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.

Mini family reunion

Clare made waffles for breakfast this morning, a Rhiannon favourite. Accidentally she added eggs to a vegan recipe, making them a bit denser, but it meant I couldn't risk eating them without risking my gall bladder acting up. At midday Owain arrived. It was lovely to have the two of them here together with us if only for a few hours.

We walked down to 'Calabrisella' at Canton Cross for an authentic Italian lunch. I had a delicious bowl of spaghetti with assorted vegetables in a tomato sauce, better than anything I could cook myself with the same ingredients, and reasonably priced. An arancino was ordered for everyone to share, except me that is, because it contained some sort of cheese. I was tempted to taste the last morsel left on the dish, one forkful, and it left a really strong taste on my tongue which took an hour or so to go away. Since going dairy free three years ago my plate has changed considerably. My taste buds seem to be more sensitive nowadays to certain flavours that I used to be well accustomed to, especially cheese. In a way it's quite useful as it warns me off foods that would really upset my stomach.

Owain needed to catch a train at half past five, so we went to the bus stop to see him off, and then I went for a walk down to the river. When I stopped to take a picture of an egret, I discovered my Sony HX90 had been damaged from being recently in a coat pocket and taking a hit against the wall when I took it off. The top corner of the casing had broken, and with it the tiny switching mechanism that raises the pop-up viewfinder. I've used the viewfinder more frequently than ever before over the past year as the cataract in my 'camera eye' has worsened. I bought this camera in June 2019 and have taken nearly five thousand photos with it so far. The camera still works, rear screen included, but my eyes don't focus on it easily when I'm not wearing reading glasses, which I'm less likely to carry outdoors. I'm mad with myself for being so careless.

After supper, Clare and Rhiannon went to a movie at the Chapter Arts cinema, and I watched 'Blacklist' on catch-up and 'Inside Man' live. Both were pretty weird and confusing to follow

Pastoral TV

I was surprised how little traffic there was when I drove across town to celebrate Mass at St German's with five others this morning. I left a little later than usual and arrived on time. When I got back a message was waiting for me from the social worker, acknowledging my calls. She's been on leave due to a bereavement in her family. I now about the music planned to be used for Friday's funeral, but still lack information for a tribute. She proposes to contact a nursing assistant in the care home who looked after the deceased in the last stage of his life. 

The kitchen wall painter arrived several hours late, as I was on my way out to the shops. The undercoat was done by the time I returned. The painter didn't hang around until it dried to do the top coat. He returns some time next Monday to finish the job.

It was sunny and cold again, walking in the park this afternoon. Apart from organic waste, this week's waste collection hasn't happened today, so maybe tomorrow instead if covid hasn't decimated the regular work force. Being Twelfth Night, there are redundant Christmas trees littering the pavements as well as recycling bags. When will they be collected I wonder? 

I caught my first glimpse of a redstart in the usual place near the stables where I've seen them in recent winters. I made what I thought would be a perfect shot, but my camera wouldn't focus fast enough, and both pictures were blurred and useless. That's unusual with my HX90. Either light levels were low enough to confuse the camera sensor, or the camera's physical mechanism was too cold to function normally. Thereafter I kept the camera in my trouser pocket to warm it up, and had no trouble taking a couple of photos of another lovely winter sunset half an hour later.

We watched another edition of 'The Repair Shop' after supper. It's a remarkable series that showcases the very varied craft skills and creativity of a team of artisans devoted to repairing and renovating broken old things valued by people for whom they hold treasured memories. Often stories of bereavement are told or of childhood memories, all emotionally touching in various ways. There's a remarkable pastoral sensitivity among the team members. How super to have a reality TV programme filled with utterly decent people doing their best to bring joy and consolation to others. 

Then there was an edition of 'The Great British Dig' uncovering evidence of an ancient settlement beneath a suburban housing estate in Staffordshire. A section of a primary school playground was excavated next to where the team had their field headquarters, and to their surprise discovered evidence of an Iron Age roundhouse, not far from where children took history lessons. An amazing bonus, generating excitement for staff and pupils alike. I wonder how many children at that school now want to be archaeologists when they grow up?

