Wed 1 Yesterday we went to Lidl and amongst the wacky merchandise was a real gem. They have nice watches at £2.99 - I’m wearing one now – and I saw one I thought had a picture of Mozart. I went a bit closer and it tuned out to be Schiller! On a card with a whole screed about Schiller in English under the series heading Masters of Words or something similar. Of course, Catherine dissuaded me from snapping up this collectors item but O the regret!

Today I had to go to Aberdare to do a Wednesday Word and of course the snow had been forecast so I was up at about 6.30 and out of the house by seven. Quite right, too, because by the time I got to Abergavenny it was pelting down snow and as I sent up and over the head of the valleys it was down to one lane in each direction and the radio was a litany of closed schools and shut roads. As it happens though it was quite easy to get into Aberdare and I parked in Tescos car park and found the Green Street Methodist chapel quite easily and the BBC people were there already by about 8.30. Jenny was producing and she’d stayed overnight in a guest house. Cath turned up quite soon after and I went for a walk around the town. Found out that the composers father and son of Hen wlad fy nhadau had strong links with Aberdare.

The programme in itself was interesting – they had the Cwmback Male Choir along to sing a hymn in Welsh and some of the programme was coming from Cardiff and some from Aberdare with interviews with Roy Noble. There was a lot of noise in the place thouh – I think it went way beyond legitimate background noise. I got away by about eleven o’clock to find that the kids’ bus hadn’t turned up to go to Monmouth.

Thu 2 People are starting to enquire from all over the place about the Raglan Festival concert featuring John Wetton and Geoff Downes. We have had people writing from Sweden and Spain so far and we haven’t even officially announced the concert yet!

Went to the Eisteddfod winners’ concert this morning at the school.

Fri 3 We’ve been grabbing a few minutes here and there to try and finish a couple of recordings in connection with the CD we’re making. Jonny Quick came over yesterday and we put the singing on the song Surprised by Joy. This is an old song I wrote in school and I’ve fitted it to some words from the sonnet by Wordsworth, ‘Surprised by Joy.’ It has a big coda with some big Scott Walker type singing by Jonny but I had to ask him to rerecord it with a little more restraint because of a mismatch of levels so we had some Jeff Buckley style falsetto keening instead. It’s turned out quite well so now I have to decide whether to replace the drums we did at the very beginning or do without. Catherine was singing Everyman today. That’s a song to do with our first contact with people with Aids way back in perhaps 87 or 88. We had one or two problems with the mix in the headphones but I think we know roughly how we’d like this to sound now. As soon as that’s done, we’ll have four songs ready. Perhaps the Raglan Festival is not a realistic goal for this CD to be ready but Christmas may well be. The problem is having to snatch an hour or two here there and everywhere to work on it.

Had a phone call from the Cambrensis fixer about playing in the Mozart Requiem tomorrow evening but it would have required too much juggling for it to be possible. It was nice to be asked, though.

Still plenty of changes on the website – I’ve just put up two more radio scripts – St David’s Day and Dead Time about the down time between Christmas and New Year – the time when the BBC was like a ghost ship!

Sat 4 Last night was the first night of the new youth group, Footloose. There were 17 at that and 25 at the old Footsteps so with about 15 at the Axis group I suppose we weren’t far short of 60. A long way from those days when we were praying for thirty kids and still having joint meetings in the Fellowship Centre. Apparently it went quite well although there was some pushing of boundaries. At the Fellowship Centre on the other hand once again the Axis group is maturing into a happy, community feel. This happens every year but not many stay after 16. We are going to work towards that aim with this group, though. As an epilogue I sang ‘I Believe in You’ from Dylan’s Slow Train Coming album. I got some of the words wrong but that didn’t make much difference. I t’s a salutary experience listening to some of Dylan’s own cover versions – he sand Something on the night George Harrison died and repeatedly sang the same – wrong – verse but the whole thing was worth it for the line ‘I don’t know’ as in ‘You’re asking me will my love grow – I don’t know.’ He delivers it as a disgruntled protest at an intrusive question.

Sun 5 Had a meeting of the Raglan Festival committee yesterday in the Beaufort. It’s getting to be a big enterprise now with all kinds of bands and musicians contacting us virtually every day wanting to pl;ay. Well, I say all kinds but there aren’t any classical musicians.

In the afternoon I went to the annual Raglan local history society tea. There was a very interesting rolling slideshow on the screen of olf photos of Raglan. I think z commentary on some of these might well have been of more interest tot some of the newcomers they are hoping to attract than the lecture on porcelain we heard. I thought the most interesting part of that was near the very end when the lady began to talk about her job restoring old porcelain but within two or three minutes she’d finished.

