Microphone bargain

A clear night and a cold bright start to the day, but it clouded over later in the morning and rained for most of the afternoon - definitely autumnal now. After breakfast Clare's study group arrived and I worked on preparing Morning Prayer for next Thursday, and wrote a reflection to go with it. Clare cooked mackerel fillets with veg for lunch. 

When we'd eaten I searched on-line for a local retailer stocking microphones, as Rachel and Owain have both encouraged me to buy a decent condenser mic for making audio recordings. The PMT music store in Lower St Mary Street looked like the most likely place to visit. I braved the rain and took a 62 bus to town and went straight there. I explained I was looking for something for podcast audio and was shown an 'own brand' entry level mic which would connect to a laptop or a phone via USB. It was discounted from £40 to £22.50, an irresistible offer, given that my needs aren't sophisticated.

I returned home and assembled the device for testing. It has a USB-C port and a 3.5 jack plug for listening to audio output if needed. It attaches through the USB-B cable provided or using a double ended USB-C. It works with a Windows laptop, or a Chromebook, or a phone. Although a Plug & Play device, setting it up to use on Windows was more fiddly than the Chromebook, which shows attached devices and lets you swap between them straight from the initial settings menu. No need to dig around. The Chromebook uses the Twisted Wave cloud app for recording and editing. I habitually use Audacity on Windows and Linux, and that was what I used for a trial run to record the reflection I'd written earlier in the day.

The sound quality is a great improvement on my digital dictating device, recording output is in stereo, but in effect it's two identical mono channels. It's sensitive, but the sound file captured directly by Audacity is immediately editable. The recording volume seems low with the mic a foot from my face but amplifies well so background noise can be cleaned up leaving only bumps and pops to be taken out. That's the tricky part. I spent most of the evening editing files I created, and was satisfied the end product was worth both the effort and outlay. I re-recorded and edited the poem I wrote for Rachel and set it to her. Then I realised I'd only walked for an hour so far today. Thankfully it was no longer raining. I went out and walked in the dark in Llandaff Fields for an hour, and didn't see a soul. Very calming after an evening of concentrated  effort. And so to bed.

Unnatural death at Al-Ahli hospital

A day of non stop cloud and rain after rain overnight. From the news I learned it was Al-Ahli Anglican Hospital in Gaza City which was hit by a missile in a devastating blow yesterday, taking hundreds of lives, as the place shelters many refugees as well as patients. I was unhappy no mention was made by the BBC of the historic nature of this Christian institution, founded in 1852, serving all-comers in need. Llandaff Diocese has raised funds for the hospital's mobile eye clinic for many years. I hope there'll be a fundraising appeal from the Bishop to help meet the most urgent needs there. 

It's the second time the place has been hit by a missile in the past few years, according to the hospital's own website. Different Hamas spokespersons said in interviews that 200 or 500 people were killed, and blamed  Israel for the hit. After a delay of several hours, while investigations were carried out, a rebuttal of the claim was made, based on the fact that no mission was being flown over Gaza city at the time, and that video footage showed no impact crater or blast damage, pointing to a explosive ground fire possibly caused by a faulty missile launched within the city itself failing and crashing just after takeoff. 

Whatever is eventually shown to be the cause it's a humanitarian disaster, causing political shock waves internationally, particularly in the Arab world. President Biden cancelled a meeting with Arab leaders in Jordan this morning and flew to Israel instead to find out what happened and urge Netanyahu to stop military action at the Rafah crossing from Egypt, to allow humanitarian aid to be taken into Gaza. While Biden is there, the Israeli army remains on standby. It's another tragedy as painful and difficult to absorb as the mass murder of Israelis in border towns two weeks ago.

It was a matter of walking through pavement puddles, avoiding flooded gutters and getting splashed by passing cars, to reach St Catherine's to celebrate the St Luke's Day Mass with seven others. Then a walk to a busy Chapter Arts for the weekly veggie bag before returning home to cook lunch. Clare was out, leaving a note to say she'd miss the meal, as she was out learning about volunteering at a local charity cafe, and would eat whatever I cooked for supper. I stewed some lentils with onions, and steamed some veggies, and put half of it on a plate for Clare to reheat later.

After lunch, I recorded and then edited next week's Morning Prayer and Audio, having modified the prayers to name Al-Ahli hospital. Then I realised tomorrow's upload is already on YouTube and makes no mention of this, so I recorded the prayers again and edited them into the existing sound file, then re-opened the video slideshow, added the edited soundtrack, and posted the modified version on YouTube. It was possible to do this as I preserve all current work projects just in case a change of this kind is needed. It was a fiddly job to make tomorrow's prayers current, taking me an hour, but hopefully it's worth the effort. At least it helped me to deal with my own shock and distress.

