From phantom drip to leak

A day of sunshine and showers. I had some housework to catch up on after being out yesterday. Clare's study group came for a session after breakfast. As they were quiet, sitting around the middle room table, I  recorded and edited next week's Morning Prayer and Reflection. We had an early snack lunch afterwards, then I drove Clare to her UHW eye appointment at one thirty. 

Then I visited Tourotech and ask Davey about the anomalous startup time for Owain's Dell Optiplex. He thinks it may be something to do with the CMOS battery getting run down, maybe needing replacement. The BIOS isn't holding the date at the moment, but Windows 11 boots up with the correct time once it attaches to the internet. The BIOS clock can be set correctly on boot-up, then checked for accuracy every few days. I have similar issues with my Windows Visa driven Acer, bought sixteen years ago. It led to new files being dated incorrectly, so checking BIOS date and time could matter.

Then I went to the Coop to buy some chicken and veg. On my way home I noticed some interesting looking paintings on show in Oriel Canfas, and went in to take a look. Anthony Evans, the artist was there, looking after the gallery, and I had in interesting chat with him. The paintings that caught my eye were made on Bardsey Island, during a recent spell as resident artist there. What a delight.

 I took the shopping home, then went for a walk in the park. It was quite mild for the time of year at 9C, and I was home well before sunset. Clare walked back from UHW after a wait of over two hours to be examined and coming away with no idea of what change if any there has been in her eye condition. How frustrating! I cooked supper early, and it was ready to serve when she arrived home after dark.

I spent the evening with the Imagination app on my Linux workstation, making next week's Morning Prayer video and uploading it to YouTube. It wasn't hard to learn but more limited than the Windows Photos Legacy app I'm used to working with on Windows. It only exports VOB video files which need to be converted to MP4 format to display on mobile devices, it seems. It accepts MP3 audio for the soundtrack, but when it comes to previewing and working out the right timing for each slide, the playback isn't as easy to control as Photos Legacy. It is however quicker in other respects, because it's not a Cloud app, but based on the computer, and that makes it quick and smooth to operate. It means I could make a slideshow video off-line if my Windows laptop wasn't working, or Microsoft decided to remove Photos Legacy to force user on to the newer Clipchamp, which is far too sophisticated for such a simple straightforward task as making a slideshow.

Jordanian helicopters have started flying aid into Gaza today, and BBC reporter Fergal Keane was the first foreign journalist to be allowed to visit the Strip since the war began. Will any reporters be allowed in across the Israeli border I wonder. Fighting has broken out in the Congo, where a rebel militia backed by neighbouring Rwanda has invaded Goma, the city region which housed a million Rwandan refugees from the genocide there thirty years ago. It seems that control of the rich mineral resources in Eastern Congo is what's a stake. So much for Tory assurances that Rwanda was a suitably safe place to process asylum seekers deported from Britain.

Fireworks in the air this evening, marking the eve of the Ramadan fast. When I went into the big Tesco Extra yesterday on my way back from Bristol, I noticed there was a long aisle of shelves dedicated to Ramadan and Eid al Fitr purchases. I didn't bother to check what was on sale, but I guess it might be treats for the evening's iftar fast breaking meal. 

There's been a strange dripping sound in the bathroom today, but it was impossible to work out where it was coming from, as it sounded like it was emanating from the bath plug hole. As Clare was getting ready for bed she noticed the sound of dripping was louder, and there was a patch of water underneath the sink. Then she noticed a long damp path along a beam probably, in the kitchen beneath. Most of the water dripping somewhat slower during the day had leaked behind a fascia covering water and drain pipes, and then on to a bean below. All that could be done was to shut the rising main tap downstairs and drain the pipes above. Slowly the dripping came to a halt. I think a crack has developed in a bend of the pipe leading up to the cold tap. We'll need to call in a plumber tomorrow. Meanwhile I collected about ten litres of water to use tomorrow, and we won't need to get up in the night to empty a bucket.

Chromebook unexpected demise

Another cool and cloudy day and a return to Monday morning household chores after breakfast. At last I got around to dealing with three months worth of unopened mail, sorting out the junk mail from routine newsletters bank statements, and occasional cards and letters. Much to recycle, some yet to file away. Car insurance renewal cost is fifty quid extra. We talk of getting rid of it, but life could be problematic without one, even though we don't use it much.