Went to Abertillery to celelbrate Rachel’s birthday in the evening. Had a Chinese from Ping’s place and we were trying to work out how long there’s been a chip shop in Gaen Street – over forty years at least. We managed to see some of the skating and they’d introduced a flying harness. I reckon the reason Bonnie didn’t win the series is what everybody says as soon as she comes on – ‘she’s cheating because she’s a dancer.’ Well, with this flying harness which she’s used in panto she only touched the ice about four times in the first routine. So, in spite of high votes from the judges the public voted otherwise.

Tue 7 Yesterday at Christianity Explored we had lasagne cooked by an Italian who is a former chef at the Walnut Tree. So there! The tomato was present but very subtle – nowhere near as aggressive as it so often is in Italian food ineptly done. So there may well be some truth in the persistent rumour that there was a TV chef from the Walnut Tree at one of our Christmas services. In fact it’s becoming a problem to work out who has been in our services. Yesterday I was talking with Val and Robert about whether or not a particular group of people had visited and it remained uncertain.

Got together with Matthew for an hour before Christianity Explored to try and write a song and we succeeded in that. He came along with a chord sequence and I jotted down a melody. The dummy lyrics seemed like one of the early Syd Barrett songs and the chorus was based on that idea. It’s on a seaside theme but seems to me to have something to do with a hidden memory of the Cuban missile crisis. When Charles came home, we called him up to hear it.

I’m sorry about the format of this as a Word document – I am trying to change it but with no success so far.

Wed 8 So now I have succeeded in saving this as a web page rather than a Word document but I still don’t know exactly what I did. Still, the positive side of all this is that I’ve managed to get some nice animated graphics on the index page – the cross has a link to some gospel verses by the way.

First Leadership Team meeting with Helen last night. She’ll fit in well particularly with the knowledge of building and listed building rules she has because of their house.

Fri 10 Had the first Da Vinci code session the other night. About 20 people turned up including a couple of people from outside the church. Everyboy seemed to enjoy it and the question session afterwards seemed to go quite well. It is hard to see an expert called Jimmy de Young though. What’s the recipe today?

Went to Pontyclun yesterday for the session on the Work/Life balance with a gentleman called John Marttin Evans from Care for the Family. It was a time about getting you priorites right and making sure you’re climbing the right ladder. Lots of group work – you get top dollar for being a motivational speaker and then make the punters do group work all day: priceless. There was one quote I hadn’t come across from Ignatius of Antioch, ‘The glory of God is a human being truly alive.’

Sun 12 Jonathan Davies in a rugby commentary: the Italian kicker had missed an easy peranlty and the Italians were awarded another. Davies: This one is easier because it’s more difficult.

There was snow down this morning so I think quite a few people stqyed home but there were a few visitors including a couple from Manchester who had known the church several years back. The music was a bit precarious but it was just a confidence thing – people not coming in on the count etc. Plus I had a slight problem with the bass guitar. The sermon was another involved one in the Romans series but people found it helpful and there were plenty of positive comments.

Mon 13 Rachel and Lauren’s birthday party was held in Monmouth on Friday last. The Bridges Centre is a great place for this type of event with any number of good rooms of all sizes. In fact, I thought it could be used for church slightly away events. We took about eight cans of cake and lemonade and got set for the onslaught. As it happened it was a remarkably good humoured evening with no trouble at all. It was also a good experience to come away from a live music event not stinking of smoke. We’d asked Jonny Quick to go along to provide the sound which he did, very well. The first bad to play were the Educated Fools. They had a good tight young drummer and a talented guitarist but I can’t really remember what they played. Next up was Rachel’s own band The Phenom. Sam and Matt were good guitarists in the fast neo-punk style and Sam has certainly made a lot of progress since he played in the youth club Christmas do. The drummer and bassist were Ju and George who were not at all flashy but efficient. Rachel was a great singer and the choice of songs was inspired: Teenage Kicks, I bet that you look good on the dance floor, I’m not OK, Are you gonna be my girl et al. Confident singing and Jonny was well impressed. As he was with Rachel’s cousin’s band from Abertillery, Cutie the Bomb. They supported Soapbox last year and since then they’ve added a second guitarist who has an outrageous afro. The drums are as astonishing as ever – it turns out that Chris lives two doors down from my old home in Abertillery. Tomos is maturing as a frontman. It he and Rachel ever got together the sparks would fly. Jonny and I agreed that they should really have a spot in the festival in June. The only bad thing about the evening was having to go back to Abertillery when the whole thing was over to take people back. Still, I expect I was back by 1.30.

