Financial prudence wins

I was in town early to attend the monthly Radio Users Group this morning. It provided a good opportunity to Sarah, our retail operations co-ordinator and newest CBS team recruit, to publicise her current project of getting security staff engaged with crime incident reporting and registration under the Data Protection Act, ready for her meeting with them tomorrow.

Later in the day, Ashley and I visited the bank to arrange transfer of the final sum of money that finally releases titular ownership of the radios and network equipment to us, bringing closure to negotiation, and freedom to revise budgets with new aims in mind. The bank officials took ages with us over security verification before authorising the transfer, even though Ashley is a well known regular customer. It's odd when you think that I could have made the transfer alone by internet banking, albeit in two payments. On this occasion it needed to be one and as it was a moment to remember, we went together, in person. 

The bank's caution is praiseworthy if time wasting under the circumstances. The process would have been smoother, less prone to inconsistency if more bank employees remained longer in the same branch, long enough to get to know all regular customers. Like the police and other public officials however, it seems staffing is forever in a state of flux, and this isn't beneficial to the end-user.

As sustainability and stability are essential to the operation of CBS, we have to plan thoroughly. We can't afford risk or extravagance. But, as men in our late sixties, raised through post war frugality, followed by a dash of progressive optimism in life as young adults, we share from our respective backgrounds a sense of what cautious  development involves, and have results to show for it. The trouble is that officers we have to work with in Council or Police rarely understand how business works. They know how to manage budgets, but financial resources are given them to work with, not earned. That can make a difference in realistic planning, so we need to be single minded when it comes to financial control over the enterprise.

Markers of achievement

There's nothing like a spell of pleasant weather, and a little pressure free time in the office to making catching up on work tasks to be completed quite a pleasant way to spend the afternoon. That's how it Monday to Wednesday slipped by cheerfully. The only thing of interest was the arrival of a Blackberry work phone upgrade for me. It's hard to believe that it's more than eighteen months since I first acquired one, and started fuming and fretting over its tiny keyboard and screen. Much as I've disliked the standard Blackberry Bold, however, its connection reliability at home and abroad has always served me better than my Android devices, so it goes with me whenever I travel.

BT Business informed us of a contract renewal deal on a Blackberry Z10 touchscreen smartphone. It received good reviews, but appeared just as the parent company RIM started to go downhill fast, so fearing the worse some sections of the global market went for other devices instead. RIM has had hard times, but this doesn't seem to have been reflected in the robustness of its network connectivity, only its profitability. So, on the basis of the reviews, we signed up Tuesday afternoon, and the new phone was delivered eighteen hours later, backed by a couple of text messages to advise me of a straightforward SIM activation procedure.

It was late afternoon before I collected it from our 'other' office and took it home to unpack. It's an impressive piece of kit, with Blackberry's own user interface rather than the common Android arrangement. It'll take a bit of getting used to, but the clarity and slickness of the display make it a pleasure to interact with. By the time I got around to SIM activation, I found myself with an overnight wait. It's procedure initiated via the internet but overseen by humans, and BT no longer provide a 24/7 service, so the old phone with its larger format unswappable SIM card stayed in use overnight. Hmmm. Even so, I know I'll enjoy using it.

The other good thing about Wednesday was agreeing a satisfactory end of lease deal with our company financier. By this weekend we'll own every piece of equipment in our possession, and owe nobody anything. We've worked very hard for this, never defaulting on a payment, relying on direct revenue, no grants or subsidies. I look back to my time at St John's, and recall how the Tea Room raised a similarly huge sum of money over a decade of selling drinks, sandwiches and cake with a few dozen volunteers - enough money to redecorate the interior and transform the tower porch entrance into an elegant and appealing point of access - I feel proud to have been associated with and supported both of these voluntary social enterprises that in their different ways have done so much good for the city.

It's a delightful co-incidence that I should receive an invitation today, to attend a porch dedication ceremony at St John's next Tuesday. The Mayor and Archbishop Barry will be there.

 

Trinity Sunday

I went to the Cathedral Solemn Eucharist this morning and found great pleasure and solace in beautifully conducted service with three well chosen and concise hymns, a good sermon from the Dean, and fine unpretentious singing from the boys choir. All was well ordered without fuss. There was no mention of Father's Day or the World Cup football. 

The Dean preached relevantly about the essentials - God and love - and we were drawn into worship of the Three in One without drama or exertion through the normal rhythm of the liturgy. It was most refreshing, and enabled me to spare a thought and a prayer for my home parish of Ystrad Mynach, and for the chaplaincy of Geneva, still fondly remembered, and about to welcome its third incumbent since I was there. How time flies.

  

A bewildering Nabucco

This evening we went to the Millennium Centre for the WNO rendering of Verdi's Nabucco, accompanied by our neighbour Liz, whom we invited to join us, as we had a spare ticket. As ever, orchestra and singing were magnificent, driven by diminutive  conductor Xian Zhang, who was subjected to the indignity of being plucked off her feet in a big bear hug during the final curtain call by lead singer David Kempster. To my mind, his enthusiasm wasn't sufficiently respectful of her prowess as musical leader. He wouldn't have done that if the conductor had been a bloke.

I didn't so much quarrel with the innovative production as spend far too much time trying to figure out what its modernist minimalist setting and symbolism meant to  convey. The positioning of the cast on stage sometimes left me puzzled as to which actors were supposed to be Hebrews and which Assyrians. Would I have been any the wiser if I'd gone to the pre-performance talk

I don't think I was alone going home disappointed. Nevertheless, American singer Mary Elizabeth Williams brought terrific energy and style to the role of Abigaille. She's a diva, she knows it, and enjoys inhabiting her dramatic stage persona just as much as she enjoys singing a musically challenging role. Maybe she understood the producer's intent better than anyone else on stage. We last saw her a couple of years ago in the role of Verdi's Floria Tosca. It was equally as engaging to watch as well as hear.

Unusually, on the way in to the performance, I met four different people I knew from my time as city centre parish priest - two of them were Welsh clerical colleagues. Nabucco has always been a favourite with the home crowd, whether the WNO programmes it as part of a 'Faith' season or not.

When we got home, aware that I had no ministerial duties to require early rising, I stayed up late and watched 'Wallender' on iPlayer. Another moving portrayal of a man stricken while still working flat out at solving evil crimes by the onset of early Alzheimer's disease. It was very moving, sad and thought provoking to watch.

     

A satisfying breakthrough

Things are looking up at last. Yesterday our CBS team - Ashley, Sara, Kevin and I met with the new Police Chief Inspector for the City Centre and one of the Divisional Superintendents. They came for a briefing on the work of RadioNet and the problems we've had making progress on re-establishing the Business Crime Reduction Partnership board, now a year overdue.

The delay has been attributable to changeovers in personnel responsible in the part of both Council and Police, with a series of newcomers to their office hungry to slow things down and make their mark by re-inventing the wheel, rather than listening and trying to understand the complexities of who we are and what we do. This has been a hindrance which has deprived us of appropriate help and support in the redesign of the Board and its constitution. 

It'll be another three weeks before we finally meet up with the most recently assigned Council officer, who was tasked several months ago to liaise with us, and has left us way down his priority list. It has been a hard task, getting things refined to the stage where the appropriate instruments of governance are fit and ready, now we're there. We've done it in the end with no help from any of the legal experts of Council or Police - ironic when it's a matter of partnership in communications, for public benefit.

Today, before going off to officiate at the funeral of a centenarian, I met with the Partnership Steering Group chairman, Rory Fleming, who has accompanied the formative process with perceptiveness and exceptional patience for the past eighteen months, given that I halted the last planned inaugural board meeting at the eleventh hour when I discovered faults in our documentation which we'd not noticed previously, or else nobody scrutinizing them had bothered to draw to our attention. 

Being a shrewd business manager, I believe Rory understood my reasoning and was willing to give us the benefit of the doubt. He went on to idenitfy a deficiency in the constitution I'd not grasped, being too close to it. That led to more work, more discussion more drafting, and eventually a cautious degree of satisfaction that design and content will serve the purpose of getting the Partnership Board established properly in a correctly structured relationship to CBS as its trading arm. Today, we fixed another Steering Group meeting and set a new date for the inaugural Board meeting. It comes just at the right time, when CBS is ready for the next development phase to get under way. It'll mark the end of a challenging birth and five year infancy for our home grown not-for-profit voluntary social enterprise.

