Coed-y-Werin discovered

Blessed with a bright clear day we decided to drive out of town, to go for a walk taking a picnic lunch with us. We didn't go far, just to the top of Caerphilly mountain, and took the muddy path east  from the busy mountain top snack bar, following the ridge. On the first stretch of the path there are small oak trees, and then a line of beeches, followed by a conifer grove. We stopped by the beeches to eat our picnic in the sunshine, and listened to the call of the huntsman's horn and the hooves of horses clattering unseen in the wooded valley below. At that moment, it was if time had stood still, it felt as if we could have been there at any time in the last couple of centuries. 

We descended the ridge to the track that leads to the nearby hamlet of Wern Ddu, but went in the opposite direction, finding the entrance to the Coed y Werin nature reserve, a large hollow area in the mountain top folds occupied by clay pits and coal extraction since ancient times. It's now managed as a site of ecological interest, by Caerphilly Woodland Trust. Apart from its variety of trees, there are wetland features, and a coal seam out-cropping from old sandstone rock so typical of the South Wales Coalfield basin. A lovely discovery, which I look forward to re-visiting later in Spring when the bird population picks up again.

After our walk, we drove into Caerphilly to have tea and home baked fruit pie in the delightfully traditional Glanmor Tea Room opposite the main castle entrance. Then, home for an idle evening, in front of the telly, with no Sunday sermon to prepare. While this lack of routine task tends to leave me feeling uneasy, it is good to take a break from ministry, to step back for a while and be on the receiving end.

      

Mail order frustration

A week last Tuesday 14th January, I bought a large format mobile phone by my sister from the Easy Life Group internet store, that promised delivery in two working days. Friday l7th I received an email stating that the order had been dispatched. After a week of waiting in for the delivery, nothing has been received. The company advertises an order tracking service. It's not working. Rather than pay to make an enquiry via an 0800 number, I have emailed the company three times at two different and received no response. Clare has used this Kent based mail order company before and admitted that sometimes they were a bit slow delivering, but how slow is slow?

When I was young, mail services were consistent and reliable, and if you were out you could rely on the postman leaving it with a neighbour or calling again the following day. Now there are competing services of a very variable nature, so that waiting for a parcel to arrive no longer has any degree of consistency about it. Therefore I am reluctant to place any trust in mail order trading, and prefer to buy goods whenever possible in real shops. The exception this is travel tickets, where I have most experience of on-line purchase over 20 years.

     

St Agnes Day

I drove through slow heavy traffic to Radyr this morning to celebrate the midweek Eucharist at Christchurch. Before we started I told them something about St Agnes, whose martyrdom in Rome at the end of the third century the church celebrates this day. A young teenager, whose love for Christ and the Gospel led her to resist an arranged marriage to a pagan noble, at the cost of her life. It's 40 years since I became Vicar of St Agnes in Bristol. The story doesn't lose its relevance or interest, as it's about a girl defying the common assumptions of her age about the status and expectations of women. Several people commented about this at coffee after the service. The story of Malala Yusouf is still fresh in peoples' minds.

I arrived home, and got ready for the Ignatian meditation group, meeting chez nous today. It was my turn to lead, and I focussed on Discernment, and Russel's question last Friday: What am I meant to be doing next?  It's still the question uppermost in my mind. Apart from another spell of  locum duty in Spain after Easter I have no other plans or projects to focus upon for the time being. It leaves me feeling uncomfortable and restless. It's not that I need lots of activity, just a sense of focus to give an added structure and discipline to life.

My new 'geriatric' driving license had arrived in the mail, a quick and efficient turn around in just a week. Well done DVLA for being so efficient!
    

Winter sun, Cardiff style

Apart from a chilly walk around the park in the afternoon, and finishing off my first Sunday sermon of 2015, the only thing of note about yesterday was completing my driving license renewal application on-line, cutting up the old licenses and posting off the pieces to the DVLA. 

The license renewal website is a model of simplicity, clarity and ease of use. I was relived to find the Government gateway i/d and password I use for on-line income tax filing worked as intended, and just a little surprised to discover additional information; e.g. N.I. and passport numbers, birth place, was required to complete the process. If we ever moved towards being an i/d card holding nation, all the vital information threads are stored in the DVLA database already. Hopefully the new driving license will be with me in a week or so.

On this bright and sunny morning, I celebrated and preached at Tongwynlais and Taffs Well. St James' in Taffs Well is a simple church building with whitewashed and no stained glass, on a day like this sunlight transforms the space and really lifts the spirits, enhancing the pleasure of worship.

I drove into town at the end of the service to collect Clare from the Riverside  Farmers Market, and we ended up staying for an al fresco lunch of curry served by one stall holder, washed down with a delicious Colombian single estate coffee from another. It was too chilly to stand around for long time before taking the shopping home, but once we'd unloaded and packed it all away, the lure of the outdoors returned. So, we wrapped up again and took one bus into town then another to Penarth for a walk along the pier and the front.

Many people were out enjoying a walk in the sun and dozens were fishing off the pier end as the tide was in. The queue for refreshments in the pier pavilion cafe was too long for us, so we returned home and Clare cooked some scones for tea instead. Crisp and fresh and warm. Nothing better!

Sister June is eighty today, housebound awaiting a knee replacement operation. After months of appalling mis-managment of her case by London's St. George's hospital, compounded by a broken kneecap, thanks to jerky London Transport bus driving provoking a fall, she's finally got an operation date in March. She's keen to start travelling again once she's mobile. We're still waiting for a date for Clare's 'urgent' shoulder repair, wondering if one hospital specialist department is communicating with another. Until we know we can't make any proper plans.

  

Catch-up conversations

I drove out do Dinas Powis this morning for coffee and a chat with Russell, a friend of ours through the Steiner school network. He turned ninety while I was away, and is remarkable lively and active in his engagement with life, limitations of age notwithstanding. We talk about philosophy and theology together, wondering about the path of human progress in these troublesome times, looking for signs of hope and creativity, marvelling together at the wonders of nature. 

We laughed at the co-incidence that both of us at the same moment, pondering on the priorities of life and its limitations as we get older, asked ourselves the question: 'I wonder what I'm meant to be doing next?' The implication is that we haven't forgotten what we're doing now, but are contemplating what the future holds for us. There's no waiting for rigor mortis. Until death intervenes, there are always new ideas to consider, new projects to be undertaken. Growing limitations don't rule out embracing whatever is there for us to enjoy and learn from. I enjoy our little chats.

Shortly after I arrived home, Clare's god-daughter Caroline and her daughter Sarah arrived for lunch on their way to visit a friend in Hereford, during a circular English tour centering on a visit to Caroline's mother Daphne recently moved into a care home in Devon. Sarah has just completed her first year as a medical student in Witwatersrand University, South Africa, where they live. It was a most enjoyable re-union. Sara was a shy adolescent when last I saw her. Now she is a confidence and strikingly attractive young woman embarking upon a challenging career. Who knows where it may lead her. We shall watch with interest.

In the mail today, a letter from the DVLA inviting me to re-apply for a driving license, now that my 70th birthday is but three months away. From hereafter, re-application has to be made every three years, and is dependent upon fulfilling certain medical requirements, voluntarily declared, regarding health and eyesight. The form is long, and bi-lingual, but it can be completed on-line. Not today however. 

  

Virtuous re-cycle

I had another of my restless nights and early risings today. Tucked away on my One Drive, I found a folder entitled 'New Book' that was newer and different from another I'd found on the computer I was working on yesterday. I still haven't mastered version control or system consistency. This time I was amazed to discover half a dozen chapters dating from my first stay in Vinaros, two and a half years ago. I enjoyed re-reading them and then editing and adding to them. Apart from sermons and blog postings I've not stretched my mind with fresh efforts at creative writing since then, shame on me, though come to think of it, on returning to St Mikes in the autumn of 2012, I did re-visit my first book writing effort, and did a further revision encouraged feedback from by Peter Sedgwick who had read and commented on it. Whether either book will ever get published isn't as important as making an effort to keep thinking and reflecting creatively in as many ways as possible.

In the afternoon I visited the office, where Julie, under Jane's tutelage, was getting to grips with the use of Sage accounts for invoice production. Getting the information display design right is indeed tricky. incorporating the CBS letterhead into the production template was trivial in comparison. The challenge was to find the right sized most up to date version on the office data system, one thing I was able to contribute to the process. Having Sage properly set up as well as the file of invoices that I generated last week, will make it possible for Julie to issue invoices in a rolling programme while she gets to grips with a new procedure. We need changes of this kind to be as painless as possible to ensure the workflow continues as it needs to at this time of year.

