Training postponed

I was in bed by eleven and woke up to seven thirty. My fit-bit app congratulated me for getting to be at the right time and sleeping the right number of hours. I can't remember when it last did that, it's so long. As the device was charging during the night, I entered the time data manually. Such foolishness to think that kind of message does anything other than annoy. I woke up several times in the night. Before first light, I saw the bright crescent of a waning moon rising in a clear chilly sky. Wondrously beautiful.

Thanks to early rising I was out walking in the park by nine thirty, clad my winter jacket, scarf and gloves. Recent rain and cold weather have accelerated the colour change of the trees, all are now washed with gold. I went down the Taff Trail on the east side of the river, and saw a cormorant perched precariously on the overhanging branch of the limb of a tree fallen into the river, and regretted not having a camera with me. I used my Blackberry phone, but it doesn't zoom into subjects much at all and the quality isn't good, but here it is.

While I was out I had a message to say that this afternoon's Safeguarding zoom had to be cancelled due to the sickness of the trainer. Thanks to the same Blackberry phone, I consulted my diary and responded to the request for a re-booking appointment next Tuesday morning. I returned at eleven and worked for an hour completing this Thursday's Morning Prayer video, then Clare arrived from her study group, so I downed tools and cooked lunch, and finished the job afterwards.

When Clare woke up from her fiesta we went shopping together, first to Wickes on Western Avenue to get dust covers for the kitchen, due for them remedial work on the plaster. We discovered that Wickes had closed during the pandemic and been replaced by a budget supermarket called B&W, We drove out to the B&Q superstore at Culverhouse Cross to get what we needed, but not before a visit to Aldi's for the week's grocery shopping. We both observed that it's a long time since we did anything quite so domestic together, and certainly by car, as normally we walk to the shops locally.

Having agreed with Brian the organist a possible programme for an Advent Sunday Mass with a RWCMD choir singing at Saint Germans, I sent our proposals to Andrea for consideration. It's not as big a challenge as last Sunday's, but that will probably be welcomed, as it's only a week after a special afternoon music by students who have been rehearsing in church all term. 

I had intended to go to this evening's All Soul's Mass at St Luke's, but got distracted by other things I was doing after returning from the shops and ended not going, rather than turning up late. We watched some old comedy programmes on telly after supper and then a really interesting documentary about the remarkable paintings of Vermeer on Sky Arts. 

Now, early to bed, as I have a ten o'clock Mass at St German's tomorrow morning, with a class of children from Tredegarville School attending, young kids for whom this will be a new experience as the 'class Masses' stopped for the past eighteen months of the pandemic.

Admissions of an electronic hoarder

According to yesterday's news, UNESCO designates 2019 as the International Year of the Periodic Table of Elements. It's 150 years since Russian scientist Dimitri Mendeleev discovered the  essential relationship between the natural elements, and mapped this systematically. On the back of this, there was a feature about the need to re-cycle redundant electronic goods to recover their rare earth component elements, as all digital devices make use of some of these. As earth's supply of the essentials is finite, there's a risk of industry running out of them. Scarcity ensures price rises, and competition to control remaining un-mined resources. Indeed, the persistent chronic state of war in the Congo is due to the territory being rich in strategic minerals.

This prodded me into discovering a company in Newport Road called SFX Tech which re-purposes usable computers and recycles the components in the rest, and arranged to deliver all this kit there tomorrow. The next thing was to find and sort kit I no longer use, which I've kept over the years 'just in case'. Thanks to Linux, much of my old kit works when fired up, even if it's too slow and outdated to be of use for the majority of today's purposes. I retrieved three laptops, one from 1998, one to 2004 and one to 2009, also three old Nokia phones, two modems, and a couple of personal digital organisers,  and a Nexus tablet, with broken USB port, now unchargeable, plus a variet of chargers and cables, British and European. Prior to the 1998 laptop, I had two others. A luggable PC I sold in 1991, to part fund the purchase of my first real laptop in 1992. This I finally got rid of in 2010.

