Dis-Appointment and Shopping disoerientation

The cleaners came early Monday, and Clare went off to the gym. After they departed, I went out, and did the week's grocery shopping, then cooked lunch.

A letter arrived in the post from the NHS, advising me of a pre-surgical assessment appointment on the 23rd January, two months from now. Mrs Cornish did warn me that it would be a three month wait before surgery when we last met, but I was slow to react, as it seems I inevitably am. Now facts are taking shape the sense of disappointment surfaces, couple with the worry the next three months are going to be a time of growing discomfort and pain, much as I had before op number three, due to over-granulation of the wound, during the long delay between appointments. The signs are it's going to happen again with another three month wait, with the prospect that a second Christmas is ruined for me. November-January, the same period of anxious waiting misery as last year. It's a scandal when I'm as fit and well and ready for the op right now. It I were prepared to pay, I could get it done. The family say I should. Perhaps for their sake I should.

I keep on thinking of snippets of information which didn't get recorded in my Sarajevo travel diary, so as well as writing a preface today, I had to return to the text and insert a few significant memories in the right place. Eventually, I thought it was fit enough to send off to Daniel, hoping that he finds this of use to give him an outsider's perspective on the aftermath of the Bosnian war.

Another twilight walk, then an evening in front of the telly to relax. but my attention is now veering back towards my long story, I'm trying to sketch out mentally the rest of his main character's journey before he goes home to die. I need to make some notes and check the timeline. It's a story which spans thirty years, plus or minus. That's the problem. I didn't start with any plan. It's just evolved that way, and that's been a fun surprise.

Yesterday, Clare told me she'd seen knee length rain-wear at a bargain price in Mountain Warehouse opposite the Castle. Just what I need. So I went into town to check this out. No, not really that long, but long enough to cover a longish jacket, and that's what matters. So now I have an olive green mack with a hood, just as my 20 year old 'standard' length one is getting leaky at the seams.

I also bought myself a pair of Ecco winter shoes. I had forgotten that the shop is now relocated for the third time in several years in the new St David's shopping centre, and searched for it on my phone. Google maps gave me the address but the mapped location was so vague as to be confusing and useless. The St David's centre store finding display panels were useless, having not been updated even though the store has been in its present locations for six months. One of the security staff was able to tell me easily enough, but didn't know the store finder device was unable to deliver the goods. The tech' is great, but only as good as those who keep the data up to date.

We joined the Fountain choir for supper at Calabrisella. I was very tired from walking around town and shopping, somewhat in pain, having sat for a long time writing earlier constructing time line annotations for my long story. After eating a big dish of penne amatriciana, I made an excuse and left to got to bed early. Enough is enough, and today I did did and a half miles worth of walking.

  

A free Sunday

With no liturgical duties to perform today, I walked to the Cathedral for the 11.00am Sung Eucharist, a pleasure to be on the receiving end in the congregation. It had a distinctly early 20th century appeal to it, with an organ Mass and 'Tantum Ergo' anthem by Louis Vierne, the renowned blind organist of Notre Dame de Paris from 1900-1937. Area Dean of Cardiff, Stewart Lisk was Canon in residence and he preached well on the theme of Christ the King, engagingly name dropping the fact that he'd been in college with the new Emperor of Japan into the sermon, while talking about royal vesture and role and the person inhabiting them. A sermon he alone could preach, I thought!

He greeted me outside afterwards, saying "If I'd known you were free, I could have found you work to do in my parish today!" I protested that it was one of my few free Sundays apart from holidays and that I'm starting to need them to let my soul catch up.

Apart from a good long walk as it was getting dark, I spent the day finishing transcribing my Bosnia Journal. Some of the notes I made needed unpacking for intelligibility. It's now over seven thousand words, much to my surprise, and needed quite a bit of work to make the narrative style consistent. It needs a preface to explain how it all happened, as will my other occasional travel journals when I come to transcribe them - there's Jamaica, Mongolia, Syria, Jordan and Jerusalem/Palestine to come.

I feel I want to bother, so that the photos I took can have some real context. Also as legacy documents for my offspring's children and their children, who might one day decide to see what the world was like in day. I think that's how many wartime diaries began, only to be lost for many decades in dusty attics before being rediscovered. It's a bit different nowadays.
   

Project milestone reached

Apart from taking a funeral at St Catherine's at lunchtime yesterday, I spent most of the day writing, with an afternoon break for an interrupted five mile walk, to re-charge my brain. The exercise, both of transcribing and adding in explanatory detail is quite demanding, as in places my journal is  thin on detail, as it was written at the end of each day's activity while I was in Sarajevo.

When I'd had enough, I stopped watched the previous and current episodes of 'New Amsterdam' on More Four. It continues to sustain interest with its complex medical procedures, some difficult ethical decisions, and the evolving personal relationships between dramatis personae. 

Much the same was true of today, with another uninterrupted five mile walk and watching a couple of episodes of Series Two of 'The Team' On More Four to punctuate the day. By late afternoon I finished the transcription job, and felt a great deal of relief. It's not finished. There are vital corrections, and probably additions as well, as I'm finding memories of the time surfacing, which didn't get noticed and noted then even though they were and still are important aspects of the story to be told.

'The Team' is most enjoyable. It's a crimmie about an international group of detectives working on the same frontier crossing case. The cast is different from Series One. Team members are from Belgium, Denmark and Germany. It's about a mass murder in Jutland with Islamist terrorism, antiquities theft and people trafficking all in the mixture. What I appreciate is the way different languages are brought in - Danish, Flemish, German, English, Arabic and French.

It's well subtitled and not confusing, but it lends a special quality to the drama. The detectives often use suitably accented English between them and sometimes with subjects being interrogated. Arabic conversations between people caught up in the crisis also occur, but the speakers use either English or French to relate to the police, since they are Syrian refugees or settlers. Both ex-colonial languages are still used in Syria. It's very well done.

Thankfully, no sermon to write this evening, as I have no assignments for tomorrow. I'm quite glad of a respite, I've done a lot of extra jobs this past year with little time off. Our Oxwich Bay holiday told me that I'm in need of refreshment. If only I could take a few quiet weeks seaside retreat in Malaga. It's impossible to plan anything until I hear about my next surgical appointment. I don't know when that will be. It could be several months before I get treated. This is really beginning to bother me. I increasingly feel like a hostage awaiting release pending negotiations out of their control.

Transcription under way at last

Several times this week I've hunted high and low for an exercise book in which I wrote a daily record of my trip to Sarajevo in 1997. Finally this morning I found it, and started to transcribe and elaborate on some of the notes I made, which presume rather a lot on any reader other than me. This is going to be quite a job, but an interesting one.

End of the morning, I walked into town to meet Daniel for coffee and lunch, at the Waterloo Gardens Tea Room cafe and restaurant in the Wyndham Arcade. It gave me an opportunity to learn more about his research work on the untold story of the Gorazde siege in 1994 during the Bosnian war. I was amazed at the extent of the research he's done, and the breadth of understanding he already has of a complex of a three sided power struggle between Serbs Croats and Bosnian Muslims with geopolitical and organised crime overtones as well. 

It was an intense and stimulating conversation which brought to mind much I had forgotten about those years of conflict, as well as things I didn't learn about at the time. Daniel is looking for financial backing to make a long movie in twenty episodes in order to tell the story fully from every angle. He certainly has the material, as the real life events are as complex if not more so than any fictional block busting saga. As Daniel himself said, worse than 'Game of Thrones'.

After we parted company, I walked around the shops for a while, then returned home and spent the rest of the day and much of the evening writing up my travel journal. It's quite hard work, as I can't always decipher quickly me own handwriting. I don't think I've looked at this since the time I wrote it back in November 1997, twenty two years ago. How time flies!

November turning points

Yesterday, I finished the job of making and bottling that third batch of crab apple jelly. Four and a half large jars and two small ones. Clare said it was the best lot I've made so far. 

It was heavily overcast and rainy, until early evening, so I was glad to have cooking as well as jam making to do. before getting out for a walk in the dark when the rain finally abated. 

Today was similarly domestic, though I attended the Eucharist at St Catherine's in the morning. The urge to continue my long story has weakened in the past few days, so I'm giving it a rest, not even tinkering with it at the moment, just mulling over ideas about its next change of direction. It's been so dark in the afternoon that I haven't bothered to take a camera out with me since Monday. I hate the long nights of late autumn and winter months. It's a struggle not to turn in on myself entirely. 

Even so, this time of year has often been an important one for me. I made my first ever retreat at the end of November 1963, and this was a life changing experience for me at many levels, even before I realised I had a vocation to ministry. My trips to East Germany and Sarajevo were both in November, and my sabbatical in Jerusalem at the end of 2000 ran through November into mid-December. It's also been a productive time for writing poetry and theological reflections too. But I still prefer those long hours of daylight and milder weather.

