Housing misfortune

Today is Clare's birthday. I forgot to get her a card, but bought her present weeks ago, and a bunch of roses later in the day. After breakfast an early walk to St Catherine's to unlock the church and prepare for the Eucharist. There were five of us, and afterwards we had coffee together in the church hall. When I'd locked up behind me, I went straight to the collection point to pick up our weekly veggie beg, and got home with three quarters of an hour to spare before being collected for a funeral at the Wenallt Chapel in Thornhill. There were two eulogies, one from a representative of the family, the other on behalf of a wide circle of friends. 

The man whose funeral it was had worked for most of his life running a store belonging to John Hall Tools in the Royal Arcade in a public facing job that led to him making friends with scores of customers. This old Cardiff family business was equipping enthusiasts and craft workers for a century before massive retail companies got on the DIY bandwagon. I can remember my father shopping there seventy years ago. One of the remaining family members who worked for the company, Richard Hall was at the service. He was church warden of St John's City Parish Church when I was Vicar there. He's now old and frail, using a walking frame but still quietly active. It was good to see him again.

Clare had a cooked lunch waiting for me when I got back, fresh sardines with rice and veg. We then drove to the Post Office sorting office to collect a parcel which hadn't been delivered or left with a neighbour. Such a nuisance. I dropped her off with the shopping trolley to get some of the week's groceries at Beanfreaks. When she returned, I took the trolley to the Co-op and got the rest of the things we needed.

Distressing news from Owain. Not only has the bank repossessed the flat he made an offer on which was accepted before the owner died, his own rented flat has now got a new owner after his landlord died, and he visited to inspect today. He's thinking of installing his adult children in property, which will mean giving Owain notice to quit. The Bristol housing market has been over inflated by demand from people moving out of London, wanting to work from home and occasionally commute, particularly in the past eighteen months since he started his home purchase quest. 

The likelihood of him finding a new flat to rent is low anyway, and rental costs have gone up by a third to a half. It's grossly unfair and it's happening to thousands of people as a result of government policies rewarding greed and speculation on property. The economic recklessness of the Truss government is depressing the value of the pound and adding to the current inflationary spiral. Recession seems unavoidable. Uncertainty promotes instability. What an awful mess, and there's little that can be done until there's a general election to get rid of the fools who have held the reins of power for far too long.

After supper I started work on new week's offering of Marning Prayer, writing and recording a biblical reflection  the rest can wait until tomorrow.

A face from the past on the bridge

Two services to take in Grangetown Parish this morning. I preached what I'd prepared at St Dyfrig and St Samson, but couldn't repeat this at St Paul's as it was a Family Service Sunday, with a dozen Sunday School children in the congregation for the entire service, with children reading, bringing up the offerings, leading intercessions, and one small boy assisting as a server. All was nicely organised, so all I needed to do was deliver a Ministry of the Word that engaged them. I found it impossible to prepare in detail, an didn't quite know how I could make it happen until I got to St Paul's and saw the congregation taking their places.

Neither the Old Testament nor the Epistle were easy to read, let alone make sense of, and the pair of eight year olds who read showed that, despite their good effort and confidence, standing and reading in front of the congregation. I introduced each reading with a brief explanation of what they were about. I didn't then need to repeat this in my homily after the Gospel, centering around the mustard seed and dutiful servant themes it contained. For this, I didn't need use my script, and it was easy to engage my audience. The last hymn was 'We are marching in the light of God', evidently a favourite as the number of people who started swaying with the rhythm of the music grew from verse to verse and joined in the clapping when I launched into it. 

It was a happy fun moment to end on, and people left smiling. I had both a banns certificate and a copy of baptism certificate to fill out afterwards, and was asked if I'd be willing to baptise the child of a church attending Indian family when I return next Sunday. A marvellous opportunity. 

A small boy came to the vestry door to thank me for an enjoyable service, and asked if I would come and be their new priest! I explained that I'm much too old now, and suggested that when he grew up maybe he could come and do this. Well, you never know what a small seed of an idea might lead to.

Talking of which, when I was out for my afternoon walk crossing the Taff bridge on Western Avenue, I was overtaken by a young man walking his white Scottie dog. He looked across and asked "Are you a priest?" "Yes" I said. "Were you ever at St John's church in town?" he asked. "Yes" I said. "I wonder if you'd remember me, it was all of ten years ago I came to church and talked to you a few times."