I bought my first Amstrad computer in 1984, the first of four. Then there were four Windows desktop PCs as well, all disposed over the years as more capable kit became affordable. I wasn't an early tech adopter, waiting until newish kit was available at a discount, watching the retail market regularly. I guess I was never as attached to these devices as I was to the portable ones, having held on to the latter so long. I enjoyed having kit I could take with me on my travels, and the selection of wireless network plug-in cards and dongles added into the throwaway bag bears witness to this. 

All this changed when affordable smartphones came on the market. It's amazing to think how much more powerful and capable these are than all previous mobile devices. I think I've passed on a couple of smartphones after upgrading, but there are two spares in the house 'just in case'. I still have my work Blackberry and my personal Samsung Galaxy. Once CBS is wound up, I'll be down to one phone for the first time in seven years.

Well, there's less electronic junk taking up space in the house now, and more to go eventually, as the process of simplifying life advances with age. Having seen what trouble was caused after his demise due to my brother in law Geoff's accumulation of 'interesting stuff' acquired from decades of car boot sales, I'd feel better if I could minimise what remains of my acquisitions to 'really useful up to date stuff' once I'm headed for the Pearly Gates. 

  

  

Flamenco de noche

Another hot sunny day today, and a busy day at the office back in Cardiff, with the arrival of news confirming the next stage in our developing work. There were things for me to do here as well, a sermon to write, a document to prepare for the board meeting.  Where work is concerned, I'm still hindered by the limitations imposed on roaming network connection by Orange ES, despite promises made by BT back home. My workaround solutions don't always succeed, being very much depended on local phone network traffic.

Also, for reasons I don't understand , a Blackberry update a while back killed my Skype app, and when I needed it lately, it wasn't there. After a web search, I found the free app on Amazon web store, which I'd never used before. When I downloaded it, I got a message to say it was already installed, and was able to log into my account and use it, although with on Skype icon. I returned to AWS and was offered a Skype update and this restored the necessary icon. It's taken me ages to get around to doing this, but it's invaluable for staying in touch with home.

Something I am grateful for and that's the internet radio site and app 'rad.io', which works on Andriod and Blackberry. Is there a Windows app? I've not got around to checking yet. It sometimes stutters if the Blackberry network attachment is busy, but gets there eventually. It's been invaluable for following the twists and turns of Helen's trial on the Archers this week. And I understand there's an hour long edition in with the jury this Sunday night. Can it be true? It's certainly been attracting a lot of attention recently.

It was late when I finally took my daily paseo, walking along the coast path as far as Benagalbón. This stretch of beach has fewer hotels, fewer beach restaurants or chirungitos and many more private houses. At the point when I turned around to walk back, there was a restaurant with bar, hosting a flamenco guitarist and singer, and they were in the midst of a performance. I had to resist the impulse to enter an spend an hour or so listening, as I knew I needed sleep before an early start to get to Fuengirola to take the funeral.

There were few street lights in this locality, so the half moon shone  brightly and was reflected in the sea. The beach was shrouded in darkness, save for the tell-tale blue lights atop fishing rods along the shore. Some stars were visible, and on the horizon were the lights of a cruise liner, probably sailing up the coast from Málaga to Valencia overnight. The singer's powerful voice in lamentful nocturnal mood was audible for two hundred metres, as I walked away. Flamenco singing truly is the original european blues music. It was a delightful moment after a busy day of brain work. No fear of insomnia after a 5km walk before bed.

   

Sea defences and the EU

I sent Kath and Anto a text message to congratulate them on their 24th wedding anniversary. This happened around the time when the job in Geneva first presented itself to me, and when Clare's mother died. It seems like only yesterday, and so much more has happened to the whole family in the years since then.

