Hearing the familiar with fresh ears.

It was nearly nine by the time I got up this morning, recovering from such a full day yesterday. The fitbit sleep tracker reckoned I slept only half of those hours, though I certainly wasn't tossing and turning all night. But then I don't rate very highly the smartness of smartwatches anyway. I did the house cleaning in fits and starts during the morning while Clare cooked a delicious chickpea curry.

I went out to inspect the moorhen's next in Thompson's Park, and found it empty,. The photos taken on the HX90 and phone camera showed what I think may be fragments of an eggshell. No sign of dead chicks or smashed eggs, but predatory gulls would make short work of them. In pond reed bed, sat a solitary bird on what, from the full length of the lens looked like a new nest. In a corner of the frame depicting the next, a black out of focus smudge which could be a chick, or not. 

I went home and collected my Sony HX300 and returned to see if I could get photos of the nest from an angle above and across the pond with a longer lens again. These confirmed a complete new nest made of reeds had been built in the reed bed. The bird that had been standing on a submerged twig when I arrived had moved into the nest. Only its back was visible. Is it sitting on a new clutch of eggs? Or a surviving chick transported from the ornamental pond to the wilder safer reed bed? 

For much of the last week only one moorhen seems to have been active in support of the other. Did one get predated or flee the scene, or been quietly busy preparing a second nest in the reed bed? It's a tantalising mystery, one which leads to conversations with other interested park visitors. Nature doesn't always give up its secrets easily. Maybe we'll find out what's going on eventually.

The bonus, however was a shot in evening light of a reed warbler under a bush on the edge of the water, a bird I've often heard, but pretty elusive in closeup.

When I got back, second time around, I emailed the best photo's I'd taken to Jasmine, and was delighted to have a response from here several hours later. She's off to Geneva tomorrow to start the road trip to the Cote d'Azur, via Turin. crazy distances in their time frame. 

I went for a brisk circuit of Llandaff Fields, to complete my daily walking distance before supper. My right ankle had been complaining slightly, and what I've learned is that I can remedy this by stretching my upper right quad with strides or knee bends, It seems to stabilise the ankle joint, though I'm not sure how.

I listened to some Miles Davis quintet early sixties tracks, from the Verve albums stored on my phone. As Clare wanted to watch Elton John's performance at the climax of this year's Glastonbury festival on BBC iPlayer, I went upstairs and sat on my bed instead. These tracks contain special memories of my sixth form years when I listened to Jazz more than pop music, thanks to my sister June and Penry my scoutmaster. It's amazing to discover that after sixty years my memory of the tracks and the solos within them are intact. When I listen to them now, they are fresher than when I first heard them, as I notice emotional expression within musical phrases, which I wouldn't have noticed nearly as much as a late teenager. It's like returning from a spell in Spain and noticing how fresh and colourful streets taken for granted at home can be.

Butterfingers

Thank heavens the strong winds of the past few days have subsided and the rain has gone away for the moment! All we need now is summer warmth to return. Today the five mile travel restriction advised by the Welsh government is lifted, but we didn't get around to going anywhere.

I walked to and from the city centre again this afternoon, and was pleased to find that my favourite camera shop is open for busness. I needed to enquire about the possibility and cost of repairing my long zoom Sony HX300 as it's been giving me the same ominous fault message which I had on my old HX50 before it died. The internal mechanism driving the barrel of the zoom lens either gets worn or dirty so that auto-focus or exposure electronic sensors cannot function properly. It may be possible to fix, but maybe not. I can take the camera in for examination next time I'm passing, and the hope for the best. 

It was a perverse coincidence that later, when I was taking my HX90 from its bag to take a photo of the closed road at the Kingsway end of the Castle I dropped the camera. The compartment housing the SD card and battery burst open and shed its contents. It still works, but opens and closes with a scrunchy noise now, so how long it will last is anybody guess. Last week I dropped my Blackberry and chipped its outer casing. I've noticed that handling smooth objects has become tricky recently. Lots of precautionary hand-washing is making my finger tips smoother and drier, affecting grip and touch.

Interesting to see many younger people, sitting in groups on the grass outside the Castle inside their individual whitewashed circles, also without benefit of circles, in groups across Cooper's Field and other open spaces in Bute Park. For a while the snack bar near the bridge from the park to the bus station was serving soft drinks and ice cream to passers by from outdoor tables. That, I guess is as much 'take-away' refreshments as they can manage with the kitchen still closed. 

Blackweir Bridge is still closed as it is deemed too narrow for two way traffic, so you have to walk up to the Western Avenue crossing, adding a mile to your journey if you are entering Bute Park from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. I wonder if we'll get a second crossing at Blackweir? A temporary bridge would make a good training project for a Welsh Army engineers' unit to tackle.

This evening, at my sister June's recommendation I watched the first of three music travelogues by Huey Morgan on Latin American music in its social context. The first was about Brazil. I watched it on iPlayer, aware that the second was on later in the evening, but I got distracted by the discovery of series two of 'Non Uccidere', the Italian crimmie set in and around Torino and focusing on crime in the family. There's plenty of time to catch up on Huey's second programme tomorrow.

Suddenly, insidiously I'm reverting to the old habit of watching too much telly, when I could be doing other things. For the moment, I have a bad back as an excuse for such passivity. Lounging is a lot less uncomfortable than sitting down to write for any length of time. This afternoon I wrote to Mrs Cornish the surgeon to say that I am still alive, and inform her about what has happened in the seven months since last I was last examined, and expressing the hope that my name remains in the long queue for minor surgery. I'm not expecting a response under present circumstances, but I am determined not to be lost in the medical admin system again.

State of Alarm - Day eighteen

Forty years today since the Bristol St Paul's riots happened on confirmation night with Bishop Freddy Temple at St Agnes Church, when Amanda was confirmed. Very little mention of this in the news media, and not surprising considering the worries of the world at the moment. It's been good to write about those events in recent months. I'm glad I did. There may be more to write eventually, when there's more time to reflect on those days. I dropped an email to Paul Bartle-Jenkins, the NSM priest at St Agnes who was my churchwarden there in those days. I had a surprisingly quick but very brief acknowledgement thanking me for my message, telling me nothing about how things are with him at the moment. I wonder if he is sick or recovering from sickness?

