Stations on Monday

Up at eight, on another cold damp day. Routine housework after breakfast, then preparation of the six month's worth of material I've used in making Sway to prepare for an afternoon session on Sway with Paul, who will be taking over the editorial job after Easter. Thankfully, she's tech' savvy, and introducing her to the basic process was less difficult than I thought it might be. After a two hour session Fr Andrew dropped in to say hello and answer a couple of enquiries, and then left with Paula to spend time getting to know her, as he'll be working with her as Sway editor in future.

I drove through rush hour traffic to reach St German's for Stations of the Cross followed by Mass at half past six. It took half an hour, but that's no worse than the journey in reverse on a Sunday lunchtime. There were eighteen of us for Stations, and nine stayed for Mass. Prof Norman Doe and his wife attended and gave much needed musical support to the singing of Stabat Mater verses in between Stations. Norman had a trip to Istanbul before Christmas to a gathering of Orthodox hierarchs convened by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholemew to celebrate the publication of an English edition of his research work on Orthodox Canon Law. As international Canon Law colleagues Norman had helped with preparing this publication, and he was treated to a private audience in addition to attending the public one. A unique experience!

I got home a lot quicker than it took me to drive to church, had a late supper, and then watched a crimmie called 'Above Suspicion' which I found on ITVX. Clare wanted to watch 'Mr Bates versus the Post Office' but discovered that our TalkTalk digibox wasn't upgrading the old ITV hub to ITVX, so she had to watch it on her tablet instead. There we were, the two of us, side by side with headphones on, watching different things on our mobile digital devices, with the telly in the corner switched off. The shape of things to come.

Basma emailed saying that her tribunal hearing had gone well. The judge had spoken to her reassuringly. She can expect a formal decision in a fortnight and has the right to submit a new appeal immediately after a refusal of residency. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. I sent her another talk, the fifteenth in the series I have done, to prepare her for baptism, and started writing a couple more. 

I think today is the first time since I was last poorly when I completed half of my daily walking distance. Too much else to do, not to mention the awful weather for much of the day.

Digital distribution dolor

A damp overcast day with bouts of drizzle. I got up early, having lost an hour's sleep by waking up at two in the morning, to find the room bathed in moonlight, as I'd forgotten to shut the curtains. The clouds had thinned out to reveal the Blue Moon I didn't get any clear shots of last night at ten. I'd brought my best two cameras down from the loft to the bedroom in case I did wake up to a clear sky. By this time the moon was fast disappearing behind the gable end of the house where the second chimney once stood, so I took several shots with each, and then returned to sleep. 

I processed the pictures after breakfast. They weren't very sharp, being hand held shots. I didn't have the presence of mind to set up a tripod before going to bed, and relied on automatic settings. Serves me right. Some photos taken with my Olympus OM1-D were interesting as the white clouds around the moon were shown tinged with orange, reflecting urban light pollution I suppose.

I then moved on to drafting Sunday's sermon and finalising this week's edition of the Parish Sway and posting it the link on WhatsApp before stopping to cook lunch. All worked well at this point. After we'd eaten, I had to send out the same link in the weekly email distribution using MailChimp. I followed the instruction notes I'd written but couldn't establish how to send out this week's instead of last week, as the obvious task of finding and using the link edit page didn't work as I expected. By trial and error,  and half a dozen attempts I succeeded in doing it correctly. As for the error bit, I reset this week's Sway link at some stage, which removed access to the web page I created while cloning its content to a new one. Then the proper page link had to be reissued on WhatsApp, to match what worked via Gmail and Facebook.

The ten minute task of checking and sending the MailChimp link took me two and a half hours to sort out and correct. Hopefully, I'll get my head around it all with a few practice runs this week, so it soon becomes a routine. Important that it does as the plan is for me to do it for a six weeks then hand over to someone to be recruited and train them in using Sway and MailChimp if they don't know how. Chatting with Owain after I returned from a visit to the shops and a walk in the park before supper, I discovered that he has used MailChimp for years and is acquainted with Sway, though he has a low opinion of it.  When next he visits us, I'll ask him to give me an expert tutorial on MailChimp's finer points.