My old Dell laptop has languished under the office desk the during the year I've mostly been away, and is surplus to current needs. There's nothing that cannot be done using it that can't be also done on a newer more portable piece of kit. Given that it's six years old it's still quite quick and has a superb HD screen. It must have cost a fortune when it was new before I arrived on the scene with less costly hardware requirements to fulfil our working needs. As it's not found a use, and is superior in speed and quality to my home desktop workstation, which serves personal and work needs, I decided to take it home and re-instate it as a space saving workstation substitute. The result is satisfying. The old Acer desktop Vista PC can now deliver its file content ad lib over my home network to the laptop, thanks to the improved network efficiency of Windows 7, and my study work space looks that much freer as a result. Less clutter around the office and at home, a real win-win situation.

  

Mobile office work stations compared

When the weather is cold, grey and wet, days pass when there seems nothing much to do apart from routine domestic tasks. It's not pleasant enough to go out unless it's strictly necessary, and there's not much to do apart from read the news and feel listless. Thus passed Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday I went into the office to complete one of my outstanding tasks, and came home with a Microsoft RT Surface to investigate. It had been hanging around for ages doing nothing, as Sarah had acquired it but not found it user friendly, and had tucked away on the common workspace to be found a use or new user. I took the pass-code details, charged it and satisfied myself that it was working properly, and ending up taking it home. 

It's a neat solid device. It starts up quickly and has a decent enough touch screen. It is runs on an Nvidia Tegra chip, as does the Asus Transformer. Windows RT is a version of Windows 8 built for the hardware. It has a version of MS Office, linked to the One Drive cloud file system. This works well, and is easier to work with than the Google Chromebook equivalent. Both are intended to function primarily as mobile office devices for working on documents, spreadsheets, presentations etc. Only after two years of competing production are some Chromebooks acquiring a touchscreen. The Surface is twice the price however. What you pay is what you get. 

The Surface keyboard is one deal breaker, closely followed by limitations of having a single USB port and no card reader in contrast to Chromebooks. If Microsoft had more closely followed the Chromebook hardware specifications it might not have been such a disastrous market flop. As it is, Chromebook sales are growing healthily. Newer hardware designs are of a quality approaching that of the Surface. The Google User interface works reasonably well and has lots of good features, but it's ugly compared to Windows. And in the end, aesthetics as well as functionality make a wholesome working environment, Each has assets and shortcomings. The ideal mobile computing platform would be a blend of the best of both. Good though Android is as a third alternative, it hasn't got email or browser interfaces for touch screen use to the point where you don't lose a precious text draft through an accidental finger swipe. If I use an Android tablet to browse or send emails, I do so distrustfully as a result of bad experiences. 

The Chromebook will continue to travel with me, in preference to the others, as it's so quick to start for use. It's light and has a great keyboard. The awkwardness and relative unfamiliarity of Google's filing system and off-line web apps I can put up with. They'll improve if people moan at them enough.  

Gloomy Sunday

The last time I walked to and from St Nicholas Kenilworth for the eight o'clock Communion service, two weeks ago, was in darkness. Today, all of Abbey Fields on the way to church was visible in the twilight before sunrise, which occurred as the Gospel of Christ's Baptism was being read. St Nicholas does have stained glass windows, but in the south aisle, there's more plain glass than decorative, so on a good weather day, the warmth and colour of the rising sun adds a fresh dimension of beauty to the interior of the church. About twenty of us attended, unusually more men than women, I noticed. A lady sitting in front of me greeted me after the service, remembering me from previous visits. A retired cleric celebrated, but the Vicar was at the door greeting people and handing out leaflets afterwards.

We had a long family breakfast, then I did some 'tech support' jobs on a couple of laptops, before we set off for Bristol to visit Amanda in the afternoon. It was already getting dark by the time we arrived there. After early sunshine, grey cloud descended and shrouded our journey, making the day seem even shorter. 

My resolve to get up earlier every day and enjoy all of the daylight on offer rarely holds up as my sleep pattern seems so variable these days in which life is less well structured by events. I hunger for more daylight hours at this time of year, or at least less gloom in this cloud laden land.

Contemplative play

I woke up at half past four this morning, still full of impressions from yesterday, so I got up and wrote for two hours before sinking back into deep sleep and waking up several hours later than usual.

Yesterday, after meeting with Phil and Rufus, we drove to Kenilworth to meet Rhiannon from school and take her to a dance event in a studio theatre in Coventry University's Ellen Terry building. By sheer co-incidence this was Rhiannon's second visit to the city centre of the day, as her class had been on a visit to the Cathedral and its museum, as part of their study of the Second World War. Kath and Anto had a Wriggledance gig in Oxford, but as she knew we were coming she arranged for us to go to this particular event which she was bound to miss.

One of the people making the show was Tim Rubidge, a friend of ours from nearly forty years ago, when he and three partners were forming a dance group and needing accommodation in Bristol. They were recommended to us by Jane Winearls, doyenne of the contemporary dance scene whom I met in my Birmingham days and worked with as a University chaplain. The four lived in attic servants' quarters atop our vast St Agnes Vicarage for two years. There were two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, and a living room floor large enough to double as a dance studio. We all got on well, and I guess having dancers in the house influenced Katherine, then of nursery age, as she and Tim now share the same profession. She and he met up in Hexam last autumn during the Wriggledance tour, where Tim now lives. It was wonderful to see him after a quarter of a century, now a dance guru with white hair, not quite as athletic as he was in his youth, but still moving nicely.

The show was a work in progress, born of what participants call 'The Pneuma Project'. It's an extended creative reflection on the nature of pneuma = breath/life/spirit, improvisations in music and dance, in a given setting, lightly defined by its stage props - a curtain of white muslin cotton strips blown randomly by a fan offstage, lit occasionally with projected images of random curves and lines, painting light patterns on the curtain and on performers. Apart from this, the empty space with a few lights was occupied by dancers moving in response to the sounds being created by two instrumentalists.

Two accordion players began by walking slowly around the stage drawing air into their instruments and expelling it, resembling the sound of living breath for many minutes of silence, before moving making and developing the soundscape with musical notes. Tim first appeared moving slowly, carrying over his shoulder a long bare dry branch from a tree in perfect balance, an exercise in mindfulness setting the scene for unfolding improvised dance movements against the soundscape with no overall narrative to define the evolving whole, but driven by the dancers; response to their environment and to a lesser extent, each other.

The focussed stillness of the audience of about thirty, mostly dance students, was remarkably intense for the forty-five minutes of the performance. It was an amazing rich experiment in sound and movement in which time seemed to be suspended, or determined by the rhythm of breathing alone. Very much like being inside a meditation, though without the formal structure. Not quite dream-like, though full of a sense of mystery and wonder. A spiritual experience? Yes, but without the usual defining conceptual boundaries. Simply playing with silence and breath in whatever way emerged in that space and time. An expression of pure spiritual freedom born of trust in each other and trust in the process.

It was offered as a work in progress presented to an audience for the first time, therefore a learning experience for all involved. It was very much the kind of experiment I wish Christians and other religious adventurers could get into and work on to discover new depths in the living relationship between the Word and the Spirit.

Despite late rising we got Rhiannon out and ready for her youth theatre workshop in time, and picked her up from Warwick University Arts Centre afterwards. After a lazy dozy afternoon, Kath and Anto arrived triumphant from their penultimate Wriggledance tour gig, and we went out to supper at Zizzi's to celebrate Anto's birthday.

Over-stretched church

I drove over to Llanedeyrn this morning to meet Phil and Rufus for coffee and hear how they've both been getting on in ministry over the months since we last met. One is coping with a huge increase in his workload due to sickness among colleagues, the other is bracing himself for a future working alone in an extensive parochial area, as a result of the departure of his colleague, who will not be replaced. 

Both were experienced senior professionals before ordination and made a healthy transition into their new clerical lifestyle, but the church is far from healthy, or capable of coping with the drastic changes that have resulted from loss of members and decline in numbers of fully trained pastors to support them in the challenges of mission and ministry. I'm certain they were both honestly aware of what they have taken on in faith, but that doesn't mean to say that the different demands aren't going to have unexpected impacts on them over time. 

Each diocese of the Church in Wales is working away at re-organising and re-structuring its offer of ministry to its unique social and geographical setting, and striving to get the faithful remnant behind the effort. My concern is for frenetically busy front line clergy, who in such a period of upheaval cannot help but feel less than cared for by those above them. 

It's another variant of complaints I heard in the diocese in Europe, about poor communications and responses from the centre, inferring lack of interest, in effect too little genuine pastoral oversight and leadership. People can be very good about supporting each other locally, until there are disagreements, conflicts of interest and so on, and if the cohering vision which motivated chaplaincy development begins to fade, things can start to fall apart.

