We all slept in and breakfasted late this morning, then went into town on a shopping expedition - well, it was so for Kath, Anto and Rhiannon, as their usual busy work schedule rarely permits such an outing into nearby Coventry, Leamington, or Birmingham. So, bank holiday Monday shopping is on the to-do list, even if there's no urgency to purchase. It's leisure for those who often shop on-line.
While the others took the bus, Kath and I walked in together through the park, taking the opportunity to talk about future Wiggledance plans. They are putting together a project in which they'll work with a research scientist investigating the nature of touch. Dance is an activity which involves a great deal of physical contact between participants, and touch is such an important element in healthy bonding between parents and children. Wriggledance specialises in working with young children in dance, so all sorts of possibilities will emerge as the project develops.
She also told me about her recent experience of becoming an Apple Mac user with her co-director Lucy, as a result of their 'Colours of Me' show. This made use of video projectors driven by software written only for the Mac, requiring the company to procure Mac Minis, which both of them can now use for administrative purposes, in between times. As a small scale arts enterprise they've acquired free Microsoft Office 365 software for the Mac, as this gives them the scale of on-line storage they need for their work. She's delighted with how it all works, now she's got used to the Apple keyboard layout.
The downside of the Mac is that her physical PC back-up drives aren't compatible with the Mac without paying for additional software patches. She still has to rely upon her Windows 10 Acer laptop when she's out and about, and can back up to that from OneDrive cloud storage. You can't be too careful, when there's so much at stake. Despite being reasonably equipped, Windows 10 on the Acer is still a source of frustration to her, because of the latency of some of its file system read and write operations. This had been my experience too. I'm not surprised so many business users don't want to upgrade from Windows 7. It was quicker.
We met up for coffee and a light lunch at the Queen Street Costa Coffe shop, then went to the clothes shops. I took myself off to hunt for a sun-hat to take to Spain with me, as I left the one I usually wear in the Winzerkeller we visited in Rüdesheim last week. I found a suitable white cotton cap of a design I feel at ease in wearing in TK Maxx, after fruitless visits to several other stores. By this time it was drizzling, so I took a 61 bus home, which arrived conveniently, given the diminished holiday service only minutes after reaching the stop.
The others arrived home a short while after me, then Kath, Anto and Rhiannon left for Kenilworth, leaving us to ponder on a happy family weekend, and start thinking about our next travels. I have some flights to book for locum assignments in Montreux and Mojacar, for later in the year.
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