Another glorious blue sky sunny day following a frosty night, with the temperature rising to ten degrees. Kath joined us for an early breakfast and was then collected by Mandy to attend a dance workshop at the Rubicon Centre in Adamsdown, where both did their initial dance training before going to University.
I went to St Catherine's a little early so I could buy our food-bank offering at the Coop on my way there. There were forty of us at worship this morning, including half a dozen children. Sunday School hasn't re-started yet after half term.
In the news, Israel has suspended aid shipments into Gaza because Hamas is refusing to agree to a plan to extend the temporary ceasefire beyond Easter and Ramadan put forward by Trump's envoy. This would buy time to make progress on the second phase of negotiations over the exchange of all the remaining hostages and a couple of thousand Palestinian prisoners plus the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. Hamas won't agree to an extension of the temporary ceasefire without guarantees about the outcome. This stand-off will increase tension and insecurity for an already brutalised population. Would they vote for Hamas now if they had the chance?
After lunch, I slept for an hour in my armchair before going for a walk in the sunshine refreshed. For the first time since the storms and flooding last November, I walked through the weeks on the west bank of the Taff. Some work has been clearing undergrowth and fallen branches to make the path safe for walkers, but the most noticeable thing is the additional length of double wooden fencing alongside the path which encloses the paddocks belonging to the municipal stables. Double fencing is meant to prevent passers-by feeding the horses. Some sections of the path have undergrowth dense enough not to make it possible to get near the enclosure. Even double fences deteriorate and get broken over time. It would be beneficial in the long run to plant hedgerow instead.
Kath returned from her workshop just after I reached home. She didn't stay long and set off for Kenilworth as the sun was setting.
With free time on my hands, I wanted to transfer documents to read on a Kindle, so Clare can read my novel and grandpa's story. I accessed her Kindle account on Amazon and read through the information there, checking it with the instructions Veronica shared in a 'howto' pdf. Transfer involves sending a file to Clare's Kindle email account. If the device is configured properly it should sync automatically. It's best to use the ePub file format, as this is an ebook industry wide standard, a format that is one of the Libre Office export options. Sending produced no error messages, but initially no result on the Kindle display, until I discovered that it was in 'aeroplane mode'. Then the received file just popped up as the latest acquisition. It took me an hour before and two hours after supper to achieve this, but it left me feeling pleased to have learned something new.
This evening's Archers was particularly interesting as it was devoted almost entirely to portraying an iftar meal, as the month of Ramadhan gets under way. The Ambridge GP and family are of Pakistani Muslim origin, recently made homeless when their house is one of several flooded with raw sewage after torrential rain. They are staying at Linda & Robert Snell's posh B&B for the duration, which gives Linda a chance to learn about the Ramadhan fast just at the time when she's preparing to keep Lent. The last couple of weeks of story-line have been about the catastrophic impact of the flood on residents of the housing estate and the stalled Bridge Farm food production economy. The script writers and producers continue to be bold and adventurous in presenting dramatically current issues in the news, and their human impact on familiar fictional characters.
Using Clare's computer for this exercise, I learned that the version of Linux Mint running it is going to run out of support updates at the end of May so an upgrade to the operating system is now needed. First I must back up all her data to prepare for a clean install, but that's for another time. Bed time beckons already.
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