Connecting - mixed fortunes

I awoke at first light, despite retiring early. The building and surrounding apartment blocks were quiet until sunrise, around a quarter to eight. It'll take me a while to get used to being surrounded by a new palette of the sounds of human activity punctuating the day. Waking up early and hearing the changes reminded me of this.

Nerja chaplain's house had thin walls, and neighbours who were often absent, but when present, their noises were mainly nocturnal and early morning. In Vinaros, noises came from holidaying neighbours across the road, day and evening, but in the background. Silence dominated. Here sounds are more varied, remoter and occasionally sounds from apartments above and either side. Back in Meadow Street, it's mostly quiet. Neighbours either side are single women who are away a lot, and make little noise when at home. The differences add to life's interest.

Rosella collected me to go together to St George's in Malaga for the midweek Communion followed by a Chaplaincy Council meeting. Doreen, the Chaplaincy's self supporting priest celebrated Mass in honour of St Aidan. I enjoyed being there and receiving her ministry. That's a rarity for me these days. I didn't attend the Council, although I met members beforehand.

Instead, I stayed in the sacristy and took full advantage of a fast broadband office connection to upload photos from yesterday. This is impossible in the flat, given the limited connectivity a wifi mobile internet ( aka MID ) dongle provides. The device may not be working at its best in an apartment whose core metal frame may impede signal flow, but right now I am blogging from my Nexus tablet via this wifi MID.

As ever, the Blackberry Q10 does everything I ask of it.  It may be a bit small, but robustness and reliability count. I didn't swap it for a PRIV as I wasn't satisfied its design could take the same punishment as the Q10.

Last but not least, the Chaplain here, unlike my past two assignments, has a Huwawei Ascend P6 smart phone. It's a nice piece of kit and has a 4G sim, and like the Blackberry it works fine. Mobile devices win here. The chaplain's laptop and my Chromebook just don't work as expected even though they are so much easier to use.