Digital providence

This afternoon, we went to Newport to call on Martin, whose mother Jane died during the week. We've known them both since I was first ordained and working in Caerphilly, forty six years ago, so there was much to reflect upon together after her long life.

On the way there, we called at Maplins, and bought a hard drive USB dock to send to Kath to use to retrieve stray file data from the hard drive of her defunct laptop, which hadn't been backed up lately. It seems she has insufficient OneDrive capacity for all her files, much of which are music or graphics and photos, so just to be sure nothing's lost, the drive needs time spent on scrupulous inspection.

For the most part, however, she was operating normally once the configuration of her new Acer was complete. The only missing piece in the restoration equation however, was Corel Draw. It had worked perfectly, installed on her old machine under Windows 7, and had been working since upgrade to Windows 10 but wouldn't install from scratch on the new machine, even though installing a 32bit program on a 64bit machine should not be a problem.

Yesterday afternoon in the office, I'd spent ages going through the diagnostic process and attempting a 32bit install in the manner which Windows 10 provides. This had worked last week for installing MS Office 2000. Corel Draw, however, has built in redundancy. Anto had similar problems with a costly multiple CD replicating device. It ran on an XP machine but not Windows 7. The company refused to provide new drivers for old hardware, so he kept running his XP machine until earlier this week, when Kath configured an unused Windows 7 PC to avoid reliability issues from an even older piece of kit. The XP machine will now be used only for CD printing. It runs Corel Draw, but oh so slowly!

Then serendipity threw up a surprise for Kath. Working out in the gym, she was chatting to someone about her computer woes, and mentioning her helpful geek of a father, when she was offered a Core i3 Acer laptop for her Dad to see if he could fix, by someone who'd decided to move over to a Mac rather than pay to repair a machine whose Windows 7 operating system had failed. The hardware seems to be working and if it is merely a software matter, I may be able to restore it to full use. Kath can install Corel Draw on it, and keep it on hand for whenever she needs to do some designing.
  

BCP Sunday and an unexpected travellers' tale

I had a quiet Saturday mostly to myself, as Rhiannon had a theatre performance to attend with her theatre workshop group in the morning, and a birthday party in the afternoon, at which she was introduced to the indoor rock climbing at the Warwick University Sport centre. All I had to do was make her a packed lunch to take with her.

I had time to write two sermons, take a trip to the shops and watch Wales win the Rugby championship match with a thrilling victory over England while Rhiannon was out. She was quite tired when she returned, but stayed up until her usual bed time and explored further how to use Corel Draw, producing a teddy bear picture on her own before asking me to read to her when she eventually retired. Amazing to see how quickly she mastered the basic techniques and employed them in a credible design of her own.

A retired priest was celebrating the eight o'clock at Kenilworth St Nicholas Parish Church this morning. He greeted the congregation, and then commiserated with them on the English team's humiliating defeat in yesterday evening's game against Wales. I sat in the front row grinning from ear to ear.

 
It was a Book of Common Prayer 1662 service for a change, and having celebrated this rite myself only recently for the first time in years, it was gratifying to be on the receiving end of it in a middle England mediaeval church blessed with a regular early congregation of forty devout souls.

I overheard someone at lunch in College the other day disparagingly describing the use of the 1662 BCP  liturgy as "A nod in the direction of Protestantism". To my mind, it is classic creation of late renaissance thinking which is equally able to contain the interpretation and devotion of both Catholic and Protestant convictions, despite each having their own misgivings as well as assurances about it. In a middle of the road, middle England parish, it represents a reconciling traditional path. For a while in its history (sadly) its use was enforced, but for the most part it was received and slowly adapted, to become a home base for national prayer together.  Quite an achievement.

Every attempt at subsequent modernisation of liturgy owes something to the BCP. Glad I learned it by heart 25 years ago, but sad that working with so many different liturgical texts with minor and major changes in them ever since, has corrupted my memory for recitation. I stubbornly resist using the book, for cues, preferring to stumble and mumble my way through with interference breaking in from the more modern language versions in my head. I rough handle this cultural treasure but cherish its persistence nevertheless.

Before leaving for home, I breakfasted with Rhiannon, Kath and Anto, and heard about their weekend gigs in Lincolnshire. They were chatted up in a cafe by a pensioner with a long beard in a wheelchair. He'd recognised them as likely to be musicians, and claimed to be a drummer. That ran bells for Chris the band's drummer, who investigated the interloper via his smart phone. It was none other than Robert Wyatt of Soft Machine and Matching Mole fame, who broke his back falling drunk from a balcony in his youth, but continued his life in recorded music and performance with distinction despite this.

I left in a shower of sleet, and by the time I reached Cardiff the weather was much kinder and the sun was peeping through the clouds. I was back in time for lunch, and we managed a walk around the park and a cup of tea in Cafe Castan (aka Caffi Ty Bach, because of its location in the former toilet block on the corner of Llandaff Fields.), before Owain arrived for a catch up session.