A fruitful day in several ways

Clare went off to the gym before I got up. My first task after breakfast this morning was to process and edit yesterday's videos, upload them to my Google Drive and send a link to Anna. Then, I found a link to my Sarajevo photos and sent it to Daniel when I arranged to meet him, Thursday this week. I started cooking lunch early and it was nearly ready by the time Clare returned. Afterwards I did the week's main grocery shopping, then we went out for a walk together.

Taking my usual route, I showed Clare where I'd collected the crab apples for making two lots of jelly. The higher fruit on the two trees still hasn't fallen. I found a long stick and with it we were able to hook and bring down some higher branches heavily laden and pick their fruit. We returned home with another load of nearly three pounds weight to clean and cook. We hadn't intended do this when we went out. Somehow we just spurred each other into action. The cooked fruit mash is hung in a straining bag overnight. I think the crab apples picked have produced about a litre of juice. Jelly making tomorrow.

An interesting new detective series started on BBC Two this evening, called 'Vienna Blood'. It's set in 1906, the era when Sigmund Freud was teaching in Vienna and publishing his work. A young medical student does a placement with a detective working on a murder case, and using what he has learned from Dr Freud's lectures starts to develop profiles on both the victim and the murderer. This is the birth of forensic psychiatry. Is this really how it happened, I wonder? It well portrays the open anti-semitism of the city in that era, and the frightful way in which mentally sick people were dealt with, including  ECT therapy trending in those days. A three parter, based on novel I understand.

A Bosnian Welsh connection and Leonardo celebrated

Two services to take this morning St Dyfrig & St Samson's at nine and St Catherine's at ten thirty. Thankfully the journey between the two on a Sunday morning is six minutes. I'd have had longer in between them if I'd succeeded in writing a shorter sermon, and I did take a couple of hours to concentrate it by ten percent, but twenty percent would have been better. Editing for conciseness is a skill I have learned over the years, but with some subjects it's difficult, although there was another reason for not leaving St Dyfrig & St Samson's on time.

A young man called Daniel who normally serves at St Mary's comes and stands in as MC when Julian the regular MC is away on business. He was there last week as well. As we were getting ready for the service, one of the others in the sanctuary party asked Daniel when he was next due to go out to Bosnia again. Interesting, I thought, and asked what took him there. His answer was surprising. He leads a script writing team with a film making project, which is working on a story from the time of the Balkan war in the 1990s. 

The town of Gorazde was besieged by the Bosnian Serb army in 1995 after becoming a Bosnian Muslim refugee safe haven, as happened in Srebrenica. In the latter, the UN peacekeeping force surrendered the town to the Serbs and over 8,000 people were massacred. Weeks earlier the Serb forces had taken UN peacekeepers hostage in Gorazde, but couldn't take the town as a contingent of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, part of the UN force wasn't captured and fought back, saving the town from the same fate as Srebrenca. The story isn't so well known, but is certainly worth telling. After the service, I told Daniel about my visit to Sarajevo in November 1997, and expressed interest in his project, so we're going to meet for coffee and a chat later this week. And that nearly made me late.

At St Catherine's there were fifty communicants and a couple of dozen children in Sunday School to bless at Communion. Having spent time with them in the hall Mthr Frances came in with them and interviewed the children about what they'd been learning. It was such a delight to have Emma, Nick and little Ned there with newborn Eleanor, Emma's first outing apart from the doctor's, since giving birth last week. I felt truly blessed being able to bless Eleanor and say a prayer for her and Emma at the altar during Communion. There's good positive energy in the church community these days, with people responding to fresh leadership after nine month wait for a new Rector. Most cheering.

In the afternoon, Clare was singing at Insole Court with the Fountain Choir and left to rehearse right after lunch. I followed on later. It was a joint concert with the Roath Recorder Ensemble celebrating the life of Leonardo da Vinci in this 500th year anniversary of his death. It featured poetry as well as music of the period. I used my Sony HX300 to video the choir from the back of a large drawing room, filled with performers and audience. The acoustics were very good and the sound quality of the recording was far better than I expected, so it was worth doing, to provide choir director Anna with performance evaluation material.

Time for some catch-up writing after supper and then an early bed. 

Great craftsmanship - musical and artisan

I spent most of yesterday working on my ever expanding story, partly trying to work out how to bring its principal character back home from his travels, now that it's become more and more elaborate. In the evening, we walked over the the Royal Welsh College for an Opera Gala Night. All the graduate students on the opera course perform selected acts from great works, accompanied by the WNO's orchestra, conducted by Carol Rizzi, a well known and much loved musical figure not only in Cardiff but on the international operatic scene.

We were treated to a portion of Humperdink's 'Hansel and Gretel', two portions of Puccini, one from 'La Boeme' and a scene from the one act opera 'Suor Angelica', with the finale from Mozart's 'Cosi Fan Tutte, involving a dozen different singers and an opera chorus made up of students. Our seats were in the third row. The music wasn't too loud, but what was very powerful was being so close to these young opera singers, being able to see them act convincingly, and experiencing the full impact of them living their parts. So powerful, I was moved to tears. A night to remember!

Today, with the promise of fair weather, we ventured out to Brecon for the fist time in several years.
The higher mountains had snow on them after the recent rains, and the reservoirs alongside the A470 were full. The town band was playing Christmas music in a small square and people were collecting for charities. The section of the main street in the vicinity of St Mary's parish church contained two 50 metre marquees sheltering stalls selling Christmas craft goods, in addition to the Market Hall we were heading for.

We had a superb soup and sandwich lunch in the Hatter's Tea Shop, and the lamb cawl I had was the very best I have eaten anywhere. It's a family business, and the matriarch heads the cooking team. She told us that she'd learned to cook cawl from her Grandmother, who always insisted on using fresh vegetables and good quality meat. Cawl is a traditional poor peasant dish, not expecting to use the best meat, but my goodness, what a difference it makes when you do!

Clare was on a mission to visit the a stall there where she knew she could meet the artistic wood turner Bernard Dite, two of whose beautiful wooden bowls we bought from his stall at  St Fagans craft fair last summer. She wanted to buy one as a wedding present for her godson Florian, and this was the only opportunity we could be sure of, as his next St Fagan's date isn't advertised yet. She ended up buying three bowls for presents, beautiful yet practical objects. The ones we bought last summer are in daily use chez nous.

We got back home as it was getting dark, and in the evening I watched the final double episode of French crimmie 'Spiral', which came more or less to the expected conclusion, but with enough of an unfinished plot line to suggest another series. Well, I already knew Series eight was being made. In fact, it may even be aired on Canal Plus in French only now. I wonder how long we will have to wait?

Surgeon's inspection day

As Clare was working in kindergarten this morning, I chose to go by bus to Llandough Hospital for my long awaited surgical inspection. It poured down cruelly, on the fifteen minute walk to the nearest bus stop to get the 94 and 95 services which call there. I had to wait half an hour at a stop without a shelter, and it continued to rain throughout. Apparently the weather was causing schedule delays, and giving me the panics. I arrived soaking wet, rain penetrating through to my jacket beneath, half an hour early, and was pleased to discover that appointments for outpatient consultations are at the new reception area close to the entrance, so I didn't have to walk an extra third of a mile to the zone where the outpatient surgery theatres are sited.

Three others were being seen by Mrs Cornish, and I was second. She asked how I was feeling and I told her that I sensed though couldn't see the improvement, but for me the measurable sign of this is a huge reduction in medical dressing waste needing to be bagged and go out with the rubbish, at which she laughed. She inspected my wound and said she was very pleased with it. There needs to be a final operation to remove the Seton's suture, clean up and then plug the remaining holes. This again has but a fifty percent chance of success in preventing recurrence. 

Is this because the damage done by the long wait to get treatment in the first place was rather serious? But let's not go there. If this doesn't work, and a wound re-opens and leaks, there are two other plugging surgical techniques to be tried. It's not a matter of an ageing body it seems. The same can happen to someone half my age, if their condition isn't dealt with promptly.

The less than good news is that there'll be a three month wait for the final surgery. Mrs Cornish has had four operating theatre bookings cancelled for coming months due to a shortage of anaesthetists, and on top of that there's the impact of the run up to the Christmas and New Year holidays disrupting schedules as well. As they did last year, delaying the start of my treatment. It's the way things are, with inadequate NHS investment in people and services, plus poor management in some quarters. What a mess the country's in, and unfortunately us oldies living longer and failing to stay healthy add to the burden, so we must beware of complaining too loudly.

At least I know where I am now, and that makes waiting patiently less burdensome. For the most part I can cope with the residual pain and discomfort, although I still won't be able to offer to start locum duties once more, until I know when the next surgery date will be. I may be a few weeks before I am given a date. An earlier date might be possible if there was a cancellation and I was prepared to enter the lottery of a qualified duty surgeon assigned to the task, but Mrs Cornish has seen me through thus far, and that element of trust and confidence is important enough for me to be prepared to wait.

