Waiting for the call

I was up very early for a Monday morning, in good time to take Clare to catch the coach for Heathrow for her flight to Phoenix Arizona to see Rachel and Jasmine. By the time I'd done the week's food shopping and been into College for a catch up session, it was lunchtime, and Clare was texting me to say that she'd reached her departure gate for the eleven hour flight. 

I had a bereavement visit lined up for a funeral later in the week, but received a call to say there'd been a mix-up and that Father Graham, their local Vicar, presumed by the funeral arranger to be away, had been requested and in fact was available. So, I went into the CBS office instead, and worked on getting to know how Cardiff Business Safe's crime data sharing intranet site works, and then populating it with information and key user data, to prepare for the next phase in developing the organisation's mission. 

Thankfully it was not a difficult task. I've acquired a basic familiarity with how internet content management systems work from using Google resources, and experimenting with St Michael's College Moodle set up, so I was able to work on everything I set out to do with some degree of success, without needing to refer to the user manual provided. To my mind that's a good measure of usability for someone who is admittedly not starting from scratch!

After celebrating Mass for half a dozen people at St Luke's today, I went into the office and continued what I started yesterday. Towards the end of the afternoon an outburst of mild cheers or was it jeers ran through the office, in response to the arrival of a round robin email from Council's Chief Executive Officer Jon House, announcing that he is moving on to another job. 

Instant gossip started over the recent re-appearance in Cardiff of Paul Orders, previously a top level Council officer, who for the past three years has been a city Council CEO in New Zealand. He's now hotly tipped as a successor. He'd be great for the job, and popular, but in the convoluted world of politics, little is as straightforward as it seems. We'll see what happens. 

This afternoon I bought a battery for the early Casio Exilim camera I acquired for Clare to use some five years ago, from the bargain bin at Currys Digital for a fifth of its original price, as it was already three years old and unsold. In fact, the replacement battery cost as much as I'd paid for camera itself. The battery keeps its price for people like me wanting to keep running old kit. The camera itself loses its value as the technology is superceded in new models coming to market. It's very limited compared to my Sony W690 which Clare has taken with her to Arizona, but I'd prefer to keep it in my pocket to use, than to use the quite superior camera built into my phone, which is impressive but nowhere near as comfortable in the hand.

This evening, a Skype conversation with a yawning Clare and a very chirpy Rachel, also a few arrival photos from Rachel's phone, sent by the very useful Viber phone app. Glad to know all's well, after a 24 hour wait for news. Then, off to Chu Gung as usual on a Tuesday.