Then after lunch we did need to use it to get to back to back appointments with Kay our osteomyologist. I booked an appointment with her when I was still in Spain. Clare sent her a message early this morning and fortunately Kay was able to fit her in as well. Kay's house in Newport is at the top of the hill in St Julian's and it would take half a day to get there by public transport instead of a couple of hours. As ever, I found the treatment beneficial, except that I was tired when we got back, and ended up not going to Caerphilly to Emma's licensing as Ministry Area Leader. Whether by car, or by train or bus from the city centre, the trip would have required more energy than I had left, and pushing myself hard isn't a good idea after treatment. There was a message on the answering machine when I got back from John at Pidgeon's asking if I'd be free to take a funeral in three weeks time.

I went to use my Chromebook to check some data and found it was almost drained of power. I plugged it in and it displayed signs of a faulty power connection. I swapped the charger to a different socket, and then tried another charger of the same kind, but the same result, with the power indicator flashing and the screen brightness fluctuating in the way it does with a power supply fault. Both chargers worked perfectly with my other laptop. 

The only conclusion I could come to was that the input socket or the power regulator on the device motherboard is now broken. Once the battery drains, the Chromebook is dead. With only fifteen minutes charge left, I had to find out how to return the device to factory settings to remove all my accounts and data from it. I did it, but with very little time left to spare. I can take it to Davey at Tourotech and ask him to give it to his mate who recycles electronic waste. It came out of the factory in Taiwan in November 2018 and I bought it in June 2019, just under four years ago. It was a nice machine to use and of quality build - superficially. Owain is still using an seven year old Chromebook I bequeathed to him when I bought the Asus. Now I have to check out what's available of an equivalent specification.

After supper I watched the final couple of episodes of 'Those who kill', then completed work on the Morning Prayer video for Thursday and uploaded it to YouTube. 

iPad down and up

A day of respite from intermittent rain hail and cold wind, sunny and warm enough to go out with no top coat, proper spring weather. There were eight of us at the St Catherine's Eucharist. It was Emma's last service at St Catherine's before she goes on three month's secondment to Fairwater Parish. She will be missed, and it generates a certain level of uncertainty about how projects she initiated or catalysed will be able to continue.

I collected our organic veggy bag on the way home, and cooked what I call my Inspector Montalbano tribute lunch. Pasta with pesto mixed with spinach and carrots, and boil in the bag mussels in a white wine sauce, plus a bottle of a organic Sicilian white wine to accompany it. In all thirty of the movies based on Camillieri's novels I have never seen Salvo drink anything other than local white wine. It's not something seen here often but Lidl's had one when we visited yesterday. 

After lunch I collected our weekly grocery order from Beanfreaks, and then took my Sony Alpha 68 with me for a walk around the periphery of Llandaff Fields, equipped with a 11-18mm wide angle lens to take a succession of landscape photos of the trees whose leaf canopy is now almost fully developed. On three of the marked pitches, preparations were under way for evening cricket matches - at a guess, teams of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi players, each group speaking a mixture of English and their national language. If there's a Caribbean team or league hereabouts, I'm not aware of it. It's just great that so much cricket is played. Most afternoons there are players practicing at the mobile nets array in a corner of the park. We're just a mile away from the SWALEC stadium, home of Glamorgan County Cricket, where there are even more practice nets, so it's understandable.

Yesterday, Clare's iPad froze on her. The touch screen stopped working, although it seemed that behind the inaccessible login screen, everything else was still working, but inaccessible. She took it to Turotech on her way into town, only to discover the shop is closed on a Wednesday. When she returned, she left the device on the kitchen worktop. I was pondering on why Apple would fail to provide the equivalent of a kill-switch and means to reboot iPad OS, as happens with all other electronic devices. 

The older iPad has a top edge button that works like a power switch to bring it out of hibernation, but no amount of prolonged pressing would shut the thing down properly. It also has a physical button below the touch screen that can take you back to the home screen whenever it's pressed. I tried pressing the two together. The screen went completely black, then after a few seconds, the Apple logo appeared and reboot started. We were both delighted to find the touch screen worked again and found out something neither of us knew before. But, why it froze when it froze is a complete mystery.