Clare had supper early as she went out to explore a new local choir she's thinking of joining, leaving me to my own devices, so I indulged in baked beans on toast for a change. Then I watched this week's episode of 'The Woman in the Wall' on iPlayer. Interesting, complex plot development, but rather too many visuals of the nightmare trauma of an abused woman whose baby was stolen from her in a convent that served as Magdalene Laundry while pretending to be a training school (aka 'reform school', in the language of my youth) for wayward girls. 

Amazing that pious people responsible for such institutions could think they were doing anything good for young people by intimidation and cruel harsh treatment. At one time it was taken for granted, as 'normal'. Thank heavens profound changes in attitude have occurred in the past quarter of a century in how vulnerable disturbed young people are treated. Repentance of a kind, but the loss experienced by many is incalculable. Stories of this kind need to be told. Fact based dramatic fiction, as long is it is true to real life is a good means for exploring such painful issues of social injustice.

Handover achieved

I slept the usual amount of time, seven plus hours, but it was unsettling light sleep and I woke up feeling thick headed, as if I'd hardly slept at all. It's been a cool cloudy day with showery episodes. Forecasted hot spells this summer have simply not arrived here, or elsewhere in Britain for that matter. 

After breakfast, I had an online rendezvous with Mother Frances to hand over the Parish MailChimp login so I can distribute the weekly Sway link. Login takeover on my laptop was successful, enough to get me started, but I wanted to do the same on my desktop workstation and Chromebook, so I'm insured against a system failure with a critical distribution deadline looming. Enabling a new device to run this web based app requires a secondary access code delivered by email to the Parish Office account. 

With one device secured, I dived into MailChimp, and found a complex user interface, built for marketing and publicity clients, using vocabulary foreign to me. At this point, Frances was about to go to a handover  meeting with Iona, so there wasn't time to finish off. I agreed to join her at Iona's and continue the tutorial on using MailChimp. I've got my handwritten notes now to remind me of what I need to know hands on with this software, but the session itself was not without its worries, as Iona's computer was playing up and the laptop Frances brought didn't have the parish Gmail account details on it to enable Iona to gain access to MailChimp if she could have used her own device, so that's a task for another day. 

When we left Iona's house it was drizzling rain. I didn't have a top coat and Frances was on her bike, so we both got damp. Nevertheless, when she got back, it was possible to get MailChimp to work on my desktop computer. Chromebook can wait for now.There are good reasons for having two stage security working with apps that deal with mail-shots, but it is such a fiddle when you don't have all the account details you need in one place. It's easy to overlook a detail that can stall your progress.

I worked on this week's Sway after lunch with new photos and texts to add, then went for a walk until it was time for supper. Afterwards, I indulged in a third episode of Lolita Lobosco, which had even more comic dialogue in it than the first two, much of it dedicated to pretentious foodie talk. It was about the murder of a popular restauranteur who was also a secret loan shark and child abuser - the dark underside of light entertainment.

The sky was clear of cloud as I got ready for bed and I got a good look at the rising moon as I got ready for bed. I wonder if the sky will be clear tomorrow night when the moon is full. If so, it will indeed be once in a blue moon. Such a cloudy summer.

Web bureaucracy

Awake in time for 'Thought for the Day' then I posted the Morning Prayer link to WhatsApp before getting up for breakfast. Then I finished next Sunday's sermon, and worked on a biblical reflection for the week after next until it was time to help Clare cook lunch. 

Afterwards, I found the Parish Sway web-link had  already been posted to WhatsApp by Andrew, to whom I'd already sent the link for posting on Parish Facebook pages yesterday. I thought I was meant to do the former, but when I thought about it, having one person dealing with posting links to both Meta products is a good idea. I discussed it with Andrew and found he was happy to do this. Frances posted the Sway link on the MailChimp circulation list as I'm still waiting to get access to it. Next week she'll be on her way to her new posting in Northumberland, so I hope the MailChimp access code comes my way by then, or the distribution will be less comprehensive than intended.