Password problems

As it's St Barnabas Day today, I joined the St Luke's congregation for a quiet morning Mass. As  it was bright and sunny, it seemed a good idea to go out for lunch, so we drove to Dyffryn Gardens, walked for an hour or so, marvelling at the changes in vegetation since our last visit six weeks ago, and then ate in the visitor centre's friendly cafe.

Last night, Amanda called, as she was having problems with her computer, feeling that she was losing control of it. Now she's quite computer savvy, and I thought if she's bothered, maybe I should help troubleshoot. She texted me earlier today to say she's been unsuccessful with the measures I proposed over the phone, so I decided a hands-on session was necessary. I drove Clare to her staff meeting mid-afternoon and then took off for Bristol.

Thankfully, there wasn't a lot out of order, just enough to leave her feeling helpless. One of those software downloads with boxes you have to un-tick to avoid acquiring unwanted crapware had been ticked. Her default home page had been set to display a branded search page, full screen. This hid the normal browser controls, so it wasn't possible to change the home page settings. I messed around until I found how to switch off full page mode, and then reset the home pages as she wanted it.

She's also lost access to her Tesco shopping account and couldn't figure out why. She'd made half a dozen attempts to re-set the password, none of which delivered, and made a mess of her memorised passwords, particularly as Tesco require use of an email address and login password. Your password should be different from your email one for security reasons, but it's easy to get confused. Worse still insistence on high strength passwords by default on Tesco's part, means that if you miss out one of their required alpha-numeric components, your password change is requested and it's not at all clear why. 

Yes, the instructions about password quality are there in your face when you're setting up a new one, but if anything they are close enough to be easily overlooked as you're trying to think of something you'll find either memorable or easy enough to write down. High strength passwords are neither of these, since they use keys which normal mortals don't use often and get distressed about locating consistently.

It's understandable that Tesco have ramped up their security critera, but if this encroaches on usability, it's not good for customer relations. Apparently the helpline people were decent with her about the problems, and assured her that the problem was at the home end. But that was as much as they could do, and naturally it left her worried that her machine had been compromised. This fear was indeed enhanced by the unknowing acquisition of a foreign home page. Sites with secondary download tick boxes on by default should really be blacklisted, for the anxieties they cause.

 

Refecting on Moses und Aron

Since Saturday night's performance of Moses und Aron, I've been pondering on the portrayal of its two main characters. Moses, the inarticulate one,  presented as having this idea about the unique and eternal God, source of all existence, its order, purpose and meaning - the eternal one so far beyond human comprehension that no words or thought can convey the reality of the divine. It's only possible for humankind to be in awe, and to worship the source of our own being.

Aron, on the other hand is the one gifted with words with which to express the thoughts and ideas of other people, the spokesperson for the rank and file, who consider themselves unable to rise to the idea of reaching out to the infinite, of transcending all human concepts in placing the divine reality at the centre of life. Aron argues that people need words and symbols, something tangible to represent their higher intentions and meanings. In the wilderness, the people of Israel miss the deities around which their lives in Egyptian captivity revolved, and appeal to Aron to give them something more tangible to identify with. 

He forges the image of the Golden Calf to be the focus they think they need, but this initiative turns out to be a recipe for chaos and anarchy, as it points them nowhere beyond themselves. It is nothing more than a reflection of who they are - their strengths, but also their fatal weaknesses and flaws. People look for something to secure and unite them outside themselves, but don't look far enough beyond themselves. The worship of the idol doesn't take them out of themselves towards the Beyond, but quickly becomes an end in itself, stifling growth, leading to decay and destruction. The concept of sacramental and iconic symbolism in which the visible is a window to the unseen, had yet to emerge as something human hearts and minds to play with and learn from.

Idolatry, which turns goods into Gods, ascribing ultimate divine significance and power to naturally created things and human constructs, is sternly prohibited by the law which Moses receives from God in solitude on Mount Sinai. In solitude, away from all social demands and pressure, it's easy to think uncompromisingly. Following through in people's lives with such a tough commandment is fraught with challenges and difficulties, as much today as in ancient times. Aron is unsuccessful in translating new ideas of God's supreme uniqueness in a way people can learn from them. Are we any better in an age in which we are frequently being told  'image is everything' ?

Schoenberg's Moses conveys starkly some central tenets of mature Jewish teaching. He doesn't, however, glean from Exodus the significance of the conversations and arguments between Moses and God, whom Moses talks to as a man talks to a trusted friend. Schoenberg's Moses seems to wrestle alone with absolute abstract ideas. He conveys them somehow to Aron who expresses them to the people on his behalf. Moses as introverted prophetic philosopher isn't quite the familiar biblical character. The bible is much more concrete in delivering ideas. Biblical anthropomorphism is far too easily written off as the product of a naive and primitive mind-set, rather than a creative engagement with understanding that leads beyond the dialogue of words into the depths of silence. It's a form of learning through play how to approach ineffable divine reality, and play is one of the great resources of the human mind for working things out creatively.

I heard the other day on the BBC Radio Four Today programme of Professor Dawkins' proposition to ban myth and fairy tale from schooling on grounds of the statistical improbability of magical events occurring - frogs turning into princes. Can't the editor do better than to put up a children's story writer in defence of her art, when an educator, psychiatrist or philosophical theologian is needed to contend with Dawins' instinct to censor anything that doesn't comply with his rationalistic world view? This is about the richly textured nature of truth we live by and worthy of better consideration even in a popular news programme. 

Scientific rationalism and the knowledge it offers is an essential and reliable foundation to life in the modern world. It's not an end in itself. If idolised and made into a divine substitute, it has the power to consume and destroy its devotees. This we know only too well from the history of modernity. Are ordinary human beings capable of resisting the impulse to some kind of idolatry or another? Or at least reading the spiritual health warnings in place for the best part of three millennia? Sometimes I wonder.

  

Benefice farewell

No duties this Sunday, so Clare and I attended the Parish Eucharist at St Catherine's. Clare walked to the Riverside farmers' market and I went home to fetch the car to pick her up. I mis-timed it, since neither of us carrying our mobile phone, so we missed each other. She was quicker than I expected and was nearly home by the time I left the house. After lunch, she went to her monthly study group in Bristol. Owain came over for coffee cake and a chat about his most recent job hunting expedition. We watched a remarkable TEDx talk video of Tariq Ramadhan speaking with inspiring clarity about spirituality and ethics. He's a Swiss academic and writer, also a Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University. It's well worth watching. There's a link to the video here.

Then, for the first time in more than a year, I went to Choral Evensong at St Catherine's. It was Team Vicar Fr Martin Colton and his wife Chris' farewell service before they move to a new parish ministry in Reigate. A hundred people plus associated clergy were present from all three churches in Canton Benefice. Team Rector Fr Mark Preece paid a warm tribute to his colleague, reminding his listeners that not only the Benefice but also the Diocese was losing one of its most accomplished musicians from its clergy strength. Certainly the effort of the Choir at Evensong was a credit the the priest who has encouraged them for the past seven years. 

Fr Phelim O'Hare moves from his Cathedral School chaplaincy and NSM Curate role in the Parish to being a full time team Vicar in September, so mercifully the interregnum in our busy Benefice will be short. I return to locum duty in Fuengirola end of August, since recruitment of a new Chaplain failed to produce a candidate to interview. Until then, I'll be on the locum duty roster in my home parish for a change.
   

No singable tunes, but so thought provoking

This evening we went to the Millennium Centre for Shoenberg's 'Moses und Aron'. As a result of attending the pre-opera discussion hosted by David Pountney and Mona Siddiqui, our appetite for something that's definitely not run-of-the-mill opera has been whetted. Schoenberg was a creative artist with a strong sense of mission, confronting his contemporaries in the German speaking high cultural realm with the uncompromising moral and spiritual demands of Jewish monotheism. He was discovering his identity as a Jew for the first time returning to the religion of his forefathers after a secular upbringing. He wrote both music and libretto for the two finished acts of his opera, and left directions about its staging. The entire opera is an expression of his unique prophetic voice. It's hailed as a masterpiece, but would we agree?