When Clare returned, she went out into the rain again to collect her weekly order from Beanfreaks, then it was my turn to brave the rain and shop for groceries at the Co-op. I couldn't find my new rain trousers but dug out an ancient pair I once used to ski in. I forgot the waistband elastic band no longer effective, and had to remove my trouser belt and use it to hold up both pairs. So annoying! It was gone six by the time I returned to unload the groceries.

In the evening, I got out my ten year old Linux laptop and used it to rip the Daniel Martinez CD into nine separate files, changed the file type and re-ordered the file sequence in Audacity then transferred them to my Windows laptop to edit them with Audacity, to correct the error in the original sound track editing, I mentioned yesterday. Another fiddly, if satisfying job, but not hard to do as I use Audacity regularly, at least once a week. The .ogg files are now on my computer, on Google Drive share with Anto, and on my phone's SD card to take with me everywhere.

Enough mental gymnastics as well as physical exercise for one day. Now to bed.

 

Missed Assumption

The feast of the Assumption today. It's strange to be in a place in Spain where there's no sound of church bells carried on the breeze. Apparently Mercadona closes its stores for the fiesta as it's owned by a Christian family/company. I've yet to find the historic main parish church of this town. I wonder if there was a street procession of Our Lady somewhere in town today. I noticed nothing in the public realm to suggest there would be. Maybe I just looked in the wrong places.

A comfortably cool night, although the wind moaned around the house until the early hours, and started with renewed vigour as the sun rose. In between work spells, finishing this week's Morning Prayer YouTube upload and drafting next week's ready to record, I did a batch of bed linen washing, two lines full, which dried very rapidly. I received a nice long email from Ann and Paul, about their trip to the Orkneys, and in return told them all about life in Beverly Hills - or is it Beverly Hill?

Although it was 30C and clear skies mid afternoon, the blustery wind was thankfully cooling, so I walked to Carrefour and stocked up on fresh fruit, muesli and coconut milk for Clare> I emailed Peter Hammond and arranged to drop in and see Linda and himself in La Cala de Mijas on my way to the airport to collect Clare tomorrow afternoon. It'll be my first journey away from Estepona outside of work since I've been here, having resolved only to use the car for work, as if I was at home, If Clare fancies a trip somewhere, I'm willing to drive, but I've made an effort to renounce solo tourism. It's no pleasure anyway.

This evening, I went through the wedding anniversary and funeral service lined up for next weekend. Both require streamed YouTube music. Putting together a playlist is one thing. Having control over the content when music is punctuated with promotional material is another. Maybe I was more patient with what I was doing than is often the case, but I had a valuable minor success. 

I've used Audacity for at least a decade to edit sound files. In Ibiza, I did it kit which wasn't mine, using Audacity to record music streamed from YouTube, for one off audio services. Since then I've not been able to reproduce the feat, and it's been most frustrating. This time, as I had time to spare, I explored the options Audacity gives for controlling the laptop hardware, and found the right set of options to record a stream. Making an MP3 file from the digital file is simple. Now I have two sets of MP3 files ready to play, tucked away on the SD card of my Blackberry. I'll be able to play these through the new church Bluetooth sound system with ease and not need to risk using YouTube directly - although I'd prefer to have a hardwired cable naturally!

I went for an invigorating sunset walk in the wind along the senda litoral before switch on the telly and wasting an hour watching another improbable episode of 'Blacklist' on 5USA. Perpetually hard to make any sense of, this series.

Gaudete

After yesterday, it was such a relief that today's cloud cover was at higher level than yesterday, so it wasn't as dark all day; the temperature was around ten degrees and there was no rain. At St John's this morning the new icon of St John with our Lady was blessed, a gift from the Russian Orthodox congreagation. I wish I coud have been there, but at the time I was driving to St German's to celebrat Mass with 27 others. For Gaudete Sunday a stylish pale pinky purple chasuble was laid out for me to wear, and the third pink candle was lit at the beginning of the liturgy.

I learned that we wouldn't have an organist for the carol service Sunday next, and using recorded music connected up to the church Bluetooth connected mobile speaker/amp was proposed as an alternative. This device connects to a smartphone, so one can play whatever music you want publicly with it directly. I wasn't terribly keen on the idea, but thought I should accept the challenge. 