I had confirmation of yet another funeral in two weeks time. That'll be the fourth so far this month, and all of them elderly men. Ministry Area leader Fr Stewart Lisk has confirmed that the school Mass at St German's will now switch from Wednesdays to Tuesdays when they re-start in two weeks. This avoids diary clashes for him and his clergy team colleagues, and me as an occasional stand-in. It frees me to attend or take the St Catherine's Wednesday service, and that's good news.

Job done

After breakfast and prayer time this morning, I went down to St John's to meet with Fran and Mark to shoot the basic video clips for their icon presentation. We weren't there long when we learned that tree surgeons, delayed from last week, were soon arriving to start work on trimming the trees surrounding the island of green grass on which the church stands in St John's Crescent. Oops! Unforeseen diary clash. 

Churchwarden David arranged for us to collect St Luke's keys from the Rectory, so we left St John's to drive there, dropping off the St John's keys with Eileen the caretaker on our way there. As I got out of the car, I could hear the bell of St Catherine's being tolled by Clive to signify the end of the one minute silence for covid victims, on this lock-down anniversary. Our project had so absorbed us that we didn't notice time passing until then. So, a quick arrow prayer, and then on to St Luke's to continue the job.

Mark was delighted with the resonant acoustics of St Luke's, and we quickly settled on a good setting in the nave to shoot the video, and managed to do it in one complete editable take. The hour in St John's wasn't wasted, as it gave us a chance to run through the structure and ideas about set-up which gave us a head start in a different space. We finished in an hour and I was back for a late lunch of mussels (again!) by one fifteen.

Mark and Fran are good company and I think we worked well together, but I felt strange about being out of the house, doing something different, enjoying socially distanced, masked conversations about the creative process we'd embarked upon, and spending time with people who weren't family members for the first time in six months. I've gotten used to being a hermit of sorts, and for this needed to come right out of myself, and then focus intently on getting the camera to do my bidding. I took three cameras plus spare batteries and SD cards with me, but only used the HX90. I took my Linux laptop along, so I could transfer the video files from the camera to a blank SD card for Fran to take home and give to her son who will be editing the footage under mum's directorial eye, no doubt.

After lunch, I feel asleep for an hour on the sofa, and then went for a walk along the Taff. The river is now very low, as we've had little rain for the past week, and muddy footpaths are no longer treacherously slippery. I met colleagues Peter and Jan walking their dogs in Pontcanna Fields, and learned that ex-Area Dean Mike John is leaving Pentyrch for a part time job as Priest in Charge of Llancarfan. The other part of his job will be managing the diocesan 1Family project, looking after the resettlement of a refugee family from Syria, and all that entails. He did this before as Area Dean, and found that he loved it. How imaginative of the Bishop to innovate in this way. Bravo, both of them!

This evening there was a Zoom Q&A interview with Archbishop Rowan, arranged for the Christian Evidence Society, an august, venerable body public engaged in Christian apologetic discourse for over a century and a half. His theme was Christian spirituality and understanding of God. I didn't see all of it, but what I saw was very good. I had to work on providing documents for Owain for a conveyancing solicitor to authenticate the gift we're making to enable him to make a deposit on an apartment so he can get a mortgage. It's all terribly inquisitive these days on account of money laundering regulations. You have to prove who you are and that you have the right to give your own money away. It's a measure of the climate of distrust which prevails in today's world.  

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.

Quarantine Cymru - day Eleven

More rain in the night and early this morning. It's cooler now. By breakfast time cloud dispersed enough to let the sun in for a while. For most of the day it remained overcast and cool, with more rain in the evening. 

Clare cooked us perfect veegan breakfast pancakes again, our Saturday treat, whatever the weather. She also went out early to collect the antibiotics I was prescribed yesterday. She's going to need a holiday after making so much effort to look after a quarantined me since I returned.