On my afternoon walk in the park, I spotted a Red Admiral, a cabbage white and got a photo of a Speckled Wood with my Sony HX90. Back in Clare's garden I took a few photos of bees foraging for honey with my Sony Alpha 68 using the 50mm prime lens that I rarely use. I wanted to find out what it can and can't do well, and was pleased with the close up pictures it produced.

Before supper I continued preparing the Morning Prayer text for the week after next, then in the evening, feeling relaxed and in the right frame of mind, I recorded and edited this and the reflection to go with it, made the video slide show and uploaded it to YouTube. It's good to be ahead with this for the moment, as I don't know what extra time and effort will be required for the weekly Sway newsletter until I get used to a routine with it. It may not take long when you're used to it, but it's in nobody's interests for it to become a rushed job or disrupt the rest of life too much. I need plenty of sleep, that's for sure! And so to bed.

Sway challenge

I woke up to sunshine just in time for 'Thought for the Day'. After breakfast, a walk to St Catherine's to celebrate the Eucharist of St Tydful's day with ten others wondering with them if this Celtic saint about whom next to nothing is known, except that she was a princess who was murdered in a fifth century war between pagan and Christian tribes. We know only of her death and burial in an unknown location at the head of the Taff Vale, where some time later a village sprang up bearing the name Merthyr Tydful. There's no story told of defiant heroism witnessing to her faith, as is the case of most early Christian martyrs, by her name persists a yet another testimony to the brutality of violence against women down the ages.

After coffee and chat, a walk over to Chapter to collect this week's veggy bag then home to cook lunch in time for Clare's return from a visit to the Royal Welsh College to buy tickets for five different shows there over the next three months. Then I needed to collect my summer jacket from the cleaners on Cowbridge Road, and decided to continue a small errand started earlier at St Catherine's, taking photos of the three Canton Churches to turn into a banner image to use for the Sway publication. Fortunately I have keys for all three churches.

Before going to St John's, I called into Tesco's and bought this week's Foodbank contributions to leave in church. After opening a couple of visitors from Pontarddulais came into church to look around. They said their son lived nearby, and although they'd visited him before they'd not found the church open. I'd already taken the photos I needed, and sat quietly while they had a good look around. A group of young pilgrims from Germany are stopping over in the church at them moment. The Lady Chapel chairs had been removed and the floor was covered in sleeping bags. A special meal was laid on for them tonight after time of worship streamed on-line, which I didn't get around to watching as I was busy with Sway.

Next, I took a bus to Victoria Park and let myself into St Luke's to take a few photos there as well, then took another bus back to get to the cleaners and pick up my jacket before returning home. Inside the bus shelter by the park, I noticed that a new improved LCD display bus timetable had been introduced. I've seen these elsewhere, but the roll-out across the city has been slow. I wonder if the network carrying the real-time data to the display is an improvement on the former unreliable device? We'll see.

Having collected my newly cleaned coat, my first task when I got home was to edit the photos and make a collage of church exterior images. Back in the days of the Picasa desktop app this was straightforward, but its successor Google Photos produced a non-editable collage which for my purposes was useless. I had to resort to making a presentation slide with Libre Office Impress and converting it a jpeg file which would fit where I wanted it in Sway. This was what Google photos wouldn't do.

Doing this, and completing this week's edition ready for distribution took me a couple of hours before supper and an hour afterwards as well, but not before I'd made a batch of bread dough ready for baking. Two loaves were cooked and filling the house with their aroma by the time I'd finished by digital labour.

All I need to be fully operational is access to the Parish Mail Chimp email list. It's been quite a lot of work learning a new tool and producing with it these past few days. Time to turn in already.

Tax-ing day

I woke up refreshed after an eight hour sleep to another overcast day with occasional rain and dry spells. After breakfast, I spent the morning tidying my office, filing away documents and then compiling all the information needed to submit my annual tax return. Then it was time to cook and eat lunch. We shared the fig that I picked yesterday. It was ripe, but not all that sweet. 

Then, I opened my HMRC account and entered the data I collected. The process was easy enough, and I had no problems until I submitted the completed form. I had an error message about an incomplete page, but was unable access the file to check it. Almost at the same time, I received an email recording the submission of my tax account. It takes three days for HMRC to process, then I will be able to review the file and check to see if there are any errors. It's possible the error message was itself erroneous, but I'll find out next week.