I know what it is to work hard and flat out, to get tired enough to teeter on the edge of burnout, whether from having too much to do, or from coping with the insecurity of not knowing what to do next. Each can be as enervating as the other. Without the certainty of the annual family holiday over many years, I feel sure I would have broken under the strain eventually, and often I was a totally exhausted misery on holiday, barely able to enjoy being in wonderful places together with people I love most.

Now in retirement I have freedom to continue in ministry and control demands made on me in a way I never could do when licensed and obligated to a pastorate, being able to help out in all kinds of situations is a great joy and privilege, but is there more I could do to support those on the front line of the church's present crisis, and maybe help plug the communications gap, I wonder.

Office and other achievements

I woke up early, preoccupied with thoughts of batch invoice generation for the annual round of CBS RadioNet subscription renewals, due to go out this week. With no distractions and a clear sharp mind, I tackled the much unloved job methodically and by breakfast time I had the datasets and merge templates working, ready for action, and uploaded to the CBS office OneDrive account. A cheering achievement to start the day.

Then, I took the remains of the old desk for re-cycling. It was quite a job getting all the bulky pieces in the car. The large heavy desktop will have to go on a separate journey. I returned to Staples to acquire an extra storage unit to occupy an empty space in the corner behind the new desk, and some tidy trays for desk draws in which to keep all the small fiddly things that accumulate in drawers that you can't think what to do with. 

After a couple hours, two folding crates and a large ice cream carton of little bits all from the old desk, were assigned a new home. Bookshelves were rearranged, archive material rarely if ever consulted was stored out of sight, and accessible shelf space made for all the things I regularly use. The desk surface area is now too small to be a dumping ground, and can only be used for its proper purpose, to support the use of a computer workstation.

Now there's enough real room for a second chair and my office desk chair, and hardly any clutter on the floor. Quite an achievement. I can even open the window fully for the first time. It's crazy what you put up with when you are too busy to stop and think about your working conditions. I guess that spending much of this year away in clergy houses that aren't oversized, yet have good sized well equipped office workspaces, has made me less tolerant of the cramped environment I've put up with since retirement.

With everything looking neat and tidy, it was time to re-install Linux Mint. A flawless operation in its own right, with additional software installations (Chrome and Audacity) following achieved with ease. Once more, no recourse to the Home partition back-up was necessary, though when I'd finished I realise that backing up hadn't included the newly digitized sound files of the Sinatra dream concert. Nevertheless, these played back perfectly because the upgrade had gone immaculately according to plan. Bravo Linux Mint for being so beautifully consistent.

With domestic jobs done, I was able to spend a couple of hours in the office putting finishing touches to the invoicing process with a discussion on the inevitable anomalies with Ashley and Julie. Then home in time a cook a paella for supper, and relax. Wonderful to feel good enough and have the energy to get so much done, and so satisfying.

  

Desk exchange

Today, I took Clare to the Heath hospital for an appointment, and browsed for bargains in Staples while I waited for her. My working habits have changed considerably this past few years, since I began using a smartphone and equally significant, a Chromebook. More routine tasks are achievable without needing to sit at a desk nowadays. Yet, I've been thinking of acquiring a higher resolution monitor, if not an all-in-one desktop PC to support viewing and editing photographs better. Browsing didn't get me far before I was summoned collect Clare and return for lunch, but it did get me thinking.

I still write sermons at a workstation because I need to print them, but create fewer documents that need printing, as so much more of my work is now done just on-line. I have little need of a better computer workstation when my existing one, running both Linux and Vista is adequate for my purposes. A better display is one possible improvement, and now I have to admit that faster broadband has become more desirable with so many internet connected devices in the house, as many as eight at a time calling upon the services of an existing standard set-up peaking at 100mb/sec, and these days often faltering. It's a few years since I upgraded Linux Mint, so this much I decided I should do first. This time I decided to back up my Home partititon first. It took many hours, so upgrading Mint from an installation disk which I made last week from a download has to wait.

Late afternoon a courier delivered the new office desk Clare ordered for me from Amazon. It's much smaller than the existing one, and will help give my home workplace a more spacious feel. But first, how to remove the existing desk from the study? The removal men carried it upstairs in one piece and it just squeezed into place before bookshelves were erected. Since then the shape of the landing at the top of the stairs has changed with adjustments to floor levels and a new corner linen cupboard. What went in won't come out in one piece.

I manhandled it out of the room, and was able to detach the very heavy desktop, but there wasn't enough room to manouvre the base, because of its size. So, reluctantly, sadly I had to cut it into manageably sized pieces to get it down the stairs. This desk is probably as old as I am constructed strongly enough to serve as an emergency air raid shelter, and last several lifetimes. Such a pity for it to come to such an end, but what else could I do, knowing we have no space to store it even for the few days it would take to find someone to take it away and re-use it. The remains will go to the tip tomorrow.

Then, with much loving support and organisational aid from Clare, I built the replacement desk from the flat pack kit. After four hours of physical labour altogether, I was satisfyingly tired. It is indeed tiny and flimsy in comparison to the old desk, and has half the amount of storage, so work has to be done on re-arranging office contents tomorrow.

Owain expressed shock and regret when I told him about the demise of the desk, protesting that it was a sort of family heirloom, as it had been among our domestic goods and chattels since before he was alive. For most of its time with us since it was originally bought second hand, it helped fill space in Vicarage offices with far larger rooms than any we now have. Sometimes, such desks stay where they are housed. At one time, both Clare and I had such large desks. Now both are gone. All part of the task of down-sizing as you get older. One day, I'm sure Owain will understand, and be grateful this wasn't a furniture headache he inherited.
   

Epiphany Day

Yesterday was such a grey chilly day, I missed the open sea and blue sky of the Mediterranean. I went the office for a couple of hours, then met with Clare and went shopping for a new phone for her, as the cntract, taken out for a new phone after her previous one was stolen in Taormina - two years ago already! After much agonising and a little persuasion, she settled for Samsung Galaxy Mini S III like mine only in white, as these are on offer at less than half the price I paid for mine sixteen months ago, with an EE sim-only contract.

Much of the evening was taken up with setting it up, with Clare learning as she went along, and much comforted to find that it works well indoors, since we received our EE signal booster box last Friday. There are so many configurable features on a smartphone that initial confusion is unavoidable, but by this morning, she was exploring and enjoying different features for herself, with just the occasional 'What does this mean?' about some arcane unfamiliar menu term.

The sun shone this morning, and there weren't many clouds around, a cheerful start to Three Kings Day was most welcome. A few days ago, I heard about a BBC2 radio programme which broadcasted a two hour compilation of live recordings of Frank Sinatra in concert. I listened and enjoyed, then recorded it on my old Minidisk player, to digitise and listen again when the download expires in iPlayer. It took me a while to remember how to operate the device, as it's years since I last used it. Digitising is now turning out to be something of a challenge, as I can't configure Audacity to play back what it's working on to ensure that I get the sound levels right. It's amazing what you forget it you don't use technical resources on a regular basis.

After an early supper I walked in the dark across Llandaff Fields to the Cathedral for the Solemn Eucharist of the Epiphany sung by the choir to Schubert's Mass in G. Amazing to think that the composer who wrote the 'Winterreise' lieder could also create such exultant spiritual sounds. But this says a lot about the complexity contained within every heart and life, I guess.

There were about fifty in the congregation, with thirty choir and servers present. No sermon tonight, just a quiet thoughtfully conducted service with the Cathedral beautifully lit internally and externally to offer that sense of being an ocean of light in winter darkness. Just perfect for the occasion. I slipped in through the side door as the altar procession arrived, so was able to slip into the choir without disruption. At the end, I slipped out into the darkness without staying to speak to anyone, savouring the hour of peaceful seclusion as I strode home across the fields, rejoicing in the Light no darkness can overcome.
   

Epiphany Sunday & Sinatra live

Ah! Sunday in the pew alongside my darling wife at St Catherines for the Epiphany Sunday Eucharist. Great! To my surprise we were asked to take the bread and wine to the altar at the Offertory. Oh dear didn't get it right. The collection follows, not precedes the Holy Gifts. 

It must be the first time I've got to do something that simple as one of the laos tou theu, in decades. For one as fussy as I am about appropriate good liturgy, this was a sobering experience of being on the other side of the altar rail - a bit like a man being asked to dance the girl's part. Girls are better than blokes at doing this, it must be said.

We walked to the Riverside Market after the service for our weekly outing to shop for organic veg. It was quite chilly. I was inadequately dressed and felt the cold. We concluded our expedition with a shared bowl of lentil soup to fortify our walk home. For lunch we each ate a delicious goat cheese and squash pastie, bought on our expedition.