Today I worked on recording the eulogy for my sister Pauline's funeral next Friday. The script that Nicky sent me only needed minor modifications to make the text flow nicely. I know how I'd like to record it, but can I set up my HX90 camera somewhere in the house where it's quiet and suitably lit for static head and shoulders footage? I settled for the front room eventually, where it was possible to sit on a low arm chair with a blank wall behind me. In Ibiza this was so tricky to do without a camera tripod but now back home, it was easier than I anticipated once I found the right place. 

The text took nine minutes to record, and I managed to do it without fluffs in one take. Reading for the most part from a script out of camera sight wasn't easy. On reviewing the footage I was perhaps more conscious of eye and head movement than a one off viewer might be. TV news readers have a auto-cue reader to enable them to look straight into the camera most of the time. No such luck for me, and learning the script off by heart wasn't an option, as I'd ad lib too much, and then it would need more editing. I hope it will be good enough. Let's see what Nicky and Jules think.

I had another go at using the Windows 10 video app, which I learned to use in Ibiza on quite a powerful machine. It's very user unfriendly with no help files to show you how. It fails to tell you that you must put all the photos and video clips you intend to use into the same sub-folder of the Photos folder or the app cannot use them. It does tell you that you must make a sub-folder without explaining its purpose. Plain daft. Once I'd figured this out, I was able to make the app work as intended. It allows you to make a slide show, or to incorporate video and slides into a sequence that will be rendered into a MP4 video file a third the size of the raw material. I've found out this much by time wasting trial and error.

I started wondering a plan had been made to include a slide show of pertinent photos covering my sister's life span, and mentioned in my covering email to Nicky when I sent her the YouTube link to the uploaded video. She likes the idea and I have landed the job of making one. I just hope they can come up with a few more photos than one which I already have in my digital archive.

We've been assailed by recorded messages once or twice a day this week tells us that a sum of sixty pounds has been taken from the Amazon Prime account neither of us have. You press button one for a help line, where either someone will attempt to con personal details from you, or the response you made will register the line as active so you can receive other scam calls at your number. As scam call systems use a random number dialling routine, this may act as a basic filtration routine to make the dialler focus on live numbers. So important not to respond.

How annoying that the UK government is abandoning its two week quarantine requirement for inbound visitors from select lower risk European countries including Spain from next weekend. Too late to benefit me with only three days to go now. Ironically there are localised infection spikes in several countries, Spain among them. Thermal sensing of passengers is being introduced at airport terminals and nobody with a temperature will be allowed to board so they say. Is the desperate wish to resume some degree of normality undermining the need for prudence and caution?
  

   

State of Alarm - day Fifty Eight

I woke up to rain and it rained on and off until mid afternoon, then dried up nicely, as it wasn't too cold. After the emotional upheaval of yesterday, thankfully, I slept quite well, but all today I have been tired and short tempered (thank heavens I am living on my own at the moment), struggling to get work done and yet still managing to be productive.

After breakfast I did a little discursive prayer video, for a significant day. Pope Francis along with other religious leaders of the world called for a global day of prayer about the pandemic. Last night a lovely little promotional video with clips of dozens of people praying in different languages. This included our own chaplain in Nerja, Nigel Thomas, praying in Welsh. That pleased me no end! It gave me the idea of contributing, using the discursive prayer format, which I've been getting used to over the past month, and shooting the video clip using my HX90, as the sound reproduction is good.

Choosing a setting with not much time to think about it or plan properly was frustrating at first, but I ended up with the camera on a box on the table on the back terrace, pointing into the trees around the garden, occasionally waving gently, with the occasional background birdsong. It would have been nice to have had the sound of rain in the background, but dampness at that moment had no audio profile. It took me three goes to get a clear run at it, either because of passing car noise - so much more now than previously - or because I kept stumbling over words, sabotaged by tiredness. All was well in the and, and I had some appreciative feedback later, after Dave posted the YouTube link to the chaplaincy website.

Then I made an effort to bring together as many of the strands of the Sunday service as I could with the aim of getting it completed earlier this week and under less pressure. I guess I got two thirds of it done, before the call of daily exercise got me moving, first in the direction of Es Cuco to shop for food, and then out on a walking circuit past the large school complex, which I knew would enable me to reach my daily 10k target.

