Sometimes limping

I slept unusually well, and started the day feeling fresh. A dozen of us were at the St Catherine's Eucharist, and most stayed for coffee and chat afterwards. I went straight from there to collect this week's veggie bag, and got home in time to see Clare with a delicious fish pie ready to go into the oven for lunch. 

Afterwards, I recorded next week's Morning Prayer audio and reflection, then edited and turned it into a video slideshow and uploaded it to YouTube. On this occasion, the whole task, apart from preparing the texts, took two hours. It usually takes longer.

Then I went to the Co-op for the week's grocery shopping, a rather heavy load to carry around in a basket to the checkout, but noticeable because right ankle joint pains were suddenly acute enough to make me limp. My knee joint gets out of alignment and causes this to happen. It seems quite random. Sometimes I can correct the alignment, other times not. The joints aren't especially worn, but the connecting muscles either get too stiff or too lose, it's hard to know which. I think it's related to sitting on an upright chair at a table when working on the computer. 

There seems to be no particular position or posture which prevents my legs from mis-alignment. I need a treatment from Kay, who's a sports injury specialist, not just to sort me out, but to learn from her how tackle this sustainably. There's an element of pressure on a nerve in this. It doesn't add to the ankle pain but affects the whole body, like a mild shock. It's quite exhausting when it happens, but with a little rest I soon recover. 

The only thing I couldn't get on the shopping list was sunflower oil. A side effect of the war in Ukraine cutting supply chains. None in stock. Last week, I bought a bottle at Tesco's. I limped straight home rather than divert to buy some there, and after a cup of tea and sit down, ventured out again. This time my ankle gave me hardly any trouble. It's hard to figure out what had change in the half hour between excursions but a relief nevertheless. Tesco had lots of bottles of sunflower oil, even five litre ones. I think the reason for this abundance is to do with the Tesco business brand having a big chain of supermarkets in Hungary, also a producer of sunflower oil. While I was there I also bought a bag full of cans for the parish food bank offering. It was pretty heavy and I was relieved this didn't affect my walking, as happened earlier.

After supper I went to bed with my Chromebook and watched another 'Inspector Borowski' episode for a couple of hours, looking at the phenomenon of sexist and right wing chat rooms on the dark web, and the kind of pathetic loners these attract.. This series three is very up to date in its observation of contemporary social pathologies and the internet. There's a lot of nastiness out there in the virtual world, and some of it translates into horrifying incidents in real life. It's collateral damage from our excessive dependency on the benefits we think are conveyed on us by our use of digital tools. Any kind of dependency is not good for us as it robs us of creative freedom to shape our lives and decisions without us realising. Just because it conveys the illusion of great convenience and immediacy of communication doesn't mean there's no price to pay. When will we start to say 'enough'? 

Family reunion begins

House cleaning after breakfast to prepare for the arrival of Rachel and Kath. Rachel's flight arrived half an hour ahead of time at Heathrow, and she was able to take a coach earlier than the one she booked, arrived a couple of hours earlier than planned, which is great.

My sister June called about a minor annoying problem on her computer, which I could fix in seconds hands on, but would find impossible to explain to her on the phone. It'll have to wait until my next visit. Maybe next week? Google photos has been giving her grief as well. Her account display was congested with shared albums so she couldn't find her own pictures. Fortunately this was something I could fix, as I'm able to log into her account for trouble shooting purposes. It took me an hour to remove dozens of shared album links, plus even more blank shared albums, a product of accidentally pressing on the wrong button, over the last decade. It'll be a lot easier to find her own photos now, though these too need pruning as there are lots of accidental duplicates. 

A walk around the park for both of us separately before lunch. We almost missed the grocery delivery as it turned up ahead of the scheduled time. The deliveryman spoke poor English and didn't seem to understand that the scheduled time frame written on the bag needed to be adhered to. He rang to ask where we were, as Clare was still outdoors. She was able to redirect him to Mary across the street, but arrived before he'd left, and  made him carry the bags back across the street to our house. She the rang the Coop to complain and train their deliverers to read the label on the bag. Fat chance of anyone doing that nowadays as people are so focussed on their phones.

I took Clare to the hospital for a back injury x-ray before meeting Rachel's coach. I walked to Sophia Gardens coach station to meet her and walk back home with her. Clare's appointment didn't take long so she walked to meet us in Pontcanna Fields. 

