Edinburgh

Marian and I just made a trip north to celebrate my oldest son's ordination as priest in the Church of England and my 70th birthday. They happened in reverse order, but for various reasons we were able to celebrate both on 1st July in Newcastle Upon Tyne, a city with fine restaurants, hotels and one of the biggest music stores I have seen for a long time. It sells instruments of many kinds, sheet music and recorded music, too.
After our family time, our youngest son and his family had holidayed in Scotland the week before, Marian and I took the train to Edinburgh for a short break, a gift from my sons. Last December we celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary and with so many zeroes around this break was their kind gift.
As Welsh people, we know about rain; we now know that Edinburgh does rain pretty well, too. Not since being in a tropical downpour have I got so wet so quickly when walking the last 400 yards to our B&B.
The morning we left, there had been more rain, leaving the small car park behind the B&B mostly submerged and the bowling green over the wall unplayable.

Morning Dew

6.45 AM, Hillbarn Golf Course, West Sussex: The morning is bright, the sun having risen over the hill beyond. I stop near a green on this lovely course, sparkling under a heavy dew.
On the green are the footmarks of a couple of players, onto and off the green. One set approaches the hole, to remove the flag probably. Then two other sets lead to the start of two delicate curves, each ending at the hole. Successful putts for the two players in their early morning game, at least on this hole.
The dew will be gone now, three hours later, under the warm sun. The imprint of those minutes might remain in the players' memory, but like much of our lives it's temporary and ephemeral.
What does really count, or last? And in whose memory?

Brecon

Since Easter, more or less, it has rained most of the time apart from two weeks in May. To our surprise Marian and I had chosen those weeks for our annual pilgrimage/holiday near Brecon. The evening we arrived the gentlest rain kissed us welcome and our last day was pretty wet. Between the sun shone fit to bust.

Within the national park lie both the Black Mountain (to the west) and the Black Mountains (to the east.) Looking at the ordnance survey map I saw what might be a gentle walk to a lake, Llyn Y Fan Fach.  It was an easy trek up a track built by the local water company to the lake, which is a natural one but which has been formalised into a dam. The dam wall was a good place to snooze after lunch.

Then Marian and I walked up the slope to which my feet are pointing to gaze down the steep cliffs scoured out by an ice-age glacier to the lake below.

The view was glorious, sweeping over the far Usk valley and the Usk reservoir, where we'd brewed some tea while watching a couple of local men reel in rainbow trout, perhaps bedazzled by the sunshine, more than I could count.

To the east lay Pen Y Fan, the highest peak in South Wales and our goal for another day.

Another Warm Stream

As the early morning coach drove north up the A23 from Brighton snow lay over the South Downs. Even Worthing had been dusted the night before. My destination, Vancouver, lies on the Northern Pacific, south of the Gulf of Alaska, sounded pretty cold in February.
My host told me of the stream of warm ocean water from Hawaii (the Pineapple Stream?) that keeps this part of western Canada's coast pretty free of winter snow. It was a surprise to find Vancouver warmer than Worthing despite the best efforts of Britain's Gulf Stream.
Another surprise was a display of totem poles in Stanley Park and to learn that these artefacts were used to record real or mythical events, they were not used for worship by the tribes who carved them.
Vancouver's house prices are sky high, one reason being the easy investment in property by newly-rich Chinese people, whose steady influence already has led to airport and other signage appearing in a couple of Chinese languages.

Short and Good

This morning's walk of less than two miles from home to the OC UK office was wonderful. Despite the temperature being close to freezing point the sun shone full strength, the birds were busy and singing. Much was right with the world.