Next to the supermarket by the school is a small cafe/bar. It was open with four tables and maybe eight chairs between them, the whole area cordoned off so there was one point of access. I didn't count the number of people outside, socialising at a distance, but I guess it was about half a dozen. It was sweet music to hear laughter and banter in the air, people making an effort to stay safe and be their normal selves in such trying circumstances. The staff in Es Cuco are all properly kitted out but their manner is friendly and relaxed. Amazing what attitude can do to reduce a sense of isolation. 

Remembering in different ways

I went to the Eucharist at St John's yesterday morning, and spent the rest of the day writing, until it was nearly sunset, before going out for a walk. Once I get started, with new ideas and characters it's hard to stop. Perhaps I'm not confident of being able to remember where I'd got to, and picking up the threads again later. Anyway, I got a few good low light and night shots with the HX90 in Pontcanna Fields, so it was worth taking the break.

Today, an idea that's been brewing for a while about another story related to the St Paul's riots came into focus, so I dared to put my ever lengthening story writing project on hold, and see what I could produce. It was a story about one of the characters, a larger than life woman, who was confirmed at St Agnes the night of the riots. Once I started it, memories of that time, thirty nine years ago presented themselves, as I was telling the story. Four hours later, it was complete. I was pleased with the result, and so was Clare.

I also had a Sunday sermon to write in the afternoon, before getting ready to go and join two hundred and twenty veterans and serving military personnel at the 104th annual United Services Mess dinner at the Angel hotel. Just before we went on holiday, I received a call from Tony Lewis, the secretary of the Mess, and organiser of this unique affair, to ask if I would be free and willing to attend say Grace and share in the evening's ritual of Remembrance. It was something I did regularly when I was Vicar of St John's. The Mess building is in the city centre close to the church, and customarily the Vicar is Mess chaplain. I continued for a year or so after retirement until locum duties in Spain prevented me.

There's a Mess member who was retired RAF Chaplain, and he became the honorary Chaplain in my place. Being ten years older than me, it's got to the stage was he's unable to attend now due to illness, which is why Tony called to ask me. After I retired, three successive female clerics were appointed at St John's, with lots on their individual agendas to make their ministries matter to the city. As there are no Mess members among the regular congregation, this ministry was easily overlooked.

There had been an annual Mess service but attendance dwindled as parking near the church became increasingly impossible. In addition, the Mess had been a 'gentlemen only' members club for a century. Debate on admission of women members was already under way, with the growth of female service personnel, but this took seven years to reach a decision, and now the annual dinner is a mixed affair. And the conservative military social tradition of the Mess hasn't really suffered. The new normal has quickly been accepted without tantrums.

There were many people attending who welcomed me like and old friend. It was heart warming. I wrote a special table prayer for the occasion, and two people went out of their ways to express their appreciation for the thoughtful relevance of what I'd written.

The food and the service were excellent. The after dinner speaker was a front line senior General, commanding the Army's third division, also Colonel of the Royal Welch. He had some interesting things to say about partnership between British and European forces in Eastern Europe in a complex and ever evolving political situation. At every level, it was an evening I enjoyed, including the walk home along the west bank of the Taff in the dark. Just what I needed after an intense day of writing.

Not quite a protest, more a gentlemanly warning

For the third Sunday in a row I returned to Grangetown to celebrate and preach at both churches. I had been asked to do a baptism during the service, but was contacted by the churchwarden midweek to say it had been postponed, as a godparent couldn't get there. The couple and their young son and his baby brother were in church anyway, and I had a chat with them after the service. They hail from Sri Lanka. Next week I'm back at St Catherine's, so it won't be me. I'm just a little disappointed.

As I was driving home afterwards through Canton there was a long queue of slow moving vehicles on Cowbridge Road East, mostly tractors great and small, interspersed with a few cars. Were they returning from a city centre protest? I wondered. Apparently not. It was part of a rally of agricultural vehicles, ancient and modern, seventy five of them, which started out in Wenvoe and paraded into the city centre and back. A great way of showcasing Welsh agriculture. 

