Rush hour syndrome

Another cold but sunny day. I was the last to get up at eight. After breakfast, I worked on my sermon for Sunday. Then Owain and I drove to Penarth for a walk along the clifftop path. Clare was still fighting off a cold and stayed home. The coast path has almost dried out now and it's far less treacherous underfoot, so we could walk without getting muddy all the way to St Peter's Lavernock. We stopped for a coffee and a high cost low quality sandwich at Cioni's on the way back to the car. 

The traffic queue getting out of Penarth doubled our return journey time. It's the same mid afternoon all around the city these days. Nowhere escapes rush hour syndrome despite efforts made at improving traffic flow. Buses to tempt people out of their cars and back on to public transport are far less frequent than they used to be. The excuse is that there's a shortage of trained drivers, but reduced service frequency on some routes may be due to cost cutting. 

After two years in profit, Cardiff Bus lost nearly two million pounds last year. The number of electric buses and low emission diesel vehicles has grown quickly, in response to the urgent need to cut polluting emissions, but changing the habit car owning commuters has yet to happen. Rail networks are being upgraded slowly, improving the ease of commuting to and from the Valleys, but it'll be a few more years yet before it's quicker to get around the periphery of the city by train than using a car or bus.

When we reached home, Owain took his leave on us and went out to meet friends in the park before going to the station for a train back to Bristol. He's got a DJ gig on-line gig tomorrow to prepare for and likes to take his time about it.

After supper I spent the evening watching the final episodes of 'Above Suspicion', dating from 2012. Another gritty story well produced, but what I noticed was the first appearance of a large mobile touch screen in the police incident room. There were still mountains of paper documents, and the mobile phone screens were larger than in earlier episodes, but pre-Android smartphones. A snapshot of a previous age in the evolution of technology we now take for granted. One thing that changes little when seen on screen is the Apple Macbook, with its distinctive aluminium case design and iconic logo in the middle of the lid. It's truly timeless classic design, regardless of its electronic innards. When watching long life TV series, it's geeky amusement to spot the tech' evolution in scenes involving computers and try to guess the date the episode was made.