I'm rising early, trying to deal with routine emails and uploading photos to the internet, but progress is hindered by slow low capacity broadband. This takes the edge off using a Chromebook, usually so smooth and slick at doing everything. Here I seem to do a lot of waiting, get time outs and app crashes. There's been no real improvement since I was here in 2012. The big difference now is the dominance of Cloud storage and web apps, and this sort of internet service isn't fit to meet the demands of today's users. Web user interfaces are are attractive, except when screen refresh slows to a crawl because of the connection. These days, having several connected devices in UK is normal. Here they tick over, but work effectively only one at a time.

I started wondering how people cope, as hypermarkets here have phones, tables and PCs to sell. They get bought and used, but what's happened here is ruled by the widespread rapid uptake of 3G and 4G phone services. Many people no longer bother with having a landline, and the quality of mobile internet is good. My Blackberry behaves here much as it does at home, away from home wi-fi. Here, when connected to wi-fi preferentially, it's not as good. I suspect that in some regions, the old landline telephone and broadband service infrastructure is not being modernised. It may not even be profitable to do so if, mobile infrastructure is new and better.

This morning, I drove to Lidl's to do some grocery shopping and stock up for the week, did some washing, then went out a walk along the coast path of the urbanizacion Saldonar, where the church house is situated. Eighteen months ago, I was aware coastal erosion that was taking place and took photos of some of the damage. It seems to have got even worse just after I left, as sections of the path battered by stormy seas, collapsed. Since then, work has been done on new coastal defences and walkways, funded by the EU, half a million Euros worth of work on the hardest hit places over a kilometre of local shore-line. It's good to see this kind of economic solidarity in action. Britain needs it too, and will suffer as a result of brexit.

After supper, I went for another walk up the barranco forming the boundary with the neighbouring urbanizacion Boverals on the town side. Beyond the houses is a wooded part of the ravine, from which some interesting sounds of birdsong were rising as the sun began to set, but nothing I could identify, which is most intriguing.

Settling in

First, time to get acquainted with the chaplain's office again. A new HP Windows 10 computer, set up with an old school user interface. Getting started with wi-fi on my various devices proved to be a nightmare case of deja-vu. The 20 digit password seemed familiar from last time. My Blackberry just remembered it, the Samsung phone I was using here last time had amnesia. The Nexus wasn't with me last time, so it had to be entered manually, but wouldn't take. Eventually I came across an information page about office passwords, which showed that the 'O' was really a zero. I had quite forgotten this annoying little tripwire. The lettering on the underside of the Thomson router is so small it's impossible to distinguish between an 'O' and a zero. Fancy me forgetting! Will I remember next time? 

Getting the Chromebook online, once I'd realised the problem, was quick and simple. I could then continue with the sermon preparation I began a couple of days ago. The completed file transferred to the Windows 10 machine for printing, but the Epson SX130 printer didn't work, complaining of both paper jam and ink cartridges either empty or not authenticated. Thankfully, Paul agreed to print the file for me for Vinaros, also Jenny for L'Ampolla, so I dind't need to go out in the extreme heat of day and hunt for a print shop, even before I'd done my weekend shopping.

Eventually, however, I did walk just up the road to the Spar convenience store, to get fruit and veg and a few other things, to allow me to make a meal that would do for Saturday and Sunday, thus avoiding the task of cooking Sunday lunch as soon as I returned from taking services. I really feel I have arrived when I sit down to a proper cooked meal that I've made in a new place.

Early evening I walked into the town along the coast path and the promenade, all the way down to the port before turning around. I was saddened to see the closed and still empty shop which had housed the chaplaincy's drop-in and worship centre. It had become no longer affordable, as custom for the shop dropped. Truth to tell, over the past few years, many first generation British settlers in this part of the world have slowly returned home, to be supplanted by French people, always high in the visitor demographic, but more now perhaps wanting to settle? Nothing stays the same for long. It's far too early to tell what impact the brexit result will have on UK expatriate communities. Tomorrow there's a Bishops' letter to be read out concerning the crisis.

After supper, it was time to get to grips with the telly, and the Skybox providing UK programmes. So many remote control devices to juggle with. There was another two hour Swedish crime drama on BBC Four, about a medical hypnotist working with the police on solving a crime. Interesting, if wee bit far fetched.