Kath drove down from Kenilworth, arriving an hour and a half later. Supper, cooked by Clare feeling better today, was on the table as she came through the door. Afterwards Clare went to bed early, needing to recover from her day's exertions, and I sat at the kitchen table, chatting with my lovely grown up daughters and listening to Latin Jazz they found and wanted to share until it was time for bed. My girls are amazing gifted women, doing marvellous things with their lives, and happy about their lot. I'm so proud of them, as I am of Owain.

Meanwhile, Putin reviews the troops on Red Square on the anniversary of the Russian victory over the Nazis in Germany, and speaks falsehoods about Ukraine being a breakaway derivative of Russia  denying the historical fact that Kyiv was founded before Moscow as the centre of mission to the Rus tribes, and has had its own life and culture for centuries before Russian empire building ambitions evolved. His aim, to judge from the way his army has acted in the weeks since its botched invasion of Ukraine, is to subjugate the country forcibly, as it did before, ninety years ago, after the revolution. It's no wonder that Ukrainians are fighting so hard against neighbours with whom they have so much in common.

Unless we change

The feast of St Paul's Conversion today. As a fan of his teaching and often contentious passionate  evangelism. "Woe is me if I do not proclaim the Gospel" and "By the grace of God I am what I am." are two of my favourite phrases of his. I felt sad not to be able to be at the Eucharist on his fiesta, but I did remember him anyway.

Overnight and all day the temperature has hovered around zero, with sunshine and some cloud, and little wind. Another good day to be outdoors enjoying fresh air and exercise. After breakfast this morning, as happens several times a week, a scam call from someone claiming to represent Microsoft, who knew my name, to inform me of an internet security compromise. It's tiresome, and predictable. Often we pick up and listen without responding, so the scanner thinks the line is open to an answering machine without a message. Fifteen seconds and the call is cut. Today, I was in a good mood and felt like trying out a new scam baiting response.

"Hello Mr Kimber, I'm calling from Microsoft about your account."

"Ah, you work for Microsoft too!" 

A hesitant silence and then again 

"Er - I'm calling about your Microsoft account."

"Yes, but which department department are you, what's your identity code? I'm with cyber fraud."

Click.

I rang my sister June to share the joke with her. 

"When I realise it's a scam call, I say 'This is Balham police station.'" she said. On the ball at 86.

Just after lunch we commonly get robo calls about Amazon Prime accounts. No interaction so we just let the call continue until it times out. I feel sorry for the poor people who deceive themselves into thinking they are working for a legitimate enterprise when they are cold calling using stolen data.

I went to the Co-op for a few grocery items later on. I queued a short while to get in, and several people came out empty handed. I picked up what I needed and when I reached the till was told "Cash payments only the payment network's down nationally." I stopped carrying cash many months ago, and we've been discouraged from using it because of covid contamination. And this happens, showing how vulnerable we are when our super snazzy technology doesn't work. I went back home and got some cash from Clare then returned for my shopping. 

Funny, in the old days a grocer would write a bill, and you'd be trusted to return later and pay, but very few stores will offer that kind of account rendering any more. The admin is too complex and inefficient in our cost conscious modern world. We appreciate our convenient cashless transactions, but have lost a fall-back alternative. Society today doesn't run on personal trust in the way it used to, and we're so much poorer for that. After lunch I went and drew some cash from the bank. Who knows when electronic pay systems will fall over again?

The government enthuses daily about the vaccination rate, while expressing concern about the numbers being infected and warning that lockdown will need to go on longer than promised. Boris' lightweight cheerleader optimism is being gradually supplanted by a healthier realism. Measures are being mooted about far stricter quarantine for people travelling into Britain from countries where new covid variants are spreading like wildfire. Border control, it seems to me has all along been more aspirational than rigorous, like track and trace, not to mention ubiquitous virus testing. 

Interesting, now that the rigour of post brexit trade border control is becoming evident, the greater is the price UK businesses have to pay. The cost of living will rise, as a result of reclaiming freedom from EU 'control' in the name of old fashioned libertarian ideals, the same ideals that presumed all Brits would behave decently, common sense and courtesy and abide by anti covid restrictions. The price paid is seen in the highest excess death rate in the world. 

The more that's understood about the covid virus, and how to master it, the more it seems to me that scientific confidence is being moderated by scientific caution. Victory is far from assured, as a result of the scale of human poverty and the impoverishment of the planet due to pollution, global warming and bio-diversity loss - factors working in favour of the virus adapting and becoming even more persistent. If nature continues to turn against humankind as a species, we're headed towards extinction. Maybe only when the global population is decimated will the impact of humans on the biosphere will be reduced enough to enable the biosphere to recover its stability and health. A terrible thought. Nevertheless, I am still in a good mood, not despairing, because we are such a creative and adaptive species. But it really is a matter of 'change or die' now as it was for the Hebrew poets and prophets two and a half millennia ago. I think St Paul would agree.