His face was faintly familiar, but then he's ten years older now. When he said his name was Stephen that jogged my memory. We had talked about basic matters of belief in God, creation and Jesus on a few occasions, there were things he wanted to know, was trying to clarify in his thinking on religion.

He then told me that he'd grown up on a rough housing estate surrounded by drugs and crime, but he decided he wanted out, something more, something better in life. I don't think I was by any means the first person to introduce him to the Gospel message, but he was still getting to grips with it. 

He said that talking to me then had helped him on his way in his journey of faith, to a new life as a member of the church. He didn't elaborate on that, but when I asked him what he was doing now, he said that he was halfway through a degree in Biology, I guess after catching up on his 'A' levels, as I believe he'd left school after GCSEs. He thanked me for those conversations which made a difference for him ten years ago. Then we shook hands and went our separate ways, the other side of the bridge.

I was astonished by this, that he should have remembered me after all this time, having played but a small part in the life of this teenager who didn't want to go off the rails. I often 'loitered with intent' in the church during the working day. The idea of advertising times when a priest was on duty available to listen to all comers didn't occur. There was a pattern of regular weekday worship, but if I wasn't out and about on the streets attempting to know people and make myself known, I'd hang out in church. It seemed in reality to be a more useful place to be recognised and approached by random visitors. That way I met many different people arriving from places far off and places near. Give the place time, and the place gives back to you in unexpected ways. 

This encounter on the bridge was such an unexpected surprise, a blessing, for which I thank God, giver of every good gift, from the bottom of my heart.

    

Requiem for Mac

An early phone call from Martin this morning was a disturbing disruption to the day. He was phoning from the hospital emergency surgical unit, where he was undergoing pre-operative checks after being diagnosed with a ruptured bowel. He faces a colonostomy today with great urgency. He's endured ulcerative colitis for many years, and even if a repair to the burst could be made, developing bowel cancer would he a risk. So removal and life with a stoma bag is inevitable. We can only pray for a blessed outcome.

I went into town late this morning to attend the funeral of Canon Mac Ellis, my predecessor as Vicar of St John's City Parish Church. As I was setting out I had a phone call from my friend Martin to say that he was in the Royal Gwent Hospital awaiting an emergency operation following a nightmare couple of days of pain, until he was diagnosed with a perforated bowel. If all goes well he expects to leave hospital with a permanent colostomy bag and no lower bowel. He's seven years younger than I and he was in my prayers as we were praying for and saying goodbye to Mac. 

There were about a hundred and fifty people present, a dozen robed clergy and more, including a retired Bishop, in the congregation. It was a traditionalist Solemn High Mass of Requiem, with a sung setting of the Ordinary of the Mass which had been written by Fr Mac himself. It was destined to be a long service, so I didn't robe, but rather stood at the back instead for the hour and a quarter duration, in order to pray pain free. 

It was a beautiful well ordered and serious occasion such as he would have loved, and certainly have arranged for others in his time. I didn't know him, but he was a respected role model to a good number of old school Anglican High Church clergy, and this was reflected in the congregation which gathered to mourn his passing. I admit this made me wonder how I'd be remembered when my time came. I'm not strict traditionalist, but think of myself as liberal, ecumenical and missionary catholic in conviction. How this is perceived and understood by others I dread to think. Vague I wish-washy I rather suspect. You have to be true to your experience of life in faith, however, and not be concerned about what others think of you, especially those with passionately held views of their own.

I saw and got to speak to several colleagues and associates from the city centre whom I haven't seen for a long while, but I was constrained for time afterwards by a wound clinic appointment, and had to walk briskly back to Canton to get there punctually for two o'clock.

In the evening I watched the last episode of 'The River', which had a few more surprises revealing an unusually complex story of conflicting needs and loyalties, guilt and shame. I've noticed in a few series of crimmies I've watched in recent months an effort to expose the complex moral dilemmas in which people find themselves and are either driven to commit crimes or are crime victims. It's a kind of narrative approach to ethical debate, and interesting to reflect upon. 

Kath arrived at nine after a day's band rehearsal. Sonrisa have been working on new songs to take out on a tour of concert gigs for school audiences, for which they have funding. It's an unusual move and one which promises to be challenging and exciting, working with young audiences. I'm so proud of her innovative and creative work, and can see Rhiannon following in her footsteps with natural ease and pleasure.