More clouds, rain and lower temperature today, disappointing after yesterday. I did the first half of my daily 10k before lunch, then Jayne arrived with a big order of groceries I'd asked her to get for me. I missed her message while I was out walking, and wasn't expecting her until tomorrow, so it was a pleasant surprise to be restore food stocks. I have enough to last me until Easter now, even some dark chocolate!

After lunch I made a video recording of the Palm Blessing ceremony in the dining room, suitably arranged, with the Sony HX300 perched on top of the desk. I got the alignment correct, checking by taking stills with me standing in place using the timer. It only half worked however, if I remained in position, but I took a step towards the camera and this cut off the top of my head during recording.

This camera is starting to worry me. I love its long zoom and balanced handling, but it's started to produce the same error message as spelled the end for the HX50 which died fifteen months ago. It's a code which indicates a problem with the zoom extending mechanism being slightly out of sync.

It may be wear and tear, as I have zoomed with it a lot taking seven thousand photos with it in the three and a half years since I bought it. It's possible to get rid of the error message with a little physical manipulation of the camera without the battery in it, but it returns when the zoom is used and the extending of the zoom gives tiny crunching sounds, as if there's grit in the barrel. I think it means the camera is doomed. And while I'm here, there's little chance of getting a replacement, let alone a repair done. Alas! So if it works it's on borrowed time.

I'd forgotten the video recording is in 16x9 format and not 4x3 for still pictures which means the image frame isn't as tall. It will have to do however, since the 1.2gb ten minute video file took two hours to upload to YouTube, after one failure wasting an hour's upload time. I used the waiting time to complete my day's exercise, albeit indoors, as it had started to rain. 

Uploading would have been fine first time if the Chromebook had been by the router in the office, but it was in the dining room where the signal is generally adequate, but can be variable, probably because of signal bounce or load demands. Next time, optimize, optimize connectivity!

After supper, I made a sound recording of the Book of Common Prayer 1662 Communion rite to use with the audio of the Ministry of the Word which I recorded and edited yesterday. Checking and editing that is a job for tomorrow. I'm much too tired tonight.

Chrome undersold?

Although it was another overcast day, it remained warm enough to be out doors with just a jacket, and later in the day, without a pullover. A good day for walking. I did the weekly shop before lunch and after lunch a walk through the park to town along the river. I was amazed to see large several family groups of ducks, broods of six to eight growing flight plumage now, Mallards, Mergansers, gulls as all out on the water foraging, establishing their territories. I must have counted altogether about fifty new birds in half a dozen families, and few good photos out of many taken. I took my HX300 with me as well as my HX90, needing its longer range. I'm more used to it and get better photos in the long zoom range. The HX90 is just a bit lighter and smaller than its predecessor and I haven't yet got the steadiness of hand with it as I had with the old HX50.

Being grounded by my aliment here in Cardiff over the past nine months has been very frustrating for someone with euro-wanderlust like me, but being out and about in the park with a camera most days has reaped a certain rewarding satisfaction. Looking back over three seasons photographs of familiar scenes is a pleasure in its own right. I'm not a great fan of any place where mountains are distant and hardly visible. It's been a matter of coming to terms with living in an ancient flood plain with just meadows and trees. 

I'll never love my nieghbourhood environment as much as the Valleys, the Beacons, Snowdonia or our Jurassic coastline, but with the passage of time, more beautiful aspects of low lying lands reveal themselves. I suppose that's what learning to contemplate is about, watching, waiting, being open, learning to receive, to notice and appreciate.

In town I popped into John Lewis', aware that the summer sale was starting from my Friday visit. This is the time, I find, to pick up overstocked tech clearance bargains. I was disappointed not to see any Chromebooks discounted before, but today, there was an array of bargains, from entry level up to high spec ones. The prices may still be a bit high and come down later towards the end of sale time.  

Looking at the labels on the boxes, often shows they've been 'returned unwanted' - meaning, I suspect that they have been bought by people who are attracted by their good looks, but can't understand it's not the Windows machine they're used to, and don't have the patience to learn how to benefit from it. 

In my opinion, Chromebook marketing and promotion across Europe generally is poor. No attempt is made to educate potential new users in the benefits of using Chrome OS, how fast, and simple it is, how easy it is to get used to it. When you visit Currys/PC World and examine product labels for their Chromebooks on offer, you find they speak about Chromebooks having 'built-in anti-virus'. This is misleading. Chrome OS is resistant to viruses designed to exploit Windows or Mac vulnerabilities. 

A malware laden file wouldn't trigger an attack, but, forwarded to a third party, it would still be toxic. It's possible the system's Chrome browser, although generally very secure, could be compromised to deliver spam in an uncontrolled way. This can either be remedied by restarting Chrome browser, or Chromebook, or in extremis, restoring to its pristine condition by a 'Powerwash' - the equivalent of a Windows system reset. The former takes minutes, the latter can take hours. 

All too often the way Windows works gets in the user's way, with too much distracting information imposing itself on work in progress. It's possible to switch off many of the notification routines, but it's unclear how once you get started and come across new ones. Users should be given a choice from the outset to reverse the always-on default. I still live in hope of converting my sister June to Chromebook use. It would take away so many of her annoyances and anxieties about computer use.

    

A summer concert and a couple of weighty matters

I last used Windows Movie Maker a year ago, so I had to re-acquire from the depths of my memory the ability to use it. There may be better, cleverer and more up to date programs out there. This one dates back to Windows 7, but still works and is available to download, so I have it installed on my desktop Windows 10 workstation. As my use is so occasional, it's not worth getting acquainted with anything else, given my limited needs. It's a waste of time. Once I got back into gear with it, a batch of ten short videos to process took the morning to complete and upload. Alan had asked if I could use Dropbox. I opened an account last year, but had little need to use it. Google Drive serves most of my limited needs. In fact, the free 2GB upload limit wasn't enough to complete the job, so I had to open a second account with a different email address, for the remainder. Once these have all been accessed and downloaded by Alan, I can remove the files. They'll be kept on a USB drive for future reference.