It wasn't Not quite a protest outing on this occasion, although publicity quotes did highlight Welsh farmers' concern about threats to their business viability due to the current state of brexit induced uncertainty. Not so much a shot across the bows, more of a gentle 'don't forget we're here' reminder. If leaving the EU without a deal betrayed the Welsh farming industry, I for one would get out and cheer on a city centre gridlock farmers protest.

This afternoon it was sunny with clouds with a light warm breeze, perfect for walking. Almost all the equipment for yesterday's athletics meeting had either been taken away or was stacked neatly, ready to remove. A 3km strip of mud around the west wide of the park was all that remained of the running track, and the footpath verges were pretty broken and muddy too. I wonder what'll be done to remedy this, if anything? If only it hadn't rained so much last week. 

I took my HX90 and LX5 cameras out with me, so take black and white as well as colour photos. As the sun was low in the sky, and shadows were long, I got some satisfyingly atmospheric monochrome pictures to add to my collection. As Clare remarked when she looked at them on-line, it takes a little time to get used to seeing the content of a photo in shades of grey, now that we are so used to colour in almost all photography we see, movies and stills.

I intended to spent the evening watching 'Non uccidere', but ended up spending the time before bed updating this blog instead. Ah well, it'll keep for another dull uneventful day, no doubt.
   

Busy at the keyboard

An unusually busy day for me, writing at the computer. I'm so grateful I can now sit for much longer than I could before the last operation. To be so productive in a day feels like approaching normality again, after a miserable year, even though there's still a few months more until closure is possible.

First there were corrections and edits to make on the reference, then drafting an order of service for next Tuesday's funeral, and then a sermon for Sunday services in Grangetown. The only down-side to all this was feeling rather stiff in my upper back, neck and shoulders, being unused to spending a long time in this posture. I wasn't expecting that!

I had another request to do a funeral at Thornhill Crematorium, just before we go away. It's for a family travelling with the remains of the deceased from North Devon. The man in question lived in Canton before moving in his latter years to be closer to the rest of his family. I wonder if he specified the return home in his will?

The waters of the Taff were high again after the rain of the past few days. A heron was standing close to the entrance of the Blackweir fish ladder when I passed by on my daily walk. I got one good shot before it flew off, and would have got a better one on the wing if the HX90 hadn't taken a couple of seconds to save the first one, and the auto-focus struggled although I had the bird full in frame for once. I don't understand why it should take so long to save a shot. The SD card is far from full, and the auto-focus with zoom extended isn't as good as I expect it to be. The older HX300 auto-focus is far better. I mut go into the shop and discuss this with one of their technical people.

In the evening I watched last week's episode of 'Non Uccidere' on my tablet, while this weeks was on live, rather than watch them in the wrong order, as there is a family drama sub-plot running alongside the case of the week. Last week's episode involved school girl prostitution, not initiated by organised crime, but by two youngsters wanting more money than their parents allowed them, making use of a Tinder-like social network to find clients. Evidently, a social network without age-related safeguards. 

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.

    

The sound of music

After breakfast this morning the final BBC Reith Lecture delivered by recently retired Law Lord, Jonathan Sumption. What an amazing tour de force in evidence based reasoning, from a historian who headed the British Supreme Court! He spoke about the nature of Britain's unwritten constitution, about its uniqueness as a dynamic instrument of governance, which maintains Parliament and its power to make laws for lawyers to interpret and enforcers to implement, which has functioned for a thousand years, and proved flexible enough to permit legislation to continue evolving and adapting to emerging circumstances.

Every other country has a written constitution, as nation states have come into being through wars or revolutions, making it possible to write one from scratch, or borrow. The only near revolution Britain experienced was during the 17th century, when Monarchy was abolished and Parliament for a while exercised sovereign rule. It didn't last, but the compromised was reached that Britain should have a royal head of state, uniting all citizens, governed by Parliament in a unique way. It may look antique but it exists to serve the unity of all people, 'rightly and justly governed', as the Prayer Book says. It fits the bill uniquely for us, Sumption asserts, and  may be both better than other systems and worse in detail. Nothing is perfect. What we have is a fair compromise.