I anticipated that the music, based on Schoenberg's innovative use of the 12 tone scale, would be difficult to engage with, and indeed the first twenty minutes of listening was challenging for its sheer intensity. Or perhaps it was a matter of attuning to something different, with few memorable motifs or tunes to pick up. The choral element of the work was just astounding in richness and complexity, mixing polyphonic singing with choral speech. The physical positioning of different elements of the choir, not only on stage, but in the orchestra pit and off-stage behind the scenes, created the most remarkable sonic textures. On times the orchestra seemed to be playing a dissonant counter-melody to the singing of the choir, with powerful effect. 

Moses and Aron are the key dramatic figures on stage. Moses speaks, but in a rich melodic way, contrasted by Aron's singing voice. The orchestra doesn't accompany the singing but rather creates a huge rich sound track, building atmosphere, reflecting the content of the libretto. If it was hard to tune into at first, it's because there's simply nothing else quite like this music. It gave me that same buzz of excitement I get from hearing good contemporary jazz improvisation.

The design and staging is said to be derived from Schoenberg's production ideas. The set for the first act resembled a political debating chamber, presided over by Moses, accompanied by Aron as his spokesman. This is where Moses proposes to the people of Israel the covenant of allegiance to the one true and eternal God. The meaning of this is discussed in the light of miracles wrought by Moses before the exodus from slavery in Egypt. 

In the second act, the set is transformed into a cinema auditorium. This act recounts the story of the making of the Golden Calf and all that follows from it, concluding with the return of Moses and the destruction of the tablets containing the Commandments. There's no image on stage of the idol, mentioned in the biblical story. The subject of the people's idolatry is a projected movie. Aron speaks to them of the 'image' they watch as being images of themselves. In this context, it's an astounding, challenging idea. 

The dialogues of the people of Israel with both Moses and Aron were of great interest meriting further study, and cross checking for consistency with biblical narratives, or reflecting Schoenberg's textual interpretation. He was, after all a newcomer to biblical tradition, perceiving the story with fresh eyes. I look forward to finding out more and can now say with personal conviction that this work is a twentieth century masterpiece in every sense. The third act was still a work in progress when Schoenberg died. An attempt has been made to complete and perform it from legacy material, but that wasn't included here. As an unfinished work it has greatness in its own right, because of its bold confrontative nature.

There's no doubt WNO's production and performance of the opera is as good as it gets, and faithful to its author's prophetic intent to get his contemporaries to think about real nature of divine reality and what it demands of human beings. In an epoch marked so strongly by idolisation of the self and self-fulfilment, may this work continue to make us think hard about what we value most in life, and why.

   

  

Transition time for St Michael's

I made a return visit to S Michael's College this morning to meet the Principal Peter Sedgwick for a catch-up chat. He's in his last few weeks in office now before his retirement begins with a term in Durham University, dedicated to writing. His decade of leadership and labour in re-developing the roles and functions of the College has been in every sense a remarkable enterprise. He's taken the College a lot further in response to contemporary mission educational demands than some in the Church in Wales have yet to realise. There's a persistent mind-set which prefers to remember the institution as it used to be, despite the facts. 

Already Vice Principal Fr Mark Clavier has taken up the baton as acting Principal, with the prospect of interesting times ahead. The College's plan for redeveloping ministry training, implemented since last summer has been well received by participants. All this happened despite the proposed closure of the residential training component of the College being on the agenda and hanging over everyone. The strategic review of ministry training has been long drawn out. I believe its recommendations are soon to be decided upon by the Bench of Bishops. It's up to them to set the priorities for the Church in Wales' future mission. Do they value sufficiently the assets they already have? 

The great strength of St Mikes is that is fits the unique context of the Province of the Church in Wales with two indigenous languages shaping discourse - Welsh of course and the English spoken in Wales (Wenglish?) with all its nuances, poetic variety and historic differences. Church ministry leadership is mainly made up of ordinarily capable people, whose strength is in both their sense of belonging and their ability to adapt and identify with the community they serve. Fitting in is vital. I think St Mike's is good at helping people to learn this. It doesn't come naturally to everyone with a vocation, but it's essential to healthy spiritual formation.

I gather there are further plans to redevelop the provincial training programme in a way that will see groups of students together on pastoral placement in new grouped parish ministry areas, during their academic learning phase. This is a challenging innovation for all involved, I believe that moving the training and learning experience close to the pastoral front line could a lot of good, both to students and parishioners. Practically speaking, it is bound to be costly and involve sacrifices all round in an era of income constraint. Other small churches like ours have given up on their residential training, sometimes decades ago, and now admit their regret at having done so.  Affordability is a matter of values and priorities. I fervently hope those who advocate closure, in favour of sending Welsh ordinands to English Colleges will renounce this temptation to ecclesial suicide and recant of their ill founded belief.

   

 

D-Day veterans in the spotlight

The D-Day 70th anniversary commemoration ceremonies of today and tomorrow have rightly dominated the news recently, with prominence given to the story of an 89 year old navy veteran who missed out on booking his group excursion to Normandy and took himself there by public transport, much to the alarm of people in his care home who hadn't realised he'd gone. Well, maybe he didn't remember to sign out in his enthusiasm to get going, but he linked up with other veterans on the ferry crossing and someone phoned home to let them know he was OK.

The media accounts of this were to my mind shoddy. There was no consistency in reporting when he got home. It was insinuated in some reports that he'd absconded in defiance because he'd been prevented from going by the care home when, as the care home manager said when interviewed, he was a resident free to come and go as he pleased, certainly not a person of concern due to vulnerability. 

The editorial stereotype of a care home nonogenarian initially presumed he wasn't capable of looking after himself, when clearly he was. Increased longevity in our times can mean lots of different things to different people, depending on their state of health and their constitution. It's not so unusual any longer to be fit, sane, competent and active at great age. We hear of elderly people still running businesses, being creative writers or artists and athletically active well past their three score years and ten. It's good news to set against the just concern we have for others whose ageing has brought them 'trouble and sorrow', as Psalm 90 says. Sadly the increased volume of news 24/7 carries with it an increased volume of rubbish.

   

Remote control camera

I went to my dentist in Llandaff North yesterday morning, to have a crown fitted to a large back tooth. The filling it replaced was still intact after twenty-five years, but the edges of the tooth itself were getting ragged. The crown covers and protects perfectly although it feels somewhat strange, it's so smooth it feels like having an extra false tooth attached to my jaw.

I decided to wait for a bus to return home as one was conveniently scheduled to arrive within minutes of reaching the bus stop. Needless to stay, it didn't come. The timetable lied, so I had a twenty minute wait. I could have been half way home in that time. Former city centre colleague Alun Tudur, minister of Ebenezer Eglwys Annibynol in Charles Street accosted me at the bus stop, about to visit one of his deacons who lived in a house adjacent to the stop. I haven't seen him for at least a couple of years, since we bumped into each other ourtide the CBS office, which in those days was also in Charles Street. My how time flies.

It was raining today when I drove the car down to N G Motors in Splott for its annual service. I have previously walked or cycled back home or to the office from there, but it was too wet to enjoy the added exercise, so I caught a conveniently arriving eleven bus from Splott Road. This took me to Greyfriars, where I only had to cross the road to pick up one of the Stagecoach out of town buses, the 122, which goes to Tonypandy via Ponyclun via Cathedral Road, close to home. Most convenient.

I had no reason to go out again after my return. I had a briefing to write for office purposes which could be done from home. With time on my hands I decided to install and try out the Sony Playmemories app on my Samsung Galaxy Ace Duo, and on my Asus Transformer, to serve as remote control devices with my Sony HX50. I was impressed with how easy it was to set up and use on both. The large clear preview displayed on the Transformer screen is most helpful in acquiring a desirable photograph.  Now I have to think of situations in which it might be worth the effort to use it. 

I imagine it would be beneficial with the camera on a tripod. To avoid shake when pressing the shutter button on a tripod mounted camera, I have to set the shutter timer to allow the camera to settle from the touch impact of my finger. This remote control app allows for focussing and other adjustments, as well as shutter operation. You can see exactly what you're shooting and don't have to be in line of sight. This is good for shooting shy wildlife. All that remains now is to remember to pack a small tripod and the phone when I take a camera for a walk.
  