Before the BBC4 evening news, 'Pick of the Week' featured an extract from a BBC2 New Year's Day programme showcasing Frank Sinatra's concert performances. Tonight, I found the programme on iPlayer Radio and enjoyed two hours worth of music in the American popular song genre. It was a superbly assembled playlist of Frankie, recorded singing to live audiences over a forty year period, 'curated', if that's the right word, by Barry Manilow, colleague and fan. Astonishing excellence on the part of the BEEB.

   

Study makeover

My study is full of stuff, kinda organised but never totally tidy, a work in progress ever since I retired. There's never been enough time or energy to spare for proper review. Clare has been more conscious of its shortcomings than I have, and has diplomatically suggested improvements over the past four years, but without chagrin whenever events have diverted the course of action elsewhere. In fact, the only 'improvement' since I moved in, four and three quarter years ago, was the acquirement of a decent adjustable height office chair last year.

Maybe spending so much time away from 'mission control' over the past year, and having less to do over the holiday season led to a longer than usual conversation about 'doing something' to improve the study as a work environment. As a result, yesterday I did some tricky furniture shifting in a narrow space, to re-locate a book case into a space where it didn't fit flush to the wall, but at least the difference this made was reason to be persuaded by Clare to go the next stop.

Today, working slowly and carefully together, we tackled the challenge of reducing the height of the bookcase by 5cm. This involved removing all the books to the spare room, wielding a saw in quite a narrow space, plus some inaccurately aligned hole drilling to get the bolts to fit the structure together again. 

Getting everything back in place once this was completed resulted in a tidier and more manageable arrangement of computer workstation cables.  I've now re-arranged some of the bookshelves to allow easy access to stuff used most requently, and banished archive file, never accessed from prominence to obscurity where they properly belong, until needed if ever. I'm pleased with the result, having made the effort to consider the use I make of the room that's mine.

The advent of mobile computing has changed the way I work over the past few years living mostly in Spain. My home workstation is a great tool for doing some things I do occasionally, beyond writing documents, sending emails and surfing the web. Compared to just few years ago, I can do most of what I need from a web connected computer anywhere, though not everything. Anything involving precision scanning, managing all my files, either in the cloud or on a physical device, I prefer to do from a single place of reference. My study. 

It's no good, however clever modern auto-sync programs are, I end up with puzzling file duplications, version control nightmares and document hunts owing their existence to the fact that I'm creating documents on half a dozen different devices and not always remembering to save them to places where I can be sure they will end up being sharable in a recognisable location. The format war between Microsft and Google hardly helps. Default use of one consistent universal file format on all devices and platforms would help. In reality, moving between Google and Microsoft cloud storage systems is a fiddle (what the hell is .gdoc Google? And why do I need it?). On principle, I use both, for the same as well as different purposes. After all, why should I entrust my digital life to a single mega-corporate, when two are offering me their free services? (Forget the Apple cult).

Anyway, my study is now more habitable than it used to be. A new, smaller desk has been ordered from Amazon. Once installed, my little room will offer much more space than before, and easier access to things I need most.

All thanks to Clare's persistence in making my study fit for purpose.
     

Year's end and beginning

Two days, laid low by an unpleasant cold, not leaving the house, keeping the shivers at bay. Nothing to do except machine minding while uploading to my MS OneDrive archive account photos taken in Spain during the past year. So many difference places and experiences, thousands of photos, several gigabytes worth, on a slow sometimes flaky connection. Still, if you've nothing else to do apart from feel poorly, it gives a sliver of purpose to useless days, when even watching telly is an effort.

Clare cooked a vegetable curry for our New Year's Eve 'St Sylvester' supper, and just before we sat down to eat, to my surprise, the worst symptoms of the cold suddenly abated, making the meal extra enjoyable. I had enough energy to watch telly afterwards, but most of the evening's offerings were of little interest, although I did dip into BBC Four's back to back repeats of programmes on the Swedish pop group Abba. I know their songs more from seeing 'Mamma Mia' on stage and on film several times, and from our kids playing them when they were young, far more than I do from being a fan at the time. I seem to have grown out of pop music when I discovered World Music, and expanded the interest in classical music acquired at home as a child.

By midnight, Clare was in bed, nursing her cold. The skies were briefly lit with fireworks. I went outside, but there was nobody about on the street to greet. Just silent parked cars with their red security lights advertising their unwelcoming status. There was no sound of partying coming from anywhere nearby. Nowadays I guess, far more go out to celebrate, either to local pubs, or to the city centre for the Calennig Nos Galan fiesta, or to a night club. Not my kind of scene.

I stood there thinking of how it was in childhood in Glen View, Ystrad Mynach, when older children or perhaps even a young collier with blackened face would knock on doors to greet people and be welcomed in with a drink and maybe a coin or two, for coming to let the New Year in. Then, there'd be at least some people out on the doorstep shouting their good wishes across to each other while they smoked a last cigarette before turning in. No cigarette for me, not even a glass of wine or a tot of spirit, to celebrate, just grateful to be on the mend again so soon.

  

Happily, a Eucharist in honour of the Name of Jesus was advertised for noon at St John's, a leisurely start to a Bank Holiday with all the shops except zealous convenience stores closed for business. I strolled down in good time and joined in worship with a dozen people assembled from the benefice congregations, led by Fr Phelim. Several people recognised and welcomed me warmly. Fr Phelim asked me to assist him with giving the chalice, as the regular lay assistants were absent. It's good to be home, and this is a good parish to be able to call home.

The rest of the day was a TV catch up day, having not felt up to watching much in the past week. There were two iPlayer episodes of Wallander I hadn't seen, and needed to catch before watching the last two later on in the evening. Then there was 'Despicable Me', the original movie, just as crazy funny as 'Despicable Me II' which I watched, wedged between my lovely grand daughters on Boxing Day. That's five an a half hours worth in one day. I must be crazy.

Keeping warm

I had Viber text messages overnight from Rachel, one from Chicago and another from Phoenix, telling that she'd been sick on the 'plane, from some noxious component of the in-flight vegetarian meal option. Meal booking menus don't always list ingredients that might present allergy problems, apart from the obvious life threatening ones. On this occasion, she got caught out. Another wobbly homecoming!

Clare and I went out the Co-op for food shopping, but apart from that, despite the bright sunshine, the rest of the day was spent keeping warm indoors. Out and about, the temperature hovers around zero. BBC Radio 4 made the day worthwhile with a start of a serialised version of singer Ian Bostridge's book about Schubert's 'Winterreise' song cycle, which puts the music, and the poems of Wilhelm Muller which he used, in their social and cultural context as part of the emergence of Germanic identity in the nineteenth century. An utterly fascinating way to do history, ranking with Neil McGregor's outstanding 'History of the World in 100 Objects' broadcast series a couple of years ago.

We also binged on the missed Christmas episodes of 'The Archers' via iPlayer, while I cooked supper, in time to hear the latest one live. So much of the world's best radio on demand - this alone is worth the annual license fee, which reminds me ....

  

Christmas Sunday

I slept badly, with a developing sore throat, and was out of the hotel by half past seven, well before sunrise for a change, to walk across Abbey Fields to St Nicholas' Parish Church for the eight o'clock service. I was disappointed to discover it was cancelled and that there'd only be a family Eucharist on this Christmas Sunday at a time I wouldn't be able to make it. So, I wandered slowly back to the hotel, enjoying seeing blackbirds and a missle thrush close to the footpath, too preoccupied with hunting for worms in the semi-frozen ground to be alarmed by my presence in the semi darkness.

Kath had just arrived back from ferrying Rachel and Jasmine to Heathrow when we reached the house for a farewell breakfast. By midday we were driving back to Cardiff. My cold was really beginning to develop, and I ended up in bed early, watching an episode of 'Inspector Montalbano' I'd seen before, that had an inconsistent confusing ending. I didn't have the energy to watch the last ten minutes again, so I obsessed about it in my groggy state, drifting in and out of sleep. 

This is the first cold I've had in ten months. I wondered how long it would take, after observing the alarming number of train travellers coughing when I arrived back in Bristol last Monday, compared to the few coughs I heard travelling to Barcelona earlier the same day. Ah well, there's nothing much to be done in the aftermath of Christmas, but enduring a cold isn't my idea of leisure.

Family re-union II

On this occasion, Rachel and Owain, Clare and I took rooms in Kenilworth's Holiday Inn for our stay here. Anto's sister Viv, recently bereaved, was occupying their spare room, and this offered us a most comfortable and reasonably priced alternative to being crammed in and sleeping on the floor. Clare and I had a fourth floor room facing east and overlooking the High Street.