It means making a playlist on YouTube and trusting the stability and strength of the phone/wifi signal, or having an archived set of MP3 tracks on my phone (my preferred option). There seems to be a hard-wire option for connecting the phone to the speaker also. This would minimise the risk of something going wrong. When I returned to church after lunch for the third of the Advent Great O services, I checked out the device and found it connected via Bluetooth to my phone quite easily. 

I walked in the dark for an hour or  so when I got back and then got to work finding suitable material on YouTube to record on to my digital dictating machine, then edited the file in Audacity to suit. I just hope the tracks I've chosen can be sung along to by a congregation.

There was one beautiful track of 'Silent Night' arranged by John Rutter and sung by a virtual choir this time last year. This one I think we'll just listen to. Also I came across a version of Hark the Herald by an Irish Showband, in full folk dance mode, with fiddles, flutes guitars, hand drums, singers and dancers, a delightful replacement for an organ voluntary after the service I thought. Getting this job done took up the entire evening, but I was fairly pleased with the result. I tell myself it's going to be all right on the night.

Tech troubleshooting

Last night, before going to bed, I google my problem with the Windows 10 Video Editor, and found a few reports indicating that there was a solution, albeit a convoluted one that involved reconfiguring the app in a convoluted way. I needed information about the location of the app in the operating system and had to dig around a bit inside the Settings page information on the app. Here by chance I discovered there was an automatic repair button - maybe a more recent innovation than the articles I googled. I tested this out and found that the default app setup was restored. What a relief! Simple efficient video editing was one of the reasons behind buying a new laptop. The other was audio editing.

I was an early adopter of the Open Source audio editor 'Audacity' over fifteen years ago and have used it on both Linux and several different Windows platforms. It's an app I know well and use with confidence. My only sticking point with it is when I'm installing it on a new device. Audacity makes use of a special software library of code which enables it to import and export key commonly used sound format files. 

This library, called FFMPEG isn't Open Source Software, but Audacity is allowed to use it. You just have to download and install it. The authentic download site is information rich not ignorant user friendly. In fact, I didn't think it's changed much in a decade. I've rarely been successful in obtaining it and getting it to work first time. Invariably it seems I forget how I did it last time, which, if my memory serves me right was in my early days in Ibiza, as I was getting myself into gear for recording audio versions of services. 

As I have Audacity working properly on my desktop machine, I thought I'd take a look at its Programs file containing Audacity. That's where I saw a unique FFMPEG folder, as part of the setup. I copied and pasted this into exactly the place on laptop's filesystem, linked the library to Audacity, and it worked perfectly. It's not nearly so difficult to install Audacity plus FFMPEG on Linux.

I woke up early and posted Morning Prayer to the parish WhatsApp group. After breakfast, I went to St John's for the Eucharist, then after a brief visit to Tesco's, returned and cooked lunch. I intended to sleep after lunch but my mind was mulling on next week's Morning Prayer video. The more time I give to it in advance, the less pressure I feel I'm under to deliver to a deadline. Looking at the reading set for the office, ideas began to flow/ I lay on the bed with my Chromebook, and drafted a reflection based on it. 

I did my daily walk around the park before supper. I ate alone, as Clare went out to the Steiner School to watch final year students perform a Goldoni farce, their end of year school play, and returned much impressed with their comedic skills, including live improvisation on stage. Impressive for seventeen year olds! After supper I made a bereavement call to arrange next Tuesday's funeral, and with nothing better to do, having done enough work for the day, I watched three episodes of  'Just one look' a French thriller on Walter Presents. More plausible that what I binge watched yesterday and the day before.  

Quarantine Cymru - day Three

It rained for most of the day, confining me again to pacing around the house for exercise until mid afternoon when I stopped and dried out so that I could walk in the fresh air. Such a relief!

Clare brings me meals upstairs. I'm still trying to find the most comfortable and convenient spot in which to eat. That may sound daft, but sometimes, wound discomfort obliges me to eat standing up, and having a chair and table at the right height for sitting and eating isn't easy in the confined space of an attic bedroom.

I thought I should make contact with our GPs and find out what it takes to get examined and tested to make sure the infection has gone, and to see what can be done about blood pressure fluctuations and slow heartbeat. I don't feel unwell, but better safe than sorry. I rang the surgery and was asked to send a a photo of the wound, and a request for a phone call from a GP. 

Dr Dyban rang me at tea time, and the outcome of the conversation is that I'll do swab test at home Monday morning. I will also receive a visit from one of their team who will do an ECG at home and check my vital signs. I'm not sure how that will work, but it's impressive that despite covid-19 they are working away at resuming their usual high standard of care.