Medical meetings

Yesterday morning, I walked to the GP surgery for a blood test, then to Riverside Health Surgery for a dressing change. The nurse recognised my name as the former Vicar of St John's City Parish Church, and quickly I realised I knew her mother, from midweek Communions at St John's Canton, and her daughter who was a leading young member of St John Ambulance when I was there. A remarkably brave and resilient teenager who caught meningitis, had both legs amputated and needed a kidney transplant to save her life, she's now married with a child and living a full and active life out in New Zealand. It was one of those delightful unexpected encounters enlivening my otherwise limited life at the moment.

In the afternoon, I had an acupuncture appointment, my first in more than three years. Unfortunately my previous acupuncturist stopped work, and it's only lately that I have felt the need to find another. Clare found the name of Peter Butcher, practitioner at the Natural Health Clinic in Cathedral Road. I wrote to him yesterday evening, outlined my circumstances and explained that I understood how I might benefit from a few treatments to counteract the impact of successive painful shocks to the system from this ailment, and was pleased to receive a response this morning.

I had an hour and a half session with Peter, some good conversation and a treatment which certainly put the spring back in my step and cleared my head of the sensation of being mildly stunned, which seems to come and go with pain and shock. A really good ChiGung workout achieves the same for me, but what I can do is a bit limited at the moment, and I was confident a treatment would boost my Chi energy levels, and it helps ward off infection. I don't know how this works, only that it does work and that's what counts. A couple more sessions are planned before the operation takes place.

All in all, this meant that I had a pretty good day, two days in a row, with little pain or discomfort. Gratefully received.

This morning, however, despite a good night's sleep, I had a setback, with some acute wound pain. It didn't escalate into another attach of inflamed vagus nerve, which makes a change. While I was dealing with this I had a phone call from UHW surgical pre-op unit to book an appointment for an information session - this is about me giving them information on my medical history and present state of health, to assess my readiness for the operation. Apparently every medical department you visit for treatment takes a full medical history and none of this record is shared with other units. I suppose they have their reasons for this, but to me it seems antiquated and unnecessary. As there was an afternoon slot available we agreed to take it although I was still in pain and finding it hard to sit.

Clare drove me to the Heath Hospital, where I was interrogated for over and hour, and had another blood test, plus an ECG. Information is needed for the anaesthetist's risk assessment before the operation can take place. It seems I may also be required to have an ultrasound scan of my heart, as it's two years since I last had one. I wait to hear when.

By the time this process was concluded, the pain had subsided and I was able to sit down again with much less discomfort. The rest of the day was much the same as the two previous ones.

New priest for St John's City Parish

Yesterday afternoon, Clare drove me to UHW Heath for a session with the colorectal consultant. I took the time to write down all that had occurred over the two and a half months since my last visit for a colonoscopy examination. This I feel is better than trying to tell it all in a connected way for another to need to write down. My little contribution goes into their record files. The man I saw wasn't the one I expected to see who did the colonoscopy, but that didn't matter. He said my brief account was useful. 

I now make a habit of writing to my GP and reporting anything that happens in between visits, as this saves time when I do have an appointment. These days the digital paper trail in the GP surgery is pretty comprehensive and up to date, although this doesn't seem to be replicated in specialist hospital department information systems. So much information, so fragmented, no real overview anywhere. As a patient I hope I have a fairly integrated view of my own circumstances even if my own interpretation is limited and lacking. The essential thing is to participate and not just be passive in getting fit and well again.

Anyway, an MRI scan appointment has now been ordered for me. There's a long queue and I may need to chase after this by ringing Appointments admin. Ashley gave me a useful hint for curtailing the potentially month long wait. Tell them that you're willing to show up whenever and wherever there is a free space or a cancellation, given the urgency expressed by the consultant to proceed with this. The MRI scan will map the course taken by the perianal fistula, which is apparently what is now giving me trouble, and enable the surgeons to plan a precise intervention to deal with it. This can then be dealt with, hopefully, in a day surgery session in a way that promotes efficient healing of the necessary incision(s). Well, we'll see how it turn out. More waiting to come, however, and more time on low level of activity, not making things worse. 