We got to bed by eleven, exhausted by Boxing day's festivities, and were awake to enjoy the sunrise, followed by a full English Breakfast in the hotel dining room, before joining the others for mid-morning coffee. After lunch, we walked through Abbey Fields to Kenilworth Castle, so we could all get some exercise, and the kids could enjoy the new play apparatus in the park.

After supper a game of Monopoly, against the background of Rachel preparing for her flight back to Arizona, involving a six o'clock start from here to get to a flight from Heathrow, just after ten. This had the added frustration of being unable to check in on-line, as the airline partnership (BA & UA) seemed not to have assigned an aircraft to match the demand. She has to be sure to be there earlier than usual to make sure that she doesn't get 'bumped off' the flight she's booked on, as the airlines always overbook seats on any given international route. It adds an element of insecurity no long distance traveller needs. It used to be like that travelling around the Mediterranean fifty years ago. Scale up the distances, and even today the element of uncertainty can't be ruled out.

   

Boxing Day re-union

We were on the road to Kenilworth as soon as we could organise ourselves after breakfast the roads, a lot busier today with people like us, making family visits, very few lorries. We arrived just after one. John arrived with Jasmine an hour later. Snow was threatened. It was no more than cold and rainy. Not that this was in any way a deterrent to Rhiannon and Jasmine! 

Last week, Rachel and Jasmine had been in Kenilworth. The cousins had been joyfully reunited and played together wonderfully. They'd devised and performed a play together, and vowed to do the same again, next time all the family met, which was today. Their stage set, with chairs for the audience was in the garden, regardless of the rain. The girls' enthusiasm was enough to ensure an open air audience despite weather conditions. Ten minutes of pure damp delight.

We enjoyed another Christmas lunch, this time with all three children and grandchildren around the table followed by another exchange of presents, and a video showing of 'Despicable Me II', a cartoon satire of American action movie cliches, which it seems kids love and adults like to laugh along with. I noticed Jasmine seemed familiar with the songs, plot-line catch phrases and key moments, suggesting she'd seen it several times before I'd even heard of it. There's no doubt I'm quite detached from many elements of the bewildering world shaping our grandchildren.

    

  

Christmas at home

I was glad to have Tuesday without commitments to do some last minute shopping. This meant Rachel and I could drive over to Bristol to visit Amanda, exchange Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve, and to catch up with her, as I haven't seen her since summer, when she was last in hospital. She fights against growing disability with impressive courage and creativeness, working with her carers on baking and jam-making. All the presents she'd prepared for the rest of the family she'd made herself. Such admirable spirit!

When Amanda's carer arrived, we headed for home, a late lunch, and then for me, completing a sermon for Midnight Mass. Owain arrived for supper and a relaxed evening before I drove out to Tongwynlais on deserted roads, to celebrate for a congregation of three dozen. Last time I was here, I was hearing Phil one of my students, preach. I also did locum duties here during the last interregnum, three years ago. How time flies!

It was good to be back in a familiar place with familiar faces, and hear the scriptures read by people with South Wales accents not too dissimilar from my own. For me, this is a profound part of what it means to celebrate Christmas at home.

It was strange to awaken relatively late this morning, without the excited voices of children discovering their gifts from Santa, but this year Jasmine is with her father. Rachel, Owain, Clare and I went to the Eucharist at Catherine's, and enjoyed a good carol sing together, before preparing Christmas dinner together - well, my share was preparing the sprouts and washing lots of pans and dishes. Owain took the lead, making sauce based on a reduction of red wine with plum jam to accompany roast duck for a change, plus venison sausages with all the usual family veggie delights including nut roast, followed by glorious Christmas pudding.

Before the sun set, we quit the table and walked around Llandaff Fields. One of my presents from last year was a boxed set of 'Superman' movie videos, from Rachel. Sadly, I've never had enough idle time to consider spending three hours watching them, but with no children to feed, play with or put to bed, we could all sit down and watch the first of the series together. It was good fun, and especially for Rachel a reminder of a childhood family outing to watch this particular movie - not that any of us could actually recall the first fifteen minutes of the film describing Superman's origins on planet Krypton.

It's a superbly crafted movie, but it's funny how differently one interprets it, some thirty five years later on, at the time of year when we sing. 'He came down to earth from heaven...' Superman is a heroic saviour figure, powerful, honourable, decent, upholding western democracy against criminal enemies, yet vulnerable (like Samson) to those who know the secret of his weakness. Sometimes he suffers, it's true, but it's never terminal. It's an intriguing fugue on the incarnation/redemption theme, proving how many thoughtful creatives simply don't get the great mystery of the incarnation.

   

Home run

Up at six before dawn, to finish packing and cleaning, then Michael arrived to take me to the station as I was finishing breakfast. The 07.10 Regional stopping train was in Vinaros station, lit up and open for business before we got to the platform, as it starts from here, and makes the diversion to Tortosa before heading north to Barcelona. It was an hour later when we were in the vicinity of L'Hospitalet that dawn broke over the sea. By this time the train was filling up with people on their way to Tarragona or even Barcelona, presumably for Christmas shopping. In fact, it was packed for the last hour of the three the early stopping train takes, landing one at Baracelona Sants just after ten. 

I had time for a coffee before taking the shuttle train to the airport, followed by the fifteen minute walk from the station to Terminal C where the EasyJet flights depart from. There must have been 200 people queuing to drop off bags, and it took forty minutes as only two thirds of the check-in desks were staffed. By way of contrast, security clearance took just five minutes, leaving me three quarters of a hour before boarding commenced. We arrived at Bristol ten minutes early and the shuttle bus to Temple Meads was soon transporting us to the station. 

At this point, effortless timely progress slowed somewhat. I just missed the four o'clock train to Cardiff. I got on the 16.24 train, but then we were all ordered off the train, when its cancellation was announced, and had to wait another half an hour for the next. It was 17.50 be the time I reached Cardiff, to be greeted by Rachel, who came to pick me up by car and take me home, an hour later than normal timetabling would predict. Trains in Spain may be fewer and often fuller, but given the distances they cover, they run fairly well on time. Given the opportunity EasyJet will get you there early. As for First Great Western, and their horrible noisy smelly trains, that's another story altogether.

It's great to be home again, except the first job always has to be updating computers neglected during my absence.

     

Encanyissada

Today, my last assignments in this tour of locum duty. First, celebrating the Eucharist at L'Ampolla for a dozen people. I was delighted to find that in one of the south aisle side chapels, the altar was taken up with a Belen, composed entirely of paper figures, many made from toilet roll centres. A remarkable work of imaginative art, during catechism sessions by local parish workers, no doubt!

On my way home for lunch, I made a big diversion through Delta de l'Ebre returning to Els Muntells, where the car broke down on my first visit this time around, and then driving south along narrow roads through flooded rice fields to Poblenou del Delta, the remarkably modern designed township built as a social project during the time of the Generalissimo, now serving as a key tourist venue for the southern sector of the region. 

Outside the town is a huge lagoon, remarkable for its tall reed beds and wetland wildlife. There's a Natural Park visitor centre and restuarant at the heart of it, with several observation posts overlooking vast expanses of open water and reed beds, which have been enclosed for centuries and used for fish stocks as will as rice growing. The lagoon's name is 'Encanyissada', of Catalunyan origins, referring to the abundance of tall cane type reeds which flourish here.

What a treat to discover this on my last outing, on a beautiful afternoon, filled with glimpses of some remarkable birds, especially several kinds of heron I didn't know existed until I read the wildlife identification panels at the visitor centre, and mostly elusive to camera, as they startle so easily when you drive along. Still, I now know for the first time what a lapwing looks like. There were lots of them in one flooded field, and I even managed to get a close-up.

At the evening Eucharist in the Vinaros Fishermen's chapel, there were ten of us. With there being no priest available to celebrate the Nativity, and most people being away, it was important to finish on the right accent, so we sang a few Christmas carols after Communion, before making our farewells. 

Although there's only been Sunday service while I've been here this time, it's been quite busy in a way, as there's been a need to work with the lay worship leaders and Readers in training on developing their ministry as a team. Fortunately, this is something which I greatly enjoy, and willingly do. It's good to be able to re-cycle some of what I learned from my time tutoring at St Mike's.

  

   

Cervera del Maestre discovered

A day of packing for departure, house cleaning and washing, except that it was impossible to get things dry as the weather wasn't favourable. In the afternoon, I took myself out for that visit to the village of Cervera del Maestre, which I promised myself to return to after visiting nearby Calig last week.

The Moors built a castle on a high ridge overlooking the maritime plain above Vinaros and Benicarlo in the eleventh century, and the village developed around it on the flanks below. It's spectacular to look at and to look out from the heights, in every direction. The village has prospered from almond, carob and olive groves in the vicinity. The walls and interior of the long-derelict castle are now being made safe and visitor friendly, a superb asset worth developing for the panoramic vistas alone.