I completed work on next Sunday's service, with the exception of adding music. Having installed Audacity on my Windows PC yesterday, I was disappointed to discover I couldn't directly record YouTube audio clips with it, the audio input device wasn't activated by default, as there's no built in microphone. Digging down into the software layer to change that is something I haven't needed to do for years and calls for research. I vaguely recalled that I could do this with the Chromebook, but was unable to remember how. Rather than waste time, I emailed service files without music this week.

Quarantine Cymru - day Two

Rain all day today, so I've been confined to the house, unable to walk out into the garden. At least it has enabled me to concentrate on recording and editing the service for next Sunday. When it came to sound editing, I went through the usual routine, established in Ibiza, of converting files to MP3 format on my Linux laptop before editing the files using Audacity on my Windows PC. Curiosity made me install Audacity on the Linux laptop and try it out. 

I was surprised to discover that despite the laptop's age, Audacity ran smoothly and quickly. Also it worked, loading several different audio file formats with none of the error messages associated with a more complex Windows Audacity installation. I finished the sound edit in record time, pleased with this small discovery. The ancient laptop I converted to Linux in Ibiza may not have been quite powerful enough to achieve smooth editing, as a 32 bit machine, but it never occurred to me to try, and the routine I established switching from machine to machine was rather a time waster. Just as well I had time on my hands then!

Thinking about what else I can do to occupy my time in confinement, there are lots of old travel journals that need transcribing, and thousands of photo negatives to scan, telling stories from past decades which it'll be a pleasure to recall in detail. Small anecdotes and pictures awaken dormant memories and emotions in a marvellous way. Digitising our past may be of little interest to anyone but me, but the effort I find is an enriching and enjoyable way to wander down memory lane.

It was good to be welcomed home with a phone call from Ashley this evening. He's still clearing the CBS office slowly, and says that Motorpoint arena is deserted, apart from security staff at the gate. When will it be able to re-open? Will it ever be able to re-open given the financial damage caused to its entire operation by the pandemic?

Some time ago there was talk of the site being redeveloped with a new arena and conference centre being built elsewhere. It's hard to imagine what will happen in terms of future investment ambitions in central Cardiff, especially with the ten and a half year old St David shopping centre struggling to survive without becoming insolvent. 

Well, in fits and starts through the day, I walked my temporary 5k daily target again, this time indoors, including climbing the thirty odd stairs to the attic many times. I need to count the number of climbs I do. It's different exercise from walking on the flat, and maybe makes up for not walking so far in expended energy. I'm determined not to lose the fitness level I've gained as I feel so much better for it.
    

State of Alarm - Day Seventeen

A slightly warmer day today, clouds and wind, but no rain. I finally got around to giving my fleece a much needed wash, plus towels and a nightshirt and they all dried beautifully. Two swifts flew past this afternoon, so maybe more have arrived and will start feeding nearby soon. The sun has brought out into the open many more lizards in the two places were there are stone or concrete surfaces for them to warm up in the sun. I've seen lots of fast moving little brown lizards, small than the large green backed lizards, more than a hand-span in length, are the smaller ones juveniles, a different gender from the larger ones, or a different species? I have no way of knowing at the moment.

On the side of the fourth step down from the terrace last night, I noticed a tiny snail stuck to the wall, the size of my little fingernail. By this morning it had relocated itself to the pillar on the corner of the terrace, a metre above surface level. An impressive feat of climbing for such a tiny creature in twelve hours. I wonder where it's heading and what it expects to find there?

All the time I had to spare after domestic tasks and exercise today was devoted to making an audio file of Sunday's Ministry of the Word. Sarah and Clare contributed readings, but I felt strange about having to record the St Matthew Passion reading on my own, when every year just about, since I was ordained, I have read this in conjunction with between three to six other speakers, plus a church congregation acting as Jesus' lynch-mob. It sounds very amateurish, the best I could do under the circumstances. It's for a unique occasion, and won't be required another time. Hopefully it will do the job, just this once in history.

Strange, but I haven't come across any April Fool stunts on the radio today, although Clare did send me a short video of so called King's College Cambridge male choristers singing in place of the boys by using helium to raise the pitch of their voices. But then at the moment there are lots of parody videos in circulation and some hijacking popular melodies to sing lyrics about covid-19 and coping with a pandemic. Amazing what people do with time on their hands, to entertain themselves and others. Just like me really, I suppose.

   

State of Alarm - Day fifteen

In addition to domestic tasks and exercising today, I had to focus on writing and recording the bible study commentary for tomorrow. Clare did me proud by recording the scripture passages from Acts chapter eight on her phone and emailing them to me for editing in to the sound file. Her sound files were better quality than mine. Annoyingly, they were in a proprietary .3GP file format which were playable, but wouldn't load into Audacity for editing. 