In the evening Clare had a lift to Insole Court, the performance venue to prepare the concert with the other choir members. It was a pleasant summer evening, so walked there. This time, there was room to mount the Song HX300 on a tripod, so filming was easier and better quality. I think the sound was OK, but no doubt the critical ears of choir director Anna will have something to say about that! The concert presented an international mix of little known madrigals English, Welsh, Italian, German, Macedonian and Hungarian, challenging to sing, as I well know from listening to Clare learn words and music over the past few months.

I was press-ganged into taking ticket money at the door. There was an audience of twenty in a room which held double that amount, in the beautifully restored out-buildings of the main Insole Court mansion. How the place has changed since Rachel's wedding reception was held here 13 years ago. It was quite run down in those days, but a group of local community activists campaigned to bring it back from the brink, and everybody now benefits. 

Uploading this batch of video clips to YouTube for Anna will have to wait until tomorrow. We got back after Inspector Montalbano had started, and thanks to BBC iPlayer we were able to watch it from the start. It was late when we went to bed, but it was worth staying up for. It was a complex tale with unusual twists and surprises, full of beauty and sadness - the second time I've used that phrase this week. The episode included a delightful portrayal of Vigata's Festa di San Giorgio procession through the streets with a Spanish style trona, for the saint's image, carried by a crew of white shirted guys, who bore it on high at arms length, rather than shouldering it. That's how light it was. Or else a dramatic fictional conceit. In Spain tronas are so heavy that if they are lifted up on high it's possible only for a matter of minutes.

To add insult to injury,  the episode included the funeral of Pasquano, the irascible overweight cake eating crime scene pathologist. Four bearers handled his coffin, as if it was empty. For a corpse of his size and weight six bearers are needed, and have to shoulder and carry with care, as I have often seen, to avoid a dropping disaster or injury. It was bad acting, in the absence of borrowing a few redundant cemetery kerbstones, to give weight and authenticity to the fictional proceedings. 

   

Eurythmy in the frame again

I had a wound clinic visit this afternoon, primarily to collect supplies, as we are managing well at home without need to use a full dressing this past week or so. Unfortunately, supplies deliveries to the clinic haven't recovered from the last bank holiday. Again. This is worrying for the nursing team. In addition, nearly half of the district nursing team is off sick at the moment, and some of the regular local clinics have not been able to open, so all those patients who must have treatment are redirected to Riverside clinic, so their appointment diary is over full. I'm crossing my fingers that we don't run out before my visit, a week today.

This evening there was a Eurythmy performance by the West Midlands Stage group in the Steiner School, which Clare had been instrumental in arranging. It's a couple of years since they last visited. She was picked up early and driven there, as our car is still in the garage for repairs. I followed on the bus a little later, with my trust Sony HX300 in hand, to video the performance. As there was no suitable place to rig it on a tripod, I had to film hand-held, for an hours worth of performance time. This was taxing, but the results were fairly good considering. The performances by members of the six strong student touring group were excellent and powerful. Tomorrow, I have the task of extracting, editing and consigning to a web platform for our friends Marin and Alan Stott who run the West Midlands Eurythmy School to review and approve before publishing them to YouTube. I was pleased to have the opportunity to do this, even if it meant watching only through the camera.

We were home in good time to watch 'Berlin Station' on More Four. Broadcast time has moved from ten until eleven, which meant a late night that I didn't need, but it's too good to defer watching.

Lucky moments

This morning, Clare went off early to the gym, and I did some of the weekly shopping on the way to an early clinic appointment. After lunch and a siesta, I caught the 61 bus into town intending to walk to the Bay Wetland nature reserve along the Taff Embankment footpath. This took me along Wood Street to start with, and gave me an opportunity to take a few photos of St David's House demolition, now about 90% complete with three large machines working, two of them on site clearance, and one using its thirty metre long arm to tear down the building's reinforced concrete structure. 

Work had come to a halt temporarily. I identified over the traffic the distinctive but strange sound of a scaffolder working at loosening joints with a power tool. During demolition, building remnants are enclosed by a protective framework of scaffolding covered in plastic sheeting, but how scaffolding is taken down as the work proceeded had never occurred to me. Then, I spotted movement at the top corner of the remaining structure, and aimed my camera upwards in that direction. To my surprise and delight a little later, I discovered I had photos of a scaffolder at work in the most vulnerable place you can think of, close to the pneumatic iron jaws of the demolition machine. Amazing luck at at distance of 120 feet. I can only hope he gets paid well! 

My walk to the Bay Wetland nature reserve was rewarded with the sign of a grebe carrying its new chick on its back - a rather fuzzy photo - and a coot with three chicks exploring the extent of their first home in one of the ponds.

Needless to say, it was well nigh impossible to get all three chicks and parent into frame at the same time, let alone in sharp focus. Just glad I caught a glimpse of this moment another year.

   

Not funny

Well, April Fool's day passed, and the only pranks I noticed were a photo on Twitter of euro bishop Robert posing by a small private jet, with a caption suggesting that it's his new diocesan re-about, plus a Media Wales news story about a zip wire to be erected above the old Severn Bridge offering a new tourist adventure thrill ride. Both implausible and lame. If there were others in the daily news I missed them.

Listening to the news coming from Parliament in Westminster, one could be excused for thinking this too was some kind of April Fool gag, but it's all become deadly serious as national anxiety levels escalate. There's no room for pranks as each party contends for its own position by rubbishing the suggestions of others. It's all become a matter of bitter confrontation not dialogue. If I say it's diabolical, that sums it up "An enemy hath done this", as the parable of the wheat and tares observes, talking about the father of lies about its business.

This morning, Clare went to the gym and I did the bulk of the week's grocery shopping, then cooked lunch. After a siesta, I walked to Blackweir and re-took some of the photos I didn't get yesterday. The bonus picture was of one of the Taff's resident herons keeping riverbank vigil on the other side about 60 meters away. My 15x DSLR zoom lens doesn't give such sharp results with a small subject compared with the 50x zoom of the HX300 at that range, even though the image sensor of the latter is nine times smaller. I simply didn't have the right camera with me. Never mind, there'll be another time, hopefully.

In the evening I completed watching the remaining episodes of 'Baptiste' in bed again, for comfort. Despite recent wound improvement, sitting upright for any length of time isn't comfortable, and not much on telly is worth the effort of so much fidgeting while persisting in viewing.

