After an early trip to the GP surgery for a prescription renewal, I pottered about for a couple of hours, then went into town, changed some Euros, horrified by the exchange rate, then went and bought a superzoom Sony HX50 camera that I could have bought in Malaga at the same price, had I not miscalculated the exchange rate and duped myself into thinking it would be cheaper to buy in the UK. I started out some months ago looking for a decent telephoto lens for my DSLR, but quickly gave up on the idea. A 30x zoom in a pocketable camera is a fifth of the price of a lens that would add weight and complexity I don't need for my kind of photography. Like everyone else I'd like to take good quality pictures, but don't need professional high quality output to satisfy my personal needs.
Ashley and I then met up at our new office in the Old Library and we travelled by train to Swansea for the Wales Against Business Crime quarterly meeting with other people working in Business Crime Partnerships across South East Wales. It's the first time I can recall travelling to Swansea by train and it was interesting to see the familiar landmarks along the M4 corridor from a different perspective.
I was the first meeting of this group I've been to, and I was impressed by the amount of ground we covered, ranging from confidential information sharing on identifiable shoplifters travelling between shopping centres along the M4, to discussion about the astonishing inconsistencies between local divisions of South Wales Police in implementing information sharing agreements with their Business Crime Reduction Partnership. Problems in Cardiff are reflected in nearly every area.
Because flooding, high winds and rain were imposing speed restrictions in some areas along the Swansea to Paddington line, there were delays in the schedule of trains that would get us back to Cardiff. It was seven o'clock by the time we got back and I was very lucky to get a bus home within minutes. Clare had arranged an outing to Chapter Arts Centre to hear a story teller accompanied by a fiddler and a guitarist tell tales from the Mabinogion. I scoffed half my supper in great haste before we set out and thankfully we were on time, and to our surprise ended up with a front row seat in an extra row placed on stage. A refreshing end to an interesting day. Now I must get that camera battery charged and ready for action.
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