An overview on contemporary Islam

Unusually for a Monday, I was out of the house just after nine fifteen, walking down to St John's Canton to join the diocesan Continuing Ministerial Education programme day session with the theme 'Understanding Islam and Muslims in Britain'. Sociologists Richard McCallum for the Oxford Centre for Muslim-Christian studies and Dilwar Hussein of New Horizons provided input and discussion ideas. Dilwar's comprehensive introduction to Islam, mapping out the diverse world of Muslim belief and identities was rich and insightful, perhaps because it didn't get bogged down in the minutiae of theological dissent, but considered everything from a sociological perspective. The broader view prods me to make time to resume and complete reading Hans Kung's huge tome on Islam, which I've had for several years.

I left before the final discussion session, to get a bus into town and complete a job at the CBS office. I felt I didn't have much to contribute. These days I'm a little distant from the front-line pastoral context in which local parish clergy operate. Working so much in Spain over the past few years, where the history and context of Christian-Muslim relations is somewhat different, means I haven't much to reflect upon that would be relevant to a brief conversation between clergy mostly interested in addressing immediate presenting problems. Nevertheless, the insights on British Islam today and the careful adoption and adaptation by some scholars of interpretative approaches to sacred scripture influenced by twentieth century western approaches to philosophy, theology and literature made it an encouraging and worthwhile occasion.

That's probably only the second CME day I've attended since I retired. There were about fifty people there, two thirds of the current working clergy complement in the diocese. I didn't notice anyone else there who was retired, but as it was only ten minutes walk form home, it was very easy for me to turn up. What really struck me was the diminishing proportion of people whose faces I could put a name to. Now I know fewer of the younger generation, except the half a dozen St Mike's alumni acquainted with by working at the College or on student placements in my last parish. It's funny to feel a stranger in a familiar place.  It's a price to be paid for having moved around so much over the past fifty years, I guess.

  

Street Party

This morning I celebrated the Eucharist at St John's Danescourt and Christchurch Radyr, standing in for my friend and former colleague Jenny Wigley, who was doing duty as a Llandaff Cathedral Canon, preaching at services there. It was a busy morning. In both churches there were newly confirmed candidates to welcome, and at Christchurch an infant to baptize as well.

By the time I arrived home for lunch, Meadow Street had been closed off and cleared of cars and 'The Big Lunch' was in full swing in the sunshine, bringing together inhabitants of Llanfair Road and Meadow Street with their picnic chairs and tables and a variety of food to share. It was an occasion to celebrate successful joint action by residents to overturn parking regulations imposed by the Council without proper consultation. 

Local Councillors acting on our behalf negotiated suspension of enforcement action by traffic wardens. When both streets were resurfaced recently, the restrictive road markings were painted in and parking regulation notices fixed to lamp posts, despite the commitment to change the regulation order. Unfortunately, reversing the action of imposing the parking regulation takes as long as it did to introduce it. Nobody seems to bother much about the waste of time and money painting un-necessary lines and installing notices. Or else, the left hand of the Council section responsible doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

Clare contributed a tray load of chocolate brownies, having been asked to provide something sweet. Standing around or sitting chatting at table were a couple of dozen adults and as many children playing in the road. We ate and drank and chatted with the neighbours. Rhiannon sat at our new garden table out in the street, and drew a picture of her house back home, and then we took her over to Llandaff Fields where she visited her favourite tree and re-built a house for the fairies among its roots. A favourite activity on her visits to Cardiff.

A flute for Rhiannon

After breakfast and a final stroll around the garden at Plas Baladeulyn yesterday, we drove back to Cardiff yesterday in decent weather on roads a lot quieter than I'd expected for the second weekend of half term holiday. We stopped in Brecon to do our weekend food shopping, and had lunch in a small cafe-cum-delicatessen in the town's covered market. In the evening, there was a Sunday sermon to prepare and some catch up TV to watch.

Kath, Anto and Rhiannon arrived mid-afternoon today. Anto went straight off to Clwb Ifor Bach to prepare for the fourth Third Uncles' reunion gig. Clare and I met Kath and Rhiannon in town, so that we could visit Gamlin's music shop to buy a flute for Rhiannon. Her playing and enthusiasm for the flute has developed in this past year, as she has grown physically to the point where it's now much easier for her hands to cover the flute keys. She's been playing her mum's instrument until now, and will soon be taking her Grade Two exam, so it seemed like the right time for this. We looked at several second hand flutes, and were were taken down to a quiet corner of the shop's basement for Rhiannon to try them out. She fell for the first one she tried, with a warm rounded tone, and left the shop all bright eyed and smiling.

Owain came around for supper and went with Kath to the gig afterwards. Rhiannon stayed at home with us, and watched a video with Clare before going to bed. 'Wallander' was half way through by the time she went up, but I was able to watch it from the start using a new iPlayer streaming feature before it ended in real time. Krister Hendricksson's portrayal of the ageing detective losing his memory is remarkable.

Ynys Mon on Ascension Day

We got up early this morning to breakfast in time to be out of the house by nine, and on our way to Bangor to attend the 10.30am Eucharist for Ascension Day. The Cathedral website said there was a service and I emailed a request to confirm this, as the home page was still advertising Easter services, evidently not having been updated since then, so there was no knowing whether the usual weekday routine service continued or was supplanted on this special occasion. The response to my request arrived, telling us about a 5.30pm service, but only after we'd decided to take it on trust that there would be a 10.30am service, 

We arrived in good time, but the officiating priest didn't show up. The Sacristan rang around and found a substitute before coming out to apologise to the nine of us who were waiting. We all sat quietly and patiently for a quarter of an hour until he came. The anticipation was most enjoyable, as was the bi-lingual service, offered in a gentle and relaxed prayerful manner. It was a happy occasion, despite embarrassing mishaps. There's no doubt about it, the church is under pressure to live up to its own aspiration to offer the best it can to those who seek its ministrations. Patience is not just a virtue but a necessity.

We had coffee in a High Street bakery shop before leaving town and heading for the Menai Bridge, to cross over into Anglesey, Ynys Mon - Mam Cymru, to visit Plas Newydd, a huge chateau-like National Trust property with extensive gardens and an arboretum, bordering on the Menai Straights. It was in the national news recently for completing a £600,000 project to install a marine source heat pump to drive its central heating, oil powered until then. The house was shut, but the gardens were open. It was dry but overcast with a chill wind, so it needed a certain resolve to keep going. We found the spot where the heat pump's water source was located just above the shore, freshly lansdscaped, the grass not yet grown back. 

After lunch in the site cafe and a second walk around the gardens, we drove further along the A4080 road, and discovered a CADW signposted turning up a side road to Bryn Celli Ddu, a neolithic burial mound in a field at the end of a new and well constructed half mile path through fields. The site is thought to have begun as a henge, a twenty metre diameter stone circle, a rarity in Wales. Later occupants of the territory plundered the stones to construct a communal burial chamber at the centre of an earth mound. The site was excavated and reconstruction was based on this theory. Anglesey has many such neolithic sites. So much to see! 

We drove on past Brynsiencyn down to the road to the shore leading to the Sea Zoo, and to a dead end at water's edge, where there's an old ferryman's house and a small harbour. It's dead opposite Caernarvon on the mainland. Whether there's still a regular ferry service, I doubt, although there were several boats beached by low tide in this vicinity, which could be used to transport goods across and avoid traffic jams on the bridges. Another similar ferryman's house stands in the village of Porthaethwy in the lee of Menai Bridge, but that's well above the shore. The need for a ferry so close to Telford's bridge has long gone, but Cambrian House as it's called, is one of the oldest there.

On our way back from the shore to the A4080 for the home run, quite by chance we happened upon a small roadside cottage serving home made cream teas, under the banner 'Giddy Aunt's Tea Room', run by a couple from Yorkshire, with a delightful story to tell of how they'd purchased a small plot of land with rights for a caravan dwelling, and a ruined agricultural building in one corner. Over several years they obtained planning permission and re-built the ruin as a smallish cottage, and eventually to use its facilities to run their delightfully situated little tea room. The wife was a great raconteur, who'd successfully appeared on the "Who wants to be a miilionaire?" TV game show, and paid off their mortgage on building work with the proceeds of her win. An unexpected bonus to our first visit to 'Mam Cymru', as Ynys Mon is also known.

