Friday 22 April 2016

The personal touch

We took Ann to her train this morning. She's off to see friends for the weekend before returning to Kirton. Clare's niece and god-daughter Caroline flies in from South Africa tomorrow, and we will rendezvous with her at Magor service station on the M4, so that Clare and drive with her down to Exeter to visit Auntie Daphne in hospital still recovering from her recent stroke. So this means I'll have an unexpected solitary night to myself.

This afternoon I went to the office again for a couple of hours, braving the security cordon and the crowds of parents with small children in the lobby, invading the Disney Word exhibition to reach the relative calm of the top floor. It's been great to see the difference made by Ian, our Business Crime Reduction Manager since he started work four months ago. The fact that he has a long experience of working in the city as a policeman and security consultant means that he's well known, respected and influential. Quietly, he's improved our working relationship with licensed premises users in a way we've found difficult to sustain, and that counts for a lot.

We struggled on without a public relations or marketing officer to help make known what RadioNet and the BCRP is all about, and endured some setbacks in the process. Having someone who is known and knows people is much more of an asset when it comes to good public security, as so much is built on personal trust. Funding the post has been well worth all the effort we've put into it. Ashley and I met up for convenience again at the Louie today, to continue what we started yesterday. He told me that the Uber taxi service is set to start in Cardiff today. I realised that I don't know much about it. Normally my pensioners' free bus pass is all I need.

This evening I started work on inspecting and editing my latest batch of 350 photos taken in Sta Pola. Some of the bird pictures will need weeding out of the collection as they are not as good as I'd hoped for, many being taken at the full extent of telescopic range for both cameras. Using a tripod as many bird watching photographers do would lead to some improvement, but carrying even a small lightweight one, such as I have, is an unwelcome encumbrance to mobility. Still it's nice to look at them and remember a warmer place to be than Cardiff.

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