The sky was cloudless when I woke up, but slightly dull. As the sun rose higher early mist cleared and it became warm and bright, with no wind. When the sea was completely calm for the first time since I've been here. A perfect late winter morning, even if it is several weeks earlier than usual. Spring Equinox is still a month away.
On BBC Radio Four's programme 'The Life Scientific' after the nine o'clock news, Jim Al-Khalili said he was broadcasting from a science conference at the Pierhead Building in Cardiff Bay. He interviewed a Cardiff University astrophysics professor called Hilary Gomez, a leading world expert on cosmic dust. She was born into a poor working class family on a housing estate in nearby Barry, a bookish child who took refuge from a noisy family home in the local library, left home at seventeen and supported herself through Cardiff University, working at night in a petrol filling station.
Her 'A' level and degree grades were not exactly stellar, but it was clear she had the makings of a researcher and embarked upon a PhD investigating how cosmic dust is formed and contributes to the evolution of the universe. Her theoretical models of the origins of the dust in supernova events met with much academic criticism, but when put to the test by findings from the Herschel Space observatory, her discoveries proved her to be correct and led to one of those paradigm shifts in science thinking, which I recall learning about as a second year undergraduate in Philosophy of Science classes sixty years ago, when the very phrase 'paradigm shift' had not long entered the language. Her story was a wonderful testimony to triumph over adversity through the love of learning at several levels.
I went down to meet Caroline for a chat mid morning. We sat in the cafe next to St Andrew's Church for our catch-up conversation and getting ourselves ready for Ash Wednesday and the Lent course. She's been very busy managing much of the chaplaincy admin with Jen over the past few years, as she did during the previous vacancy, having said previously "Never again!" She truly has the good of the community at heart. The cafe is a Finnish establishment, offering favourite pastries and selected dishes from home. Everyone around us was speaking Finnish, not Spanish or English. It made a change. I went for a short walk along the Paseo Maritime before heading back up the hill for lunch.
To clear more space in the Google photos account, I attempted to download a huge 2.5GB archive of photos taken over three three months spent with the Málaga chaplaincy at this time of year in 2018. The download kept failing due to slow internet speed, no matter what I did to tweak computer settings to prevent it going to sleep and dropping the line. I tried downloading two fifths of the photos and this was successful, but the battery drained before completing the task. I hope this doesn't mean the charger is dying on me.
The next door neighbour asked me to move the car forward so he could get his car out of his car port. Another car parked just beyond the front of this house didn't allow me much room for manouver when I was parking last night unfortunately, but doing this reminded me that the screen wash bottle needed to be topped up. I had to read the car manual to find out where the car bonnet release lever is placed, as it was almost invisible beneath the steering wheel. Last night I cleaned the car windows, but then there was a brief spurt of rain, laden with yellow dust blown in from the Sahara, so I had to clean all the windows again, hoping there's not more dust to come.
I read another chapter of 'Principe de la Niebla', then went for a walk before supper, and then returning to finish off the book, while I wait to see if the laptop will charge until full. An unexpected annoyance. In the end by transferring the charger and laptop direct to a wall socket, it did charge fully. Using an extension lead isn't a good idea here, but often necessary are there are fewer wall sockets available in comparison to a contemporary British household.
I had no desire to go out this evening and look for Mardi Gras celebrations in Fuengirola town centre. I don't need a late night with two services and a bible study to take tomorrow.
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