Walk around the lake

The peace and quiet Plas Baladeulyn offers is quite soporific. Last night I was in bed and asleep by eleven, and despite waking several times briefly in the night, it was ten to nine when I finally woke up and realised the time. We had to rush downstairs for breakfast. We weren't quite the last. Another guest missed altogether.

Rain threatened to neutralise any excursion plans we might have, so we decided instead to walk around the lake at the bottom of the garden. As it is surrounded by marshy ground on three sides, there's not much of a lakeside path. We had to walk up the hill a mile and a half, and cross the valley where it narrows and take the return journey down the far side of the lake down the track to farm with a campsite in one sheltered field and half a dozen large open fields with thousands of sheep grazing in them. 

In the marshy area around the lake, reed and coarse grass was covered with what looked like white flowers from a distance, but on closer inspection, proved not to be flowers but small balls of a fine fluffy material, most probably flax growing wild. There were even patches of it floating in open water beyond the reed beds. It's something I've never seen or noticed in the wild before. We heard the cuckoo again at closer quarters saw a heron fly across the lake, a pied wagtail, a few mallard and Canada geese, but there seemed to be more gulls visible than any other species, riding the thermals where the valley narrows, and roosting in one small patch of shingle on the foreshore. 

Our leisurely little round trip took us two hours, and then it was lunchtime, so we went and bought food for a picnic in the Co-op at Penygroes. But the time we got back, the rain had started, so we ate in our room and then siesta'd. There was no good reason to venture out again, except to take even more photographs to add to the ones taken with my Sony Alpha 55 DSLR during the walk. Reviewing pictures taken, I found there were some using the telephoto lens which didn't meet my expectation, and I took my other Sony (HX50) to shoot the same subject for comparison purposes. The same cloud cover, albeit later in the day, yet the super zoom picture quality was better at several points - same aperture small difference in speed. It may be a question of telephoto lens quality. I'm no expert in understanding criteria for assessing let alone discussing the fine detail of photo quality, but I recognise the dissatisfaction.

Pilgrims of a kind

After a good nine hours sleep and a hearty breakfast we lazed around, uncertain how the day's weather was going to evolve. Would it get cloudier and rain, or clear up? Well, by half past eleven nothing had changed, it was just cloudy, not too cold, so we headed off inland, first to Bettws-y-Coed where we had a picnic lunch and visited the railway station. In addition of serving as a station on the main line, it boasts a miniature steam railway pulling several dozen tourists around a large oval track several hundred yards in length, and alongside it a small electric tram, plying up and down a single line, carrying half a dozen. There are holday cottages, a few shops and a restaurant in the old station buildings. Altogether it's a creative re-purposing of real estate no longer needed for running a rail service, adding great value to the town's tourist offer.

From Bettws-y-Coed we followed the old A5 coach road in an eastward direction as far as a junction which took us to the village of Penmachno. We then followed a single track metalled road several miles up and over a forested mountain into a secluded valley to find Ty Mawr Wybrnant, a sixteenth century farmhouse now in the hands of the National Trust. 

In 1545 it was the house of a prosperous tenant farmer, and became the birthplace of William Morgan, the first translator of the Welsh Old Testament, and reviser of Salesbury's Welsh New Testament. Alas, it was closed! We were, however, able to walk around and enjoy the peace and beauty of this hidden place, and to marvel that a young man from here had made his way to study in Cambridge in the 1560s. In addition to his scholarly achievement, he was appointed Bishop of Llandaff in 1595 and moved back home up North to become Bishop of St Asaph for the three years before he died in 1604. His translation of scripture has done as much for the formation of the Welsh language as it Tyndall's English and Luther's German translations for their respective mother tongues.

We returned the same way, stopping in Beddgelert for a walk along the river and a cup of tea afterwards. As we entered the riverside park, we couldn't help noticing more than a dozen dogs of various breeds and sizes, all attached to their owners, assembled alongside the wall by the entrance gate. We puzzled over this rather conspicuous gathering for a moment, and that Clare said, "Well what else should be expected in the vicinity of Gelert's grave"

  

Springtime in Dyffryn Nantlle

We were out of the house and on our way up the A470 to North Wales by nine thirty this morning, and found only light traffic all the way. The weather was good and everything made for a relaxed and pleasant journey. We stopped for a pub lunch in Caersws, and arrived at Trigonos in Dyffryn Nantlle by three. We noticed once we crossed over the Brecon Beacons bluebells were in bloom everywhere in the hedgerows and mountainsides. Ours in the garden at home were over two weeks ago. 

In Snowdonia the visual impact of rhododendrons, mostly purple, is a striking contrast to bluebell blue. Rhododendrons are an invasive species, imported by the wealthy from the Himalayas in the nineteenth century, and now running wild, regarded as an invasive species. In and around Beddgelert, the National Park authority is taking initiatives to curb if not root them out, before they destroy native species which cannot compete with their vigour.

After unpacking, we walked out by the lake at the bottom of the garden at Plas Baladeulyn, saw several ethereal powder blue dragonflies in the long grass, a fish jumping and two white butterflies mating, one of them had bright yellow wing tips. As well as the sound of blackbirds, robins and chaffinches, we heard the solitary distant voice of a cuckoo. It don't think I've heard one since I was last here three years ago. 

It's very quiet here, and also difficult to get a phone signal in such a deep valley. Nothing from BT and a very poor one from Orange-EE standing in a corner of the car park. So we have to rely on wi-fi, and for that, a short walk from the main house to the neighbourhood around the estate office. The government talks about improving rural internet services, but in some parts of rural Wales mobile reception is in a worse condition. I couldn't help noticing so many UKIP posters on display in this region, symptomatic of disaffection with the Westminster political elite, and for that matter the Cardiff political elite, for failing to deliver resources which have become critical for economic development and success.

Rogation Sunday

This morning I was back on duty for the first time since returning from Spain a month ago. Fortunately I felt well enough to cope with, and enjoy celebrating and preaching at two Eucharists for the East Vale group of churches, at Peterston and St Brides - both of them 'super Ely'. It's exactly six months since I was last there, on the Sunday before I went out to Spain. I enjoyed reporting back on just a little of my experience of the Malaga Semana Santa processions, before talking about the meaning of Rogationtide processions in Britain. Charmingly, the weekly service leaflet of the day at St Brides had a colour photo on the front of such a procession, taken somewhere in the parish at some time in the past. I wish I'd remembered to ask who the parson was, featured in the photo.

With an early start, and a fifteen minute drive, the first service being at nine and the next at ten thirty, I was home before noon, but in need of an horizontal siesta later on. We've decided on an early start tomorrow for our journey to Snowdonia for a half term stay at Trigonos, in Dyffryn Nantlle, so I spent part of the evening packing equipment books and clothes to make the place a home from home to venture from to visit interesting photogenic National Trust properties, hitherto unexplored by us. I just hope the weather won't be too daunting. But I'm taking three books to read in case it rains enough to make excursions unattractive.

Thanks KwikFit

Last night I, as we set out for the Millennium Centre, our car, which had started fine in the morning, failed to start. The battery is losing charge, and is at least four maybe five years old, therefore probably dying. This damp and rainy morning, I hooked it up to our battery charger for several hours, and succeeded in getting the car to start. I drove straight to our nearest KwikFit centre on Cowbridge Road, and was delighted they could deal with it immediately. The manager loaned me an umbrella, so I could walk home and have lunch while I waited for the job to be done, alternator health check, battery health check, and replacement. By the time I returned, the job was done, a great relief as I resume Sunday duties tomorrow. 

We went for an afternoon walk into town and back in the rain for tea in John Lewis'. Down the Poncanna side of the Taff, we saw a flock of starlings feeding in the wet grass under the trees alongside the avenue. We were serenaded by a wren and a blackbird, oblivious to the depressing dampness of the hour. As we crossed the footbridge, scores of swifts swarmed over the river, darting in every direction feeding on midges in the air as they flew. Sometimes on this walk you're lucky to see a handful of crows and pidgeons, and then the mood of dull day can be a handful of surprises. 

The city centre was in festive mood, with a live soul band playing in the drizzle outside the Castle, and tens of thousands of good humoured rugby fans making their ways into the Millennium Stadium for the Heineken Cup final. As the match was under way, streets were quiet when we made our way home after a look around the store and tea. The second instalment of 'Wallander' was on BBC4, portraying the detective as growing increasingly forgetful about ordinary things, attributable to his profound concentration on the case in hand, but shades of things to come, as the series moves to his end.