I went for my daily walk in the park after finishing the job. It was almost completely deserted. Only in the last ten minutes of walking did light rain began to fall, enough to make me slightly damp. Earlier, I learned from WhatsApp that Iona has agreed to edit the weekly parish web newsletter. I sent a message of support, and received a response indicating she'd bitten off more than she can chew, having to learn how to edit Microsoft Sway, collect relevant info and publish, with family duties taking up much of her time and attention at the moment. She needs to find someone else to recruit in her place pronto. Having offered her support, I said I'd help until she recruited another.

I thought it would be a good idea to find out how Sway worked. I've consumed its output for the past couple of years without ever bothering to load the app and learn as I had no need to. I accessed my One Drive account on my Chromebook, found the Sway web app in the MS Office collection, and soon got the gist of its functioning. It's simple and fairly easy to use, but gaining familiarity with it for the sake of efficient working is what matters. 

Having received this week's Sway newsletter only yesterday, I discovered when I opened it, that I could make a copy of it to import into the web app. It was possible with care to edit this week's info with next week's, and eliminate redundant data to produce a serviceable edition for checking and circulation. That took me about an hour and a half, then sent Iona the link to what I'd done for checking.

After supper I thought I'd install the Sway app on my laptop. Having done so, I was unable to find the file to open, although it was possible to do just this through One Drive in the laptop Chrome browser. Rather odd but I thought I'd find a workaround somehow. Try as I may, I couldn't get the desktop Sway app to load the file I created. It kept telling my it couldn't access the internet, poor thing.  My laptop was accessing the internet fine in  every other respect. So, desktop Sway was summarily uninstalled. I'll be able to work with the web app version, now that I have proved it does function.

To conclude the day, another episode of I Claudius on iPlayer.

Beware the air we breathe

Back to thick grey clouds and intermittent rain today, with more to come in the next few days, and threats of flooding. At least I didn't get too wet, walking before and after lunch. I cooked rice and Brussels sprouts with boil-in-the-bag mussels again, tastes to cheer us on another miserable day.

Official covid infection statistics released today show continued downward progression. In three weeks time phased re-introduction of children to classes in school will begin. Groups of four people from just two households will be able to meet again outdoors from this weekend - but judging from what I observe on my daily walks in the parks, this has been taking place already for weeks, few are even an arm's length away from others, let alone properly socially distanced. There's no sign of enforcement taking place, except in car parks. 

It's good to hear more being said about the risk from airborne infection. The existence of more contagious new variants calls for this to be emphasised, outdoors as well as indoors. I find it strange that early research nearly a year ago revealed the likely role of airborne transmission, yet only in the past three months when the contagion risk had been observed to be much higher has it been given increased prominence in public health advisory videos. 

Drivers of taxis, buses, and above all, ambulance drivers have suffered disproportionately high infection rates due to the amount of time they spend in enclosed spaces transporting, then waiting with patients, and treating them. Their standard of personal protection equipment needs to be much higher than in reality it is. I'm not sure we're hearing much from either unions or the government on what's being done to reduce the risks to health and safety in a crisis. Who cares for the carers here?

The Parish weekly notices are now being delivered by means of Microsoft's Sway, one of the apps that is part of Microsoft Office. The diocese also uses Sway to circulate its weekly info round-robin. An Office user can bring together text, images, web-links, audio and video into a presentation hosted on One Drive and accessible via a URL It can even be used to create a website. In effect, each week's round-robin is a little website of its own. Sway has been around for seven years but like video conferencing apps has seen new uses and users during the pandemic. It's rather passed me by, as I'm no longer delivering 'content' to anyone. I wonder if it will supplant the Christmas newsletter pdf in years to come?

This afternoon I watched this week's episode of 'New Amsterdam' on catch-up, and later in the evening the last episode of 'Rebecka Martinson - Arctic Murders'. Not for the first time in this series, a presumed murder turns out to be an accidental death whose circumstances cause others to lie about it. Tragedy in life can have many layers to it.