During this visit I was surprised to realise I'd actually stopped on the road outside the town on the way back from a trip inland to St Matieu two and a half years ago. I'd taken a few photos late in the day, but there wasn't time to explore the village properly so I failed to realise what more there was to see. This visit was, therefore, particularly rewarding.
 

Tale of Nativities

Friday afternoon, Michael and I drove down to Alcocebre to take part in the annual Nine Lessons and Carols celebration. Fifty people were present. He and I were among three soloist with verses from 'We three Kings'. I said the customary Bidding Prayer and John's Gospel, but all else was carried nicely by members of the congregation. It's a measure of how important an occasion like this is to the expatriate community in the area, that people not only turned up and attended but were keen to play a part. One of the readers was a young Spanish girl, an English language student with plenty of confidence to deliver a public scripture reading. These are moments to treasure in terms of cultural exchange, part of what the church as a 'curator'of language exists to offer, often without realising the significance of what it does.

At the south side of the altar in the church of St Cristobel, where the service took place, an open tent canopy had been erected and decorated. Inside it there was a manger-crib with baby Jesus installed, but none of the other actors in the nativity scene. I imagine it was the stage setting for a nativity play or tableau. But, it was the subject of a certain amount of wry humorous observation from by-standers.

In Castellon la Plana last Tuesday, the Cathedral had a large north aisle arcade dedicated to a Belen, and as customary in church, all the figures were in place but the baby Jesus, who makes an appearance at Midnight Mass, a kind of liturgical version of 'Godly Play', I guess. 

Out in the Cathedral Plaza is a mediaeval public building which still serves the public administration of the city. In one corner of its porch is the municipal Belen. Here, baby Jesus is already installed. (I remember this at St John's Cardiff too.) It's too much additional expense and bother to arrange for baby Jesus to appear in public at midnight. Think of the overtime bills ... But in St Cristobel, by way of contrast, only baby Jesus was there.  Such imaginative games we play with our essential stories!

  

Benifassa revisited

I visited El Portico this morning for the last time, and chatted with a few people before doing some shopping and making lunch. On a whim, on my way to the supermarket, I drove alone the south shore road, and spotted some birds roosting on a rock, a hundred metres off-shore. I parked and took photos with my Sony HX50, to find out what its telephoto setting would deliver. When I examined the results later, I was surprised to discover that the rock in question hosted not just the usual family of cormorants but also a pair of big grey herons, and neither seemed bothered about the presence of the other.

I had just enough time later in the afternoon to make the drive to La Senia, and from there drove up into the Sierra dels Ports before sunset to revisit the Benifassa reservoir. The display of light on high peaks and south facing cliffs was utterly lovely to behold.

Two and a half years ago, when I was last up there, the water level behind the dam was so low that an original river bridge and some houses at the bottom of the river valley were not only visible, but could be visited by the adventurous, some 250 feet below the road running across the top of the dam.

At a guess, I'd say the reservoir is now half full, and by the end of winter, there may be even more rain to bring the water level up to a healthy maximum.

The entire agricultural economy of the maritime plain from the Sierra dels Ports in the north to the Sierra d'Irta beyond Peniscola to the south depends on water captured from the mountains as well as the depths of ground water available. I was glad to have the opportunity to return there and see for myself the remarkable variations in climate that cultivators in Spain have to live with, or else go out of business. We who are consumers have no real idea of how much we owe them for our food supplies. All too easily we take abundance for granred.

   

Lunch and an evening exhibition

Michael and Pamela took me out lunch today at L'Antic Moli, one of their favourite restaurants outside of St Rafael del riu on the road to La Senia. This old mill building has been interestingly renovated and expanded, and has an excellent varied menu. I had braised pork cheek and mushrooms with a seafood 'swiss roll' to start with, consisting of minced morcels of fish and raisins, wrapped in a thin layer of a sweet brioche. Quite original. Nice wine too, a Catalunyan vin negre of deep dark colour.

On the way there, at the end of morning, I noticed many fruit pickers at work in the orchards alongside the road. As Michael pointed out, this is the time for harvesting Clementines and Tangerines to bring to market for Christmas. Oranges get picked later, in January. At the moment the former are present on fruit stalls in abundance, and they're cheap as well as deliciously fresh.

In the late afternoon, I walked into Vinaros to savour the evening atmosphere. As the sun sets the skies fill momentarily with tens of thousands of starlings, regrouping before heading to their roosting place for the night. They look like a dark cloud of locusts, swirling in exquisite aerial forms, then they leave as quickly as they appear.

Crowds of kids come out of school at five, then the streets wake up. By six they are busy with shoppers for the next three hours. The number of toy shops in the town centre is remarkable, as well as shops selling children's wear generally. It's a family oriented town in many ways.

In one of the streets there's a 17th century restored nobleman's town house, called the Caixa de Vinaros, which serves as a town museum with an interest in its economic history, displaying photographs and artifacts to do with its agrarian, maritime and industrial past. There's a very fine display of model ships from different periods of regional history. The model maker was there, chatting with the custodian and we got talking. Then he gave me a personal tour of his collection, which was an interesting challenge to my primitive Spanish, but most enjoyable.

The top two floors of the house are given over to an exhibition of paintings by Antoni Miro, an artist who lives in the town of Alcoy, north of Alicante. During the Civil War, a hospital was set up in his home town to treat the wounded. It was funded by Swedish and Norwegian supporters of the Republic. The paintings on display tell the story of the hospital. They are based on photographs taken at the time, made up into large lithographs, tinted in reds, oranges and yellow republican colours, with the faces painted in human flesh tones to take away the sense of abstraction attached to old enlarged photos, not always well defined or in focus. An interesting interpretative device for a powerful narrative about solidarity.

I asked if I could buy a couple of the booklets explaining the exhibition and was told they were for giving away. Free culture and history!  This gives me two more presents I can mail out from here. Pity I didn't take one for myself as well. Sadly there's nothing on Miro's website about this exhibition of his works completed in 2012. The Caixa de Vinaros is an unusual civic asset to say the least.

Shopping in Castello(n)

Today, I took the train to Castello(n) la Plana - the 'n' is in brackets since that's the Castilian spelling, but it's dropped in Valencian and Catlaunyan. This is one of the provincial centres of the Valencian area of government - the 'Generalitat' as it's known, so many of the public buildings are given over to civil administration. The town has a long history having been founded in 1251, eighteen years after the reconquista. The Moors had established a town and castle in the mountains behind, but permission was granted to relocate to the plain. 

Its Cathedral has been there since the thirteenth century, but only acquired cathedral status in the seventeenth. It has a sixteenth century bell tower separate from the church, tall enough to have been used as a look-out post in the days when Barbary pirates were busy on the Mediterranean coast, and there were no high rise blocks. The church was re-built in the twentieth century in a simplified Valencian gothic style, after its demolition had been ordered in 1936, following damage during the Civil War. The old town centre is several kilometres from the sea, where there are holiday beaches. There's a long avenue linking the centre with the sea, along which I believe an electric trolley bus called a 'tram' runs.

With the modern development of the town, the path coastal railway line was diverted inland by half a kilometre. A grand new transport hub was constructed, catering for long/middle distance services, plus suburban 'Rodalies' lines linking it with Valencia. Outside there's a coach station. The former railway station building has been preserved and transformed into a local police station. Behind it stands a huge monumental modern multi-storey 'El Corte Ingles', my shopping destination after I'd toured the town to take photos. I was impressed by the amount and variety of modern sculpture in the streets typical of the effort to give prestige a provincial capital city.

I bought one gift in the Christmas market in the Cathedral Plaza and another in El Corte Ingles, but that was all I could manage in the time available. There's just too much choice. 

A difference in rites of passage

This morning we held a memorial service at Sta Magdalena Parish church near to 'El Portico', for Anita, who died unexpectedly last week. Fr Cristobel the parish priest came and opened up for us and made sure we had everything we needed for the service. It's lovely to receive such kindness and hospitality. The paschal candle was decorated with photos of the young Anita, and one taken a couple of weeks before her death. The urn containing her ashes stood on the altar.  Four dozen people came, and most sat near the front, which mattered in a church that can take two hundred and fifty.

This is the first time in both my visits to the Costa Azahar that I've taken part in the chaplaincy's bereavement ministry. Pastoral calls of this kind are fewer and far between here than they are on the Costa del Sol, where the expatriate population is much larger, and local customs are different. Also social conventions in this region are different. Here it seems to be normal that cremation follows death within 48 hours, making it very difficult to arrange a traditional funeral in the presence of the deceased. A service has to be arranged without the customary rituals of farewell people from the U.K. expect. I've been told, though I'm not sure I believe it, that the practice is due to civil society regulation rather than traditional custom.