  

Prelude to a night at the opera

After another day housebound by weather and the miserable effects of sinusitis, we ventured out this evening to the Millennium Centre, for supper at Ffresh, the stylish in-house restaurant, where we were greeted by a Welsh speaking Maitre d', and served by a French speaking Quebecois. 

Afterwards we attended a talk given by David Pountney, librettist and opera producer, about composer Arnold Schoenberg's life and his operatic masterpiece 'Moses und Aron'. His special guest was theologian and broadcaster Mona Siddiqui, one of Britain's top islamic theologians and inter faith dialogue specialists. They had done the same double act this morning at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival, and seemed glad to have another go at it on home turf. It's one of a series of events under the banner 'One World, Many Faiths', mounted to accompany the summer 'Faith' season of operas, well just two of them actually, the other being Nabucco. We have bookings for both in the coming month.

I didn't know anything about Schoenberg apart from his name being associated with use of the twelve tone musical scale. Despite its length, David Pountney's biography of Schoenberg's life and work was informative and interesting. and Mona Siddiqui's valuable comments and reflections left me wanting to hear more from her. The theme of their conversation was that of identity in relation to religious faith.

Schoenberg was born into a non-practising Jewish family. His search for spiritual meaning led first to conversion to Christianity. Then, well before the rise of Nazism, he encountered and was subject to the social germanic anti-semitism of the era, and reacted against it by reverting to Judaism. His consciousness awakened to the profound evil of racism and the need to campaign actively against it, which he did with prophetic discernment and fervour in the political sphere, finally joining other German exiles in the USA during the time of Nazi supremacy.

As a man of Jewish ethnicity disposessed of its ritual and community life, Schoenberg strived to engage with the religious and spiritual meaning of Jewish scriptural foundation texts, discovered in the context of modern secular liberal values and his pride in German artistic cultural heritage. His opera 'Moses and Aron' centres around the relationship between the Moses the inarticulate man who walked and talked with God, and Aaron his brother and divinely appointed spokesperson to the children of Israel. Its setting is the story of the Exodus from Egypt and sojourn in the wilderness up to the fabrication and destruction of the Golden Calf and death of Aaron.

Schoenberg wrote both libretto and music, but only completed the first two acts. These were performed in concert for the first time just before his death in 1951 and premiered as an opera on stage six years later. His use of the twelve tone scale, in which each musical tone and semitone is equal to the other, was intended as a revolutionary innovation heralding a new era of artistic musical consciousness. It's more than coincidental that in Schoenberg's latter years, Swing was evolving into Bebop taking Jazz in a new and revolutionary direction. Black Jazz musicians, were also struggling with questions of identity post-slavery, in an 'emancipated' society that was nevertheless riddled with racism. 

Schoenberg's engagement with the Torah as an outsider to Jewish religious tradition led to a realisation that the first two Commandments required an uncompromising moral and spiritual austerity hardly congenial to human beings. This may be what having faith in God demands in the wilderness, in times of crisis, but what happens in the promised land? Or is there no promised land, in a world so ridden with injustice and tyranny?

The evening's conversation was a stimulating prelude to a night at the opera still to come, and touched upon many more issues than it pursued. It was the beginning of an interesting dialogue about what it means to come to the sources of faith, if not faith itself, out of a society that has lost touch with its identity and roots in religious culture and spirituality. It's an issue that has resonance for all kinds of believers eager to share their faith. Remarkably, it occurred in a precinct of highest artistic endeavour, rather than in seminary, cathedral, mosque or temple. I'm sure there are historical precedents for this. It was just good to be there.
  

Office at home and at work

Thunder and rain today. At least it lowers the pollen count, but there's not much incentive to go out. The new antibiotics are slowly conquering my infected sinuses but improvement is slow. Thankfully there are matters I can deal with from home, as my office work environment can be accessed and contributed to whatever computer I have, wherever I am. It's not yet perfectly seamless but it's adequate. There are always legacy issues to be dealt with when it comes to software compatibility, as we are running machines with three different operating systems.

Every software giant seems to want to 'improve' work tools are already fit for purpose in the eyes and under the hands of the regular user. Creating a need for upgrades meant to enhance user experience keeps companies in business, but this can backfire if users don't agree, as has been shown by the fate of Windows Vista and Windows 8 in less than satisfactory user uptake. Reliability, consistency and compatibility are what most concern busy long term users. Stopping to learn how to use a new operating system or new versions of software you rely on heavily makes life worse for the user not better.

The version of MS Word we use in the office and at home dates back to the turn of the century. I installed and used Open Office as well MS Office when it was launched in 2002. I've used Libre Office since it was launched in 2010 as a Free and Open Source alternative to Open Office. It has continued to improve and add new features with each upgrade, and yet its user interface has remained consistently the same. It means learning new things is always an incremental extension of what you already know. It's a tribute to the way the Open Source design and programming community learns from user feedback. Why does Microsoft thinks it knows what's best for us. Consistency is every bit as important to users as improved speed and reliability.

Virgen de Soledad and other images

We hosted the monthly Ignatian meditation group at home this lunchtime. Thee were six of us. I offered to lead, as I wanted to share a discovery made during Semana Santa in Spain of one particular image of the Virgen de Soledad - Our Lady of Solitude. Some portray Mary weeping, wringing her hands in sorrow, lamenting the death of her son, but this one struck me as quite different, memorable.

The cross behind a kneeling Mary is empty. It is finished. She is alone with her grief, and emptiness. If indeed the body of Jesus had been laid in her arms, as imagined in the Rosary and the great tradition of pietà sculpture, this moment is past, and he has been taken away for burial. It's that empty moment unmentioned by scripture, in between Jesus saying to John, "Son behold your mother" and John taking Mary into his own home. It's the tragic counter-point to Annunciation. "Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word"  

It makes me think of all those grief stricken mothers you see in television news stories about wars, natural disasters, accidents, and those moments when we say "Oh God, why?" and there is nothing else to say.

After lunch with the group, I had intended to go to the office, but inflated sinuses made me feel groggy and tired so I went to bed and slept away the afternoon instead. Clare's colleague Sandra came to stay the night, and that left me to my own devices, idly watching catch-up TV, while uploading Costa del Sol pictures to my OneDrive site, so now I have a second Cloud photo archive. Frankly, accessing photos through Google+ is irritating, because of the attempt to create an all purpose user interface to compete with Facebook. I liked Picasa a lot better, and now it's relegated to being a background option. Getting into photos with OneDrive is simpler and the interface is nice and clean. Despite my annoyances with Microsoft, some things they do very well indeed.

  

 

Slow recovery

Disappointingly, last week's course of antibiotics seems to have had only limited impact, reducing but not eliminating nasal congestion and chronic bronchial catarrh I've been enduring for months. Maybe hay fever is partly to blame. Anyway, rather than wait until Friday for a return visit to the doctor, I dropped a letter into the GP surgery on my way to the office, yesterday, asking for a repeat prescription. To my surprise, I had a call from the practise receptionist on my mobile, as I sat snuffling at my desk, and the offer of an appointment this morning. 

After another check up I was issued another prescription, and was able to collect and resume medication straight away. At the moment the weather is fairly warm, and I'd like to be spending more time outdoors, enjoying Spring. With a diminished sense of smell, and the arbitrary rise and fall of swelling in sinuses reacting to variations in air current and pollen count, I'm reluctant to go far, or do much. So I stay indoors, and occasionally take a few photos of bird table visitors, in the hope of improving quality and content of pictures using a telephoto lens.
 

Enter YouView

Friday, we drove over to Bristol in beautifully sunny weather to visit James and Amanda, who returned from hospital earlier this week. James went into school to get some help with sorting our a course for next year. By the end of the day he'd  applied for a BTech Computing course at the near by Filton FE College. This is a good move, as he has set his sights on working in the computer games industry eventually.

A conversation with a telephone sales rep from TalkTalk at the beginning of the week, led to us being offered a free subscription package upgrade at no extra cost. This includes a TalkTalk YouView digital box, which arrived today. It gives us the full range of free view offerings plus a wide range of catch-up TV options and a channel for renting movies in addition. All I had to do was connect it to the router, and run the set up programme which despite a few ambiguities in the on-screen instructions worked well. We had arrived home just too late to see an edition of 'A place in the sun' house hunting programme, focussing on the Orihuela region, not far from Sta Pola, where Anto and his sister still have their mother's apartment. The first test of the new device was to find the programme in the roll-back schedule and watch. It couldn't have been easier.