Windows 10 was, as it is so often, unhelpful in resolving this. As it also was in refusing to connect to my four year old standard Samsung phone. It works a treat with any Linux device and with my ancient Chromebook, which offered a cloud based file conversion facility swiftly and effectively. It just meant transferring converted files by flash drive from Chromebook to Windows 10 which hosts the vital copy of Audacity I edit with. It was just before midnight by the time I emailed a audio file of twenty-one minutes length to Dave, and it was just inside the website's 25mb file upload limit.

Plenty of job satisfaction in hitting my deadline, with all the other daily tasks also completed. I think I shall sleep well tonight. Small signs of the infection rate slowing down in Spain, though the death rate remains high. The UK is gearing up now, preparing massive field hospitals for the flood tide of gravely sick patients which will arrive in the next two weeks. The rate of mass testing which has helped other countries grapple with covd-19 is still far too slow in being rolled out on a large scale. I don't understand why the UK government has been so slow to learn from others. Thinking we are an exception and can always afford to do things our own way could cost Britain dearly. It's yet more brexitis, sad to say.

State of Alarm - Day Twelve

After breakfast, a phone call from Solveig, to say my clean 'Certificado de Penales Antecendetes' had arrived in her mailbox - under a fortnight since we visited Ibiza Puerto to arrange it. This is such a relief! Later, a photo of the document arrived, to be going on with, which meant that I could email it to Laura the Safeguarding officer dealing with it, and Emma who looks after us Locums - I understand that London HQ staff are home working now. As Bishop David and Archdeacon David are both aware of this little saga, I copied the email to them as well. Within the day I had responses from them. One small issue less to be fretting over in this time of major crisis for the diocese.

Rosi called by with some domestic rubber gloves for me. She was on her way back from taking a sick and injured hedgehog to the 'Hedgehog Hospital' not far from here. I've walked past the house a few times it seems. These creatures are an endangered species on the island, many have been lost in recent years, run over by the increasing number of cars frequenting the narrow country roads. Rosi is a keen island wildlife conservationist, also busy and active in animal welfare.

She stood outside the gate wearing a mask just in case, and we chatted for a while. It seemed so bizarre. As she left, drops of rain fell. In minutes the ground was covered with a layer of hailstones! It's that time of year. Still lots of cold air around.

After daily exercise, I recorded the pieces of my sermon and stitched them together with the audio files Sarah recorded using Audacity on the office PC. The entire Ministry of the Word was half an hour's length, ten minutes longer than usual, but the MP3 file size was just under the website limit. The Ministry of the Sacrament was under twenty minutes, and needed additional edits to include the Passiontide variable parts. All was read ready to send off tomorrow before sunset this week.

While I was working, the PC started to give off a loud noise, not through speakers but from the cooling fan, which came on for no reason I can think of. Audacity is rarely processor intensive, and only when there's some demanding activity like gaming does one ever hear the fan. It this a Windows system update glitch I wonder? Or some hidden process running otherwise undetected? Next time it happens I need to inspect what processes are actually running at the time.

I've been listening to Cuban music today for a change, during my walk. It's very danceable, so some of my steps were a little salsa-ish. Glad to have such a variety of music on the SD card in my phone. Another busy day, nodding off already by bed time, but such a cold damp night. The dehumidifier is
as essential as a heater in this climate, all year round, it seems.

Another wedding blessing, and a new novel

Yesterday we took Rhiannon to the Chateau de Chillon. I was glad for another photo opportunity with a better camera. Back in January I took a camera but forgot to reload the memory card, so I had to use my Blackberry Q10, whose photos aren't nearly as good. It's such an interesting place. Clare and I were interested to observe how Rhiannon naturally gravitated to the interactive video screens telling aspects of the castle's story, rather than the wall and panel displays. A child of her era I suppose. We ate a late snack lunch on the terrace outside afterwards, and were amazed to see scores of tame sparrows chasing crumbs, and even occasionally trying boldly to snatch food from a person's hand. I enjoyed the walk, but it left me feeling uncomfortable and tired, so for the rest of the day, and most of today, I've been confined to the house, and managing my still draining wound.

I had to conserve energy to ensure I could carry out today's wedding blessing. It took me quite a while to make the final preparations, as I'd not really felt well enough to knuckle down and do the necessaries earlier in the week. In fact, I had to concentrate on making sure all the pieces of music I had downloaded and edited for the service would work. This proved to be a nightmare, because the wretched Google music app, and any app interface layered on top of it, refused to work with home made MP3s created using Audacity on a Windows machine. In contrast to last Saturday's wedding blessing, there were just fifteen people with the bride and groom. This made it relaxed and informal, so it was easy for me to officiant and be a digital deejay.