After the service, I met with the four chaplaincy worship leaders for a training session. Hopefully this will encourage them to meet regularly for planning sessions, to strengthen their ministry through mutual support, an important engagement for them in the absence of a regular full-time chaplain.

After a late lunch, I walked into town and browsed the shops open for evening trading, in search of Christmas presents. Most often, I spend time in town during the afternoon, when people are at lunch, the shops are shut and everything is quiet. Things come alive in the evening, even though it's dark. Streets are tasteful lit with festive decorations. Vinaros town centre has many small shops, making for an enjoyable experience for a visitor like me, not much inclined to retail therapy outings. 

    

Ministry Sunday

My first duty today was a return visit to Alcocebre for a Eucharist with a congregation of two dozen. It was warm enough after the service to stand outside San Cristobal church for a drink and a few tasty Christmas shaped cheesy biscuits a refreshing change from the usual sweet 'n spicy kinds. Quite special for Sunday in mid-December.

On my way home, I noticed that the Carrefour hypermarket on the edge of Vinaros was open, and I drove in, as there were a few things I'd missed on my weekend shopping list. When I was here first two years ago, Sunday opening wasn't normal. I recall a large advertisment on the side of the building facing the N-340, two years ago, promoting Sunday opening during the holiday season. I'm not sure if it's open Sundays all year round now, but it certainly is in the run up to Christmas. The majority of retail outlets remain closed on Sundays however.

We had Evensong again at the Fishmen's chapel tonight. Only nine of us, as several couples have left to celebrate Christmas elsewhere. Such in the nature of a mobile congregation. Even fewer will be around over Christmas and New Year. There'll be no priest, but wonderfully, our Catholic parish hosts have offered eucharistic hospitality to the handful of Anglicans remaining. It's all part and parcel of pastoral life here on the Costa Azahar. 

     

Ermita de VInaros re-visited

This morning, Michael drove me down to Alcocebre this morning to join a group of people rehearsing for next Friday's service of Nine Lessons and Carols. Michael and I have been assigned the task of singing a solo verse of 'We three Kings of Orient are.', a first for me this one. A few doors away from the parish church of St Cristobal, where Anglican services in Alcocebre are held, a former surf and internet shop is being renovated prior to occupation by 'El Camino', the chaplaincy's drop in centre and shop in this part of the world. It has three times as much space as the existing shop, a more versatile arrangement than the current place. It's a credit to the worshipping community here to have assessed the need and seized the opportunity to undertake this development. I'm sorry I won't be here to celebrate the opening of the new premises early in the New Year.

After weekend shopping this afternoon, I drove to the Ermita de Vinaros to the west inland from town. My last visit here was in the summer two years ago for the Chaplaincy united Eucharist. I also cycled there from the chaplaincy house, a round trip of twenty kilometres, and when Eddie and Ann and Clare came over to join me for a holiday, we had lunch there. Unfortunately, I've not had a bike to ride this time. 

Now the Ermita is only open in daylight hours, and there are few visitors to the bar, restaurant or church. There are few leaves on the plane trees that provide summer shade. If anything, the colours of the fields and orchards of the coastal plain are more vivid than in summer, due to the growth after autumn rains. It's been a cloudy day with a veil of lingering mist muting the colours somewhat, but making for an atmospheric landscape as the sun descended to the horizon.

Being there on my own, I had time to look around the entire domain, which I hadn't previously. There's a Via Crucis ascending to a hill with ten metres tall cross on top of it. Beyond this is a higher mound with a ruinous platform on it. It looks as if the Via Crucis once ended up there, as reinforced concrete remains of the base of a previous cross are still at the platform centre. The reason for the sorry state of the mound is evident from a walk around the perimeter. Excavation has revealed ancient building walls and foundations of an earlier settlement on this site. The platform for the original cross would have been constructed in the early twentieth century, and there may have been less awareness of or interest at that time in what was out of sight under the ground. 

I took photographs, and lingered in the fast cooling air to watch the setting sun throw shafts of golden light through the pine woods that cloak the hillside away from the dwellings facing the sea plain. It was a moment to savour. Photographs are here.
      

Calig visit and Christmas arriving

El Portico was again closed yesterday morning following Tuesday's pipe burst. This gave me time to write a sermon for Sunday, and potter around the house. Mid afternoon I drove out to the hill village of Calig to the west of Benicarlo, a place I've only gone past before, but never visited. Calig has a substantial fourteenth century Valencian Gothic parish church similar to others in towns and villages in this region, a tribute to the investment that followed the re-taking in 1238 of the Valencian taifa (region) that had been ruled by the Moors since 1010.

As well as the church with its own bell tower, the village boasts a second larger fortified tower right at the top the hill from the 13th century. I believe this was originally a watchtower outpost for the Castle of Cervera which sits on high ridge ten kilometres further into the mountains. It's now home to the town clock and has a gable with two bells in it. Next time I come this way, a visit to Cervera will be on the cards. I passed by the town on a lower road, just as the sun was setting. You'll find Calig photos here.

Today I had two bereavement visits to make, one nearby in Vinaros, another outside El Perello. From the latter I went on to officiate at the Service of Lessons and Carols in L'Ampolla. There were over fifty people present. At the end of the service, 'Decibels' a local choir with an international membership, led by a guitar playing English retired headmaster, sang cheery folksy songs and carols to the congregation in English and Catalan before mulled wine and mince pies were consumed.

I think it's four years since I last officiated at a service of Lessons and Carols. The last I attended was the German Lutheran congregation's service in Taormina two years ago. It's very enjoyable to share in an expatriate celebration again. There's an enthusiasm about the singing, the sense of fellowship and the hospitality which owes far less to nostalgia than it owes to the desire to affirm the best about our identity and culture. All part of making yourself at home wherever you are.

  

Tortosa and the Valle d'Ebro

I drove up to Tortosa this morning to meet with Jenny and discuss her sermon with her. We met in the Viena cafe opposite the town's main market hall, a substantial 1890's building, prominent on the Ebro river bank, not far from the old town. It boasts several tapas bars and a couple of bakery shops along with the usual fruit 'n veg, meat and fish stalls. Jenny told me that market food prices are above average as all produce sold carries a municipal quality guarantee. I noticed there are several stalls specialising in salted fish products, it was slightly odd to see so much on display in one place.

I'd parked the car at the far end of town close to the new local university buildings, a kilometre walk from the old town centre. Instead of returning along the riverside, I took to the back street to explore the Jewish Quarter. This is an area of streets dating back to the twelfth century, when riverside land that had accommodated Moorish shipyards was given to the city's Jews for house building after the city had been seized from its Muslim overlords. How sad that the Jews should be expelled from the city within a couple of centuries. 

There's nothing obvious left of the original buildings of this barrio, but the ground plan remains unchanged from the Middle Ages, also some of the street names. There's enough in the historical record to identify where the synagogue stood, and the bakery, and the butchers' shops. Yes, there were two, next door to each other. One of them sold kosher meats, the other halal, since Moorish and Jewish communities lived side by side in this small area before the folly of ethnic cleansing took over.

On impulse, I drove north on the road that runs up the east side of the Ebro valley, through the villages of Bitem and Tivenys, past orange groves heavy with ripe fruit. Every now and then I'd pass a small tractor with trailer laden with crates of oranges, heading for a local storage depot. December is a key harvest time for both olives and oranges of a certain kind. Water is diverted from the river on both sides of the valley into irrigation canals, serving the agricultural needs of the entire region, right down into the Delta. 

Beyond Tivenys, the narrow winding road climbs several hundred metres over a pass that descends to Benifallet where the road divides - to Gandesa north-west, to Rasquera east. I stopped at the top of the col to take photos, then descended, to head for home. The view of the valley and the high Sierras dels Ports to the west were well worth the effort of the climb. You'll find some photos here.

   

Delta afternoon

This morning, I went down to El Portico, to meet Paul and discuss his Sunday sermon. I was surprised to find that the shop was closed for business, due to a water leak in the apartment upstairs flooding the shop floor. I found the shop team across the road, chatting and drinking coffee together, waiting for the plumber who'd been summoned to arrive. Paul and I retreated to empty shop for our chat, until it was time to lock up and go home. Then, I got to complete my week's grocery shopping, cook and early lunch and then head up to the Deltebre for some bird watching. 

The weather was perfect, and despite an occasionally strong wind, it wasn't too cold. In one flooded rice paddy I saw a pair of ospreys. One was perched on a power line, the other on hunting patrol. I caught the latter on camera on the return leg of the journey, although the photo isn't wonderful. In two of the Tancada Wildlife Reserve salinas there were hundreds upon hundreds of flamingos, all bunched up close together in a particular area. From 200 metres away they looked as if they were huddling together to protect themselves from the wind. It was a delightful refreshing afternoon. You'll find photos here.
  