  

Gig night

A visit to the GP surgery yesterday morning for a routine set of blood tests and an ECG. Apart from that, and sermon preparation, the day was taken over by Rachel getting ready for her gig practicing and organising her set playlist. Because of the unique way in which she uses different tuning settings for her various songs she needs to have at least two guitars set up ready to use. The one she brought with her we felt didn't really fit the bill, so we tried without success to hire one, but to no avail. Clare and I separately had the same idea, and an instrument fit for purpose was borrowed from Diana's husband Pete and fitted with a brand new set of strings. Rachel has bought lots of packets as she found a special offer in town. In any case, it seems they are less expensive here than in the USA.

Kath and Anto arrived with a car load of equipment for the gig, including a PA system leads, to add to the guitar brought last weekend, and a few essentials Rachel brought with her from AZ. At six we accompanied Rachel to the Apothecary Tea Room on Llandaff Road, and got the place ready for the gig. My role was to make a sound and a video recording. The sound job was entrusted to Clare's iPad voice recorder plus a substantial mono microphone of Rachel's, positioned on a boom stand at the back of a room about 6 metres square, with my Sony HX300 next to it mounted on a tripod on a table. This gave me opportunity to alter position and focus if required.

Disappointingly, given the effort we made in advance publicity, only a dozen friends turned up, but they were a warm and supportive audience, nevertheless, and Rachel shone, performing tirelessly, answering questions from the audience, at one point coping with the invasion of a small escaped puppy dog and a noisy avalanche of empty bottles being added to the recycling bin by the bar next door. Kath added backing vocals on a few Rachel songs she remembered from ten years ago. It was good to see them reunited in music again. The last time was when they sang the specially composed duet celebrating our Golden Wedding anniversary celebration two years ago. We are so blessed!

The recordings turned out quite well, despite the need to swap out memory cards, and the camera running out of battery near the end of the second half. Thankfully I'd been taking still photos with my Song HX50, which has an identical battery, so I was able to swap them around, without losing too much of one song. The challenge now will be to edit sound and video into a useable form which Rachel can publish on several different web platforms. But first, there's the small matter of having to re-learn how to use Windows Movie Maker. So forgettable, unfortunately. 

  

Word memory

Gradually, the weather becomes more autumnal. It's still quite mild with daytime temperatures in the low twenties, but occasionally with stiff breezes which draw kite surfers out to offshore waters. Today started with overcast skies, and it rained before sunrise. With Sunday's sermon complete, I walked to Mercadona for weekend groceries, then visited the bridge over the charco,  (a word I'm training myself to repeat before I forget it again), to describe the local nature reserve with my camera, to see what there was to be seen early evening. 

I was fascinated to observe a purple swamp hen using its strong red clawed non-webbed feet to pull shoots from a clump of reeds, then proceed to strip the pith from its core to feed on. I obtained a few good photographs, including this one.

Several shots I took in what I must remember to call 'burst mode'. It's a setting I use so rarely I'd forgotten where it's located, so resorted to downloading the HX300 pdf manual to find out. It's not the most user-friendly of texts, so this took me a while. Mind you, it didn't help that I was unclear about the name of the rapid fire facility. All I could remember was the slang French photographic term for this, mitrailler, which means 'machine gun' after the noise made by a rapidly firing shutter.

Everyone complains about memory lapses as they get older, recall may still be there but isn't quite as efficient as it used to be, sometimes more erratic. If you use words rarely, it becomes an effort to find them when you need them. For me, writing this blog as often as I have something to tell about life in retirement, helps me remember the sequence of life's events when it threatens to blur, and acquires gaps from neglect. More than that though, the very varied act of narration is a fine way of exercising language memory, although I wouldn't dare to try writing in anything other than English. I admire those who do. 

Language has been a fascination to me since I was young. Poor teaching in Grammar School sadly sapped my speaking confidence in a way that took decades to recover from. With a little help from encounters with linguistic philosophy through Clare at University, however, curiosity never left me and exploring language still affords much pleasure.

An un-planned walk and surprise discovery

A quiet uneventful morning, reading and writing, waiting to hear of Clare's arrival back in Cardiff. Indeed, she was home by lunchtime after a hassle free journey. That's the same flight I'll be taking in three weeks from now, except that I'll need a seven o'clock start from Territet to be sure that I am dropping off my case the advised two hours before time. I could leave it later, as Geneva airport is familiar, and works efficiently, but it's good to make the effort to have more schedule slack, just in case there are unexpected delays. Who needs the extra stress?

After lunch I took my HX300 camera for a walk, heading first for the neighbourhood bottle bank up behind the Hotel des Alpes with a few empties to deposit. A tourism pedestre notice caught my eye, which led to me climbing dozens of flights of steps in between hillside mansions, crossing the road up to Caux, then climbing upwards through woodland on a footpath which eventually took me to a place in the road close to the Toveyre station on the railway line which ascends from Montreux to Naye.

From here, I followed a side road which took me further up into the wooded valley down which the Torrent de Veraye tumbles through the village of Veytaux, adjacent to Territet. The road ends at a farm with several large buildings and what looks like an accommodation block, perhaps a hostel or former hotel? I don't know. 

In the open pastures below the farm there were sheep, wearing bells that had a silvery tone to them, and several long horned goats in a paddock of their own. Above the farm, more forest, and a steep ascent to col between jagged rock peaks. The distant noise of traffic on the motorway, three hundred metres below this seemingly remote rural domain was a persistent reminder of how close it was to the developed urban coastal strip. Looking up the mountain, the only reminder of the juxtaposition was the necklace of high tension electricity cables strung high up across the valley, with a family of buzzards patrolling the airspace. 

The views across the lake into Haute-Savoie were well worth the climb, but the most surprising aspect of this unanticipated afternoon hike was the discovery that the footpath I climbed was in close proximity to the track of a disused funicular railway. In several places close to bridges, access was barred by large security gates, but the track and its cable guiding equipment were still in place. Maintenance of the track bed and sides was still being done, as there was no jungle of vegetation concealing the railway. I found signs of where train stops were made, and when I reached the end of the line, found the boarded up station house, landing platform and car haulage equipment were still intact, if rusty. 