I don't know why an MP3 file should play on several devices and but not on every equivalent device, but I hate Google for this inconsistency. Their original 'don't be evil' policy no longer operates. Thankfully, I was able to get every type of file to play on my tablet, perhaps because its operating system is less up to date. It's hard to play music offline, now that's become the default for so many devices, and I couldn't risk staying online and streaming in an environment with a flaky connection. I succeeded, however and was able to relay music from the table to an old hifi system which sits in the church, redundant. Nobody thinks it works, but I succeeded in using it!

I knew I wouldn't feel like doing much except rest after the wedding, so Clare and Rhiannon went to Vevey on the paddle steamer without me. It was cool and overcast, but thankfully, it didn't rain, so they were able to enjoy the street market and visit the Nestle food museum, before returning with a generous supply of chocolate to take home.

Once I'd completed my sermon for tomorrow, I started to read Paula Hawkins' novel 'Girl on the Train'. It's very dense with intimate detail, drawing you right into the claustrophobic routine of suburban domestic life, too dense for my taste - although the detailed and intimate first person portrayal of an unemployed female alcoholic's domestic life offers an excellent study for anyone interested in addictive behaviour. All in all, it's an impressive portrayal of people whose lives are ruled by the lies they tell about themselves and to themselves.
   

Finishing off, ready to go

We walked through the slush to St Catherine's for the Sunday 10.30 Sung Eucharist, for which I was due to celebrate and preach. The roof has sprung a couple of leaks due to valley gutters overloaded with melting snow. Surprisingly, given recent weather there were over forty adults and a dozen children. The choir of eight sang a couple of anthems, rehearsed at the last minute, refusing to let bad weather be an excuse for not making the effort. The change of pace this last few days with people either getting extra rest or additional activity out walking or sledging, seems to have contributed to a good mood all round. 

I had a late night call from Gail last night asking for help in supplying an extract of recorded music which Mike in a diary entry last year said he'd love to have at has funeral, as it was so serene and beautiful. William Croft was a seventeenth century English church music composer, who turned the scripture settings of the Book of Common Prayer Burial Office into a collection of choir anthems. One of them, I remember us singing at Holy Trinity Geneva twenty years ago: 'Remember O Lord not our offences', but the opening processional sentences which Mike loved, I didn't know, but well understand why he thought so highly of them.

Finding a suitable recording to use wasn't a problem, but acquiring it to burn to a single use CD was more of an issue. It's years since I last did something like this, using the free Open Source 'Audacity' sound editing software. I simply couldn't recall how to go about this, and needed to Google for vital instructions. It may be years before I need to do this again, and be then will probably have forgotten how to do it, or suitable software will have changed beyond recognition.

Today it rained, clearing much of the remaining snow from the pavement and roads. We even had a short sunny spell. The shops are struggling to re-stock, as the supply chain routine is still being disrupted by weather in other places. Any company that has over- centralised its warehousing on the grounds of cost saving efficiency must be questioning the ultimate wisdom of this, for if central hub or road network grind to a halt nothing can be distributed, and meanwhile, shops that manage to stay open are emptied of food. Bigger is not always better. Heaven help the country in any period of real prolonged crisis, with road and rail networks paralysed.

Owain came over to see us for a couple of hours this afternoon. As he walks to work, he was able to go into the office and carry on as usual. He always takes Mondays off and does his week's worth of work in four days. He's just been given another contract extension, and while he's relieved about this it doesn't prevent him continuing the hunt for a permanent job. He's been with DVSA long enough to be entitled to be considered for a permanent post, and while they'd find it hard to manage without him there no certainty that he'll be considered for one, let alone offered a job, as he's a specialist 'contractor' to the department he works in. 

The agency has a budgeted employment spend to meet set targets. Established employee numbers aren't enough to cover the workload, but there's a discretionary budget for hiring 'temporary' workers to cover the excess plus special projects, some of which are long term undertakings. All this policy achieves is to rob some workers of the security of a permanent civil service post, no matter how good they are. Public spending cuts lead to budget revision, regardless of workload - making bricks out of straw, I call it. This, in its turn, makes for added insecurity among the workers. Governmental sleight of hand I call it. Owain is philosophical about the situation. It's been like this since he graduated. Our children deserve as good if not better than their parents. How were we so short sighted to allow this to happen?

