A cloudy start to the day with chill wind. I woke up in time to upload today's prayer video, but it took half an hour to clear my phone of redundant data to permit WhatsApp to upload it without error. It's such a rigmarole. My 2016 Samsung phone doesn't have enough memory for current usage.The Blackberry work phone contract and number will expire soon. When it does, I'll swap the SIM over and reconfigure the Blackberry anew, a task that will bring hassles of its own, no doubt.
Official statistics published today have shown a marked decline in the death rate nationally. This is due not only to a significantly drop in covid related deaths, thanks to vaccinations, but also a reduction due to lock-down generally. Less road traffic resulting in fewer road accident deaths. Hygiene precaution against covid are equally effective against 'flu, so deaths from winter 'flu have been drastically reduced, suggesting that these benefits, not only for individuals but the health care system and workforce may commend themselves for re-use annually in future.
On my pre-lunch walk around Thompson's Park with my Sony DSLR, the battery declared itself drained after just a few shots, and I finally ran out of storage space on its SD card fortunately I carry spares for both, battery in camera bag and SD card in my wallet, ever since running out of space on a photo visit to the Chateau de Chillon back in 2017, fifteen years after starting digital photography. The size of photo files has increased a hundredfold in that time and SD cards a thousandfold, so for the most part storage space is not a problem, but running out can happen very quickly if you have a day when you take thirty to a hundred, as opposed to a day when you only take three to ten.
Professionals carry lots of spares, as their life depends upon it, even if they upload direct to the web on the move. Much of what anyone takes may be nothing really special, but the fear of losing the one that's really worthwhile stalks amateur and professional photographers alike. When SD card prices dropped, it became affordable to use them archive originals, just as we did in the days of photo negatives, whether or not you kept copies on a hard drive or on the web. Keeping copies in several places makes it easier to find them in a hurry when off-line. It's a curious form of digital hoarding. I wonder why I do it?
Another funeral has come my way, a second one for next week. It seems the family wanted a Welsh speaking minister, but couldn't find one, so I was asked if I could manage to do something bilingually. It's not something I've been asked to do before, although I have celebrated the Eucharist in Welsh a few times, and once preached a prepared homily in Welsh. After practice I can read prayers intelligibly, which is what matters. I've done bi-lingual funerals with French and Spanish as the second language, and I have copies of all the Church in Wales liturgical material, tradition and modern, English and Welsh, so I should be able to to justice to the occasion.
All of the evening I spent on tomorrow's video reflection. Rather than talk to camera, I recorded a sound track first and then put selected photos to it, and it took much longer than I expected, but the end result was satisfactory. With this format the file size is a fraction of that of a proper video, so uploading won't be a cause of distress first thing in the morning!