This morning I attended the Eucharist for St Luke's Day at St John's Canton. When I got home, the appointment letter for yesterday, postmarked the day before, had just arrived. I had agreed to take a cancelled appointment on the phone last Friday, the administrator said the letter wouldn't come before Monday. On the day of the appointment I rang up to check and found that all was in order, as promised. It's the mail department which didn't do its job. Ashley told me that he had had similar experiences on a number of occasions, arranging appointments by phone for his daughter. Complaining yields nothing it seems. And this is the age of computer automated mailing. Still over-promising and under-delivering after thirty years. At least, I'm in the treatment queue I need to be in now.

This afternoon I drove to the School of Optometry in Cathays for my annual eye test, and ordered some prescription reading glasses and a change lenses for my pair of distance glasses I can wear with detachable sunshades. The newer pair I obtained last year have a frame shape for which no detachable shades are available, so they weren't the best purchase I've made. I don't want custom tinted specs, nor photoreactive ones which to my mind work too slowly. Lighting conditions in which I do and don't need shades can change quicker than any lens, and I prefer to keep them handy so I can take them off or put them on whenever necessary.

In the evening I went to town on the bus to St John's City Parish Church to attend the licensing of its third priest in charge since I left. The new priest, also called Sarah Jones like the last has been Rector of Ross on Wye team ministry for eleven years and curate there before that for three. She had a prior history working in retail and training retailers, so this secular experience will stand her in good stead as she seeks to engage in ministry to the business sector in the city centre. It was great to see the Mayor there in full regalia, making a formal greeting to her on behalf of the City. Apparently the leader of the CIty Council took part in the interview process at the Bishop's invitation. It's a far cry from what happened when I was appointed and I am very very pleased about it. Seventeen years ago things were very different, and the detente between church and city was much cooler and remoter, with the exception of rather lame initiatives being made on the inter-religious front. This, to my mind is what a fresh mind from outside the situation can bring to episcopal leadership. We're very fortunate, I believe.
 
  

Orthodox friendship

As the car was still in the garage being repaired, I had to take the bus into town and walk to St Germans for the 10.00 Mass. No school class there this week, so it was a quiet affair for the regulars in the Lady Chapel. After chatting in the day centre for a while, I caught the 45 bus from Newport Road back into town and was pleased to find it stopped outside the Westgate Hotel. Then I only had to cross the road wait a few minutes to board a 61 bus, to go home leave my bag, then get back on another bus into town to take me to St John's, where I'd arranged to meet for lunch with Dr Laura Ciobanu, making her annual visit to Cardiff from Bucharest, as she has done every year since we first met at St John's on Good Friday eleven years ago.

We discovered that a Eucharist was just about to start so we joined the congregation, all old friends from times past who greeted us warmly. Sarah invited me to join her at the alter to administer the chalice at Communion. Standing there in prayer with her, it was as if time had stood still, even though it's now six years last week since my farewell service at the same altar. St John's is still the place I feel I come home to in Cardiff and the place I go away from, on locum assignments near and far away. Not that I feel I define myself as being the ex-Vicar of St John's City Parish Church Cardiff, but rather that it represents the kind of open hearted catholic Anglican missionary spirit that runs in my blood.

We ate and chatted in the tea room for a two hours after the service. Laura brought me seven intricately decorated Easter eggs as a gift from home. She told me that her kindergarten teacher, now in her late eighties decorates these in the intricate traditional patterns of the region where she still lives in North West Romania, and set her a large batch to share, so I am blessed and delighted. This is Easter week in the Romanian Orthodox church so I enjoyed greeting her with Cristos inviat! Adevarat inviat!

When we parted company, I went to the office for a while before heading home. Father Mark emailed and asked if I'd like to celebrate the Ascension Day Eucharist at the other St John's (Canton), to which I readily agreed, as the St German's evening Eucharist is going to be covered by another priest, due to a mix up over my availability dates. It's getting a bit confusing now, as we're here for a while, then not here, then back again. I have to keep a close eye on the diary - I'm nowadays far more reliant on my digital Google calendar and its notifications on my phones than I ever was on a paper diary. It's a good thing really, as I'm less likely to miss appointments than I used to be.

  

Central Square redevelopment - the long view

It's taken me a while to get around to it, but at last I've uploaded the photos I've been taking over the past six months of redevelopment work in Central Square, the area in front of Cardiff Central railway station. You can find them here. The area used to house the city's main bus and coach station, and the east side will, in a few years from now, eventually house the next generation bus and coach terminal, once Marland House and the car park occupying that site have been demolished, and built over. This site is interesting from a historical perspective.