Last night we went to Cheltenham to see Steve Ashley’s 60^th birthday concert. I borrowed Steve’s second album Speedy Return from the library in Aberystwyth when I was a student there in 1978 or 9 and played it constantly so it represents that time of my life perfectly. I’ve heard and appreciated all he’s done since – and his first album Stroll On – so this was unmissable. Unlike the venue. We found out the A40 from Ross was closed so made our way to Cheltenham across country, arriving with about twenty minutes to spare but by a different road from the map I’d printed off. No problem, we’d duck into Tescos and ask at the petrol station. Bacon Theatre? Dean Close School? Never heard of it. Finally, someone arrived who knew it and directed us there. We arrived just as the first song was going to start and a bit flustered. The fist half was an overview of Steve’s career with spots shared with most of the musicians he’d played with. What a terrible career he’s had though! The first song illustrates this. It was called Farewell Britannia and it lamented the disappearance of Britannia from the coinage with decimalisation. Of course, by the time the single was all set to be released, the government had decided to restore Britiannia to the 50p coin and the single was never released. And so it went on and on. One gathers that life hasn’t been all that easy for him then but it certainly doesn’t show. Although many of the participants could feature in ads about the dangers of drink and food, Steve could easily pass for 40 and he has a cheerful manner. Some of the highlights of the first half were the arrangements for those early songs played on recorders and a string section and conducted by the arranger Robert Kirby who also worked with Nick Drake and Sandy Denny; Steve’s harmonica playing; his weird left-handed guitar style, high strings at the top so that his fingerpicking and alternate strumming were amazingly gauche but very effective all the same. In the interval various members of Fairport Convention were wandering around and they came on to play in the second half. The best thing there was a selection from the Family Album record. Steve didn’t play on these but his singing and acting out of the songs on Family Love, The Father’s Song, Pancake Day and I’m a Radio would have made him a music-hall star in the appropriate epoch. Extraordinarily affecting was the Grandmother’s Song and at the end The Rough With the Smooth. Phil Beer of Show of Hands played on that and sang a verse but the man who sang the verse after that made a masterpiece out of his few lines – ‘I don’t want charity, flannel or flattery: pride is the last thing you lose’ will remain with me a long time. I don’t know who he was – I hope there are some captioned photos up soon on Steve’s website. Not just nostalgia, though. Steve sand two new songs including one about the Trident submarine programme which promise much for the future. An underrated, neglected artist with a solid and lasting achievement. Steve Ashley. www.steveashley.co.uk

Thu 16 What a fiasco. Ian Scott and I went to Bethesda Rogerstone to meet up with Mark Thomas and John Gray. We were going to Swansea to the SWBA Council where there was going to be the induction of Andy Hughes as the regional minister. We were there in good time and making good progress on the motorway too until we came to a halt after the Sarn services. Good humoured so far. Half an hour. We phoned on to Nick Bradshaw who was a few hundred yards ahead. There’d been an accident. I said a good case could be made for putting on the radio. Nothing on there, not even on BBC Radio Wales. An hour. We decided on the phone to postpone the meeting in Swsansea. On the radio they begin to say that there’s one lane open – clearly not the case. In the end, after more than three hours word comes on the mobile phone network that the Police are turning people around behind us because they’ve declared a crime scene up ahead. Not true because people were turning of their own accord. Still nothing useful on the radio except in the regular news bulletins. We arrived back about 11.30 in Raglan. This morning on the radio they’ve saying that some motorists had to wait for nearly two hours. I suppose that’s strictly true although some others had to wait for more than three hours.

Mon 20 Went to see Mel’s aunt in Pontypool and there was a lady visiting her called Pat. When I said I was from Abertillery, she said she used to go there to visit. Roseheyworth road – well, that’s where my grandparents used to live but the people she visited were Jones and it turned out they were Nancy Jones and Towy who were very good friends of my aunty Em. Took me back.

Just finished reading RT Kendall’s autobiographical account of his time at Westminster Chapel. What a gracious tone he takes on what must have been some torrid times! If only the same could be said of Don Carson’s Becoming Conversant with the Emergent Church. An effortless assumption of superiority which unwittingly underlines many of the criticisms made of his stable by those he himself seeks to demolish. Absolutist, authoritarian . . . Still, I read on.

Fri 24 Went to a day conference of the Monmouthshire Rural Support Network a the invitation of Shirley Hughes. Matthew Height was involved too as one of the facilitators. There were contributions by a gentleman from REST – the Rural emothional support team and from one or two others, then from the Police and the Fire service. In the afternoon there was a fairly long case study and discussion. Perhaps forty to fifty participants including vets, health professionals, farmers, clergy etc. Very positive and certainly timely in pointing to some areas of stress in the rural world. I’d had no idea for instance that a dairy farmer could be getting a monthly cheque for £30.000 and still barely be making a profit. What a challenge it is, though, to try to penetrate a world where isolation and self-imposed, pride-fuelled lonerangerdom are rife. One of the mental health team also pointed out to me that most of the farmers present were of the other type – successful, and what Paul Goodliff calls ‘helping’ personalities. As she put it, the dabo farmers were not there. I got talking to the Abergavenny Mind people who remembered the time I went there to sing. They were delighted to hear that Matthew and I have a band going now and could be invited to take part in a ball they’re planning.

