Digitized fortress Europe

A cloudy start to the day with only a few showers of rain later on. It was gone nine when I woke up having switched the radio on and listened to 'Thought for the Day', then gone back to sleep. Another sign maybe, of slowly unwinding and letting go after the pressure of the past six months.

I walked to St Catherine's to celebrate the Eucharist. There were eleven of us today. At coffee afterwards, I share our incoming and outgoing flight times with Ann and Paul as they offered to collect Clare and I from Cardiff Airport and take me back there when I fly out again three days later. Paul told me about the change in procedure at EU airports a few days before our trip. As part of new ETIAS visa requirements, we'll have our fingerprints taken and added to passport data held by border control before we fly out of Malaga. 

The on-line visa application process won't be implemented until next year. It's the EU's equivalent of the American entry visa system. Starting the acquisition of fingerprint data this early makes good sense, as it lightens next year's workload and consequent delays at border control for frequent travellers. Europe is becoming a digitized fortress. Until the hackers sabotage the system or fingerprint data is lost or corrupted by accident or incompetence. Rolling this out over twenty seven countries is a huge job, given inevitable variation in standards between countries. There'll be border chaos everywhere if this turns out to be the equivalent to the Tower of Babel.

After lunch I went for a walk to Blackweir Bridge. The Taff water level was up to the top of the fish ladder again. We've had a week of dampness, drizzle and occasionally heavy showers, so the saturation of the turf has diminished enough for the games pitches to host football and rugby matches again and  not turn into a swamp, thanks in part to a daytime air temperature of 11-13C, plus wind. Inland there's been a lot more rain, and flood warnings posted by the Met office. and this shows up down stream over the following days.

A letter from my ISA provider arrived in today's post confirming the transfer of the balance to our joint account, covering the other half of the new roof cost. Over the last three years it's not performed well, any more than the UK economy has. Santander, for the time being, has a healthy rate of interest, so it's not losing value.. I can always open another ISA if circumstances change. It's a relief to think that we're still living within our means despite inflation and the steep rise in cost of living, but it might be due to the fact that we've not been doing much or going far since last summer. After the Nerja locum, I don't have any more commitments lined up, so we'll be much freer to travel, health permitting. These day we have to plan carefully, no longer good at being spontaneous.

After supper I worked on a reflection for Maundy Thursday, then took a break with an episode of 'Bones', and finished the day with a few pages of my Spanish novel.