reaped superb musical rewards for the rest of the time the band worked together.

This evening we had a lovely forty minute family Zoom meeting, children and granddaughters too.
Kath and Owain both knew the history of 'Vengue', probably looking it up after I said I was keen to have it to listen to out here. They all looked as healthy and in as good spirits as it's possible to be under the circumstances. A nice way to finish the day.

State of Alarm - day Thirty Three

Twenty degrees today, clouds and sunshine, warm enough for me to shed pullovers during the first half of my daily 10k. The lizards were out in force, chasing around, I came within half a second of snapping one biting the other's tail. It's the third time I've seen this happen. I'll get lucky sooner or later, the longer I stay here. Like snapping the elusive hoopoes in Al Andaluz. What I did manage to get photos of was a big green lizard scaling the wire netting fence. Its attention had been caught by a flying seed on a parachute stalk, resembling an insect in movement. Amazing, and over so quick!

It's as warm as I mistakenly thought it'd be when I arrived six weeks ago. Should have checked! I spent a lot of time talking on both the landline phone and WhatsApp today, but still succeeded in being productive. Last Sunday I did a short Easter video message. I wanted to try something a bit different this week, and was inspired by watching the video of Fr Jorge's discursive prayer in the little Opus Dei chapel in their Wandsworth Common house, which sister June sent me a month ago.

What I drafted as a brief reflection on life in lock-down translated easily into prayer. Rather than talk to camera, which seemed to me a bit naff - 'nothing to see here' - I set up a camera pointing at the little makeshift altar I set up for the blessing of Palms two weeks ago, and prayed from behind the camera. The sound was very good, but the lighting contrast in the video wasn't all that good. It was nice to do something different though.

Then I set about recording the components of Sunday's on-line audio service of the Word, which included the sermon, that could be done while waiting for the audio files of the readings to arrive. It was more than I expected to get done in a busy day. I'm feeling the benefit of having the Linuxed Compaq laptop available for use now. The batch of audio files I made this evening would have then taken me a fiddly hour's waiting if not longer, while converting them from M4A to MP3 formal via a Cloud app, laden with adware. I installed one little app on my Linux workhorse which did the lot in under a minute. That's what it means to have full control of your own free software device with no interference from ads and other distractions.

A satisfying day in all sorts of ways.

State of Alarm - day twenty three

An overcast start to the day, but noticeably a few degrees warmer and less humid as the sun rises. The nearly full moon was high above the house, encircled by a halo when I looked outdoors before going to bed at midnight last night. With the curtains open, moonlight shone through the shutters as it headed for the horizon when I woke up several hours later. Enchanting moments with a sound track of distant barking dogs and night birds at the threshold of hearing against the silence of night.

Canon Lucy Winket spoke well on BBC Radio Four's 'Thought for the Day' at breakfast time, from a dutiful mention of Prime Minister Boris Johnson being in Intensive Care with everything being done to care for him now covid-19 has immobilized him, to Jesus being the one to whom cruel and vicious things are done to destroy his life.

These few days for me are all about facing up to that grim reality about what human beings can do to each other 'through ignorance, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault', as our prayer of general confession at the Eucharist admits. As Christians, the world's blame games should be nothing to do with us, although sadly they often are. 

We can and should blame ourselves in relation to what's wrong in our lives, and acknowledge our contribution to the sorry state of a polluted, sick and damaged world, through choices we made as participating consumers. Only when we are this honest can we begin to help make amends properly. Our contribution to fighting the pandemic may be no more than obeying orders, staying in isolation, trying not to add to the colossal burden on global health services, but it gives us time and space to think deeply about where we go from here, and how. 

On my afternoon walk yesterday I was surprised to see a small lizard, about two thirds of the length and a quarter of the bulk of the others, maybe a juvenile, dive off the concrete ledge of the raised flower bed on to the path a foot below, and scamper off. It was so light it seemed as if it was floating to the ground. As if this wasn't enough, this afternoon I saw two lizards locked in combat fall to the ground off a ledge twice the height, spinning as they fought and writhed, again almost floating through the air, but much too fast to get more than a glimpse of. I reckon I could wait there for weeks and not see such a spectacle again let alone photograph it.

After tonight's Zoom prayer group and Evening Office ensuite, I finished tomorrow's audio talk and emailed it to Dave for uploading. Then I walked up to the rubbish bin in the dark under the full moon with a kilo of vegetable peelings and skins in a bag. No organic waste collection here. Such a pity. It's the first time I have been there on foot in ten days. Time moves fast. Jayne messaged me to as what shopping I needed to see me through the Eastertide holiday week. Supermarkets are shut for several days after tomorrow, it seems. Not that there are any Semana Santa processions to close down for this year. But the workers certainly deserve some respite after a frantic few weeks.