  

Christmass planned and an archive revisited

This morning, I attended the Eucharist at St Catherine's, and talked about Sunday's Eucharist, when I am standing in for Mthr Frances while she spends time with the Sunday School, and then comes in with them for a blessing at the Communion. I suggested that we bless them together.

The Parish doesn't need me to cover any services at Christmas, so I offered the Area Dean to cover services in Grangetown. He needs someone for the Christmas Vigil Mass at St Dyfrig and St Samson at 7.00pm, and that's the only service they are offering. This suits me fine, as it means we can leave after Mass immediately for Kenilworth, and have the day itself free for feasting with the family. Clare has booked us in for three nights at the Holiday Inn hotel, five minutes walk from the house. We did this two years ago, and it worked well for us.

In the evening I arranged to make a bereavement visit at the far end of the parish. It rained heavily throughout the twenty minute walk, soaking my rain clothes almost to the limit. Fortunately they dried out while I was there and the rain stopped for the walk home.

Before going to bed early, I looked through my file of poetry dating back to student days for some pieces of writing I vaguely recall doing thirty years ago following the St Paul's riots. I was looking for material to stimulate thoughts for another short story to go with the other two already written about the night of the riots. I found an untitled piece of two foolscap sheets containing a few thin recollections of observations and encounters on that night, and transcribed it into a digital file. 

The flawed and fading typescript would probably have digitised fine and then need time correcting it. I entered the text manually instead, making corrections as I went along, as there were mistakes and half formed phrases which didn't read well. I've become more critical of what I write nowadays. I was quite surprised it was more poetic and impressionistic than narrative in style. Did I improve it? I also found a scrappy handwritten version in an exercise book, so I guess the typescript was an unfinished work in progress, like so many of my earlier literary efforts.

Short commemoration

How quickly the past couple days have gone by, punctuated by spells of heavy rain with temperatures dropping to near freezing. It tends to slacken off later in the afternoon, which means going out for a walk as it's getting dark, and sometimes that can be hazardous with so many cyclists using routes through the park. Most use high intensity LED headlamps which dazzle unpleasantly. For the most part they notice walkers, though occasionally there are near-misses and outbursts of mutual cursing.

Yesterday morning, the cleaners came early. I was already up finishing breakfast, and once they left I set out early to do the week's food shopping and cook lunch, as Clare had gone to the gym. While I was standing in the Coop, the in-house network radio channel called for people to stop for a minute's Armistice Day silence. Not everyone caught the message, so some staff and customers carried on banging around. Were all the staff briefed? Some evidently didn't notice, and the radio certainly wasn't very loud. One minute? A discount offer? 

Apart from my daily walk, and a modest amount of TV after supper, I spent several afternoon hours adding to my short story turned into a novel. It's still yielding surprises as a write. Clare wants to read it, so I have sent her a sharing link, and it's not nearly ready to print out a draft for correction.

Today, I spent even longer hours being absorbed with writing. Fortunately, I remembered early enough that it's Jasmine's birthday. She's 13 today, so I Whatsapp-ed her a happy birthday audio greeting, and after lunch had an audio reply!

I walked into town while it wasn't raining this afternoon, to inspect the latest technology offers to see if there's anything new of interest. There wasn't. The rain held off so I walked back as well, and took a few lovely sunset photos of the Taff, glowing pink with reflections off the clouds.

The bus station construction site is showing more signs of activity now, presumably laying drains and preparing to dig foundations. The last vestige of the former Saint David's House building, a solid concrete access ramp at the West end, in front of the Media Wales building is finally being rooted out, in readiness for laying the foundations of whatever is to be built on that site over the next couple of years, to complete the Central Square redevelopment. I don't know why it's taken so long to get started. It's a different company, different lease I suppose, but it may be due to the requirement to let archaeologists examine the site before work begins.

More remembering

I'm certainly not used to being out late these days. I was tired yesterday morning, and took a long time to surface, thankful that I didn't have much to do, apart from finish off my Sunday sermon. 

Last night, before turning in I exchanged birthday greetings a few hours early with Rachel in AZ. Today we spoke to her on WhatsApp as she was starting her day with Jasmine making a fuss of her.

Today is also the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, three weeks after I was in East Berlin with my good friend Geoff Johnston and seven others from Halesowen Parish, on our way back from spending time with members of the Stefanausgemiende in Leipzig, launching our Parish twinning initiative. It was the day Erich Honecker resigned as president. 

Being there in the DDR as witnesses in the thick of such dramatic events was a life-changing experience for both of us, and for all those present during those momentous days when demonstrations in the city reached their climax and precipitated the fall of the regime. The consequence for me was the desire that emerged which led to me opening myself up the the possibilities of ministry in Europe, ending up with our move to Geneva three years later, at the same time of year.

It was again late in the afternoon before I went out to walk and there was a distinct autumnal chill in the air. Across Llandaff Fields there was a mantle of mist a couple of meters think. I enjoyed finding out the best way to take pictures that reflected the beauty of the passing moment. Soon enough it passed as the temperature dropped, leaving the chill air clean and clear.

This morning I arrived at St Dyfrig & St Samson's church at a quarter to nine to celebrate Mass for twenty adults and three small children. The Remembrance Sunday observance was made an hour early, right at the end of the service. There's a memorial at the back of the church from the 1939-46 war with a dozen parishioners' names on it. I daresay that the names from Word War One were being read a little later at St Paul's Parish church, but today I wasn't required to take a service there as well.

With the Remembrance ceremony added, we finished a little late for me to drive to St Catherine's and join Clare there, so I went home and arrived in time to watch the national ceremony on Horseguards' Parade in London, a rare opportunity for me, and special this year, as it's the centenary of the first observance of Armistice Day tomorrow.

Clare had her study group n Bristol in the afternoon, so I went out early in clear bright sunshine, with my Sony Alpha 68, before she left, to make up for a week of walking just around sunset. I walked as far as Lidl's in Llandaff North along the Taff Trail, and photographed a solitary female cormorant in breeding plumage. She was on a ledge at the base of the central pillar of the road bridge over the Taff, looking lonely. Her entire front from neck to feet was as white. I don't think I've seen such an expanse of white on a breeding cormorant before. It certainly was a cormorant, to judge by the head and beak, however, I wonder why she was so far away from others, way up-river from their normal haunts?

Remembering in different ways

I went to the Eucharist at St John's yesterday morning, and spent the rest of the day writing, until it was nearly sunset, before going out for a walk. Once I get started, with new ideas and characters it's hard to stop. Perhaps I'm not confident of being able to remember where I'd got to, and picking up the threads again later. Anyway, I got a few good low light and night shots with the HX90 in Pontcanna Fields, so it was worth taking the break.

Today, an idea that's been brewing for a while about another story related to the St Paul's riots came into focus, so I dared to put my ever lengthening story writing project on hold, and see what I could produce. It was a story about one of the characters, a larger than life woman, who was confirmed at St Agnes the night of the riots. Once I started it, memories of that time, thirty nine years ago presented themselves, as I was telling the story. Four hours later, it was complete. I was pleased with the result, and so was Clare.

I also had a Sunday sermon to write in the afternoon, before getting ready to go and join two hundred and twenty veterans and serving military personnel at the 104th annual United Services Mess dinner at the Angel hotel. Just before we went on holiday, I received a call from Tony Lewis, the secretary of the Mess, and organiser of this unique affair, to ask if I would be free and willing to attend say Grace and share in the evening's ritual of Remembrance. It was something I did regularly when I was Vicar of St John's. The Mess building is in the city centre close to the church, and customarily the Vicar is Mess chaplain. I continued for a year or so after retirement until locum duties in Spain prevented me.

There's a Mess member who was retired RAF Chaplain, and he became the honorary Chaplain in my place. Being ten years older than me, it's got to the stage was he's unable to attend now due to illness, which is why Tony called to ask me. After I retired, three successive female clerics were appointed at St John's, with lots on their individual agendas to make their ministries matter to the city. As there are no Mess members among the regular congregation, this ministry was easily overlooked.

There had been an annual Mess service but attendance dwindled as parking near the church became increasingly impossible. In addition, the Mess had been a 'gentlemen only' members club for a century. Debate on admission of women members was already under way, with the growth of female service personnel, but this took seven years to reach a decision, and now the annual dinner is a mixed affair. And the conservative military social tradition of the Mess hasn't really suffered. The new normal has quickly been accepted without tantrums.

There were many people attending who welcomed me like and old friend. It was heart warming. I wrote a special table prayer for the occasion, and two people went out of their ways to express their appreciation for the thoughtful relevance of what I'd written.

The food and the service were excellent. The after dinner speaker was a front line senior General, commanding the Army's third division, also Colonel of the Royal Welch. He had some interesting things to say about partnership between British and European forces in Eastern Europe in a complex and ever evolving political situation. At every level, it was an evening I enjoyed, including the walk home along the west bank of the Taff in the dark. Just what I needed after an intense day of writing.