    

Changing habits

A quiet uneventful start to the week, with a few hours in the office on Monday, but not on today. When I don't have anything much to do, I idle the evenings away watching missed programmes on TV catch up. Increasingly, I use the Nexus tablet, which is the slickest and most convenient portable device after the Chromebook. I have two Windows 10 machines, for work and personal purposes, but find I'm using these less and less. 

Only when I need to work using specific software employed by our office system, is it worth retreating to the workstation in my study upstairs. More often than not, I can examine and retrieve files from MS OneDrive for sending, on one of the Google devices or even my Blackberry wherever I am in the house. I was delighted, when I was in Spain to be able to access our business banking site, retrieve and file a statement on OneDrive from the Blackberry, so good is the connectivity it provides.

This evening I went to the Chi Gung class, but didn't stay for Tai Chi, as I didn't feel that I had the right level of energy and concentration for two sessions - something to do with lack of sleep. I can get by on six hours but function so much better with eight or nine hours. I suspect I spend too much time on line, reading, writing or editing photos. Too much time spent in the head can disconnect you from the body. In Spain I five or six miles a day, but here a couple of miles is more normal and that's not nearly enough to keep me rooted in my body. It's something I'm more aware of the need for as I get older, but I'm not really doing enough to change my habitual lifestyle, so I only have myself to blame.

O Oriens

On this the shortest day of the year, we started our return journey from Kirton to Cardiff, driving up the A14 early under a clear morning sky, taking our niece Anneke with us as far as Ipswich County Council Headquarters, where she was to interview for a job at ten. 

Bright sunshine at the start gave way to overcast skies and rain, but by the time we reached home, the skies were clear again. We followed the A14 beyond Cambridge to the M6 to Coventry ring road, then followed the A46 to Stratford. This took us past Kenilworth so we stopped for an hour to visit Kath, Anto and Rhiannon, before following our usual cross country route enter Wales via the M50. 

Anto is in the throes of migrating a large amount of data from his current website to one that's being designed for him. For technical reasons outside his control, it's become labour intensive job demanding much hard concentration. I feel for him, having spent so much time myself recently migrating an even smaller dataset to a new software platform. I'm amazed he can be so cheerful about it. He's looking forward to a new enhanced website launch early in the New Year with added features.

After supper, I brought this year's new Christmas tree indoors for installation in the lounge, and then we decorated it together, so that it's ready for when the family arrives. It's a good while since we did this together as usually there are younger people around willing to do it. I really enjoyed doing this. Such an appropriate thing to do as the longest night enveloped us. 

My Blackberry Accuweather app, told me that the sun set over Kirton at 15h45, but in Cardiff at 16h06. I knew there was a time difference across the country, but had never quite realised how much until today.

This week's BBC Radio 4 edition of 'Beyond Belief' was all about Christian and Pagan observances of the Winter Solstice. Something more I learned from this programme was that the sun's position on the horizon is as southerly as it can get today. It's the same until Christmas Day, when it begins its ascent into the northern skies again. Good enough reason, I suppose for the great 'O' antiphon of the day to be about the rising sun, symbol of both the birth of Jesus and his resurrection.

 O Daystar, you are the splendour of eternal light and the sun of justice. O come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

The dawn of a new day has been received as a sign of hope by the whole of humanity down the ages, regardless of religious belief and culture., and by analogy also, the dawning of a new year.
     

Troubleshooting by Twitter

Pope Francis is inspiring others and being inspired by his visit to Assisi today, home and last resting place of his inspirational namesake. The whole world is a better place for the light and joy he brings to sharing the Gospel. I spent the morning in Pontcanna's Coffee #1 learning about how one of my St Mike's students from last year packed his summer with really interesting things to do. I found that inspirational too.