A folorn notice was still in place announcing the next train in German, French, Italian and English, and advertising Gaulois cigarettes, perhaps dating back to the early sixties, but nothing to say the name of the station. At one of the lower stops there'd been a panel with the name of the funicular line on it, but it had weathered and was illegibile. So, at this point, the line was an intriguing mystery, and smartphone mapping was no help, as it tends always to be up to date. I couldn't access Google Earth on the phone I was carrying, so enquiry had to wait until I returned.

It wasn't long before I discovered an interesting enthusiasts' web-page, describing the history of the Territet to Mont-Fleuri funicualar, and found visual evidence of the existence of the line on Google Earth, which didn't exist on Google Maps as it would add nothing functional to the map's purpose. Mont-Fleuri was the site of a grand Victorian hotel, and  the line was opened in 1910 to serve its clientele, as much as local inhabitants. When the hotel closed in 1987, it became a prestigious girls' boarding school, and half the passengers using the funicular were students. 

The line had to close abruptly in November 1992 due to imminent failure of its traction cable. Talks about restoring the line to use have continued intermittently ever since. The cost of the project and who takes responsibility for payment is the problem. Nowadays roads have been improved and there are more cars around than ever. The need to restore the service may not seem as great, except that it would help reduce congestion on roads that aren't easy to drive, especially in winter. This would reduce pollution. An electrically powered funicular is far more eco-friendly, and can carry more people quickly uphill than a fleet of cars. The fact that the infrastructure has not been dismantled or neglected greatly gives cause for cautious optimism. We'll see.

The photos I took are here

A peep at Mexico city

There were just two of us and a tranquil golden retriever for the Wednesday BCP Communion this morning. Former choirmaster Jeff generally comes on a Wednesday when he's here. We took the opportunity to look at Psalmody for Sunday next, and later to choose hymns over the phone, so that all is prepared for present choirmaster Peter when he returns this Sunday.

Afterwards, I decided it was time to check out the car, which I haven't needed to use since the brake fading episode descending from Villars the Sunday before last. As I've never lifted the bonnet on a Subaru car before I wasn't sure if I'd be able to make head or tail of it. Thankfully, everything is helpfully labelled and the engine was clean. There was no sign of fluid leakage, and the reservoir level was what it was meant to be. I started it and did some quick stops to satisfy myself it could be relied on. I had intended to go out for a drive later on but became absorbed in other tasks and ended up walking into Montreux along the lake to buy some fruit instead.

I took my HX300 camera with me and photographed a few birds. Few of the shots were satisfactory however, but I also took pictures of the complete succession of lakeside contemporary sculptures in the section adjacent to the covered Marketplace. A very mixed bunch indeed, not entirely to my liking, but of interest nevertheless.

In the evening I watched an interesting documentary in the Megacities series on BBC2, on Mexico City, population 22 million and still evolving. Key items were domestic housing, public transport, water supplies and sewage disposal, one of the largest systems in the world is under construction.

The city has expanded over decades with self-build housing, much of it unregulated and illegal. Former shanty town dwellings have consolidated into proper houses and grown their own services to some extent. Fresh water is one of the most expensive household items costing as much as twenty percent of income, a nightmare for poor people. The place isn't short of rain, but until lately rain water collection hasn't been organised. Now, a scheme helps householders make reservoirs under their houses, collecting and filtering rainwater to use, transforming lives and budgets.

The city covers nearly 1,500 sqkm, so many have to travel long distances to work. As it expanded, low cost minibus transport los peseros grew up spontaneously and organised itself into routes without regulation. There's even a smartphone app for information. There are larger buses, taxis, a metro and a cable car, all contributing to keeping people and the economy moving. It's a remarkable testimony to third world individual and public enterprise, coping with rapid growth imaginatively.
  

Competa re-visited

We were invited by Mike and Patricia to visit them at their mountainside finca outside of one of the regions best known and much loved (especially by ex-pats) pueblos blancos, Competa. They've been living there for twenty two years, and crafted gardens out of the hillside and tended orchards of olive, fruit and nut trees, as well as making their simple ancient stone cottage into a home with all mod cons. The sixteen kilometer drive from sea level up to 600 meters is on a well maintained road with countless hairpin bends and views you'd really like to stop and gawp at. 

With the Sierra La Maroma at the head of the deep wide valley is over 2,000 meters, and can be snow capped in winter. The water captured by the high mountains makes the valley unusually green, good for growing fruit and olives. On the ascent, Sayalonga is the largest village, straddled along a promontory on the side of the valley. There are other pueblos blancos on the valley slopes too, and farms, perched remotely on places seemingly hard to access. It's easy to imagine how much tougher and slower life must have been before the advent of motor transport and metalled roads.

We received a warm welcome and showed around the place, before we set off for lunch in Competa at the Restaurante Perico in the main village square, Plaza Almihara, owned and run by the same extended family for several generations. We ate very well indeed, and enjoyed the company and conversation of Mike and Patricia's student grand daughter, who joined us for lunch. We arrived just before two. I noted the door of the nearby parish church was not yet shut for siesta, so I was able to slip in a take a photo of the interior, something I'd been unable to do on our last visit in 2011.

Looking back at the photos taken back then, there's one of stone masons at work in the Plaza Almihara, laying an image of the town's heraldic shield in coloured pebbles and fragments of rock in the middle of the square. I'd forgotten that happened while we were there, during a programme of improvements to the town's public realm, designed to make it more appealing to visitors and boost civic pride, no doubt.

After lunch we returned to Finca Patricia and continued talking for another hour, and then began our return journey, this time with Clare taking photos from the car window with my Sony HX300, and me driving slowly, for comfort as much as anything. She doesn't use a camera much, so it took her a

while to get to grips with it on the move, but it was still worthwhile. It's a valley I wouldn't mind visiting again for a lengthy stop start photo opportunity, to satiate my curiosity.

Bank Holiday Weekend - again

I spent much of yesterday, as the previous day, uploading and writing some key captions for the 900+ photos taken on our Rhine cruise, I only discarded a couple of dozen bad pictures. It's a tribute to the reliability, ease of use and responsiveness of the Sony HX50 and HX300 cameras I took with me.

Many photos required no editing at all. A few were taken in situations where conditions confused the camera sensor leading to underexposure, but this could be rectified using the old desktop Picasa, still a versatile easy to use app. For the most part, however, Google Photos on-line editor provided all the tools I needed. With poor connectivity on the cruise, uploading, let alone editing was impossible, so my spare time since arriving home has been taken with making an album for each day's photos.