Need for light

I spent much of yesterday and today writing. I dropped Mthr Frances a line to remind her that I'm back and offering to cover anything she needs help with. As a result I've been asked to take a funeral in two weeks time, and a couple of weekday services also. She's getting on the treadmill of routine pastoral maintenance and picking up on things which haven't being getting the attention they deserve. She's starting on her own without a full time colleague. It must be tough. 

It was dark by the time I got out for a good long walk, hoping to take photos of the bonfire night fireworks display in the SWALEC stadium from outside in Pontcanna Fields, but it didn't start as early as I expected, and I needed to head home and dressing change and supper. In the end, it was all over by the time I'd eaten, so I just carried on writing until late.

This morning, I attended the Eucharist at St Catherine's celebrated by Mthr Frances. It's St Illtud's Day, and as she didn't know anything about one of our diocesan patron saints, she invited Clive, sacristan and head server to tell us about him. Clive did his homework very nicely and told his story in an interesting and engaging way.

I cooked lunch, and spent much of the rest of the day, writing until late. I'd intended to go out for another long walk, but apart from going to Chapter to pick up the week's veggy bag, I didn't. It was one occasion when I forgot to take a phone with me, and I nearly had to return for one, or a torch! The unit where the veggie orders are stored for collection is in a quiet corner of Chapter's courtyard. It's a badly lit area, and the unit is in shadow, so it was very difficult to read the bag labels to find out which was ours. I could really have done with that phone flashlight app. Our bag was the last for me to examine, in the furthest shaded corner! 

The phone flashlight is occasionally useful when walking at night in the park. There are many bike commuters returning from work, or students using NextBikes to get about. It's precarious for pedestrians, since the numbers of bike users in the parks has risen steeply in the last year or so. It won't be until there's a few serious collisions between cyclists and pedestrians, I suspect, that any serious attention is paid to the need for separation of pedestrian and cycle traffic on our public footpaths. I wonder what the city planners have to say about this, when there are also problems about city centre traffic management, pollution and the need for more bike lanes everywhere?

On the way back with the veggie bag, I noticed that demolition work at the back of Sussex house on Romilly Road has now flattened the 1960s annexe builtby the Council in the garden of what was once an imposing Victorian mansion when it was adapted for Social Services use. The entire site is now cordoned off by a three metre high fence made of chipboard to minimise the impact of  demolition and construction work on the neighbourhood. I'm not sure yet if we know about the fate of the 150 year old trees that line the boundary of the property, however.

Home and dry, nevertheless

After the torrential rain and flooded roads a few days ago, and prospect of more rain to come, we were left feeling uncertain about travelling home on Tuesday morning. As there were no extreme weather warnings for today, we decided to leave today instead, and packed after breakfast. Then the sun came out, so we walked on the beach and through the dunes for a couple of hours before lunch and then headed for home. There were only a few light showers all day! 

Clare was happy to return early as she has extra preparations to make for school this week. I did the shopping, then uploaded to Google Photos 290-odd pictures from our Oxwich stay, and edited them on-line. In the absence of a wi-fi connection, there was no point squandering mobile phone data allowance, especially given the flaky signal we had there. I tried old-school editing on the Linux laptop I took with me, but although the software is good, the poor resolution display on a machine nearly ten years old delivered misleading colour rendering, especially with large high quality photos.

I indulged myself by taking four cameras with me and using them in different situations, just for interest, as taking them by car wasn't a burden. With a poor display screen, comparing them was unsatisfactory, so I transferred the entire folder of these photos to the SD card on my Blackberry, for viewing purposes. As this is a modern sharp high resolution screen on a powerful device, the viewing experience was impressive, despite being small. It revealed mistakes I had made in trying to adjust photos using a screen not really fit for purpose, and that convinced me to leave editing until I could do so at home using a better screen. 

The laptop is OK for writing but not for editing photos. I still regret losing to a beer spillage while working a similarly aged Dell XPS a few years ago, which had a high res screen and ran Windows and Linux well. In most ways a Chromebook fits the bill. It's designed for 'always online' use, and can be used off-line, although differences between modes of use are a limitation, especially when it comes to saving a copy of work on a USB device for transfer. It's do-able, but calls for vigilance. 

Although 'always online' is the new normal with Windows, files created by use of the device's own apps are saved first to the device, easy to copy for transfer, and then  sync'd if/when it's on-line. For Chromebooks, it's the opposite way around. Normally this does not matter, but this difference becomes a noticeable irritant if working offline is inevitable.

Still, it's back to digital normal again now. It was noticeable that after powering up the router and signal booster on arriving home, that we were attached to the internet again within minutes, while the EE signal booster, which runs via the router, and normally runs very well, took several hours to settle down and deliver the usual service. Again, it's one of these things you don't notice, if you neither send nor receive mobile phone calls or texts in the house while the network sorts itself out and re-attaches the device. 

It's confusing if you find you cannot make a mobile call, and confusion is compounded nowadays as we can make WhatsApp or Skype calls via wi-fi as well as direct mobile phone calls. It's easy enough to forget or confuse what medium you're using, when not looking at the phone. That's if you've bothered to register the difference between the two services anyway.

I managed to get another couple of hours writing my latest story, which continues to grow in a way which keeps me interested and motivated. I had no idea when I started where this would take me. It's a story about a traveller, and while I have ideas about how it will end, I'm still not sure how long it will take or how to close the circle. What an adventure!

Traditional Sunday worship reimagined

Such an amazing change in the weather this morning, sunshine and blue sky with decorative clouds until mid afternoon, and showers only a little later.

We walked to St Illtud's for the ten o'clock service. This was a Liturgy of the Word only, what Greeks would call a 'Liturgical Synaxis'. It had several well chosen different prayers to start with, and led by four different lay members of the congregation, not wearing liturgical robes. It was beautifully done, relaxed and confident. The people were as welcoming this week as last, and we were happy that we could stay and chat over a drink for half an hour afterwards. 

Altogether it was a lovely experience of being part of a worshipping Christian community. A weekly Sunday Eucharist in each church is not possible with parochial re-grouping, but the alternative really shows how lay worship ministry can shine, even in a conventional and traditional conservative setting.

The sermon slot was dedicated to a TEAR Fund presentation by a young women who is their regional representative in Wales. She spoke about a video which was shown, telling the story of a Nigerian woman's struggle to feed her family in an inland regions acutely impoverished by climate change and structural economic injustice. It showed what TEAR Fund was able to offer in developing women's self-help groups which operated a form of credit union style savings club, and mutual support in learning and adopting new agricultural resources. 

Central to this initiative is bible study and a church planting project. It's a matter of indifference what the religious label of the church might be, what counts is the integrated approach to making life worthwhile and full of the Gospel in practice. It was simply presented and thoughtful. It reminded me of the years I spent working as USPG Area Secretary in Wales. Gower was one of the places I got to visit and work during those years.

We treated ourselves to Sunday lunch in the Oxwich Bay Hotel. It was traditional fare, meat and five veg. A veggie option for Clare and a handsome chunk of roast lamb for me. More than enough to fuel another beach walk, plus a visit to the bird-wby atching hide in the marsh later on.

We are debating about returning to Cardiff tomorrow instead of Tuesday morning, as another rainy day may cramp our style yet again, and we're nervous at the prospect of flooded roads recurring. We'll see.

Rain constrained

Another day of low cloud and spells of heavy rain, with so much rain overnight that the road through the village contained huge puddles of water all day. We drove up to the main road, intending to visit Rhossili, but a quarter of a mile south and the road was flooded, making it difficult for some cars to get past, Clare felt a bit nervous about risking our little Polo, not knowing whether it would be high enough to avoid water getting into the electrics, so we turned around and headed north towards Parkmill only to encounter another flooded road section a mile or so further along.. So we turned around again and went back to the bungalow, parked the car and went through the huge puddles down to the beach.

In the hour or so we knew we had before the rain returned Clare wanted to walk along the sea shore, but I wanted to walk to the far end of the bay on the road through the marsh, climb up the hill and take some photos of the bay from higher up. It's not safe to stop on the side of the road up the hill, as it's too narrow. So we parted company. Clare soon rang me, excited to say there were scores of surfers out in the bay, taking advantage of the weather conditions. Interesting photo opportunity, but I had already walked over half a mile to get to the hill for another photo opportunity.

I found on the hillside the way into Nicholaston Wood, the deciduous tree clad south east facing slope overlooking the Bay, with a footpath which takes you on a headland route to Three Cliffs Bay, rather than one which hugs the shore. It's ancient woodland, full of huge mature trees, a wonderful walk we must try out in future. I went along the parth a third of a mile before turning back, as it started to rain. 

Half way back along the road to Oxwich there's a bird-watching hide in a reed bed overlooking an extensive pond, a twitcher's paradise. I was getting quite soaked and took refuge there from the rain. It was a beautiful, numinous experience, silent apart from rain falling, and the occasional sound of a duck hidden in the reeds. I saw a family of eight mallards, a teal and pair of little grebes, (aka dabchicks) and a pair of swans, which surprised me by taking off, flying a circuit and landing again in full sight, just after I'd put my camera away. A wonderful moment I wish I could have shared.