He cited the difference between UK and Spain in handling regional conflicts of interest. Spain has a written constitution which defines the relationship between the state and regions like Catalunya, Galicia, Andalucia. There have been serious continuing problems regarding devolution, and the local desires for independence. In contrast, because the nature of the Union in U.K. is historic and not well defined in law, it was possible to legislate for devolution of powers to regional parliaments in Wales Scotland and Ulster, once it was clear there was sufficient demand for this to happen. There's been no chronic conflict about this, just political campaigns and debate for the most part. Perhaps such decent compromise was possible due to the painful experience of the Irish independence struggle. Britain is on the best of terms with its nearest neighbour, which has a written constitution. We are learning how to live together with our differences, though not in every sphere, sadly.

Apart from this outstanding start to the day, another domestic routine Tuesday, with Clare at her study group, me cooking lunch, doing the main weekly grocery shop afterwards, before going for a late afternoon walk around Pontcanna Fields. I spotted a family of seven ducks swimming in close formation on the river Taff. The photos I took at the extreme limit of the HX90's zoom range weren't good. The light was poor because of thick cloud cover. The auto-focus seemed a bit fooled by this, and my hand wasn't steady enough for a good result, but the photos revealed this was a family of Mergansers, the parents with five almost fully grown chicks. I saw an adult pair without chicks only last week in this vicinity. The most commonly seen ducks hereabouts are Mallards, and while I may have seen a few Mergansers over the years, I haven;t noticed them breeding before. Fascinating.

Evenings this week, Cardiff Singer of the World is being broadcast on BBC 2. It's an international music event of the highest quality, featuring great young singers of opera, oratorio and lieder. Clare is glued to the tell for a couple of hours while it's on. I can't sit comfortably for that long at the moment, so retire to bed and read, and enjoy the sound of singing coming from the front room downstairs.

Funny, this reminds me of life as a small child, growing up in a family of keen amateur musicians and singers. On the weekends, the family would gather around Mum at the piano, and Dad on the 'Cello, and my sisters would sing. Sometimes aunts and uncles would come for tea and join in the music making afterwards. If I was poorly, or too tired, I'd go to bed and lie there awake listening to it it all. Sometimes, I'd get up and sit on the stairs outside the front room, listening until I was shivering with cold. This was in the fifties, before record players and radiograms became common household items. 

Clare and I made music with out kids when they were young despite having hi-fi, records and tapes. It's no wonder they've all grown up to be performing musicians. Rhiannon does her Grade Five flute exam next week, and Jasmine has been learning saxophone in school and guitar with Rachel. It gives me great pleasure to think that this is what they have inherited down three generations of family. 

Small is beautiful but can be fiddly too

I took some flower photos during a sunny spell today with my Sony HX90. It has a tiny viewfinder which extracts from the body and this is one way of switching on the camera. This has a retractable and adjustable eyepiece which is especially useful for me with a impaired left eye vision, not yet impaired enough to warrant a cataract operation. The only this is, I forgot about this feature and in attempting to look through it, smudged the screen display with my nose. In the sunlight this smudge made it impossible to view the screen which has manually adjustable brightness, whose default isn't terribly bright. So I had to go indoors and find a lens cloth before making another attempt to use it. 

This is the smallest of all the high spec long zoom pocket cameras, and the physical difference means having to re-acquire user skill. Fortunately the Sony camera menu system interface is much the same as in my other cameras. It's not the best of the bunch, but the learning carries over from one device to another. I've noticed our garden flowers are visited by several different species of bee, and decided to try and photograph them. By the time I'd worked out how to use the viewfinder, zooming in on a foraging insect, cloud covered the sun, the temperature dropped, and there were raindrops, so the bees promptly vanished from sight.   Pleasing results with flowers despite this.

Later in the afternoon, I went into town and met with Clare for a cuppa in John Lewis. Having one out ahead of me, she'd hunted down some cushions and blackout curtain lining for Owain's flat. What a devoted mother, doing her best to ensure he's comfortable at nominal cost!

We watched 'Inspector Montalbano' in the evening. Disappointingly it was an episode repeated from season ten. Only two new episodes a year, it seems, but still great to watch.