New Toys

A former colleague used to say, "Make it fun to get it done." The obverse is when a necessary task becomes fun. So it was when the website of OC International-UK needed a bit of fast forwarding to replace out of date information and a good, but dated, appearance.
Since the 1960s encounters with computers gave me a lot of fun during the hard work and this was just the same.
GIMP is open-source software for graphics; a new style OC logo was made with it.
TextWrangler is a great, free text editor for changing HTML code, even working to files on a remote HTML and FTP sites.
Tracking down some truly free clipart took a while and recasting some of the text proved a minor part of the job.
Then along came Microsoft Internet Explorer. The original site used cascading style sheets, one file for IE, another for the rest of the world. In my learn-as-you-go style this became apparent only when finally loading up Windows XP and IE on my Mac.
Now, the site seems to work for Safari, IE, Opera, Chrome and Omniweb. Great fun - until the next review or a total replacement on something else.

Time Travel

    At work I used to read an Australian magazine, Kategoria, and was disappointed when it ceased being published. It was a thoughtful, thought provoking set of articles about contemporary life and the Christian faith. 


    One particular issue focussed on The Family, causing me sufficient disquiet that I worked to get the Feba world talking about family issues, promoting a biblical view within the disparate cultures across that world.


   It had some success, with - as usual - many ideas that flew like lead balloons.


   Great joy today when I found out that all 31 editions of Kategoria are available on the web site of The Gospel Coalition as PDF files to download. And that means less space on my hard drive, but more on the shelf in my overcrowded study.
Nice to see you again!

Surprise in Horsham

Yesterday, 30 December 2011, Marian and I drove to Horsham in Surrey, just 20 miles to the north of our home. Our purpose was to buy a small colander in the excellent cooking supplies store there. We failed in that, but that's OK, it was interesting to see current trends in middle-class culinary practice as dining habits change: more implements for Japanese food; collapsible colanders for a bijou kitchen; expensive French casseroles for single meals.
We needed gluten-free food for lunch, so bypassed the Italian eating places and found (again) a cheery, cramped cafe run by local Christian churches. It has a bookstore, too.  While we ate - an excellent vegetable soup for her and a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich for me - we spotted from the window a little cul-de-sac called Causeway. Along both sides of the street and some beautiful buildings of varying ages, one of which was home to the author, Hammond Innes, in the early 1920s. See my tumblr.com blog for some pictures.

Time Travel

     Intrigued by the intractable tensions in the Middle East, I determined to read Jerusalem - The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore. This evening I finished it.
     It's a big book, spanning the city's history from the time of King David (circa 1000 BC) to this decade. Apart from my constantly getting lost with the names, family relationships and various empires, what hit me hardest was the constant slaughter of people through most of the generations covered by the book. 
     That took my mind to the Old Testament:
     Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May those who love you be secure. May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels.”  Psalm 122:6-7, written by King David.
     How many generations of Jews have prayed that prayer, or Christians eyeing prophetic writings about the nation and that city? Did they pray in vain?

     Just a few days before Christmas, when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus, it may be well to join that ancient prayer and trust that one day the Prince of Peace will reign supreme and Jerusalem know prolonged peace.

Identity Confused

On November 6th our first grandchild was born in Cambridge. My wife is now Gran and I am Grandad. In my far off childhood my mother's mother was Gran and my father's father was Grandad. So these new titles are fine.
My Grandad was a quiet and authoritative figure to me. He used to sit in the kitchen saying very little. He had a full head of hair and a white moustache, which I think was tinged yellow from smoking. The sad fact is I never felt close to him or that he was much interested in me.
Perhaps it's the way families work, but my mother's parents seemed to be more loving. My Grampie was a shorter, smiling man who had words to build up. I hope my granddaughter remembers me as the smiling, talking one -- not that her other grandfather is anything like my own was.
The journey from the South Coast to Cambridge will become more familiar in coming years. It's mainly motorway: A27, A23/M23, M25, M11 with the glorious Dartford Tunnel going north under the Thames and the high-flying bridge coming south.
Sending a message to my wife and sons opens up the identity question. Should I be Tony, Dad or Grandad? I enjoy all three, so had better get used to the multiple identity.