Going monochrome

Another successful video upload this morning, but only after a failure occasioned by another wretched 'memory full' notification from my phone. I had to uninstall a couple of apps to and delete a few files for the thing to upload without snagging, and so it was twenty minutes later than planned before the job was done, and I could breathe a sigh of relief.

I was out and about not long after breakfast walking beside the river Taff, Olympus camera in hand, filter set to produce monochrome images. In fact, colour and monochrome copies are made at the same time, which could be useful, although it doubles the space taken up on the memory card. My route took me past the Castle and back across Cooper's field to the Millennium Bridge. Castle Street is open again to traffic, apparently restricted to buses, taxis, hire cars and presumably delivery vehicles.. It'll lower pollution levels, even if the car traffic congestion shifts to populated streets just outside the city centre. How long before a congestion charge is imposed, I wonder?

It was quite sunny to start with, then clouded over, so I had an opportunity to take high contrast images and rather grey atmospheric wintry ones. Exploring both sets of images at post-processing and editing stage was an interesting learning experience. Not all colour photos work the same rendered in monochrome, some look better and some are worse, even after you've tinkered with them in an editing suite.

I went to Tescos after lunch to buy a large bottle of brandy for Clare to use in making up another batch of a Swedish Bitters herbal remedy. When I returned she told me she'd asked me to get two as she's making double the amount of the decoction this time. Somehow it hadn't registered. Was this incredulity on my part?

In the evening we watched the first two episodes of a French crime drama 'The Announcer' on the Channel 4 Water Presents stream, set in a  1960s Parisian TV company. As one reviewer said "It's like a blend of 'Mad Men' with Agatha Christie", as the heroine at great risk to career and life sets out to unmask the cover-up of a teenager's murder. She's also mother to a couple of rebellious teenagers, in an era when teens first really began to explore how to be stroppy. Following this, I dipped into a Channel 4 live stream of a new series called 'Nordic Murders', a little confusing, as it was in German with English subtitles.

Another Bristol trip and Journal's end

I woke up bright and early this morning and breakfasted with Clare before she went for her walk. The early start got me outdoors before lunch too, and as I was walking along Wyndham Crescent was delighted to see a dozen swifts spectacularly swirling over the street at high speed as they fed. The last time I saw swifts flying through a built up location was seven years ago in Nerja which overlooks the sea.

It suggests a cloud of insects had been blown by the wind half a mile across from the river Taff and the parks where they breed. I also wondered if it was a sign that they flying ant invasion which was mentioned in recent news has reached here. It was reported that an unusually large cloud of insects had been observed heading across the Channel into south east England, so large its was spotted on satellite radar. Probably not though. Our winds and weather tend to come from the west.

Finally, after my walk, I completed the task of translating our 1967 Greek travel diary. It's been an enjoyable labour of love, working in bursts this past month, and fascinating to glimpse our younger selves exploring a different culture as a young married couple in our early twenties. My writing, as well as being untidy is a collection of very scrappy notes, with lots of references to the times when things happened, incomplete descriptions and references to people we met, and not enough about places we visited. More like a laboratory notebook than a travel journal. Still,  It's good to revisit my younger self in this way and realise how much the form and content of my writing has changed. Quite a contrast to Clare's well ordered handwritten contributions, recognisably the same through the fifty three years that have elapsed since then.

We returned to Cardiff after our month in Greece and I started training at St Mike's. That was when I really had to develop the skill of expressing myself in writing. This was the first of many journals I wrote over the next forty years, before I signed up to Blogger in 2006 and went digital.

We drove to Bristol again this afternoon for back to back osteo appointments. While I was already much improved since our last visit, the in-depth work Ruth did on my right 'glut' muscle system made a noticeable difference. Clare said the same after her appointment.

While I was waiting for Clare, I had an email from Sarah Jones, priest in charge of St John's City Parish Church telling my that Paul Williams, the City Centre Manager died on Sunday, and giving me the contact details of Steve Barrett, Paul's retired former deputy as he wanted to get in touch with me. We chatted for half an hour, remembering the man and agreeing that when restrictions ease there should be an opportunity for old friends and colleagues to meet and celebrate his life, though how and when is going to remain undetermined for now. Paul was sixty four, and had been living and still working with cancer for the past few years. He was a very private man who never burdened others with his any of his concerns, so his death will come as a shock to many, as he would have been working from home up until fairly recently.