Encouraged by Clare, I also made a couple of web albums using just a third of the available photos covering the trip in two halves, so as not to exhaust the patience of viewers. You can find the first of these here and the second here.

Owain came over to visit in time for supper after work and stayed the night, returning to Bristol in the afternoon, as he has a gig to prepare for tomorrow.. It was good to see him, and enjoy our evening meal outdoors in the warmth of the evening sun, drinking a bottle of Alsacian Gewurztraminer for a change. Before lunch, he took us to Luffkin's Coffee Roasters a tiny cafe in a King's Road back alley next to the evangelical mission hall calling itself the 'Church of God in Cardiff'. The cafe offers a few select single estate grown filter served coffees from Africa or Latin America, and offers a breakfast featuring several different special kinds of bread. A foodie's paradise. 

Further down the alley is the popular local Pipes micro-brewery, whose beers can be found in several places across the city centre. The alley also boasts a small select farmers' market stalls on weekends - organic veg, bread, cheese and a dried meat and sausage stall. It's the first time we've had occasion to explore this alleyway properly when fully in use. I turns out to be a hidden treasure of our Parish.

In the evening after supper, I walked around Pontcanna fields. The entire north football field area is currently enclosed in Heras fencing, and half of it covered with tents - a hundred four person and a hundred two person tents, plus wigwam shaped marquees and toilets. This is the 'Tent City' which is being prepared to accommodate surplus visitors arriving for the UEFA Cup Winners' cup final in the city centre's Principality Stadium next weekend. Apparently all hotel are already booked, and a large crowd of Spanish fans are expected, as the finalists are the two top Spanish teams. There's an unprecedented high level of extra security measures being taken in town as well, planned for a long time, and not just in response to last Monday's terrorist incident in Manchester.

The British Airways total IT systems failure has been headline news all day, bringing to a halt all their operations at Heathrow and Gatwick. Every one of the airline's activities is so heavily dependent on use of networked computers and phones, that nobody could communicate with anyone else, and passengers were left stranded in departure lounges and on aircraft, unable to move safely without the appropriate forms of clearance. It's been attributed to power failures at the server farm level, and thankfully, not to cyber attacks. This high level of electronic dependency and reliance on the core of the system never failing is a disaster waiting to happen.

IT workers unions criticised the redundancy imposed on 1,200 BT computer system staff last year, and outsourcing of their jobs to Indian company Tata Consultancy Services. Cardiff Council made the same move several years ago, as a money saver, and on a couple of occasions I know of, the entire system went down for much of a day. The technology is new, state of the art, but this doesn't mean it's been tried and tested to the extreme limit of reliability. This couldn't have happened at a more critical time, Bank Holiday weekend. One can only hope questions are asked and lessons learned about long term sustainability from such disastrous experience.

   

Journey to the Rhineland

Finally, a day free of duties, except packing for tomorrow's flight to Cologne to join the Rhine cruise. Both Clare and I visited our hairdressers, checked our belongings several times, and used up all the fresh food in meals for the day and breakfast sandwich packs. I'm taking the HX30 and HX300 cameras again, plus the Chromebook, and two phones. I have my Blackberry work phone operational again, as I've been asked to continue in an advisory role to the CBS Ltd directors for a while longer. I am happy to do this and take my time doing so. I'm not attuned to the pressures of office life these days. Besides, dealing with people pastorally as much as I do these days is what I do best, and seems most needed. 

With a taxi booked to take us for the six o'clock Heathrow coach, early bed seemed obligatory. We were both up and about before five, and at the coach station by twenty to six. The coach delivered us to Heathrow terminal five twenty minutes early for check-in and security clearance. The Dusseldorf flight was full, with a mix of business and domestic travellers, and couple of dozen people like ourselves from all over the country, headed for the Rhine cruise ship in Cologne. Our coach from airport to ship had to weave its way through 50km of rush hour traffic, nearly doubling our transit time.

On a quay one kilometer south and over the Rhine from Cologne's majestic mediaeval cathedral, the MV Emily Bronte our ship for the week, was moored. It's the newest of the Riviera line. Soon we met several of the team who looked after us on the Danube cruise last May, experienced staff transferred, presumably to help train a new team for a new ship.

Interesting to me, the ship has new generation hotel security technology to keep track of passengers comings and goings. The RFID room key card is registered with a photo of the key-holder, taken in situ, matching everyone on the passengers and crew database. A contactless scanner, like those used for card payments, is located on the reception desk, and everyone is required to scan themselves off and on the ship. Reception staff can check against misuse as the network displays a photo of the keyholder scanned. Passwordless WiFi logs one in to a web page which displays a custom QR code giving the device MAC address, presumably. Scanning the code clears it for internet attachment. Clever!

Our upper deck cabin is one of a handful of one room bed-sits with a small external balcony, so it's possible to sit outside during the day. We must have been among the last to book. There's a full complement of passengers, and this was the only one left. So luxurious, and more than I'd usually want to pay, but we both felt we didn't want to wait another year, after quite a busy and demanding six months of autumn and winter.

The standard of cuisine on these ships is very high and we enjoyed an excellent supper, chatting with a couple from Southampton, a retired mathematician who spent two years at CERN and his wife, a retired teacher. Clare was ready for bed after this, so I attended the safety briefing on my own. Being less tired, after dozing fitfully throughout much of the day's travel, I have time to collect my thoughts and ponder a little before turning in, delighted for a respite from British electioneering for a week.
    

Herons in view - again

A visit to St German's this morning to celebrate the Wednesday 'class Mass', with a bunch of 7-8 year olds, some of whom looked bored or half asleep, others of whom were bright eyed and placed to sing. I spoke a little about generosity towards the poor and needy, referring to the work of Islamic Relief as well as Christian Aid, as many of the children in this, as in all other classes of the school, are Muslim. Half the kids come up for a blessing, and some of these are Muslim. Other kids don't come up. None are forced to. 