Saturday was a quiet day, apart from our afternoon walk around Bute Park, with tea in the Castle grounds restaurant before heading home. It was good to take advantage of our Cardiff Castle Key cards, which not only give us free entrance as citizens to the Castle, but a discount on refreshments as well. In the evening we had the treat of watching the first of the new series of 'Wallander', said to be the final series, charting his life as he slips into illness and old age. Impressive acting as ever.

Clare and I went to St Catherine's for the Parish Eucharist this morning, and walked to Riverside Market to shop for organic veggies and cheese. The weather was again beautiful, but the pollen in the air hit me hard, and swollen sinuses took away the pleasure of the walk and laid me low for the rest of the day. There's been something of an improvement from the course of antibiotics which I finished last night, but allergic reaction to the prevailing atmosphere is still the order of the day. 

Morgan legacy

This morning I went to my first CBS Radio Users Group meeting since last October. Following this I worked in the office chipping away on some of our remaining bad debt problems until it was time for Ashley and I, with Sarah our new BCRP co-worker, to visit Rory, chair of the BCRP Steering Group for an update on our recent activities.

Rory's office is on the first floor at the St Mary Street end of the Morgan Arcade. Last time we were there together, back in January, she showed us the re-building and conversion work going on above and behind the St Mary Street facade. Progress on this has necessitated re-routing access to Rory's office through an entrance in Tredegar Lane at the other end of the Arcade. This took us along dusty corridors above the arcade and its shops, into parts of the building which were the back offices for the Directors of the David Morgan Department store, which ceased trading in 2005. It's all in the process of re-furbishment. In many of the empty rooms you can still see old fireplaces and wallpaper dating back to the middle of the last century. 

As we made our way out after the meeting, Rory took us through the quiet corridors of the new Morgan Apartment building, on the Hayes side of the development, to glimpse an extraordinary large panelled and timbered room with stained glass in mock baronial style. It sits over the Hayes entrance to the Royal Arcade and now serves as a common meeting place for apartment residents, but in the heyday of Cardiff's renowned department store, it was a prestigious function room for events related to the company. Next time we visit Rory, I must be sure to take a camera and take some pictures of this remarkable interior, for posterity.

  

Tooth upgrade and guts ache

Yesterday morning, I had the first of a pair of dental appointments to fit a crown to a back molar, which had to be postponed before Christmas, when the dentist went down with 'flu. I was in the chair for over half and hour, and afterwards I walked back home from Llandaff North in the sunshine along the Taff Trail, to shake off the stress.  There's a wait of three weeks until the permanent replacement crown can be fitted. By the evening the temporary crown had parted company with the tooth. I'd been warned it might happen. It fits neatly enough to serve as protection for the filled tooth beneath, but I have to be careful about eating on that side, or end up losing it.

This morning I joined half a dozen others and Fr Mark for the St Matthias Day Eucharist at St Luke's. It was good to touch base with him as he prepares to fill the gaps in the regular duty rota after Fr Martin departs for his new parish next month, before Fr Phelim takes his place in September. I look forward to helping him out as often as I can over the summer.

After lunch I went to the quarterly meeting of the Wales Against Business Crime group. This time it was in Cardiff as it was the turn of CBS to host it. During the meeting, I developed an excruciating stomach pain and had to leave, as I couldn't concentrate on proceedings. After half an hour it faded away as quickly as it arrived. I realised that I was paying the price for snacking on chocolate biscuits and water instead of eating a proper lunch. Normally I wouldn't have such trouble, but my present antibiotic regime kills off some of the bugs in the stomach which regulate acidity. Serves me right.

  

Birdy weekend

A quiet solitary weekend spent mostly at home apart from shopping for food. Finally, I observed several small birds at our RSPB garden bird feeder, sparrows, but also a couple blackcaps, somewhat shier, and less frequent visitors to the feeder than the sparrows. The blackcaps seem to be setting up home in the roughly pruned leylandia hedge in the garden opposite ours on Llanfair Road. I watched them doing a mating dance, and arriving with feather for the nest. I wish I'd  videoed them. Here's one ,  snapped with my Sony HX50 at 40 feet waiting for a turn at the bird feeder.

I attended the Parish Eucharist at St Luke's. Instead of a sermon we watched a video about a family resettling in Southern Sudan. Christian Aid week is with us once again. In the afternoon I walked down to the Taff in a bracingly fresh strong breeze and took some photographs with my Sony Alpha 55, trying to capture the sense of movement in the trees. I also got a few nice shots of a grounded crow, or is it a rook?

Owain dropped by to say hello in the evening, and introduced me to the TV comedy show Silicon Valley, a savagely satirical take on life in hi-tec business start-up in California. It's brilliantly funny and I was so taken with it that I watched another three of the episodes available after Owain left.

Mistaken identity

Clare and I left the house at the same time this afternoon. She was headed for a weekend of looking after Rhiannon in Kenilworth, and I was on my way to the office.  A Dwr Cymru van was parked at the end of the street and their Damaged Sewer expert was on the case, examining the underground environment with a camera probe to establish if there's any damage in the neighbouring system that's been causing the half a dozen sink holes that have appeared in this locality over the past four years.

I mentioned the discovery by the road making team of a collection of plastic bags at the end of a string down the sewer access shaft. He laughed. "No, not a drug stash" he said, "That's rat poison - not that rats come up here that often, because of the poisons in domestic sewage."  Nevertheless, the assemblage of plastic bags was no longer attached to the string - either detached and disappeared into the outflow, or surrepticiously removed yesterday. Someobody thinking the bags contain drugs are in for a surprise!

Later, in the office, there were changes in the management of our crime database management system to be dealt with, and notifications to be uploaded. The system has been secured against the Heartbleed security compromise exploit, and for us this meant re-registration and password changes, just to be on the safe side. There's nothing worse than a flawed secure system.

After work, a late afternoon visit to my GP surgery for a doctor's diagnosis of my persistent bronchial catarrh. I came away with a prescription for antibiotics, but too late to collect from pharmacies in Canton or Pontcanna, so took the bus into town to visit Boots the Chemist next to the main bus station. Nevertheless, I was home just in time to cook supper and listen to the Archers.   

 

Resurfacing Meadow Street

Yesterday afternoon Ashley and I made another journey to our suppliers in Chepstow to sort out a batch of problematic radios and to order a new batch of replacements, as our original equipment issue approaches the end of its life expectancy in the coming year. I returned to join Clare supper as she had two colleagues staying with us overnight, but then I returned to the office to work with Ashley on constitutional revision issues (yet again). When I got home, getting on for eleven o'clock, I had to hunt in Llanfair Road for a parking space, in anticipation of not being able to park in Meadow Street all next day, due to road surfacing. I got luck and was able to shoehorn the car into a space only a foot longer than itself. Old VW Golfs are great manouverers.

The road works team was with us by eight, but several people had not yet removed their cars, and the first couple of hours was taken up by the team knocking on doors to find out who had ignored the notices, hand delivered a couple of days ago. Some of the offenders were from neighbouring streets, and took some tracking down. I didn't see the tow truck being pressed into service, but it was ten thirty by the time work was able to start with a clear street.

A remarkable machine designed to scrape off the old decayed road surface, sweep up the bulk of the road stone and send it up a twenty foot conveyer belt into the back of an accompanying lorry, was first on the scene.

 They were accompanied by a road sweeping vehicle and a couple of all purpose excavators to trim missed corners and tidy up loose chippings, leaving the stone gutters and kerbs exposed neatly. The speed and precision with which these vehicles accomplished their task testified to great training and teamwork on the part of the crew.

When they tackled the far end of the street where it opens out on to the back lane, a new sink hole appeared right next to the iron cover of a sewer access shaft. It's in the area where repairs to sink holes has been necessary at least four times since I retired. Why the subsidence occurs has never been tracked down. The road works team had not been briefed on this history and possibility of re-occurrence, by the Council's Highways department which commissioned the work. When I asked the men probing the hole about this, they merely laughed. Nobody tells us anything, they said.