This morning I woke up to find that my internet router/modem was dead, and tweeted about it to service providor TalkTalk Care. Within an hour, I received an email to tell me that a new router/modem was being dispatched to me. Great, you may think, but the story started yesterday afternoon. The internet connection was very intermittent, as it has been intermittently several times of late. It was annoying as I had some office work to get done before the weekend. I tweeted a moan about poor connectivity, and my growing curiosity about changing service providor. Within an hour I had a response from TalkTalk Care asking me to explain the problem. This was the first of nine exchanges via Twitter during the rest of the day.

First I was asked to log into my TalkTalk account page and request a line test, which I was only able to do because I had an internet enable Blackberry, of course. But at least I was spared the telephone queue, the multi-option menus and technical support people with accents difficult to comprehend. The TalkTalkCare tweeter(s) were under the impression this would restore service, having not taken in the fact that the device under test was not lighting up, even with the power on. 

I rummaged about among my spare pieces of kit for a redundant modem of bygone years to use, and came to the conclusion it was somewhere in the office. TalkTalkCare suggested I register a support request with the help desk via their internet page. The page link sent to me with the best intentions was unreadable, as it was not intended for a device as small as a Blackberry. After supper, I went off to my Tai Chi class, discussing this by tweets when an opportunity to stop arose.  On my way back from class I went into the office, rummaged around there for the spare modem without success, logged into the TalkTalk website on a desktop PC and registered my request.

When I got home late, I dug out an old multi-voltage transformer to test with the modem, just in case it was only the transformer that was dead. Sure enough the transformer powered up the modem after fiddling with the on-off switch. This got me back on-line and I was able to tweet a message from my laptop describing the outcome to the TalkTalk Care team. I left the device running and went to bed. When I got up, I found the old transformer was dead, so evidently it wasn't up to meeting regular demand, or the modem had a fault that was taking more than it could possibly give. I tweeted this to the TalkTalk Care team and very soon after had a message to say that a modem had been ordered for despatch to me. It should arrive in three working days - I make that Tuesday. Meanwhile my work Blackberry and BT mobile dongle are proving invaluable, and my jobs are getting done.

At tea-time I collected our friend Andrea from the train. She's come from Scarborough for the weekend to go to a Sunday afternoon opera with us. This weekend I have no locum duties, so it'll be good to share extra free time with her. Just as we were saying goodnight, the phone rang. It was Father Graham Francis in need of a little tech support as a consequence of a suspicious email that had set of alarm bells as it carried a file attachment which refused to open. All sorts of straightforward reasons for this, but better safe than sorry, so I talked him through starting a full security check on both his machines, just in case. I bet his namesake Pope Francis doesn't get calls like that just before bedtime.

  

Another techie day

What a relief to wake up early and find that it's going to be a blue skies day! I spent much of the morning tucked away in my little office at home installing my new HP multi-function printer/scanner on both Windows and Linux Mint partitions. The HP printer Linux software installation required far less effort than previous piece of hardware. Things have improved and the equipment works quite well, though not quite as smmothly as the Windows installation - which was slower than I'd expected. Still, job done, and now I can take the old  Samsung printer/scanner and use it in the office in College, to saving having to descend two long flights of stairs to use the network printer and scanner.

I went into College to check if any of my tutor group students were back, bumped into Phil, and stopped for lunch before going in to the office. Ashley had lost his phone and was in the throes of arranging to have it blocked and ordering a new one. I took charge of the phone which the lost one replaced to see if I could extract the contact data from it, as no proper up to date back up had been done. Oh yes, it's easy to feel superior if you're good at managing these routines, but our office is so busy we don't always get the down time.

When we make time to work on these matters, the software programs are slow, and choosy about what they'll let you do, including parting with essentials. My office laptop now has Blackberry, HTC and Samsung software installed on it, and none of these packages with their respective hardware give the end user control needed. The excuse is to protect careless idiots from destroying their data, but you can't always get at the stuff you really need most, and keeping synchronisation under control is also a hassle. It can lead to data loss rather than preservation.

It was seven by the time I got home, after my fruitless efforts at data transfer. After supper I tucked into my second Inspector Montalbano novel of the week, and read until I started to nod off.