The rain eventually slackened. I was getting cold, so I made a dash for it, stopping at the Dunes Cafe for a hot chocolate and an overpriced bottle of cheap wine, since we couldn't go out shopping for one as planned. Clare got back before me and had cooked a welcome hot lunch, for which I arrived, just in time. Later in the afternoon, the rained stopped again, and we walked to the Oxwich Bay Hotel for a cup of tea and a seat by an open log fire in the lounge as it was getting dark. 

Then, back through the puddles for supper and another two unmissable episodes of 'Spiral' on BBC Four. Money laundering corruption in high places, deceit, revenge, and the amazing Audrey Fleurot in an archetypal Jezebel role. She can do tragic/pathetic victim and sinister scheming vengeance equally. And she never over-acts. Just brilliant!

Cadw enrolled

It's been warmer today, but still with a pall of low cloud and mist making the outdoors very un-inviting. Even so, we made an effort to go out after breakfast, walking up the lane close by, and then a little down the road it comes out on, to visit Oxwich Castle, open this weekend and then closed until next April. It's a Cadw property, which was the sixteenth century Elizabethan home of the powerful Mansel family, who also acquired neighbouring Penrice Castle by marriage in the early 15th century.

Once a prestigious mansion house with a staff of fifty, Oxwich was probably too costly to maintain. It had its heyday for about fifty years, then over centuries it fell into ruin, with only part of the property remaining as a dwelling. The family bought the land and buildings of Cistercian Margam Abbey after Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, and that became the Mansel clan headquarters instead.

The Oxwich ruins were sold to the state after the Second World War, and restoration of what remained of the Elizabethan buildings was a slow burn Ministry of Works project, opened to the public finally in 1994. The few remaining sections of its walls show it had four storeys over a basement, and the huge square tower had six. With wet mist swirling around and through the ruins, it was very atmospheric, like being inside a black and white movie.

A two storey section alongside the ruined main house was for five centuries divided into two cottages and these were occupied until after the war. Replacement homes had to be constructed nearby before restoration could begin. The ground floor has been nicely converted into a gift shop and interpretation centre. The upstairs is sparsely furnished with period pieces, but also has a clothes rail of Elizabethan costumes for kids and youngsters to try on. The whole place is more of an education centre relating to mediaeval Gower than it is a museum or a stately home.

The receptionist-cum-custodian told us about the place, and promoted the virtue of taking out an annual Cadw subscription. Clare enthused about this as a possible Christmas present, so the deed was done. It is valid also for English Heritage properties, and Wales has so many fine castles and other buildings looked after by Cadw that it's worth our while, even if we have been to quite a few of them all over the past fifty years.

We walked down to the village again. Clare fancied fish and chips for lunch. I fancied a curry, so while she waited for hers to be cooked, I went back and cooked my own. She had more chips than she could eat, so I had curry and chips for lunch, a rare event indeed for me.

I rained and was overcast for much of the afternoon, but when it stopped about half past four, we decided to go out for another walk, and went to the beach as the sun was setting, albeit totally hidden by cloud and mist. The whole hour was like a very long twilight. The sea was coming in as we walked along the beach. It didn't start raining again until it was dark enough to merit leaving the beach and heading back to the bungalow. It was quite a mysterious experience like hovering between two worlds. And it produced some interesting photographs also, just like Oxwich Castle.

Not brexit, but All Hallows Eve

Well, we got to Brexit day, and we're still in the European Union. Despite the blustering rhetoric and political gaming of Boris Johnson and his cronies, the rule of law and persistent critical efforts of most parliamentarians has so far prevented Great Britain from being hoodwinked into a departure from the EU, which one way or another will lead to continued imbalance in wealth, power and social injustice, no matter what 'deal' is brokered and push on the referendum majority.

Whatever sacred status is given to a first past the post referendum, it should never be regarded as more than advisory in my view, an expression of public opinion to be taken seriously, but weighed against the consensus of expert analysis of what is really in the common good for all citizens. It's bound to be complex and a difficult to reach a stable conclusion in an ever moving social and economic global environment.

After three years of trying to establish what the country really wants from brexit, and hopes for in an autonomous future, it's still worryingly unclear what lies ahead apart from a damaging impact on the British economy which may take a decade to recover from. Only opportunist optimists are convinced we'd be better off freed from the checks and balances of Europe wide governance and accountability.

What is sovereignty in reality? The reins of power in Britain are in the hands of a successful moneyed elite that can manipulate the way in which common people perceive the world, through control of the mass media. How much do they really know, let alone care about the privations of poorer people?

We are now faced with another general election, and already the media seems to be framing this as an opportunity to vote in a parliament which will 'get brexit done', another content-less mantra like Mrs May's 'brexit means brexit', inviting trust in those who got the country into this mess in the first place, by proposing a referendum.

It was intended to free Britain from the inevitable difficulties faced in its continued dialogue with a European system of governance that many Europeans already agree is highly unsatisfactory and in need of reform. Disengaging from that process is the last thing Britain should have considered.  But it happened. Whether we brexit or not in the New Year, Europe will not be any better for the absence of a critical British voice in the collective conversation, and Britain will be harder to re-unite that the same opportunist optimists think. It'll take more than World Cup Rugby glory to do that.

More low cloud, strong wind today and chilly dampness in the air. I needed more wound care supplies, so in the afternoon we drove to the nearest pharmacist in the village of Scurlage on the way to Port Eynon. We wanted to look around as well. It's twenty five years since we holidayed there, on leave from Geneva. It's changed very little but all the houses look more spruce, better cared for. The car park was empty, and the wind was so strong, blowing at us from the sea out of white mist and low cloud, that fine sand was piling up all around the roundabout on the car park approach road. A slightly dystopian image of a seaside holiday resort - admittedly without the usual litter!

In Scurlage, opposite the village mini-market, is a modern GP surgery with a pharmacy attached. It's called 'The Well Pharmacy' - a completely new name to me, but it turns out that Co-operative group of pharmacies changed hands and was re-branded as 'Well', and its the third largest group in Britain now, and the largest in Wales. An interesting discovery. We were 'well' impressed by the service we received.

Mission accomplished, we returned and then walked to the village shop to have a drink and buy a card to send to Emma and Nick, congratulating them on the safe arrival of their daughter of Eleanor Renee. It's been a tough pregnancy for Emma, and it's just great to know that everything has turned out the way we all hoped it would.

Weather bound

More high winds today, and colder. We walked as far as the hotel and back to the shop. It's called 'The Dunes Gift Shop and Eatery, and it's open this half term week to cater for holidaymakers out of what remains of stocks at the end of season. Then it closes until next Easter. The snack bar side of the shop is open and doing reasonable trade, hot drinks, freshly cooked fish and chips. Clare had a decaf coffee, Lavazza, freshly brewed, I had an ice cream. 

Rain was threatened so we returned for lunch, just in time to welcome the two cheery women who look after the holiday bungalows, bringing us fresh towels. The also hoovered the carpets and cleaned the bathroom. All while we ate lunch.

The rain arrived late and we spent much of the day indoors, keeping warm. Clare is now afflicted with the same cold as I am recovering from. I spent several hours writing more of my latest story. More ideas about the characters keep coming to me. It's grown from short story into short novel. Two dozen pages - a surprise to me!

There was a limit to how much I could write as sitting for very long periods over the past few days has started giving me trouble with the wound opening and not drying out and closing as it has slowly doing. It's a worry, being away from home and the clinic. 

Early bed again this evening after watching an episode of Inspector Poirot on ITV3.

  

Through the dunes

We were promised a dry but overcast day, yesterday, and it came with high cirrus cloud and a 30mph chilling wind off the sea. We made an effort to get out early with sandwiches and walk to Three Cliffs Bay. As we left the man in the next door bungalow appeared, on his way out like us, clad in his angler's gear. He told us proudly that the previous afternoon he'd caught a four pound Sea Bass late afternoon when the tide in the Bay was highest. It was good to hear it's still possible around here for those willing to brave the elements.

Instead of going along the shore, we took the Coast Path through the dunes avoid the brunt of the wind's harshness. It's a walk full of surprises along footpaths with fine golden sand, underfoot, a water-course lined with young woodland, marsh grass and dry scrub-land, with occasional bright wild flowers and patches of autumnal mushrooms. There's a small herd of young inquisitive mostly white horses, in a neighbouring enclosure, and occasional glimpses of birds hard to identify. A natural wonderland.

We stopped for a picnic lunch in the shelter of a woodland clearing after walking for an hour and a half. Bearing in mind the necessity to retrace our steps on the return leg, with another hour's walk to reach Three Cliffs Bay, we decided that it was beyond reach and returned to the Bay hotel to book for Sunday lunch and have a warming drink.

