Another cloudy day, comfortably warm. I woke up just before my phone notification sounded to remind me to post today's Morning Prayer YouTube link to the Parish Whats app group, and got up after the eight o'clock news.
As usual I went to the Eucharist at St Catherine's. We were eleven plus baby Sebastian who was brought by his grandpa for the first time today. It's his first birthday tomorrow, which means he's been in church on Wednesdays almost every week that the family has been in Cardiff for the past eleven months, much to the pleasure of all the regular oldies who make up the congregation. I collected this week's veggie bag from Chapter on my way home, and cooked a pasta dish with the flavoursome black beans which I tried for the first time last week.
I walked to Cowbridge Road East and took a bus to town, aiming to go to John Lewis' and check out a phone I'm thinking of buying - another Moto G. Its abiding appeal, like the one I have currently, is a version of Android which isn't laden with software unwanted to get rid of as soon as I set it up. There's a G24 on offer in the summer sale which is an improvement on mine, which I may offer. It has an added extra in the form of an eSIM, a digital software device which hosts software that emulates a physical SIM. With this I'd be able to buy a second phone number giving me as much data and phone time as I need plus free data roaming in Europe.
Last year in Nerja I bought a physical SIM and two months worth of data for €20, covering eight of the ten weeks of my stay, a quarter of the cost of paying for EE data roaming. It was Kath's idea. When she and Anto were in Australia they bought an eSIM which covered the weeks of their stay and a lot more too. It's possible to de-activate an eSIM and retain what's left of our data allowance to use on another foreign trip. I'll buy a new phone before our Duoro cruise and add an eSIM there, where the mobile coverage along the Duoro will probably cover the borderlands of Portugal and Spain. Having checked the information, price and availability of the Moto G24, I made my way back to the Holiday Inn bus stop to return home. There are several phone shops in Grand Arcade, each with their own range of phone brands and contract to offer. I was bemused to notice that the EE/BT shop displayed no phones around its walls at all. Customers have to sit down with a store assistant to discuss their needs or wants, and then maybe look at selected ones on screen. The chosen phone is then retrieved when a deal is done from a stock room behind the scenes. It's possible for a customer to order on line and collect their purchase ad lib. An interesting variation in retail practice as it has evolved and grown since Covid.
Clare was walking up the row of shops on Penhill Road as I arrived there from the bus so we walked home together. She surprised, producing at short notice, carrot and coriander soup for supper with the surfeit of carrots available today. After we'd eaten, I went out for some fresh air, following a short spell of drizzle that made the evening smell as clean as at first light. For the rest of the evening I worked my way through my birdsong recordings, editing them, amplifying the sound and cleaning tracks of background noise. This robs them of any natural environment sounds but delivers the essential melody. Very useful if you want to memorise it and identify the bird in question. Fiddly, but worthwhile.
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