With a bit of a struggle they removed the cast iron sewer access cover and satisfied themselves that its brick shaft wasn't damaged. Someone noticed a piece of string had been secured to the frame of the cover, and tugged it up to reveal a collection of small dirty plastic bags tied to the other end. "It's a drug stash" one of the men remarked, and debate ensured as to whether there was coke or hashish in the bags. None of the crew was keen to find out, or handle it in any way, so they agreed to leave it where it had been found, and replaced the access cover. If it was indeed a drug stash, either it had been forgotten, or the user had been unable to retrieve it, as the cover required special tools and considerable effort to remove.

Next the tarmac laying machine and road roller arrived, and the new surface was pressed into place with equal speed and dexterity.

 In three hours the job was done, despite continuous rain. I went into the office, and by the time I returned home, the line painting team had been and gone, leaving the street looking fresh and clean, filling up rapidly with cars once more, including our own, once Clare came home. She'd used it earlier and I didn't exactly know where it was parked ad interim, so she retrieved it while I cooked supper.

My photos of a memorable couple of hours can be seen here.

A bad back and a new Bishop for Europe

This morning, just as I was cleaning the dining room before driving Clare to Newport for an osteopath appointment, I was hit by an excruciating pain in my lower back as I was bending to clean the feet of a chair I'd picked up, then I coughed involuntarily and felt the shock of a spasm running up the inside of my spine. No trapped nerve as happened by in February, but revelation of a weakness, an incomplete healing. So it was Clare that ended up driving me to Newport. Fortunately our osteomyologist Kay Saunders was able to treat us both. 

Can it really be five years since I last went to her for treatment. I know from previous experience that her treatment, will speed recovery, though I expect several more days of pain and stiffness, due to what is effectively a re-opening of old wounds. Getting about now with the pain reawakens the memory of coping on my own in a strange apartment far from home earlier in the year. I had to learn extra patience and not to panic in the face of the challenge of staying mobile, and not being a liability to my hosts. What do I need to learn now? One thing seems certain. I must warm up properly before tackling housework in future, to make sure my back is as flexible as it needs to be. Perhaps spending a day reading a book, mostly on a far from ergonomic sofa, was also a contributory factor. That sofa has to go!

The new office chair in my study is now the most supportive and comfortable seat in the house, so it got well used in the afternoon and evening. The 'Thinking Anglicans' website told me that Canon Robert Innes, Senior Chaplain of Holy Trinity Brussels the pro-Cathedral for Northern Europe, has been appointed as Bishop of the Diocese in Europe. Diocesan Press Officer Fr Paul Needle interviewed him, as he was getting off the Eurostar shuttle at Waterloo, and posted it on You Tube. A positive way to declare his intention to exercise episcopal ministry from Brussels, commuting to the diocesan office as and when necessary. 

To appoint a working Chaplain as Bishop, whose operational base will be within the Diocese he serves is most welcome. It represents a positive response to appeals made about these matters in consultations during each of the three previous episcopal selection processes. He's the first non-Anglo-Catholic to be appointed as Diocesan Bishop. Holy Trinity Brussels can be regarded as broadly Anglican evangelical, and Archbishop Justin's choice acknowledges that the Diocese in Europe's prodigious growth in the last thirty years owes much to broad evangelical Anglican missionary enterprise.

I spent the rest of the evening, watching episode two of 'Hinterland', which we missed yesterday, but could view via the 'Demand 5' website. Like the first episode, the storyline flowed around unfinished business from previous generations, and its fatal consequences for people today. The acting is excellent and the landscape photography beautifully atmospheric. Good to see Aberysytwth town showcased as a setting for some of the action. Definitely a must watch.

 

Bank holiday good read

It was such a dull Bank Holiday Monday that we stayed at home and read all day. It was an opportunity to read John Le Carre's novel 'A delicate truth' straight through apart from meals. Much of it is set in Gibraltar, where a botched secret anti-terrorist operation takes place during the latter years of the New Labour administration, making deniable use of American far-right mercenaries. It's also about a diplomat and a senior Foreign Office official who become whistle blowers, outraged by the secret exercise of power without accountability by a minister of state and the cover up which follows. At the end of the story it's unclear if they are successful in an endeavour that will certainly cost them their careers if not their lives.

Le Carre is a master story teller whose writing observes the corruption and deceit of the modern world with prophetic indignation, a great novelist, far more than just a writer of classy spy fiction. During my time in Andalusia, I haven't had the desire or good reason to visit Gibraltar, although it's only two hours drive from Fuengirola. I can't say that its curt portrayal in this novel has persuaded me to make the effort, should I return to the Costa del Sol.

  

Cathedral revisted

Today, with another free Sunday, I decided to worship at the Cathedral, as I haven't been there for any event since the departure of Janet Henderson. Clare opted to go to St Catherines as usual, and got herself recruited to help with hospitality in the Parish Messy Church project. I went to the Cathedral Sung Eucharist (Bairstow in E Flat), at which incense was used, its clouds pleasingly illuminated by shafts of sunlight. (The scent of a new regime?) The nave altar wasn't used, only the high altar, previously used only for distributing Communion. This is a simpler arrangement, to my mind, welcome.

Although the choir is very long and the high altar quite distant, this arrangement works a lot better. The prayers are fully audible, made quite intimate by a properly functioning public address system. Although the ritual at the altar is executed in an aesthetic and dignified manner, there's no really need for it to be universally visible - you don't feel any less involved, and most worshippers love the long slow procession (dare we call it a 'prayer walk') through the choir to the Communion rail.  I well recall my Russian Orthodox friend and early mentor Fr Nicholas Behr saying over forty years ago: "In the celebration of the divine Mysteries, once you know what is happening, there's nothing to see."

The new Dean, Gerwyn Capon is currently on holiday, and Fr Graham Holcombe celebrated and preached. He made reference at the beginning of his sermon to the Easter Lilies decorating the chancel, recalling the enthusiasm shown for them as 'trumpeting the Resurrection' by Canon Edwin Davies one of my predecessors at St John's, fondly remembered by Fr Graham and myself as one of the luminaries of Cardiff back in the 1970's, writing a weekly column of his own in the Western Mail. It's hard to imagine that happening nowadays.

The service was better attended than when I last visited a year ago. I do hope this is a sign of renewing vitality. The whole church and the city needs its Cathedral to be the best, the measure of healthy Christian community and witness to which all else is compared, whether the media seriously value its social contribution or not.

Bank Holiday weekend

We drove to Bristol Friday to visit Amanda, who's in hospital again, and to give James some support. Caring for his mother this past month or so has led to him missing school and examinable assignments, so now he's not going to be able to complete his A level year. We took him out to his school at Thornbury, to find out what options might be available to him. His head of year and head of sixth form were delighted to see him as he has recently been the subject of their pastoral concern. They took an hour with him, mapping out the options for next year, encouraging him to come into school while he's free from having to care for his mother daily, and use staff expertise to write applications, once he's clear what he wants to do next. It's very pleasing to see that he has so much understanding and support there.

Saturday, we took the bus to Penarth and had lunch in the 'Cafe des Amis'. Then we went down to the sea front to inspect the recently renovated and now open buildings on the Pier. It's an impressive restoration and adaptation of a landmark building. 

Part of the upper level of the old ballroom is now a cinema. Underneath it there are function rooms and exhibition space. On the sea side is a stylish restaurant with deck and balcony level dining areas. The pier was busy with bank holiday weekenders enjoying the warmth and Spring sunshine. 

I had a fit of geekiness and took all three cameras, (Sony Alpha 55, HX50 and Lumix DMC LX5) along with me, aiming to take the same photo with each of them, in select locations for comparative purposes. It was an interesting if fiddly time consuming exercise. The wide angle capability of the Lumix lens in comparison with the others is impressive. The telephoto capability of the HX50 and the quality of output is quite remarkable. I used my 28-200mm lens with the Alpha, and found its performance disappointing. Maybe that's my inexperience at using it, even on auto settings, but it could also be a matter of quality as an entry-level priced lens. Some of the photos I took are here. 

We walked back to Cardiff Bay along the beach, as it was low tide, and then along the Barrage to the Millennium Centre for tea. We bumped into Canon Aled Edwards, the CYTUN executive officer in the foyer and chatted for ages. He was on his way out after an Open University Graduation ceremony - one of the many events hosted by our wonderful operatic auditorium.