New projects in sight

Yesterday afternoon, after going through the mail and filing or dumping content, I visited the CBS office and met with Ashley, having researched and put together a complete history of events in the life of CBS and the BCRP, for briefing a consultant about the present situation of the company, a story reaching back over twelve years. We have a huge amount of documentation, perhaps because Ashley and I are rather acquisitive, but our file system is somewhat complex and of late, a little disorderly. 

When asked to produce digital versions to support the briefing, I was able to, but it took longer than anticipated. It's all there, but must be hunted for. Search routines can't easily guess file names poorly recalled, so now there's another task to be done, creating, sooner rather than later, an easy access document database tailored for our purposes. I set up an account and used Evernote satisfactorily before, but first have to find the relevant access details. I suspect it's hiding in plain sight in my record of passcodes, not properly labelled.

This morning, Father Mark asked me to celebrate the Eucharist at St John's. It was good to be reunited with nine of the regulars, and tell them a little about Semana Santa in Malaga. Afterwards, a trip to the bank, then to Stavros' next door for a haircut. That was enough really, a certain tiredness engulfed me once I began to relax on arriving home, and just from the demands of early rising and travel. It's not just a matter of adjusting to the hour's time difference either, I seem to live with a different pace and rhythm when I'm away from here. It can take a week or ten days to re-balance. Or else, I'm starting to feel my age.

I also had time to catch up on the first two episodes of 'The Bridge' series four today, plus the first in a new Inspector Montalbano series. It wasn't possible to view any of these on catch-up while in Spain because of digital rights restrictions. Luckily, these time expired episodes were still available before tomorrow evening's third episode of The Bridge.

  

Weekend work and leisure

With the CBS administrator Julie away on compassionate leave, it was necessary for me to spend more time than usual in the office on Friday. From her notes of the Radio user group meeting yesterday, I wrote the minutes, and from my notes of the WECTU briefing, I wrote an account of all the advice given, and posted it on the DISC intranet for all RadioNet users to see. I did the BCRP board minutes after a break of the couiple of days, and was satisfied with the result. 

It's highly satisfying to think I can recall the content of meetings I've attended with a fair degree of accuracy, especially when I've got to am age where I find I forget what I gone upstairs for, or logged on to Google to find out about. Fear of memory loss is worse than the reality. So many everyday things are trivial it's no wonder we lose focus on them.

Saturday, we went to Penarth for lunch. The 'Cafe des Amis' has become 'The Bistro' since our last visit. Still serving authentic French cuisine, but now with a different menu. To our taste, the food choice is not as interesting as it once was, although the environment is much the same as it was previously. I would have preferred to have had fish and chips from the stall in front of the pier and sat on the beach again, but for once in a while, the tide was in, close to the promenade wall. It's a long time since I last saw a high tide in Penarth, but when, I cannot remember.

In the evening BBC Four showed 'The Bridge III', more Scandinavian crime drama, in a joint Swedish/Danish bi-lingual production wiht Engish subtitles. Two episodes a time for goodness knows how many weeks. Another convoluted and bizarre long tale that supposed to keep us entertained. To my mind, this particular fomula is beginning to wear thin. It focuses for too much, for its own good, on one main character with a peculiar personality, and while this has its entertaining moments, it feels a bit 'more of the same'- The Arne Dahl series of stories was far superior in terms of the complexity of its characters and their responses to the awful situations they find themselves in.

Coast Path walk

As the weather was reasonable, we went to Penarth again for lunch today. Then we walked along the clifftop as far as Sully Bay, passing the substantial concrete remains of World War Two coastal defence positions at Lavernock Point, something I've not visited before. The route has been upgraded, fenced at dangerous points and properly waymarked, all as part of Wales' 870 mile Coastal Path, currently receiving a fresh publicity boost in national news. Several years ago before the path was stabilised, we walked only as far as St Peter's Church Cogan and I got very muddy indeed.

The churchyard wall bears a plaque commemorating Marcon's first ever broadcast in 1897 of a radio signal received at Brean Down on the other side of the Severn Estuary.

The tide was at its lowest during our walk, revealing a two hundred yard pavement of Jurassic rock strata reaching out from the base of the cliffs for a hundred years or so. The worn rock layers form edges and ledges whose pattern seems to imitate the movement of waves coming ashore. Along the steep cliff edge bushes bearing May blossom were in full flourish.

Overlooking Sully Bay is a gun emplacement which was unusually constructed with heavy steel shutters, presumably to keep out the wind and the rain when not in use. The shutters, though much corroded over the past seventy years are still there - one is fused by rust into its guide rails. The other lies within the shelter, torn out of its mountings and thrown to the floor. What the Lufwaffe and dodgy scrap merchants could not manage has been achieved by idle handed idiots incapable of valuing a significant if ugly token of our island history.

Watched the final two episodes of 'The Bridge' after supper. Lots of suspense, the odd snatch of quirky humor but it was hardly worth watching ten episodes of grisly melodrama to see Saga, Ms Robocop finally display a few seconds of normal human emotion. Impressive acting, to have remained stony faced for so long, but the whole thing was ultimately disappointing. The fact that the series used Danish and Swedish languages because of the mise en scène was only capable of entertaining someone adept in Scandinavian languages.