Homecoming

Up at quarter to five after an early night with more rain, then a quick breakfast, ready to be collected by Peter to drive to Malaga Airport for the 7.15am flight to Cardiff. From the time he dropped me off it took less than twenty minutes to check in and pass through security. The flight left on time, and dawn broke above the cloud cover somewhere over northern Spain, but there was cloud all the way into Cardiff. My first glimpse of home was Sully Island at high tide, on the last leg of the flight path along the coast into Rhoose. 

When we landed the pilot said: "Welcome to Cardiff Airport, where the temperature is eight degrees. Sorry." Back from the land where it's more sunny than it's not, to the land where it rains more often than not. A land of grey and green, not much red and orange in the landscape. It's still unusually green, however. There are but a few tinges of yellow in most trees, as the mild Summer weather extended longer than usual.

I was home by half past ten, catching up with Clare, ignoring the pile of unread mail. glad to be back despite the rain, apart. While Clare went to the hairdressers, I went to the CBS office and did some catching up there as well. A 61 bus was at the traffic lights on Romilly road as I approached the junction, so I decided to run to the next stop, some seventy yards away. The bus caught up with me and reached the bus stop when I was still twenty yards away, but it stopped anyway. I thanked the driver profusely. "I only stop if I see someone putting in the effort." He quipped. It's pleasing to know that I can still sprint that far if I need to. All the long walks in Spain are doing me good.

Our business telephone service provider BT is switching from Vodaphone to EE. We've been issued with new SIM cards to activate for office mobiles. Swapping SIMs is a fiddly procedure. You have to schedule a swap time with BT via the internet, use your phone until it can't receive calls, then swap SIM cards, losing all your SIM card data unless you copied it to phone memory, which means one more thing to learn how to do! The question is, when the swap has been effected, will I be able to receive calls on my Blackberry at home. At the moment the indoors EE signal reception on the ground floor is non-existent with my Samsung and sometimes outside as well. New improved fast data service only works if you have a signal to start with.

Following the office visit, I had an appointment with our GP practice nurse for a 'flu jab, fitted in at the end of her day, thanks to a phone call from Clare in the morning. Then, I met Owain from the Bristol train on his return from work, and the three of us went to Stefanos for supper. It was good to see him, as he's under pressure to get lots done before he flies to Berlin for a long weekend with one of his music making partners. He said the trip was being paid for by virtue of royalties received from the Performing Rights Society for techno music he's composed. He certainly deserves it. And I'm impressed.