It's not easy to make a simple liturgy in church fully participatory, especially when it's a Mass, which is by nature, overtly Christian. I have more misgivings about the potentially divisive nature of doing this than I did when I was the incumbent, regularly visiting the school. I was reluctant to go against established expectations then, and make an effort to create an act of God centred meditative worship in which all present might find something to identify with. Kids need to learn how to pray and how to participate in public worship in a non-alienating way. Now, I'm no longer in a position where I have any business experimenting with or changing the status quo, this avenue is no longer open to me. I do get the kids singing simple choruses each time, however. Sometimes they join in enthusiastically, other times it's hard work.

After lunch, I walked along the Taff to the city centre, to search for some clip-on polaroid sunglasses to go over my driving specs, and was delighted to find just the right thing in Boots. Clare had tried to find the same thing for herself in the same store recently and not been successful, perhaps because they were tucked away in an obscure corner of the sunspecs rack. I find my eyes don't work as well in high contrast lighting situations as I get older, they seem to struggle to adjust. Having special specs for driving and computer usage makes some difference, but not enough. I'm hoping a polaroid filter will cut some of the glare and reduce the strain somewhat. It's worth a try anyway.

Today, I seemed to have a bit more energy that recently, more of a spring in my step, so instead of getting the bus home, I walked back across Bute Park to Blackweir, where the resident heron was to be seen at the foot of the weir. I positioned myself about seven metres above on the footpath, and the bird just seemed indifferent to my presence, so I stayed for ten minutes or more, taking some of my best ever close-up heron photos with my Sony HX300. It took most of the evening to sort them out and upload them to a new album. Pleasing stuff indeed. Here's my album of bird shots so far this year. 

  

Bay watch

After preparing my sermon for tomorrow and an early lunch, Clare and I walked along the Taff Trail down to the Bay wetland area, enjoying the Spring warmth, bluebells and cherry blossom. We saw a few pairs of Great Crested Grebes in the wetland area. We saw one couple performing mating rituals, posing to each other, displaying the full extent of their head plumage and elongating their necks. We saw one bird disengage, dive and bring to the surface something in its beak, which it then presented to the other. I thought it might be a fish, but on checking later with a decent bird book, learned that it was fishing for strands of seaweed to offer. 

Being a good fifty meters offshore, my photos were taken almost at full length zoom with my HX300 so the quality and composition wasn't wonderful. Clare remarked that I'd have been better off taking video. Funny, all my Sony cameras make a good job of this, but it never occurs to me to use the built in facility. But I still enjoy the challenge of old school 'hunt 'n shoot'. This is one of the better shots.

We had tea in the Millennium Centre, then caught buses to take us back to Pontcanna, as we were both quite tired after a four and a half mile walk. Later, after supper I watched the third in the  Danish series 'Department Q'. This time an investigation into the disappearance of children from families of Christian religious sects, due to a murderous psychopath convinced he was an agent of the devil with a mission to destroy the faith of true believers by making them helpless witnesses of unspeakable suffering of innocent children. 

It was pretty nasty stuff, but it gave me cause for thought. One of the detective heroes is a practising Muslim. The other is an atheist who claims to hold no belief in God or anything metaphysical. His only conviction is that justice must be pursued regardless of the cost to himself or others, and that no crime victim should go without redress. The conversation is fragmentary and disjointed like the characters themselves. The atheist nearly loses his own life to rescue two kidnapped children, and it's the Muslim who finally catches the perpetrator, and drowns him in the sea in a life or death struggle with the diabolical killer.

Earlier in the film there were images of the religious sect practicing full immersion baptism in church so these resonated with that of the killer drowning as he resisted subjugation and arrest. It reminded me of parents speaking about babies crying at the font when they have water poured over them, as 'crying the devil out'. The film auteur plays with religious themes and symbols, raising the question of whether the existence of evil is more tangible and oddly credible than that of goodness. 

The atheist survives, his unbelief intact, just grateful to see children restored to their widowed mother. It's the religious man who is compelled to use lethal force at close quarters to stop the perpetrator's violence in its tracks, aware of the trail of death left behind him in a hospital. Experiences which will impact upon this kind, gentle and devout man. It's the kind of paradox which is not at all foreign to those who serve in security forces or the military, while the rest of us remain, for the most part unaffected. I what would Kierkegaad, that 'melancholy Dane' have made of this, I wonder?

      

Celebrating the great cloud of witnesses

I was up again at dawn doing Chi Gung exercises on the terrace before breakfast. The clouds were hues of orange and yellow, as if a poor weather day might follow, but a wind then sprang up and dispersed them, leaving us with a beautiful clear mild sunny day. This made the sea look an eyecatching vivid deep blue I noticed, driving to church later.

The Mojacar congregation was down to forty this morning. Some regulars are away on holiday, other seasonal residents have gone and will return after New Year, others will come in the next few weeks to avoid the winter. We kept All Saints and All Souls together this Sunday, and are keeping Remembrance Sunday next week. Incense was scheduled for use this morning, an occasional rather than regular feature of worship here. The small thurible had short chains, something I'm not used to after using the St German's full size one regularly for the past few years. I could have done with a practise beforehand.

There was a long list of names of the departed to read out, taken from the chaplaincy's Book of Remembrance, containing over eighty names of people associated with its life from the beginning over fifteen years ago. As there can be as many as sixty funerals a year of non-church members conducted by chaplaincy ministers, I was most relieved that the Book didn't also contain their names as well or we'd have been in church a lot longer.

Late afternoon, I walked again to the top of the hill above the Club Marina golf course, with my Sony HX300 camera, hoping to get even better Hoopoe photos now I know where to find them. I was a little later than on Friday, and only caught sight of a pair flying out of a bunker and away to another feeding ground out of sight. Even the couple of hares I spotted were 250 metres away on the other side of the course - at least I think they are hares. They look too big to be rabbits, but I've only seen them standing to attention so far, moving very little, certainly not running.

I spent the evening working on preaching material for the coming week in which I have two services with a Remembrance day theme to preach at. The trouble is I have too many ideas to weave together in a concise way, and can't yet work out what to use for which occasion.

