Ash Wednesday

8.00 am: Having addressed and dispatched last night’s incoming email, I took stock of myself and began a process of sifting that would extend throughout the period of Lent. 9.00 am: I put my new pre-amp pedal through its paces and the Fender Twin Reverb amp, the Yamaha THR100hd digital amp, and the QSC active speaker PA system. All good!

9.30 am: Back to The Aural Bible III project, and the extraction of ‘blind’ from the New Testament LPs. The discs have no track breaks between the chapters. Therefore, finding a verse is a rather hit and miss affair. In the background, I attended to some ‘hum’ problems that persisted within the turntable and mixer network, while making adjustments to today’s schedule at the School, later on:

12.45 pm: An early lunch before moving to the School to conduct a pastoral tutorial, set up a Vocational Practice class (at which Mr Ruddock (Coleg Ceredigion) was speaking about life as a further education lecturer), and meet an intending PhD Fine Art applicant. All three engagements overlapped to some degree. A bit hairy!

Our PhD Fine Art students are individuals — each an artist with a particular trajectory. However, they share what can only be described as a metaphysical turn of mind, to a greater or less degree; they assume the possibility that reality is other than that is which is strictly visible or tangible. 3.20 pm: Back at home, I continued locating ‘blind’ in the Gospel of Mark.

7.00 pm: In the wind, rain, hail, lightening and thunder, I headed for Holy Trinity Church to attend the evening Ash Wednesday service:

In the Anglican ritual, the sign of the cross is marked in ashes upon the foreheads of the congregation, and the words ‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return’ spoken by the cleric (Gen. 3.9). Thus, we each became a walking drawing and memento mori — a reminder to ourselves and one another of human frailty, sinfulness, the need to repent, and the object of our hope.

8.30 pm: Emergency admin beckoned.