Short commemoration

How quickly the past couple days have gone by, punctuated by spells of heavy rain with temperatures dropping to near freezing. It tends to slacken off later in the afternoon, which means going out for a walk as it's getting dark, and sometimes that can be hazardous with so many cyclists using routes through the park. Most use high intensity LED headlamps which dazzle unpleasantly. For the most part they notice walkers, though occasionally there are near-misses and outbursts of mutual cursing.

Yesterday morning, the cleaners came early. I was already up finishing breakfast, and once they left I set out early to do the week's food shopping and cook lunch, as Clare had gone to the gym. While I was standing in the Coop, the in-house network radio channel called for people to stop for a minute's Armistice Day silence. Not everyone caught the message, so some staff and customers carried on banging around. Were all the staff briefed? Some evidently didn't notice, and the radio certainly wasn't very loud. One minute? A discount offer? 

Apart from my daily walk, and a modest amount of TV after supper, I spent several afternoon hours adding to my short story turned into a novel. It's still yielding surprises as a write. Clare wants to read it, so I have sent her a sharing link, and it's not nearly ready to print out a draft for correction.

Today, I spent even longer hours being absorbed with writing. Fortunately, I remembered early enough that it's Jasmine's birthday. She's 13 today, so I Whatsapp-ed her a happy birthday audio greeting, and after lunch had an audio reply!

I walked into town while it wasn't raining this afternoon, to inspect the latest technology offers to see if there's anything new of interest. There wasn't. The rain held off so I walked back as well, and took a few lovely sunset photos of the Taff, glowing pink with reflections off the clouds.

The bus station construction site is showing more signs of activity now, presumably laying drains and preparing to dig foundations. The last vestige of the former Saint David's House building, a solid concrete access ramp at the West end, in front of the Media Wales building is finally being rooted out, in readiness for laying the foundations of whatever is to be built on that site over the next couple of years, to complete the Central Square redevelopment. I don't know why it's taken so long to get started. It's a different company, different lease I suppose, but it may be due to the requirement to let archaeologists examine the site before work begins.

Car quandry

It's been cold, dry and clear skied this past few days, snow elsewhere, although not here. I've been asked to take a funeral in two weeks time. It'll be a burial. Never easy, especially in winter. Clare is slowly recovering from a cold, so I did the big shopping trip of the week, on foot to the Coop store on Cowbridge Road. I'm always amazed at how well planned Clare's shopping lists are. Everything is ordered around the sequence in which they can be found on a walk through the store, very logical, and most helpful. My lists aren't nearly as thorough. I figure out what I need, and take from what I see and recall, then walk around again to find what I missed first time. It's much more haphazard.

While I was away, the car heater died again. It could be a fuse, but may a solenoid burnout, judging from the smell after it stopped working. Well, it is 23 years old, and whilst it is mechanically sound, the cost of replacing the heating unit, parts and labour, is likely to be more than the car is worth. In this cold and damp weather, it's less than safe to be  driving a car whilst having to clear condensation manually. Sad really, after eight years of reliable use, I'm fond of it. It's still a good drive. 

I wonder if we could do without a car altogether, use public transport and hire a car if needs be for occasional use, but this has limitations when you need to ferry other people, transport bulky objects, or make short trips to places not well served by public transport. Getting out to Duffryn House or the coast for a few hours would take up much more time and planning. Neither of us is prepared to use a bike any longer, and that's not such fun in bad weather or on polluted congested city roads. We don't use a car that much either. It's relying on the convenience of having one to use that matters, it fits with lifestyle habits we're not yet ready, or compelled to change.

So, what kind  of car do we look for? Another Golf would be my choice. For Clare it'd be a Polo, as long as its seats are comfortable enough for longer journeys we make. We have to dispose of the car we have as well. It seems that may not be difficult as there's still interest among old car hobbyists in the Mark II Golf, either for restoring, customising, adapting for racing or rallying, because they are reputed for their robustness. To those who are keen of fixing things with money to  burn, replacing a heater is less trouble than it would be for us. I've driven a variety of cars on locum duty, so I know I can adapt to anything, though too small is less than fun, and the simpler and more standardised the dashboard layout the better. We'll have to see what's out there among affordable second hand cars around town.