This evening, just for fun, and for practice, I made a three minute video slideshow using the photos I took this afternoon, and accompanied it with the first movement of Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons'. I was quite pleased the result, and uploaded it to YouTube for the family to see.

Adaptor dearth

I did the big weekly grocery shopping outing this morning and cooked lunch while Clare was out at her study group. I've been looking for adaptors for USB-C to USB2 devices lately, without success until I called into Touro Tech computers in Wyndham Street. Here they sell tine dongles which offer a USB B female socket into which a variety of cables and devices can be plugged. I need this as the new Asus Chromebook only has USB-C ports and a micro SD card port. Very trendy 'state of the art' stuff but to hell with legacy compatibility. But, where there's a will there's a way.   

I spent the afternoon, preparing a suitable handover document for HSBC in relation to Amanda's Injury Trust fund, which was set up in 2010 with Owain and I as Trustees. It's time to hand this responsibility over to her son James as he's now come of age. One less thing to worry about. Before Christmas, when I was quite ill and wondering what my chances of survival were, this was the kind of concern which lurked at the back of my mind. How difficult would it be for her if were to die unexpectedly? Running out of years forces you to think about responsibilities to others of this kind. So glad I no longer have responsibility for running parish affairs, and am still free and well enough to do pastoral work. It's all I was ever keen to do actually.

For the second day in a row I walked over five miles, grateful that two idle days over the weekend hadn't set me back in terms endurance. I didn't go out until Clare left for choir practice and I was over two hours walking, with stops to take photos, as ever. The long shadows of evening across the Fields in the hours before a golden sunset were inspiringly beautiful.

  

Farewell Dell XPS

Unusually this morning, I mistimed my departure and needed to drive down to St John's to celebrate the Eucharist in order to avoid being late. It's something I don't like doing and try to avoid, as I try to walk as much as I can around the parish to balance the times I need to drive across town to St German's, currently four times a week. There were a dozen people in the congregation, wondering what's happening about the episcopal election, worried about brexit. 

Afterwards I drew money from the bank and did a small amount of shopping before returning home for lunch. There was a call from the Touro Tec computer shop about the broken Dell which I took in there for assessment a couple of months ago, so when I'd eaten, I walked there get the report. As I suspected it would need a new motherboard, making it a BER device, as we'd say in RadioNet-speak. This is - beyond economical repair'. I asked the guy in charge if he could recycle or make use of the machine for spares and just let me have the 500mb hard drive to re-purpose myself. I already had a plan in mind if it was in good working order.

It was pleasing to drive to St German's in daylight for Stations of the Cross at seven. There were just half a dozen of us, but I feel it's worthwhile doing with other people. rather than as a personal devotion at home or in church. I wonder if we pay enough attention to telling, retelling and reflecting on the passion story these days. In my youth I was influenced by Franciscan spirituality and devotion to Christ crucified. I still find that things I learned then have value today, and can speak with freshness, even if i haven't used them often during the long years preoccupied with creative liturgical innovation in telling the story of faith. I have changed, and how I interpret the tradition has changed in the light of experience. 

When I got home, I booted up the Acer Aspire portable given to me by Kath from someone at her gym last year. I had Linux Mint running on it, but not satisfactorily, as it kept failing to boot to the graphic desktop, through what seemed to be a read error which persisted regardless of which desktop interface I used. I started it up using the Linux Mint 18.1 live DVD I acquired last week, and using a special USB dock, was able to get the old Dell hard drive running and proving its health, on this machine. So, I wiped and reformatted the spare hard drive and used it to replace the existing dodgy one. Installing Linux Mint 18.1 on it worked after one false start, and has restored to me a stable functional Linux portable machine for occasional use. 

Although this has a pre-UEFI BIOS Core i3 processor which can run a 64 bit version of Linux, with due regard for its age (six years), I installed the 32 bit version. Perhaps I should have done that originally, as it runs quicker and so far error free than it did the first time around. All in all a satisfactory experience, making up for losing the Dell XPS, a real classic top of range machine nine years ago.