When I returned I had an eccentric washing frenzy and ended up with a line full of clean underpants drying overnight. Then I spotted up on the wall above the line a brown gecko. My first sighting of one here and maybe seven years since I last saw one. An amazing gift under the Passover moon.

State of Alarm - day twenty

A lovely bright blue sky sunny day, though still a bit cool in the shade. I hunted down the key for the door which leads out on to the little east facing balcony, to open the shutters and let the sun in to warm the dining room during the morning. I also climbed up on to the flat roof of the house and took some panoramic shots of the surrounding countryside. Just think, I've been here a month and that's the first time I have been up on to the roof. As Clare said when we chatted later, if she'd been here she'd have found the key and gone up on to the roof in the first day of settling in.

I'm seeing and hearing more sparrows at the moment. A couple have spent time resting in the louvres of the study window shutters, chirping madly at their mates in the bushes yonder. I've heard a blackbird singing for a mate out in the arroyo yesterday evening and this morning that's new. The few lemon blossom buds on the tree are now bursting into flower, so hopefully the terrace will be an aromatic experience in a day or so.

Five days ago I noticed a tiny snail on one of the steps leading up to the terrace. When I checked next day it had re-positioned itself on the terrace corner pillar, a distance of about five metres higher up. Next day I found it on the outside of the pillar at the other end of the terrace, a distance of about eight metres away. Then the next day again, it appeared on the wall above the steps where I first saw it, a distance of fifteen metres if not more?

I'm pretty sure it's the same snail, for if it had been eaten in the night at any stage how come there was an identical one some distance off? Formidable. This morning I found a second tiny snail, nestling on a ridge of concrete grouting in the stone faced ground floor exterior of the building. Hard to spot. In addition  a large sized snail had taken up residence in the middle of the concrete path on which I do my daily round. Not sure where that one came from. I didn't see it yesterday, I don't think.

With Sarah's help recording bible readings, produced the audio file of tomorrow evening's bible study to send to Dave, as the sun was going down. Clare sent me a message to say that Radio Four was broadcasting a documentary about the St Paul's riots and it was just about to start. Pleased that the 40th anniversary hasn't been forgotten, even if the programme isn't on the day. It was a good hour's listening with lots of original sound recordings covering all the events of the fateful day from the perspectives of both the police, the rioters and local residents.

When the violence started I was busy getting things ready for the evening's Confirmation service after returning from a lunchtime Community Relations meeting at which the underlying state of tension in the community was being discussed. Pete Courtier and I, both living in Badminton Road, went home by different routes that afternoon. He ended up right in the middle of the conflict zone and I missed it altogether, as I was working in my study or else in church, not realising there was trouble just three hundred yards away.

I didn't go out on the streets until after the service, about nine in the evening, and was out until very late. The piece by piece story of the riot took me several days to gather together. The documentary did a good job of joining all the dots together. Even so, I hope for the day to come when the story of St Paul's riot day will be told including a mention of that Confirmation service, with the teenage girls in white dresses standing in Ashley Place watching the bank burn into the night.

State of Alarm - Day Seventeen

A slightly warmer day today, clouds and wind, but no rain. I finally got around to giving my fleece a much needed wash, plus towels and a nightshirt and they all dried beautifully. Two swifts flew past this afternoon, so maybe more have arrived and will start feeding nearby soon. The sun has brought out into the open many more lizards in the two places were there are stone or concrete surfaces for them to warm up in the sun. I've seen lots of fast moving little brown lizards, small than the large green backed lizards, more than a hand-span in length, are the smaller ones juveniles, a different gender from the larger ones, or a different species? I have no way of knowing at the moment.

On the side of the fourth step down from the terrace last night, I noticed a tiny snail stuck to the wall, the size of my little fingernail. By this morning it had relocated itself to the pillar on the corner of the terrace, a metre above surface level. An impressive feat of climbing for such a tiny creature in twelve hours. I wonder where it's heading and what it expects to find there?

All the time I had to spare after domestic tasks and exercise today was devoted to making an audio file of Sunday's Ministry of the Word. Sarah and Clare contributed readings, but I felt strange about having to record the St Matthew Passion reading on my own, when every year just about, since I was ordained, I have read this in conjunction with between three to six other speakers, plus a church congregation acting as Jesus' lynch-mob. It sounds very amateurish, the best I could do under the circumstances. It's for a unique occasion, and won't be required another time. Hopefully it will do the job, just this once in history.

Strange, but I haven't come across any April Fool stunts on the radio today, although Clare did send me a short video of so called King's College Cambridge male choristers singing in place of the boys by using helium to raise the pitch of their voices. But then at the moment there are lots of parody videos in circulation and some hijacking popular melodies to sing lyrics about covid-19 and coping with a pandemic. Amazing what people do with time on their hands, to entertain themselves and others. Just like me really, I suppose.