The wind remained fierce all the way back to the bungalow. We'd done six miles, but it felt further.
After supper, more story writing, then bed by half past nine. Symptoms of the cold are receding now, but it's easy to drain my energy reserves and nod off no matter what I'm doing. Too much sitting writing is giving me wound trouble too, although it's less inflamed and painful than before, making it easy to sit for longer without causing grief. It's better when I'm active or lying down rather than sitting writing. So frustrating!

  

Shore and hilltop walking plus writing pleasures

The weather was brighter today. Adjusting to the hour's time difference didn't include getting out to walk any earlier however. I had an idea for a short story with a strong conversational element, based on a real experience I had on the night of the St Paul's riots, April 2nd 1980 when we had a Parish Confirmation at St Agnes Church  it took me just under two hours to write three pages. Meanwhile, Clare wrote and went out to post five holiday postcards. And then we walked down to the beach.
As the sea was as far out as it can go, we walked the half mile down to the water's edge and back before returning for lunch. A lovely experience enhanced by the haunting cry of a solitary oyster-catcher that we couldn't see.
After lunch and a rest, we walked up the ancient lane bordering Bayview holiday properties land. It's over arched with unkempt vegetation and neglected trees, quite enchanting, but hardly looking its last. The lane rises a hundred and twenty feet or so, and joins a road leading up from Oxwich village to Oxwich Green and other small neighbouring hamlets. There's another footpath then, across to Oxwich Castle and beyond to Oxwich Point. The hilltop area is famland, some of which is given over to camping sights, or holiday villages with bungalows or static vans. It was an interesting path of discovery.
Back then for supper and another evening of story writing, encouraged by cousin Dianne.

A taste of luxury, but to what end?

The weather couldn't have been worse yesterday. Visibility was terrible, with rain and gusts of wind through the day until mid afternoon.
Since we've been here at Oxwich, I have developed a streaming cold, due to a bug exported from Kenilworth by Kath, we think. The symptoms are much the same. It was an effort to walk on the beach and when I started to get chilly, we turned back for the Beach House Restaurant, where Clare had succeeded in getting us booking a table as we set out. Demand is so high that reservation in advance is essential. We were lucky to get a cancellation, thanks to the vile weather.
It's a gourmet dining venue, specialising in nouvelle cuisine, popular not only because of its setting just above the tide line, but also its highly reputable chef and a world class wine list, unaffordable to the likes of me. The entry level house red and white are eight quid for a small glass, and sixty quid a bottle. Main course dishes start at twenty five quid. That was all we could manage.
What we ate was tasty, excellently cooked and presented but main course portions were small. It was a much more pleasant experience than lunch at Heaneys in Canton, which also serves gourmet food on similar terms. But, I still don't 'get' the idea of food as entertainment - lots of minimal portions at great expense, often thanks to rare ingredients.
I love to cook and eat good quality food that I know I can enjoy, but the modern gourmet way is to my mind, eating for the sake of it. Small portions may be a step away from gluttony, but craving so many sensory experiences and packing them in to one meal, the price per head of a week's family shopping, seems to me like consumerism gone mad.
We went back to the bungalow afterwards, for coffee and a fruit 'n yoghout dessert. Clare and Owain then went out again and walked up the Bay and back for a couple of hours. I went to bed to try and shake off worsening symptoms but couldn't settle, so I worked instead on my new story until they returned.
The rain had cleared away and they'd seen a spectacular sunset. Better weather to come, but Owain won't benefit as he had to return to Bristol  at lunchtime today.
We watched this week's double episode of 'Spiral' together. Unmissable French drama for him and I.
This morning we benefited from the extra hour with the clocks turning back. As soon as breakfast was over, Owain was watching Wales get beaten (just) in the Rugby World cup semi-finals. Clare and I went to St Illtud's Parish church for the 10.00am Parish Eucharist, and met the warm, friendly congregation of about twenty people. The church sanctuary has sixth century foundations, and a twelfth century nave.
A beautiful well looked after building, good singing, good preaching by Fr Justin the Vicar.
We didn't stay for coffee as we had to take Owain to Swansea station. We missed one by a couple of minutes, but he was nevertheless home in two and a half hours. A bus took him from Newport to Bristol Temple Meads, due to work on the main line and/or Severn Tunnel, and this worked to his advantage for a change.
I felt well enough for a walk in the dunes in the hour before sunset, now at five. Then I set about changing the clocks on the cameras I brought with me. My Samsung phone stubbornly refused to update the clock all day, perhaps because it isn't as capable of getting and holding a weak cell tower signal. The Blackberry on the other hand, is fine.
On the ridge above Oxwich Bay a cell phone relay tower is prominent, visible, in line of sight, but it is a Vodaphone or O2 mast. In Spain roaming between service providers is often possible. It parts of Wales suffering from poor connectivity  for the past twenty years, only now is roaming between local service providers being discussed, but not yet in place. Nobody benefits in the end from making life harder for others. Sure, it's all about protecting vested interests and rights, but enough is enough.

Weekend company

It was overcast and it rained all day today. I was brimming with story ideas again when I woke up and spent three hours writing from after breakfast until lunch.
Neither of us wanted to brave the elements so we only went out by car in the afternoon to collect Owain from Gowerton station. We left early enough to stop at a supermarket to buy extra supplies, things forgotten yesterday.
Then, we were early enough to meet the train to allow us to have a drink in the Commercial Inn two hundred yards from the station. It's quite a tradition pub, with a billiard table and dart board in the main bar it was the sort of place which, in the old days, would be a plain working man's pub, the kind you pop into on your way home.
It was well looked after, benefiting from a new coat of paint and modernised toilets. There were several women in there with their spouses, and two children with one couple. A more congenial atmosphere than in times past.
The return journey took ten minutes less than the outward one. The road from north to south Gower was traffic free after the peak congestion hour of the school run. Dusk was approaching, thanks to low cloud when Owain stepped off the quarter past five train and dark when we got back to the bungalow. Clocks go back an hour on Sunday. Already!
I cooked a pasta meal for supper and we drank a special Utiel Requena red wine with it which Owain brought. Then for the first time since arriving we watched telly for an hour. A not very funny comedy quiz show. I'd have preferred to spend time writing instead, but never mind, we have our son for a couple of days. Such a shame about the lousy weather.

Settling in where saints have walked

We walked along the beach to the river that flows out at the far end of Oxwich Bay today. Then we drove out to hunt for a grocery store to get some things we had forgotten to pack, for our two week stay. After supper I started writing a new short story about a modern troubador.
This morning's weather was warm and sunny  again with interesting clouds. First, we walked to St Illtud's Parish church a couple of hundred yards beyond the Oxwich Bay hotel.
It's a 12th century church on the site of a 6th century hermitage, with a churchyard that is two thirds of a circle. The coast path runs straight alongside the church on the remaining side above the shore. It may have been established at the time Illtud's monastic school in Llantwit Major began to operate. It's  forty three miles by road now, then it was at least two days walking, so it was quicker, more direct to sail across twenty five miles of coastal waters. The church was closed but there's a Eucharist there this Sunday so we will attend.
The coastal path to Oxwich Point from the church involves long flights of steps, ascending and descending nearly a hundred metres. Getting to the top alone was tough going which drained me frightfully, so we retraced our steps and walked along the beach instead, and had a picnic lunch on the edge of the dunes.
The beach is quite free of bottles and cans, but in one section, perhaps as a product of complex sea currents, the sand contains thousands of pieces of thin coloured nylon twine, from one to twenty centimetres long, of the kind used used in fishing nets. There was also a mound of broken net washed in by the tide. In a short stretch of shore, where the sea current may be strongest, I collected four handfuls of broken lengths of net  twine, the breakdown product from a large piece of net abandoned to the sea.
It's a toxic product of modern fishing practice. Why can't the industry revert over time to biodegradable hemp twine, as originally used?
The short story I started to write is developing into a novella. Ideas and words just flow, I've written four thousand already. Goodness knows where this all comes from. I'm quite excited by this creative growth spurt.
  