Sat 25 This always makes me laugh and deserves a bigger readership – a masterpiece of unintentional, self-deluding humour. It’s the introduction to a Christian book on family life:

‘How can someone who is a missionary overseas and has to delegate the upbringing of her children largely to other people, presume to write about family life?’ You may well ask, as did I when the magazine …….. commissionaed me to write a series of articles on this subject. The book owes much to the help given to me by the ………… team in working on these articles. Thank you, each one of you.

My reply is somewhat sheepish, ‘I still don’t know . . . I got interested in the articles when I was asked to do them, and then a book seemed to follow on naturally!’

Perhaps separation from my own children for long periods has made me think more deeply about family life than I might otherwise have done. Criticism fired at those (who included me) who were separated from their children in order to work overseas as missionaries, plunged me into months of spiritual and emotional battles over this whole problem. I have emerged the richer.’

Mon 27 Great baptismal service yesterday morning. We started off with And can it be and As the deer even before the service began and the singing was I think the best we’ve had so far at Raglan and that continued throughout the service. By 11 it was pretty well full downstairs and there were about twenty-five I suppose in the balcony. We had Lord for the Years and then God is our Father and Blessed be the name of the Lord. We had Jane and Julia Downing up for the actions to that one. Then a couple of sketches by Dramatic followed by my talk. I felt while it was going on that it was a bit heavy – old and new in Romans 6:1-14 but in fact there were plenty of positive comments. Then Simone’s declaration followed by the baptism itself. Mel prayed, we had the announcements from John and then sang a couple more songs to finish with. We had a bring and share lunch afterwards and people stayed on a good long time. I think we got away perhaps around 2.30 or even a bit later so that was a good time of sharing too. We went to Abertillery in the afternoon evening. Raining very heavily but we still came back over Blaenavon mountain. Today? Busy, busy, busy! We had the breakfast and were discussing an Easter labyrinth type idea for the youth club evening on 7^th April.

Tue 28 It was supposed to be my day off today but there was no school for the children because of industrial action – although nothing to what they’re having in France at the moment – so we had to keep them amused. As well as that, we had a meeting this morning with a heritage architect to talk about changes toi the windows in the chapel and this evening there was an interview with a lady from the Monmouthshire Country Life magazine about the Raglan Festival. I’ve been spending a bit of time putting material onto My Space as well but that seems to be time well spent because there are plenty of people visiting and listening to the songs on there: www.myspace.com/frostatmidnight

Wed 29 Right then, from now on with photos . . . This is the one from MySpace and shows us at last year’s Raglan Festival. Because I’m on the mandolin, I think this must have been during Pete Seeger’s Turn Turn Turn based on the book of Ecclesiastes.

Here are some of the people at the house group this evening. We were meeting at Rachel and Colin’s and the theme was Jeremiah’s honesty with God in facing up to his difficult feelings about the task God had called him to.

Helen led it and as usual had to keep on calling us back to the Bible passage in question but very graciously as ever.

Steve had some great insights into the way the church has prayed in the past and how God has answered above and beyond what anyone imagined. Perhaps over a period of ten years or so, Steve thinks.

Thanks for the hospitality, Colin! . . . and Rachel and Josh too, of course. That’s one of Rachel’s paintings behind Colin’s head. It shows a bear watching some leaping salmon. The live variety, not in a tin.

Julie led the meeting last time and did that very well indeed.

This is Chris seconds after arriving in the meeting and seeing me brandishing Catherine’s camera. I must admit this has all been a lot easier than I thought it would be.

Thu 30 I enjoyed reading this interview: http://www.rejesus.co.uk/encounters/interview/02_sally_phillips/index.html

This is a cruel misprint, presumably just a missing word! It’s on the noticeboard outside Usk Parish Church: “Mr Carlo Curley will perform an inaugural concert . . . it is advisable to obtain tickets early to avoid”

This Matt the guitarist with the Jonny Quick Band at the rehearsal tonight. He had a new effects unit and has had his guitar set up so it plays and sounds like a dream. We tried Sultans of Swing tonight so you can see he’s a hot player.

Doug’s background is in Hammond and drums duos and trios in the Northern clubs.

That’s me. I’ve borrowed a bass amp from Colwyn Knight and had my bass set up too.

This is the eponymous Jonny Quick. The band’s named after him, too.

On Sax, Charles Fountain the supremo of the Raglan Festival and we had a photo shoot tonight for the Monmouthshire Country Life magazine. Nanette unkindly said we’re all going to be pinups for the middle-aged women of Monmouthshire.

What can she have meant?