No late banking

Sunshine and clouds all day today, but still cold of this time of year. I walked to St Catherine's to celebrate the Eucharist with six others, one of whom was a young mother with a small child. It was, I think, her first visit, having just moved into the area. Clive welcomed her, but she slipped away quietly and didn't join us for coffee after the service. We chatted until midday, then I returned home for lunch.

Afterwards, I did the main grocery shopping trip to the Co-op, then went into town to bank a couple of fee cheques and half the cash from exchanging euros after my locum trip. I wanted to put money into our joint account with Santander, but found it closed at three, whereas HSBC stays open until four thirty, so I was able to deposit the lot in my expenses account. For the first time I had to use the cash deposit machine, so I asked one of staff to show me how. It was much easier than I thought, so if I need to deposit cash another time, I'll know how. 

Cheques are more of a problem. Often fee cheques are different sizes and the cheque deposit machines don't work so well. In fact on this occasion none were working, so the cheques had to be deposited manually by a staff member. It's not the first time this has happened. Either there are problems with keeping the machines well maintained, or they're waiting to upgrade them and can't be bothered to pay for machines that soon will be permanently out of use. It's strange to end up once again being served by a bank clerk after old fashioned counter service was done away with five years ago here in Cardiff.

On returning home I sat in the garden with Clare in the sunshine, drank tea and ate a chocolate croissant from the Alex Gooch bakery. An interesting confection, though not as good as their Chelsea buns or the fruit bread. When I was taking photos with my Olympus camera in the garden I noticed the battery was nearly out of charge. When it gets low, the voltage output drops just enough to affect the colour display on the viewfinder, making the sky look orange, and small patches of shadow blue. I think the battery is reasonably good. I can't remember when I recharged it last, but this will give me a reminder when next I have to recharge it, which will give me some idea of whether or not it needs replacing. It's about nine years old, after all. I'd like to replace it with a newer second hand Olympus OMD E-M10 model if I could, Mark II or III if possible as I like the way it  works, and it takes good photos.

I had another long phone conversation with Ashley until just before supper, and afterwards recorded and edited the Ascension Day Morning Prayer and Reflection. Just as well I wasn't in a hurry as my laptop had a succession of updates to perform which took longer than the four minutes Microsoft promised, with several restarts. Then, another couple of episodes of Finnish crimmie 'All the Sins' before bed.