IDP renewed

Cold and grey again today with occasional showers. After breakfast the weekly round of housework. One of the rechargeable batteries for the vacuum cleaner died. Last time this happened the manufacturers sent a replacement one for free, under the terms of the guarantee. Clare discovered that its expiry date is in a few weeks time and rang the manufacturers help line. A new one will be sent to us within a few days. On both occasions dropping the battery caused its demise. It's large and has four connected cells within, and due to its size it's vulnerable to impact damage. Due to its shape it's no east to handle with rheumaticky hands.

Having read a news article about International Driving Permits no longer being issued by the Post Office after April 1st, I was prompted to go and get mine while it's still convenient to do so, and went there mid morning. There were few people queuing to be served when I arrived. A customer in front of me was applying for one that would cover Canada, for which his passport was required. Fortunately the same does not apply for applications covering EU countries. 

By the time the two of us had been served, there was a queue of customers out of the door. The permits have to be written in by hand at the moment and a photo pasted into the card folder containing the details of the photocard license. It's fiddly and time consuming. No wonder the Post Office is giving up offering this as an exclusive service. In future, applicants will be dealt with in grocery stores where there's a Pay Point bill paying service.

When I got back, Clare had already cooked a lamb chop for my lunch. I took over and cooked sausages for her and veggies for both of us. We had hairdo appointments with Chris in Llanrumney in the afternoon and I drove us there. While he was dealing with Clare, I took a walk around the lake at nearby Parc Trederlech.

We were back home by five, so I had a quick early supper and left for Mass at St German's half an hour later, using public transport which took fifty minutes door to door in the rush hour. Fr Jarel celebrated with fifteen of us in the congregation. I begged a lift back as far as the city centre with another congregation member, then took a bus into Canton and walked the rest of the way home. I spent the evening until bed time watching a couple of episodes of 'Locked up'.

The old travel order changeth

Yesterday I walked to St John's and celebrated the Eucharist, then returned home cooked lunch and went for an afternoon walk as usual. In the past week, despite present uncertainty about an operation date, I've been thinking about my next euro locum duty. A number of things need to be changed due to brexit, as well as the Euro diocesan PTO to be renewed. An International Driving Permit will be necessary in Spain. There are few chaplaincies where car driving isn't essential to the job.

An on-line check today revealed I could get an IDP at our local Post Office in Canton. Also checking on-line I found that although my passport expires on 23rd of September this year, post-brexit, I can only use it until 23rd March. So I have to apply for a new one before I go away next, robbed of five percent of the life of my burgundy coloured EU passport. It's not fair!

I added more to my novel in the evening and watched this weeks episode of New Amsterdam. Again excellent to watch. It's very insightful and hardly ever disappoints.

I've been having conversations with church people in Ibiza about locum duties there from early March until Easter, maybe until the end of April. It's an island where the chaplaincy house and two main worship centres are some distance apart from each other, so public transport won't do. Hence the need to get travel things in order early. Journey planning is going to be a challenge as there's a dearth of direct low season flights. The most likely option is to land in Barcelona and then a ferry overnight ferry. The same would also be possible from Malaga. Valencia is the nearest, but flights are hard to find. All flights seem to involve losing another night's sleep to get to an airport early enough. Train to Bercelona would be nice, but lengthy, and via London. It will take some working out.

We're hoping to take another river cruise in the spring too, if we can get a suitable booking this late. As the final op is most likely to be early February, I should have enough time for the wound to heal before going abroad. Frustratingly the hospital still won't give me a surgery date until after my pre-op fitness check next Thursday. So nothing can be fixed yet, but I must get on with preparations in any case, trusting this is going to happen.

Today, I had two bereavement visits either side of lunch time, both with families which preferred not to meet me at their homes. I arranged to see them at the Park View cafe, next to St Luke's, which was convenient for everyone, and went home to lunch after the first. ON the way back for the second I stopped at the Post Office and thankfully there was no queue. Ten minutes later for the sum of five pounds fifty, I had the first IDP I've needed in forty years of European driving. 

As I was in the post office, I decided to get some passport photos and battled with the clunky user unfriendly photo booth. You have to take off your specs for the pictures, but align your head with an on screen grid that correctly positions you for a picture that will be amenable to face recognition software. The grid is yellow, against a coloured preview image on the device screen, and you need to take your specs off to see if you're properly aligned, thereby defeating the object. Clever but not quite clever enough. It offered me a digital photo option. Why, I didn't understand until I looked at the new Government website digital passport application process. The digital photo option is a code which can be entered in the application and this is a link that transfers the image file across to the .gov.uk server. Clever. I hope the device is secure, un-hackable.

I've read nothing about the on-line passport application service. It's still in 'beta'. It's brilliantly simple if you're re-applying. Apart from the short stay British Visitors Passports we used in the years before I was ordained, this is my sixth passport re-application. I had to scan my passport photos and upload one. It took me three goes as my images were undersized. Advice about image upload file size didn't appear early enough in the application process. It's my only criticism of a superb piece of web design. All I have to do now is post my burgundy passport to the Passport Office to have its corner clipped. No sooner than I received an acknowledgement for the digital submission, I had a reminder email nag to send it off. It won't get there before Tuesday.