Finally, a Hoopoe day

Another overcast day, and a morning spent reading news reports on reactions to yesterday's Law Lords' judgement on the need for the British Parliament to be consulted before the Brexit process is started. The tabloid newspapers hysterical and misleading denunciation of long established legal authority and process is deeply disturbing. If these newspaper owners and their editors claim to be the 'voice of the people' what they are doing is preaching anarchy and calling for mob rule. It's worrying to witness truth being cast aside in favour of unsubstantiated, inaccurate oft repeated opinionation, and its happening all over the western world these days. It's every bit as evil as religious fundamentalism in its many guises, and is re-enforcing social divisions by the day. So disheartening.

Finally, after lunch, I summoned the effort to shrug off worldly despair and get out for a walk. I crossed the rio Aguas bridge and then turned into the complex of hotels and apartments and golf course that are part of the prestigious Marina Club Golf resort. I've walked through parts of the resort a few times before, but this time I climbed up as high as I could, to a ridge about 70m above sea level, where there are several very classy architect designed luxury dwellings with fantastic views inland and out to sea. 

The course extends down on to the plain the other side of the ridge, cutting a huge green grassy enclave out of an inland plain of pale sandy soil. In season I guess this would be normally used to grow cereal crops. It was hard to avoid overhearing a snatch of conversation between two golfing gents talking loudly in their electric buggy on their return trip. "I spent two hundred and fifty thousand." Then "Did you say two hundred and sixty thousand ....?" Yes, it's that sort of place. But already, something else had caught my eye.

Looking out over part of the golf course on the sea side towards Puerto Garrucha, its loading dock empty since the departure of the bulk carrier 'Sun Vita' after sunset last night, a distinctive bird flew out of the shadows, then settled again on a green further away. I first saw a Hoopoe take to the air when I surprised one on a track in the pinewoods near El Chaparal golf course, La Cala de Mijas in the winter of 2013. Several times later, I glimpsed one in the foothills of the Alpujarras behind Nerja, where I got one lucky, but slightly blurred photo of the bird on the wing. It was only recognisable Hoopoe photo until now. This was among the first I took today.

A perimeter fence post at shoulder height enabled me to stabilise my trusty Sony HX50, so that I could shoot near the limit of its 30x zoom if needed. The bird obligingly allowed itself to be photographed in the company of a pied wagtail, and what I think was a Rock Pipit. Then, even better. I spotted a second and third Hoopoe foraging on the same green. I got a good clear picture of two together out of three, the other was just out of sight. 

So unexpectedly in a few minutes, a dull day turned to delight and exultation. I've hunted for Hoopoes to photograph, each duty tour in Spain for the past three and a half years, so taken was I by my first El Chaparal encounter.

Another little surprise of the past few days has been the appearance of a pair of pied wagtails around the rio Aguas watercourse. They were there again as a made my way back to the apartment, as the sun was going down. Separately, they fly out of the reed beds, alight on an isolated clump of reed in the water, then fly around in tight circles, returning to the same spot, presumably insect gathering. 

Being a bit bigger and brighter coloured than other reed bed denizens, wagtails are quite distinctive. Most of the time they are sociable. I once counted two dozen together in the Asda Leckwith car park. Not when they're mating to reproduce however. They seem to count on the absence of predators to hang out in a twosome around the watercourse at this time of year.

Tonight, I look at the photos with pleasure, but also a little disappointment. Might I have got better pics with my Sony HX300, with greater magnification, but essentially the same camera innards? Shooting at extreme zoom lengths and getting decent images is a chancy business. Now I know where to find  those Hoopoes, should I return there tomorrow with the other camera? Really, I could do with a camera with a bigger sensor as well as a decent zoom, but at this point the cost of my little diversion start escalating unreasonably. Fair quality on a modest budget is a factor in my measure of hobby satisfaction, but real pleasure is to be found in the surprise gift of a moment unexpected.

       

Garrucha exploration continued

Awake again at first light, and unable to doze off again, so I got up and took my camera down to the beach to get some photos of the sunrise, as the skies were reasonably clear. This was one that gave me pleasure to look at later.

Apart from uploading photos, the rest of the morning was once more devoted to CBS office affairs and a long phone call to Ashley. After lunch I walked once more to Garrucha and walked on further than the port and the promenade along the Calle Malecon. Most of Garrucha is on an undulating ridge, right above the beach. There are some steep streets ascending, but if you look left or right at any junction, you see how streets ar right angles go up and downhill along the contours as well. 

I found the Parish Church of San Joachin (father of Blessed Mary in Christian tradition), tucked into a rather inconspicuous plaza, a few streets along from the food market, with a statue of Maria Immaculata on a pillar in front of the church, looking out to sea. It looked as if it could do with a coat of paint, in contrast to an unusually modern design of building attached at the rear of the church, with tall bronze doors, decorated with bas relief images of suffering Jesus and Mary, announced itself to the home of a local cofradia. 

From there I walked to the top of the town. Above the uppermost street, the ridge rises sharply to a peak on which sits a monument to the town's industrial past in the form of a tall chimney. As there's nothing to tell you why it's there, and the only sign identifying the place has been smashed, it stands mysteriously in isolation, approached by a spiral ramp, at the end of an approach road flanked by street lamps, some broken. The site breathes an air of neglect, with sunken floodlight housings smashed. It's hard to tell if this is a genuine industrial remnant or a modern homage to past smelters that brought wealth to this small fishing port. Either way it's a cultural project which wasn't followed through with a sustainable budget for maintenance. Not unusual, but nevertheless a pity.

On the way back, I revisited the site of the town's lead ore furnace and walked right around the area this time in the hope of gaining more clues about the industry which once dominated this place. I gained no new insight from this, only a few more photos from different angles. Having walked to the top of the hillside on which the enterprise was located, I continued walking along the contour back to Mojacar, above a full sized golf course, surrounded on all sides by modern luxury hotel and apartment complexes. I spotted just one man on the course driving range, but nobody out of the course itself. But then, at time of year, visitor numbers are drastically diminished. I hope they do better in high season, to justify the phenomenal investment made in transforming this coastal area into a high class holiday resort.

I got back as the sun was setting, and went straight out again down to the beach, intent on taking some photos of the nearly full moon rising over the waters. I had much difficulty in making the necessary camera setting adjustments to enable the Sony HX300 to work at its best. I spent much of the rest of the evening reading the on-line manual and trying to figure out how. My best photos was taken on enhanced auto settings, and I still can figure out how to get what I want, despite an hour or more of playing about with it.