Quiet fiesta

A different sort of Sunday for me, listening at the two Eucharists I celebrated, to each of the trainee Lay Readers preach. First Jenny at L'Ampolla, then Paul at Vinaros. As past of the process, I then had to write an evaluation, something I'm used to from St Mike's, except that the assessment form is different and required additional scrutiny in order to fill in properly ready to discuss with each of them in turn. All in all, I spent a lot more time on these tasks than it would take to write a sermon of my own, but it's good to contribute to their learning and development. The chaplaincy is fortunate to have two capable people who are good with words, confident about speaking in public, and getting a lot out of studying scripture for the purpose of writing sermons and course essays.

Monday, was the feast of the Immaculate Conception, a major public holiday. Vinaros was quieter than the average Sunday and every kind of shop was shut, except for a few bars and restaurants, as I soon found out when I went out shopping. The only essential things I needed was motor fuel, and fortunately there are a good number of service stations with automatic self service facilities. I'm quite impressed by how easy these are to use, regardless of language. I walked into town, late afternoon, hoping that the Archiprestal Church might be open for Mass, but it wasn't. To my surprise, the plaza in front of it, with the Ajuntament on the corner, was packed with Christmas market booths. Only a couple of these were open. I wondered if they might be open later in the evening, but didn't hang around and find out.

   

Back to duty

Another trip to the Heath hospital first thing Thursday morning, since Clare thought she'd accidentally dislodged the plain contact lens that had been placed over the eye operated on for protective purposes. She was greatly relieved to find that it was still in place. After that, it was time to write the Christmas cards, label and fill the envelopes with our annual newsletter, then visit the CBS office to work on a few assignments and meet up with Ashley for a catch up session. After supper, Kath arrived so that we could we could spend some time together. 

On my homeward journey I'd failed in my attempt to book a place in a Hostal close to Barcelona Sants station as it was pouring down and I was unable to venture out to the address provided. I sent an email when I got back, but received no response. Kath, whose Spanish is better than mine, offered to ring up and check. The person who answered the phone must have spoken Catalunyan rather than Castilian Spanish, and not completely understood her, so passed her on to someone who spoke sufficient English to handle her enquiry. Ten minutes later, to my relief, I had my confirmatory email!

Kath took me to catch my train to Bristol after an early Friday lunch. By a quarter to three, I was at the airport and going through security clearance. It was busy, and took twice as long as usual, but I had lots of time to spare. Every seat on the flight to Barcelona was taken. I noticed that the average age of the passengers was lower than usual. Something unusual was happening, as there were a dozen or more people dressed as characters from Star Wars movies, behaving animatedly. A party mood prevailed. We flew into El Prat airport down the Costa Azul, which being mostly urbanised was brightly lit and looked quite enchanting. I was glad to have a window seat. There were two French women sitting next to me and we chatted in French as the plane was making its final descent. They were making their way to Menorca. I think they may live there. 

The Rodalies train from the airport to Sants station was delayed more than forty minutes by a problem with signals, so I was over an hour late arriving at Hostal Sofia, five minutes walk across the station concourse. After I'd checked in, I went to the bar-restaurant downstairs for a couple of drinks and some tapas - tortilla con patatas, and sardinas in pleasantly spicy marinade. My room was small and simple with a toilet at shower just down the corridor, just thirty one euros. Perfect for an overnight stopover.

I was up and out of the Hostal by eight thirty, breakfasting on coffee and croissant at another nearby bar. Then, after booking my ticket, I walked for three quarters of an hour, on a triangular route, to try and get an impression of the more modern quarter of the city above the station. It wasn't that interesting but I enjoyed the exercise, thankful to have only a lightly packed rucksack as luggage on this trip. The Inter City train to Vinaros left on time and arrived five minutes late. It was quite full, but quite a few passengers seemed uncertain as to whether they were on the right train or not, as they kept asking each other. Michael met me at the station, and told me about the unexpected death of a church member which had occurred yesterday, before dropping me off at the house.

I'd left myself a ready prepared meal in the freezer. All I had to do was thaw it and cook some green lentils to go with it. Then, a quick trip to Lidl's to stock up with fresh food, before listening to the afternoon play on Radio 4, the fifth in a series of detective stories set in Cuba by Cuban novelist Leonardo Padura Fuentes. I've heard all of them in the weeks past, and it's given a fascinating insight into the lives of Cuban people behind the facade of Castro's communism. Nice to hear them while living in an hispanic context, albeit an utterly different one. And now, getting ready for tomorrow, but not preaching for once, as both Raders in training are preaching and I'm listening and evaluating. Just like being back at St Mike's.

Successful surgery

We were out of the house and on our way in the early Tuesday morning commuter traffic to get to the Heath Hospital (aka University Hospital of Wales) just after half past seven this morning, for Clare's eye surgery appointment. She was one of five people to be treated by consultant Mr Raj Kumar for the relief of high eyeball fluid pressure, brought on by her hereditary glaucoma. 

She was second in line for the twenty minute treatment, the whole process took three hours from preparation to recovery. I waited with her, and while she was being treated, I went for a coffee with another of the patients in the day's queue, a Palestinian man in his forties. He'd never been to the Holy Land, being born in Kuwait and studying in Hungary and Libya before coming to the U.K. We had an unexpected hour of interesting conversation together of a philosophical nature, in the middle of a challenging day for both of us, before it was his turn for treatment. 

We were home again by half past eleven, with plenty of free time and space for Clare to rest and recover. My job was to issue communiques to the family and cook meals. Thankfully, Mr Raj Kumar declared that he was satisfied with the way the procedure had gone.

This morning, we returned to Heath Hospital again, by eight, for an outpatient appointment to check that recovery had continued overnight without complications. I sat in on the examination, made by an optometrist, who declared afterwards that the result was as good as it possibly could be. Clare was sent home with three different batches of eye drops to be taken at different intervals during the day, and left to figure out the self administration regime for herself. This régime will last several weeks!

We went out for a walk to the pharmacy and shopped for vegetables before preparing lunch. Then I finished editing our annual newsletter, ready for production and mail out with Christmas  cards. It's good to be home to put these things in place. I'm delighted that Kath is coming tomorrow, a day early, so we can spend some time together before I return to Spain for my last fortnight of locum duty for this year, and look after her Mum before Rachel arrives from Arizona on Monday.

   

Rainy journey

I spent most of Saturday packing, cleaning up and tidying the house so that when I get back, it'll be easy to refocus on what needs to be done next.

It rained heavily in the night on Saturday and again on Sunday morning. During a break in the showers, I went out with the rubbish, but before I'd got a hundred metres, it rained again even more heavily, so I got soaked and had to try out the trousers that I'd decided to travel in.

Michael picked me up at eleven to go to L'Ampolla for the United Eucharist. It hardly rained during our journey, but it would seem the earlier heavy rain deterred some from travelling, as there were no more present than there would be for the usual service, around twenty. Afterwards, fourteen of us lunched at L'Ampolla's Station Cafe, which is run by an English couple. We were served an excellent British roast dinner, with a choice of three different meats, and half a dozen different vegetables to choose from.

At three thirty, before pudding, Les kindly ferried my to L'Aldea station, ten minutes away for my Inter-City train to Barcelona at five to four. By twenty to six we arrived at Barcelona Sants station. The rain seemed to have followed us, as a heavy downpour of rain made it impossible to explore beyond the station precincts before going out to the airport on the Rodalies shuttle train. Tourist information services at the station had given me a list of hotels in the vicinity to enquire about a room for Friday night, as my return trip arrives too late to get a southbound train down the coast. It was too wet to venture out, however, so an internet booking will have to be made when I get home.

Heavy rain distrupted the flight schedule, and so we were twenty minutes late getting to Bristol. I changed a hundred euros and got only sixty one pounds. It outrages me when the BBC tell us that a euro is worth seventy nine pence. I needed enough sterling to pay for the airport bus and a taxi to Owain's place, so I had to grit my teeth and let myself be taken advantage of by demons of market exchange. I got there just after midnight.

We were up by seven thirty and walking into town together along a cycle route also busy with pedestrians heading for work. We parted company just before nine, Owain to his office and me to the station, both in the Temple Meads locality. Thankfully the wet weather didn't extend as far as the West of England. I was home in Pontcanna just before eleven, glad to be reunited with Clare after an unusually long journey, due to the lack of Vueling flights into Cardiff in the winter season. I wonder how many others, like me were travelling on into Wales, by one means or another, from Bristol airport.