With a somewhat longer memory than contemporary planners and developers, I recall from my time as Vicar of the City Centre Parish Church, that this is the site which, prior to its present unprepossessing edifices dating back to the 1960s, was the crowded site of older buildings, business and residential, dating back to the early nineteenth century. These were on the ancient water-front of the Taff, later re-routed in the heyday of Victorian expansion. They took over land which from the eleventh to the eighteenth century was the churchyard of the original St Mary's Priory, planted by the Benedictine Monks of Tewkesbury, right on the edge of the river where trade ships from around the Severn Estuary and further afield unloaded their wares. 

St Mary's Priory, on the present site of the Prince of Wales pub on the corner of St Mary Street and Wood Street, was reduced to ruins due to flooding, and a new church at the north end of Bute Street was built to replace it in the 1850s. As the riverside area was so prone to flooding, the course of the Taff through the coastal flood plain was straightened and acquired embankments to reduce the risk, much as we see it today. I wonder who benefited from this cemetery land-grab, which led to the Victorian reconfiguration of the ancient port of Cardiff into the familiar layout of today's townscape.

In a couple of years it'll all look different again. I understand the new BBC Wales headquarters is to be built on the old bus station site, now being cleared. A new office block nears completion next to the site on the west side, where once stood a brutalist 1960's County Council building, and prior to that St Dyfrig's Parish Church, next to the road bridge across the river into Tudor Street. 

St Dyfrig's was a Parish with a small dense urban footprint - a fine costly building, someone's vanity project maybe? The site was compulsorily purchased for redevelopment in the name of social progress, and few contested this. Again I wonder, who benefited? There are few left alive now who worshipped there in its last days. It was still standing when I was a youth. I know its last Vicar Bruce Davies, who was University Chaplain. I recall how each year it hosted an outdoor nativity scene behind the church railings segregating the building from the street. When we instituted the same kind of arrangement at St John's City Parish Church, thanks to the City Council a dozen years ago, St Dyfrig's was in my mind, with good reason.

These days, Tabernacle Baptist Church on the Hayes hosts a live re-telling of the Nativity Story several times daily for visitors to the city centre. It's a massive voluntary enterprise, driven by Christian vision and good-will, reaching far beyond the simple figurines behind church railings, accessible to passers by and vandals alike. The St David centre commercial redevelopment has made possible a regular throughput of hundreds of thousands of shoppers to the city centre. I wonder how many will be touched in some way by this energetic contemporary witness, very much a response to the challenges of our very secularised day and age?

      

St John the Baptist celebration

This morning, the Steering Group of Cardiff's Business Crime Reduction Partnership reconvened, as a result of patient efforts of the part of its chair Rory Fleming to consider the re-written Constitution of the new BCRP Board of Management. This was the outcome of my calling to a halt the re-establishment of the Board at the end of October last year, due to deficiencies in the foundation documents that had been, in my view, disregarded under the pressure to achieve an outcome, on the part of busy public officials with an insufficient grounding in the legal history of Business Crime  Reduction Partnerships. It was difficult and embarrassing at the time, but since then, some progress in revision has been made but needs putting to the test.

I'd never imagined I'd turn into a bullish legalistic pedant in my old age, but that's what has happened in the face of a continuing need to preserve the integrity of Cardiff Business Safe's trading position in running the RadioNet system. We've had to face pressures from bureaucrats compelled to deliver something that will do them credit in relation to the political agenda of the day, wanting to take us over - people with no expertise thinking they can acquire it at will. Then there are a few entrepreneurs scheming to avoid paying up what they owe for services provided them over years. Not a very large number of them maybe but there's such reluctance and difficulty entailed in bringing them to account.

Getting everyone with an interest in public security and safety to face facts and agree how to deal with such issues is difficult, and sticking to what you know is right and true can lead to discord and hostility. I don't like this, but in a way there could be no better day to be outside my usual peace and comfort zone.

Today is the Patronal Festival of the City Parish Church of St John the Baptist, my last church before retirement, which I now see from the office window, a hundred yards away, the chimes of its tower clock still punctuating my working days. I reckon I've preached on the ministry of John the Baptist at least a hundred times since I was ordained - not the same sermon, but a variety of them, which have evolved in the light of my life experience. It always comes down to following his forthright example, as the Collect for the day says : 'Constantly to speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice and patiently suffer for the truth's sake'.  That's a tall order, and the toughest bit is working on oneself so that one doesn't betray the meaning of one's own words.