The evening was devoted to packing for my trip, but first, I had to finish the last two episodes of 'Before we die', another excellent ten part Scandi-crime drama series in the Channel 4 'Walter Presents' show-case. The way it ended seemed fairly conclusive, although there was just enough unfinished business to hint at a possible second series, if a budget can be found, I guess. 

It met mixed reviews portraying the complex relationships between a mother working in the crime squad and her initially wayward son, who is actually risking his life as an informant employed by a Balkan criminal family with a tragic history and ambitions to run Sweden's illicit drug trade. It's rather low key, understated, though there are occasional excitements. Most importantly, it maintains a level of dramatic tension throughout, due to the danger the son exposes himself to willingly to earn his mother's respect, without her knowing about it until half way through the story. 

I was motivated to complete watching the story before my departure, as wretched digital rights management restrictions make it impossible to view this channel for free abroad. Even so, both bags were packed and I was in bed early for once. Is this a record for me?

   

Sub zero days

It was around freezing point when we walked energetically to St Catherine's Sunday morning, where I celebrated the eight o'clock Eucharist. We returned home, and didn't go out for the rest of the day, although the weather was bright. With such a chilling wind neither of us felt like venturing far. Even though the days are lengthening noticeably, even though we have plenty of warm outdoor clothes, we seem to lack the motivation to go far. Except in imagination that is. My mind drifts south toward Málaga, where it's eighteen degrees by day at the moment.

Monday morning, I had to take the car in early for its pre-MOT diagnostic at our Golf specialist garage N G Motors in Splott. If it needs lots of costly work doing, we really will have to make the effort to buy a new one in the coming week before I leave for locum duty in Málaga. I caught the 61 bus back from Adamsdown as I couldn't establish where the nearest stop was over in Splott, so I had to walk about a kilometre to where I knew I would find one. There were three women waiting at the stop, and I let them board the bus before me. The last one, a lady about my age turned to me as she got on and said: "Thank you there aren't many gentlemen around these days. No please and thank you either" lamenting the lack of common courtesy that seems to pervade some aspects of life today.

Tuesday morning, I had a phone call from Mike's widow Gail, in response to a letter I'd posted to her yesterday with my written personal tribute to my oldest friend. She said she'd like it to be read at his Memorial Service, as she felt that I'd well captured the person she knew and loved, and expressed it beautifully. Indeed, as part of my mourning him, I put time into crafting and editing the text, so it would be beautiful. As a poet and writer, he so loved words. It was our shared delight. I wanted to do him proud. 

I suggested making a recording of my text for use in church. Gail liked this proposal, so I did just that, using the Windows 10 voice recorder app, and the Audacity sound editor to render the output into an MP3 file. I tested in on PC and Smartphone, and played it through my office HiFi, to check sound quality. I was pleased with the result, and emailed it to her straight away. Happily she thought the result was fit to use, and asked if I'd be willing to contact the Vicar, Fr Andrew Todd to arrange it with him, once she'd obtained his email address.

Later in the day, the garage called to say the car didn't need as much attention as I'd feared, given that it's 23 years old. With one minor welding repair, it passed its MOT and is fit to be re-insured and taxed again for another six months. This gives us longer to consider a replacement, and find a keen DIY enthusiast who might be glad of it for a restoration or race 'modding' project. After receiving the call, I had call from Fr Rufus to bring me up to date with his parish news. We chatted for so long that I no longer had enough time to go by bus and retrieve the car before the garage closed, so it had to wait until this morning.

I had to be out of the house and on a 61 bus by eight thirty to make the 45 minute trip to Splott, amid flurries of snow at minus four degrees. Still, the bus was warm, and this was far more relaxing than having to drive through rush hour traffic. The return trip in the car took twenty minutes, and Fr Mark arrived for a chat, and to hand over church keys, just after I got back. I was good to talk face to face, before I went to St Catherine's to celebrate the Eucharist on his behalf. It frees him for other duties in a crowded schedule, working without a colleague. I feel somewhat ashamed of my divided loyalties, going away to do similar duties abroad, leaving him here overburdened. There's need whichever way you look.

While I was out collecting the car, Gail called with her Vicar's contact details. This meant I could email the MP3 voice file to him. A little later, I had a reply, asking if I could provide it on a CD. He explained that there were few people around he was confident would be able to manage an MP3 player with the church public address system during the service. Having a CD guaranteed to play of typical church legacy equipment would be for him the line of least resistance. This is something I understand only too well, from bitter experience. 