Return to Oxwich

Yesterday morning, straight after breakfast, I was collected and driven down to St John's for an early funeral service. This was followed by cremation at Thornhill at ten thirty, but despite heavy morning traffic we were on time.
We were in the Briwnant Chapel again, and after the brief committal ceremony, the funeral director's effort to accompany the mourning party out through the correct exit foundered. The door mechanism was stiff and hard to push open. Thanks to a few seconds delay, instead of following him smoothly, the family faltered on leaving their seats, then habitually turned and left the chapel the way they came, in much to the embarrassment of the F.D. The new one way traffic arrangement in chapel isn't working yet!
I think the family were too stunned by early bereavement to notice. Mam had died at the same age my mother died fifty years ago this month. Her two kids, the same age roughly, as I was then. I could see myself in them as they stood there, poised between numbness and tears.
Back home then to pack my bags and then squeeze everything into the car. Clare had taken much time to pack food supplies that will more than give us a head start in self catering. We won't need to visit a supermarket until the weekend, when we fetch Owain from the station.
We reached our well appointed holiday two bedroom holiday bungalows by four, on quiet hillside estate with a distinctly suburban feel to it, grass lawns, bushes, tarmac'd roads and plenty of parking space. It's situated just above the old main village street, now devoid of shops. The old Post Office has been a dwelling place for decades. There's a whitewashed thatched house with a plaque affixed to its front, recording five preaching stays on visits made there by John Wesley. Some dwellings are up market holiday lets, others are elite commuter residences or dream retirement cottages. As for village life? Oxwich Parish church overlooking the bay still has regular services, and there's a fair sized a rebuilt Community Hall hosting a variety social activities, just below the bungalow estate. But no food shops just a seasonal holidaymakers store the  beach snack bar and the Hotel we last stayed in fourteen years ago. Its prices have doubled since then.
After unpacking and storing foodstuffs, we walked to the beach to watch the sunset. The tide was way out, and we saw a flock of about fifty Dunlin scurrying about like ants on the wet sand of the foreshore. The temperature dropped and we called into the hotel for a drink before heading back in the dark. We heard an owl hoot in the woodland above. No traffic noise, pure fresh night air, silence.
The bungalow takes time to heat up so extra layers of clothes are needed indoors. Clare cooked a delicious celery soup for supper, and I sat and got started writing another story, on the largest of my three Linux laptops which I brought with me, as it works well without needing an internet connection. No wifi here, and an often flaky 4G phone signal, no good for tethering. It's normal for parts of rural Wales, but never mind, there are far more important and enriching things to fill our time with around here.

Festive high tea

I drove to Thornhill for a ten thirty funeral this morning, meeting with a family that had driven over from North Devon with grandfather's ashes to scatter in a garden there, following a funeral service in the recently refurbished Briwnant Chapel. It's acquired upholstered pews after a quarter of a century with chairs. Now there's a catafalque with curtains set diagonally in the left hand corner and the usual lectern on the right side, video screen up behind it with an exit door in the right corner. And no altar.

This is already a commonly used layout, adaptable for ceremonies of any religion or none. There's a candle and a crucifix if you need one, though you have to make up your mind beforehand about where you want to place it in relation to the coffin and the congregation. On this occasion the curtains were left closed as the catafalque was redundant. There was a small covered trolley, used for a child's coffin, of a suitable size to take cross, candle and the decorated cylindrical disposable 'scattering tube' as it was described containing the ashes of the deceased. A new experience for me in this context.

Thankfully there was no rain and the ground had dried out when we walked outdoors at the end of the service for the scattering, straight on to the ground beneath some trees, with poor grass cover. I had envisaged a flower bed or some shrubbery rather than a leafy glade. Instinctively I positioned myself in the circle where the slight breeze wouldn't bring the fallout dust in my direction. After scattering the ashes formed a circular cream coloured pool, in stark contrast to down trodden red soil and grass beneath our feet. 

I found this a little incongruous, and wondered how long the stain of this human bone meal deposit would be so starkly visible to passers by. Would a sprinkling of earth be made to cover it or not? Would a sprinkling of water or rain make a difference? I wondered. I must ask when I'm back here again tomorrow for another funeral. The Church's insistence on burying cremated remains suddenly acquired a different perspective for me, even if it does go against the tide of common culture and practice.

When I got home, I found that yesterday's cooked crab apple pulp had yielded a couple of pints of juice. With added sugar this made five standard and two small sized jars of jelly, although it was very runny. It needs more reducing, Clare says. Right now it would make an exquisite sweetish coulis, to use with roast meats, paté, or even a nut-roast, I suspect, as well as with ice cream or thick yoghourt.

I cooked lunch alongside finishing off the jelly, as Clare and Kath had gone for a swim, but I ran out of time, as I had to St John's for a very special Mother's Union tea party. Ruth and John Honey are celebrating sixty years of marriage this week, and they invited MU members from other branches and diocesan MU officials. There were about forty people there, including several husbands, and I was just a few minutes late. I'd agreed to attend and lead special prayers for the occasion, but the MU president had already started with a few prayers by the time I'd arrived. Not that it mattered. They were in good hands already, and they didn't give me a hard time when I explained about the crab apple jelly bless them!

The MU's own prayer booklet is very nice piece of work, though I haven't had occasion to study it or use it properly before, but I asked for a copy to refer to, and adapted some of its devotions to fit in with the overall anniversary and family life themes, as I led them in a quiet reflective act of worship, using a chorus with them that some would have known anyway. They sang, albeit a little shyly. It's not something they're often asked to do unaccompanied, I suspect. It flowed naturally, and I could tell from appreciative faces afterwards that I'd struck the right note. I really enjoyed speaking to God and the occasion.

A traditional High Tea with cake and sandwiches followed, served by two of Ruth and John's three daughters, ending with cup cakes topped with the number '60' in sugar icing letters to take home. Emma is now on maternity leave so she didn't attend, nor did Frances, whose ministry in the parish starts tomorrow. I wonder if anyone thought to invite her. It would have given her a positive preview of a significant element of parish life and fellowship. I think they both would have enjoyed this.

   

Crab apple harvesting

I celebrated and preached at St Catherine's this morning, and we had a christening during the service as well. As I approached the church porch, members of the baptismal party were assembling outside and greeting each other. I could hear Italian being spoken, and realised that Nonno and Nonna were here to welcome the latest addition to their family. They'd come from Sardinia to be with their son and daughter-in-law. A good night's sleep meant that I was fully alert and was able to greet them in Italian, without lapsing into Spanish, which is my default second language these days, after five years of daily learning. The ten month old infant was well behaved, and only just started to grumble when we reached the font. Mum held her as I poured water over her head. She went quiet and looked surprised when I did this, and it caused everyone to laugh with delight.

Kath arrived in time for a late lunch. She has an evening's work tomorrow as a 'Dr Who' film extra up in Ystrad Mynach, my home town. The filming takes place in Tredomen, where Caerphilly Council's new offices are located, or the site of a former engineering works. The engineer's office and laboratory, dating the early 20th century was where my mother's father was based when he was an installation engineer at the works. The laboratory was where I had my first summer job as an assistant in a Coal Board pollution monitoring station in 1964 nearly forty years later. That old building still survives, but is dwarfed by the imposing new glass and concrete municipal headquarters.

Clare left early for her monthly study group, so I cooked for us, and then we went for a circuit of the Taff and Bute Park. Near the tennis courts and bowling green on Llandaff Fields are two crab apple trees crammed with brightly coloured cherry sized fruits, which add a splash of vivid colour to trees whose greenery is fading. A lovely sight.

On my walk Thursday afternoon, I gleaned a raincoat pocketful of them within reach on lower branches of the smaller tree. This yielded over half a pound of fruit. Clare found a recipe, then I prepared and stewed them to pulp in a pressure cooker, and strained off the liquid through a mesh bag overnight. With sugar added and further cooking, we ended up with two jars of a delicious spicy jelly.

Kath and I tackled all the branches we could reach on the larger of the two trees, even more densely packed with fruit, and came home with four pounds of fruit. It took ages to prepare them for cooking, and the mass of pulp left straining overnight was the size of a melon.

I went to be early after supper, as I needed peace and quiet to write a special letter of greeting to an old friend from Geneva days, Philippe Chambeyron, who turns seventy at the end of this week. He and his wife Julia, were part of the small group who worked to build the mission congregation at Gingins, and develop the now thriving La Côte Anglican chaplaincy between Lausanne and Geneva.

We've stayed in touch since, but haven't visited them for seven years. Lack of a car when we were in Montreux in summer 2018 prevented us from visiting them at home, due to the difficulty of getting from the train at Nyon to the village of Vésenex outside Divonne les Bains where they live. It was the end of 2000 when we left Geneva. We continued to visit most years even after I retired, but then I started locum duties in Spain and the years simply seem to have sped by since then.

Housewarming

This afternoon we drove to Mountain Ash for the housewarming party of an ex-colleague of Clare's. The house which Gareth and Sophie bought a year ago at a good price and are now renovating is in a side street terraced row up the eastern hillside above the town with lovely mountain views. Theirs is perhaps a century older than the other houses, perhaps where an official or landowner had lived, or even a Manse maybe. They have enough land around for a garden and also to extend the house one day. Gareth has made a garden tree house for his young daughter, and he loves it.

There was hardly anyone there I knew. People were in family groups with young children and pets to manage, so that limited the amount of conversation possible. I ended up talking with a convinced and well informed euro-skeptic, which was probably good for me. Some of his analysis didn't ring true as fact to me, but who am I to fact-check the rhetoric of others when it borders on conspiracy theory? I don't do any political homework after all.

Thankfully we needed to return after a couple of hours, as Clare was being taken to St Edward's in Roath to  a rehearsal before an evening concert by the Fountain choir and Roath recorder ensemble. I  stayed home to finish tomorrow's sermon, and watch this week's double episode of the outstandingly good French flic series 'Spiral'. The concert will be repeated soon at Insole Court, half an hour's walk from home. That suits me better.