This evening at St John's Church held a celebration of the completion of the work done on glazing the tower porch, reported here earlier in the year. A pet project I started before retirement that took six years to come to fruit. Archbishop Barry came to preach about doors and the contemporary significance of transparent doors, and then to dedicate the new ones. There were about ninety present, lots of old friends, but equally delightful, the faces of some new congregation members who have found a home in St John's over the past four years. Numbers of people who have passed on to Glory are being replaced. 'Twas ever thus. A church at the heart of a now under-populated city is a place where certain people are inspired to make a spiritual home and build community. Irrespective of the efforts of the congregation and clergy, God provides!
  

Family Sunday

With the longest night of the year behind us, complete with heavy rain storms, it's a relief to think that days will gradually get longer, even if the evidence for this is often obscured by banks of low cloud. I just had one eight thirty service this morning at Llandaff North again, and later went with Clare to St Catherine's where for the second time this month there was a baptism during the Eucharist. It's a reflection of a local population with a significant proportion of young families, and the warm welcome they receive from the church.

After an enjoyable Sunday lunch of swordfish steaks, perfectly cooked brown rice and brussel sprout leaves, followed by apple crumble, Anto drove back to Kenilworth for two more days in the office before he starts his Christmas break. Kath, Rhiannon, Rachel and I went to St John the Baptist City Parish Church for their Nine Lessons and Carols. It was lovely to hear the bells ringing out above the traffic as walked up Quay Street from the bus stop. 

The choir sang well, and we sang along enthusiastically to the usual set of hymns. Interestingly enough there were about eighty people present, much about the same number as it was when I first arrived twelve years ago. Despite all the talk about church in decline, and despite the considerable difficulties for people getting to services inside the pedestrian precinct on a regular basis, the effort made for special occasions remains quite constant, both on the part of the congregation preparing and publicising the service, and those in the wider constituency of visitors and residents wanting to worship in the heart of the city.

It was great to be able to greet all our old friends in the congregation personally afterwards. I love just being there in the congregation with nothing to do except pray and enjoy the building. It still feels like home for me, a place to refer to, to come home to when my locum duty travels are done.

A satisfying day

At the end of the morning I met my good friend Roy Thomas for a delicious sandwich and coffee at the Fat Pig Deli on Romilly Road. How marvellous that the weather was mild enough to sit outside to eat and and catch up on all the news of the past few months. Then I went into town to the CBS office to install the new desktop PC and transfer data. On my way I passed by St John's and saw two guys at work on the new glass doors. I couldn't resist stopping and taking another picture.

 

It'll look very stylish when complete. I sneaked inside to take a look at what had been done with the re-levelling of the floor, and re-location of the step the other side of the tower porch, and was very impressed. The Victorian tiles were taken up and re-laid, and new tiles in an exact match of colour and pattern were added into the excavated area where the former porch had been. I wish it could have been done while I was there, as a great deal of worry was attached to having a hazardous step at a main entrance to the church, but five years on, it's a pleasure to see a job so beautifully done. Kudos to Peter Bricknell and his team of conservation minded builders.

Setting up the new HP desktop PC was delightfully easy, with only a brief internet hunt for a driver for the Dell lazer printer. It attached itself to the office network without any hassle, and then all I had to do was transfer data and settings. I have to confess that although I have set up dozens of computers for use over the past twenty five years, I've always preferred to do so 'by hand' - copying selected data, making the odd adjustment to file structures to suit new circumstances, installing printers and configuring email programs and getting them to recognise their legacy data, and generally that meant a day of machine minding. This time I thought I'd try the file transfer wizard.

I took my double ended USB cable for this task, but couldn't find the disk with the drivers on it, although I know they are on the hard drive of one of my machines. I couldn't be bothered to hunt, and trusted that Windows 7 plus internet would find the necessary files. No such luck. Rather than waste time, I thought I would try the transfer option using the office network. It was straightforward, although not clear quite enough to avoid a few minutes of confusion getting the computers to handshake across the network. It did work however, taking the best part of an hour to move data and settings to the new machine. All in all, setup along with downloading and installing Libre Office, took two and a half hours, letting me out of the office in time to get home, grab my shoes and go back out for my weekly Chi Gung workout. I love it when everything goes right.