Thankfully, I still have a small supply of blank writable audio CDs so was able to set about the task promptly, and post it to him later in the day. My only problem was working out how to burn an audio CD in Windows 10. This aspect of the system interface has changed considerably since the last time I needed to use Windows for CD burning. In fact, I have relied on a Linux driven computer to burn CDs for ages, as its old fashioned app interfaces are simpler, more straightforward, although just as feature rich. It's fit for purpose if you understand how it works and can control it without needing to spend too much time learning new features and layout. That's half the trouble with a lot of Windows products.

It's minus four tonight. Probably too cold to snow, even though it's overcast. Many parts of the UK have been disrupted by snowfalls. All day rolling news coverage about the weather makes this sound like the major crisis it isn't. Snow has always temporarily brought normal life to a halt in Britain and we moan and worry rather than do something about it. We don't manage adverse weather conditions to make daily life weather resilient as they do in the Alpine. It's a huge anxiety generator, along with brexit, if you listen to the news reportage. No wonder so many people resort to medication to cope with the impact on their emotions.

      

Preparing a farewell

After spending a good while speaking to someone on a British Telecom help-line yesterday, Ashley was able to re-start his phone restore from back-up routine. However, the phone signalled that all it wanted to do was complete a system update, and it's not clear this was ever properly completed. Each time the phone was re-started, it stalled in the initial procedure, whether due to a software or a mechanical failure was impossible to say, but it wasn't fit for purpose, so an exchange had to be arranged, with next day delivery. Of so stylish and sophisticated but not nearly as robust as needs be.

Mass at St German's with a school class again this morning, followed by some time with people in the old people's day centre in the hall afterwards. I distributed Mothering Sunday greetings cards. One old lady refused to accept a card, and declared resolutely "No thanks, I'm an atheist." There was no chance to ask why, as this was taking place during a lively Golden Oldies karaoke session. It was quite unexpected and made me wonder. A conversation I'd have enjoyed.

I went home for lunch and spent time editing the eulogy notes given to me by Martin and Byron to put into shape for delivery at the funeral of Jane their mother tomorrow. Then I had a call asking if I could help with making a CD of orchestral music for one off use during the entry and exit of the funeral cortege from the church. It's ages since I last did this, but I was pleased to discover how easy it now is to feed a digital music stream into the Open Source Audacity sound editing software. Easier than I remembered. When I came to make a CD however, I discovered that I was out of blank media, so had to walk to Tescos and buy a small pack to get the job done. Then to finish the day 'Spooks' on catch-up TV and New Tricks live.

   

Office and other achievements

I woke up early, preoccupied with thoughts of batch invoice generation for the annual round of CBS RadioNet subscription renewals, due to go out this week. With no distractions and a clear sharp mind, I tackled the much unloved job methodically and by breakfast time I had the datasets and merge templates working, ready for action, and uploaded to the CBS office OneDrive account. A cheering achievement to start the day.

Then, I took the remains of the old desk for re-cycling. It was quite a job getting all the bulky pieces in the car. The large heavy desktop will have to go on a separate journey. I returned to Staples to acquire an extra storage unit to occupy an empty space in the corner behind the new desk, and some tidy trays for desk draws in which to keep all the small fiddly things that accumulate in drawers that you can't think what to do with. 

After a couple hours, two folding crates and a large ice cream carton of little bits all from the old desk, were assigned a new home. Bookshelves were rearranged, archive material rarely if ever consulted was stored out of sight, and accessible shelf space made for all the things I regularly use. The desk surface area is now too small to be a dumping ground, and can only be used for its proper purpose, to support the use of a computer workstation.

Now there's enough real room for a second chair and my office desk chair, and hardly any clutter on the floor. Quite an achievement. I can even open the window fully for the first time. It's crazy what you put up with when you are too busy to stop and think about your working conditions. I guess that spending much of this year away in clergy houses that aren't oversized, yet have good sized well equipped office workspaces, has made me less tolerant of the cramped environment I've put up with since retirement.

With everything looking neat and tidy, it was time to re-install Linux Mint. A flawless operation in its own right, with additional software installations (Chrome and Audacity) following achieved with ease. Once more, no recourse to the Home partition back-up was necessary, though when I'd finished I realise that backing up hadn't included the newly digitized sound files of the Sinatra dream concert. Nevertheless, these played back perfectly because the upgrade had gone immaculately according to plan. Bravo Linux Mint for being so beautifully consistent.

With domestic jobs done, I was able to spend a couple of hours in the office putting finishing touches to the invoicing process with a discussion on the inevitable anomalies with Ashley and Julie. Then home in time a cook a paella for supper, and relax. Wonderful to feel good enough and have the energy to get so much done, and so satisfying.