As we were leaving Bristol I filled the car with fuel, the first time since the end of February, thirty three litres over five months, perhaps the lowest fuel consumption of any period since we started driving back in 1970. Multiply that by several million cars, and it's no wonder there's been a slump in oil consumption and fuel prices during the pandemic. It may be a cause of consternation for the global economy, but it's been good for the environment.

We've talked of getting rid of the car, and just using public transport as we'd prefer to, but using public transport is now far riskier as a result of the pandemic, and we can't afford to exchange the Polo for a hybrid or electric car. We're stuck now with choices made two years ago. Driving along the M49, along the periphery of Avonmouth and Severnside's industrial zone, I think I spotted ten big wind turbines among the factories and warehouses. That's double the number I counted a couple of years ago. The region around Bristol is a front runner on the greening of industry. Would that Wales' Severn Barrage project had not been vetoed by the English government. South East Wales, across the Severn Estuary is still playing catch-up
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The New Normal in Cardiff city centre

Another overcast cold and rainy day. I slept well in my usual bed, but am physically tired after my walk and stairs exercise movng down from the attic yesterday.

After breakfast, I completed work on the slide show for my sister Pauline's funeral with several list minute additions, which now make it feel more complete. It's now just too big to email, so I had to upload it to Google Drive and send a file sharing link to the funeral directors, and likewise later on for the eulogy. It seems likely they're not very keen on using a file streamed from YouTube on the crem's digital system, just in case it picks up a virus of a different kind altogether, I guess.

This afternoon, I walked into the city centre and back. Having read about the road closures in front of the Castle, I thought I'd go and take a look and some photos. It's been done with temporary traffic barriers and cones, plus lots of yellow and white line markings on the roads. The grass in the Castle moat area has been marked out with large circles in whitewash paint, to guide the placement of street furniture for when the pubs across the street re-open, as it's planned to let customers drink outdoors across the street. The place seemed very empty for a weekday afternoon. Very few pedestrians or bikes in newly widened bike lanes and pavements. 

The city centre's shopping streets have yellow guidelines for pedestrians walking in separate directional lanes. It looks a mess and will be terrible to remove once no longer required. Will people bother to comply when it's crowded I wonder. Guidelines were largely ignored today with few people about. Only a handful were wearing masks.

I went into the St David Centre to visit the EE phone shop to top up my PAYG phone. I wore my Virustatic shield mask again, was greeted at the door and directed to a hand sanitizer point, then collected by a young salesman who dealt with my request, sitting at a desk behind a plastic screen. I've not had a top-up card for the past five years, so I had to give my number and buy phone credit. 

The contactless facility of my debit card wasn't yet activated, so I had to use the card's chip and pin device, as they were unable to accept cash payments. The paper receipt containing the phone top-up code couldn't be given to me as a sanitary precaution. The salesman said he could hold it up to the screen for me to read. I told him that even with the right glasses the code was too small to read from the paper, so he agreed to dictate it to me, so I could enter it into my phone's SMS window. It worked perfectly, first time, and I was delighted!

My visit to the centre wouldn't have been complete without a look at the building works in progress - the new bus station, and the hotel being built behind the facade of the old Custom House. The Central station entrance doors were all boarded up except one for entry and another for exit. It looks very sad. There's even a notice up asking 'Is your journey really necessary?' harking back to World War Two.

I went to the nearest Santander ATM to activate my card's contactless device. I was pleased to see that the machine had a contactless symbol on it. When you tapped it with your card this activated the machine to request your PIN number in the same way as inserting it into the slot for it to be read. I didn't need cash, so I just asked for the balance on the account instead. Now it works properly. Using the ATM keypad and touch screen does bear the risk of contamination however, but I covered my working finger with a tissue, and must remember another time to keep something better in my pocket to use instead.

Some, though not all shops are open, it's all very low key and tentative at the moment. Wandering about the streets with all their strange markings and covid19 notices up, almost empty at rush hour made me feel as if I was on a huge film set location for a dystopian movie. I wonder how it's going to work out in the months ahead?

Walk in the dark

Another quiet uneventful morning, and with nothing better to do I stewed some vegetables with butter beans and a Welsh made chorizo sausage, ready for supper. Then when Clare returned from her study group, she cooked a deliciously tasty soup, using a delicata squash from last week's organic veg box, plus one red onion. The squash resembles a small marrow but it has a special flavour of its own. This was the first time we'd come across it, and hopefully, not the last. 