Writing and planning

Wednesday morning I celebrated at St Catherine's and Thursday morning at St John's. Next Tuesday we go to Oxwich Bay for a fortnight, and from that evening Mother Frances our new Team Rector will take charge of the Parish. She'll need to familiarize herself with the routine of daily worship as it's distributed between the three churches, and meet those who turn up regularly to pray. She knows when I'm back if she needs cover. I will need to look at my weekday plan to worship as member of a congregation. My Sundays are already booked with one exception, for more locum duties elsewhere. That's just how it goes.

I spotted a window of opportunity in which I could go to Malaga at the end of November, and stay in Rosella's apartment in Rincon de la Victoria, but finding suitably convenient flight dates proved to be a deterrent. With twelve days free, I could only manage a stay of five. Not enough time to organise myself domestically and relax, so I gave up the idea. Now I'm looking at a longer time in January instead.

The past couple of days, in between routine task, I have written a third  short story that I'm pleased with, about a street evangelist who was out and about his business in Ystrad Mynach when I was a teenager. I shared both my earlier efforts with Cousin Dianne to get feedback. She's done a proper writing course since retirement and has her writing experience to share plus constructive advice to offer. She's made encouraging remarks abut them and I'm enjoying our email exchanges. Writing for pleasure isn't so easy when there's a fair amount of writing for work to do and time to be spent on keeping abreast for brexit news.

This week I have the pressure of a Sunday sermon and two funerals to prepare for use before we go on holiday. The temptation is to work into the night, and I want to avoid that, at least while I'm still recovering full health and functionality. I'm looking forward to a quieter time for the rest of this year.
   

A new adventure

Last night I finally made myself sit down and try to write a story. Only rarely now do I write poetry. My output is mainly in the form of correspondence, sermons, eulogies and this blog. I feel, however, that I could derive even more pleasure if I tried my hand at creative story-telling, but where to start. My first effort was about writer's block. It was all I could think of, faced with a blank page and no ideas of how to start. It needed more editing this morning until I was pleased with it, and that led to writing a short story about childhood influences which shaped my path in life. The initial outline draft came to me easily, but it needs working on to complete.

In the afternoon, I walked to a street at the Leckwith end of the Parish for a bereavement visit, It was sunny when I left, but an unexpected downpour started when I was over half way there. After the visit it didn't rain again, so I went for  longer walk and called in at Canton Rectory to welcome Frances our new Team Rector to be, and apologise for not being at her induction next Tuesday, as we'll be down in the Gower in a bungalow at Oxwich starting our fortnight's much needed holiday.

Then it was back to writing again after supper, to complete my second story. I'm enjoying this, though I have no idea whar anyone will think of my efforts.

Grass roots pastorate

A few weeks ago I was in touch with Fr Chris Reaney, a friend and colleague, since the days when I worked as Wales USPG Area Secretary in the eighties. He's been Vicar of Troedyrhiwgarth in the Llynfi Valley near Maesteg, and we haven't seen each other since his induction, nine years ago. So I arranged to meet him for coffee and lunch in Maesteg, and travelled up by train rather than using the car. As the day return ticket only cost me £5.50 with my rail card, cheaper than driving and better for my carbon footprint!

I went to the station by bus and missed the 10.18 train, due to a lengthy traffic queue on entering Westgate Street. If I'd known, I could have got off the bus a St David's hospital and walked half the distance to the station in good time. The trouble is extensive sewer repair works in the lower section of the street creating a choke point for buses and commercial vehicles accessing the city centre. Still, it gave me time to pop into a Market shop and buy some memory foam cushion insoles, as the ones in my winter shoes have worn thin enough to make them uncomfortable to wear. It left me with plenty of time to queue for a ticket and take the 11.18 instead.

The fifty two minute journey is pleasant, passing through a still verdant rural landscape after leaving  Cardiff suburbs behind. There are touches of autumn colour here and there, but most of the leaves are now darker, almost olive green, as a result of milder air temperatures and no frost. The train takes the main line westwards, passing St Fagans and Pontyclun, then turning north after Bridgend to enter the broad Llynfi Valley. 

There were once coal mines lower down the valley, but Maesteg was built on the benefits from the early iron industry, and is the main town of the old Borough, with an ancient Parish church, Llangynwyd, first planted in the sixth century on the hilltop ridge road, as with other ancient Celtic Christian sites in South Wales.

Chris met me at the station, which is quite close to the town centre. Just beyond the end of the line is an Asda supermarket so there's a large car park, to support both shoppers and park and ride travellers. A useful late twentieth century re-purposing of old railway properties, I think. We walked to the main square and had lunch there in a cafe opposite the town hall, an All Day Breakfast for both of us.

The town hall itself is a huge complex of well used buildings, with a covered market at ground level and a large auditorium above it, an outdoor market and the Town Council offices adjacent. The covered market is redundant since the outdoor market acquired a collection of retail units around its periphery, and is being re-purposed as a library. It's an imposing collection of late Victorian municipal buildings, substantially built in stone and brick, visible across town as they rise above the three storey shops in the main street.

We had much to talk about and shared worries about the continued contraction of the Church in Wales and its public ministry, in the Valleys as well as the city. He worries, as I do that the organisational changes which group Parishes into larger entities in which fewer full time clergy chase around looking after a smaller, more dispersed and mobile membership, will detract from the traditional pastoral role of being present and available in the community for all, knowing people and being known, whether church members or not.

Given our shared history, inspired by world mission through our relationship with USPG it's not at all surprising that we both see the present and future of the church based on the call to flourish in the grass roots of local community, growing its plans for witness, service and proclamation from the bottom up not the top down.

While we were in the cafe getting lunch, I noted how many people Chris stopped to greet and chat with as they came and went. His Parish is the neighbouring one, although he also works Maesteg town itself, and after nine years is a familiar local figure uo and down the Llynfi Valley. That's how it should be for an Anglican Parish Priest.

I've never doubted the need for structures to hold us all together and support us, but they're still too top heavy, to my way of thinking. Perhaps grass roots mission won't flourish again until much of the top heavy component withers away. It's possible this will happen, and one of the casualties will be the loss of its paid professional ministries. It would hurt badly. It would be tough getting there and recovery would be far from certain, but an entirely voluntary kind of ministry for most pastoral purposes would only take us back to where the church started from at the beginning. Would that be so terrible?

I was home again by four, and then did the week's grocery shopping before supper. The train I was on advertised that it would stop at Ninian Park station, fifteen minutes from home at the other side of the Parish. I was pleased at the prospect being home earlier, but the train didn't stop, it sped on to Cardiff Central, and had the usual 61 bus journey back instead. A programming error in the heads up display probably, using a Match Day train schedule instead of the standard one, most likely.

  

Not quite a protest, more a gentlemanly warning

For the third Sunday in a row I returned to Grangetown to celebrate and preach at both churches. I had been asked to do a baptism during the service, but was contacted by the churchwarden midweek to say it had been postponed, as a godparent couldn't get there. The couple and their young son and his baby brother were in church anyway, and I had a chat with them after the service. They hail from Sri Lanka. Next week I'm back at St Catherine's, so it won't be me. I'm just a little disappointed.

As I was driving home afterwards through Canton there was a long queue of slow moving vehicles on Cowbridge Road East, mostly tractors great and small, interspersed with a few cars. Were they returning from a city centre protest? I wondered. Apparently not. It was part of a rally of agricultural vehicles, ancient and modern, seventy five of them, which started out in Wenvoe and paraded into the city centre and back. A great way of showcasing Welsh agriculture. 

It wasn't Not quite a protest outing on this occasion, although publicity quotes did highlight Welsh farmers' concern about threats to their business viability due to the current state of brexit induced uncertainty. Not so much a shot across the bows, more of a gentle 'don't forget we're here' reminder. If leaving the EU without a deal betrayed the Welsh farming industry, I for one would get out and cheer on a city centre gridlock farmers protest.

This afternoon it was sunny with clouds with a light warm breeze, perfect for walking. Almost all the equipment for yesterday's athletics meeting had either been taken away or was stacked neatly, ready to remove. A 3km strip of mud around the west wide of the park was all that remained of the running track, and the footpath verges were pretty broken and muddy too. I wonder what'll be done to remedy this, if anything? If only it hadn't rained so much last week. 

I took my HX90 and LX5 cameras out with me, so take black and white as well as colour photos. As the sun was low in the sky, and shadows were long, I got some satisfyingly atmospheric monochrome pictures to add to my collection. As Clare remarked when she looked at them on-line, it takes a little time to get used to seeing the content of a photo in shades of grey, now that we are so used to colour in almost all photography we see, movies and stills.

I intended to spent the evening watching 'Non uccidere', but ended up spending the time before bed updating this blog instead. Ah well, it'll keep for another dull uneventful day, no doubt.