Monday 8 June 2020

State of Alarm - day Eighty Two

A cool, dull and cloudy day today. Day four of the antibiotics and some improvement in clearing the infection. As it eases off, the challenge is not to forget to take the next pill punctually. I know I am used to it, but sometimes I wonder if I'll ever have an unbroken night's sleep again. I pray, meditate or is it really sleep? I need nine hours of rest to be reasonably sharp and clear headed when I get up.

I decided to print off the Vueling boarding pass and hotel reservation confirmation this morning. It wasn't straightforward as I've not needed to use the printer for the past three months. Both black cartridges needed changing. The Canon colour multi function printer is completely foreign to me, with a more sophisticated hardware user interface and PC software than I've had to use before. It would print, but only faint copies that didn't reproduce a QR scan code to identify the ticket. 

The diagnostic system said that all was working properly. I suspected that the print head needed a good clean, though this wasn't flagged up. I had to dig into the on-line manual to find out how to do this, and operate the machine's hardware user interface. It took me the best part of an hour from start to finish to get the device working properly. Just as well I decided to do this in advance, and not on the morning of my departure! As for the BCN-LHR boarding pass, this cannot be generated until 24 hours before the flight, by which time I am unlikely to be able to print it off, and will need to rely on a digital copy without paper backup. I can never exclusively trust any digital system to work, as there are so many things that can go wrong, even if your phone battery is fully charged and you have an internet connection, you can still lose or break your phone when you need it most.

With that job done, I recorded and edited this week bible study, number twelve in the series. Only the first was delivered to an assembled group, the rest have been on-line audio. With another eight hefty chapters to consider, there was never any chance that I would be able to complete this tour of Acts. I decided to focus in broad brush strokes on the five chapters in which Paul makes his final journey to Jerusalem and how that leads to him going to Rome to appeal to the Emperor.

As it's punctuated with several big speeches from Paul, it can be heavy going, but setting these aside and following the thread of the story is fascinating, as we see him again on the move, getting into all sorts of trouble and surprise meetings in which setbacks again become opportunities to evangelize. Just seeing this in perspective is worthwhile exercise in what is a fifteen minute overview of those chapters. I have certainly enjoyed the challenge of doing this. It's helped to keep my mind active and focused, in sickness and in health, so to speak.

Anthony cooked a popular German dish for lunch - Currywurst with Sauerkraut - one of Owain's favourites when he visits Berlin. It was very good. Being able to get suitable sausages for this here isn't surprising as there so many German people live in Ibiza. As we ate, the heavens opened and it rained heavily for half an hour and drizzled for a while longer. By the time I was ready to go out for an evening walk, all the clouds had left and it was warm and sunny again.

I walked down to Cala de Bou's watch-tower, to take a closer look. It's now embedded in the domain of a seashore restaurant which was open, but with no sign of customers, perhaps it was too early. I walked right along the shore line, navigating around huge rain puddles on the rough footpath, all the way to the beach of Cala des Torrents. It was empty, with just one small family returning to the sand as I passed by. But with several more hours of daylight and warmth left, I daresay other parents with small children will return to play later. Municipal play parks are still closed, sealed off with police tape. I daresay work will need to be done in due course to modify their equipment to minimise the risk of viral contamination. How that will be achieved is anybody's guess at this stage.

After supper I started thinking about next Sunday's sermon, and ended up in bed starting a draft on my tablet, something I don't normally do, to have a clean break before sleep. Trouble is, a train of thought can lead me astray into working when I should stop. Although my memory is good, I fear that I won't be able to re-capture an interesting thread. Old habits die hard.





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