Mid-afternoon, I walked into town just for exercise, in defiance of the chilly weather that makes me want to hibernate. The sun was low in the sky and all the Christmas lights were already on, giving me an opportunity to take a photo tour of the city centre to record them. It'll be interesting to compare these with previous batches of photos taken in the streets at this time of year, to see how things have changed.

I walked back along the Taff Trail, on the west bank, as the Bute Park side shuts before sunset. As it's unlit this was less than easy with a steady flow of bicycling commuters in both directions leaving me feeling a little vulnerable in the dark. Thankfully most cyclists these days go for bright LED lights, on their helmets or on handlebars, making it easier to spot pedestrians, though not all. I wasn't forced off the path at any stage, but obliged to walk right on the edge, just in case. I could have walked on well lit pavements by two different routes, but slow moving rush hour road traffic pollution makes for another kind of hazard to be avoided. Traffic congestion seems to have got much worse over the past couple of years. Much as I like giving where we do in Pontcanna, I honestly wish we lived a little way out in the country, but we're unlikely to move again, now we're so settled.

     

Chance encounter

After a lazy uneventful morning, in which the only unusual thing I did was paying our domestic water rate bill on-line, I made an effort to get out of the house to enjoy blue sky and afternoon sunshine and hunt for wildlife with my camera along the east bank of the Taff. As I approached Blackweir bridge, I was hailed by a neighbour, who was walking along with a friend, who greeted me as if he too had recognised me. But I doubt if he would have done had he not been told who I was. We'd not seen each other for fifty three years. 

Roger Hacker was a classmate in Pengam Grammar school, a sixth form Chemistry student as I was. After A levels I went off to study in Bristol Uni, and he'd taken a job selling ice cream for a year, while he waited to go to Aberystwyth Uni. We'd never seen each other since the results were announced. He'd emigrated to Canada, spent his career there in teaching, then eventually moved to Australia to teach, and that's where his he and his family now live, although he also retains his links with Wales through a family house in the Gower. What an amazing coincidence to have just bumped into them like that, when I'd wandered down to the river across the playing fields for a change, rather than by the usual path. 

Life is full of surprises, I mused to myself as I walked on. There was a Cormorant keeping watch on top of the pillar from which Blackweir bridge is suspended. It's not a nesting place, but is a safe place to roost and enjoy the sun. Sometimes two birds are up there. Beneath the east bank below the weir a heron surveyed the swirling waters hopefully. I got within ten metres of it before being seen, but wasn't quick enough to get a photo as it spread its magnificent slate grey wings and fled downstream.

In places there are still bright yellow leaves attached to trees, even some that are still pale green, all looking luminescent in the low afternoon sun. Squirrels are very active in the woods, both at ground level and jumping between trees or bushes as they forage for food to store for winter. I spotted one of the Jays that inhabit both banks of the stretch of river by the SWALEC stadium, but in the only photo I obtained the bird's head was perfectly obscured by a leaf not yet fallen. The photos are never as good as I hope they'll be, but it's fun to try.

I walked for over two hours in a chilly breeze, so I walked to the Tesco superstore and then to Staples to browse for bargains and get warm again before heading for home, by crossing the Taff in order to walk down the long tree lined avenue bisecting Llandaff Fields from north to south. The sun was just reaching the horizon by this time, and there were snatches of birdsong, blackbirds and tits plus others I didn't recognise. Sometimes huge flocks of starlings occupy these trees whistling and chattering among themselves. Other times, you hear a solitary thrush or several blackbirds announcing themselves to each other in song at this time of day. Maybe it was too cold, or I was a little early, but although birds were making noises, it was hardly a delighful song-fest this evening.

How fortunate we are to have such a large stretch of well managed parkland with wild areas plus a fine clean river running through it, as a defining feature of the city centre environment. The main shopping streets were decorated for the festive season early this month. One notable addition is a group of four wire metal sculptures of reindeer, painted gold and covered with lights. Quite tasteful really, in stark contrast to the alternative to a traditional Christmas tree, a plastic conical structure said to be 40 feet high, whose gold coloured surface is meant to represent a host of golden baubles. Spectacularly tacky, and meeting with general disapproval from people on social media. It's on hire for £10k per year for three years, according to the Western Mail. What an embarrassing disaster, when seasonal decorations are, for the most part, pleasing to the eye.

      

Street view navigation

Today's Bible Sunday service took me again to Llanos where there were over thirty people for the Eucharist. Many regulars are away at this time, I understand. The weather was comfortably mild, even with a wind, much to the relief of many present, as it was unnecessary to use fans to keep cool. We began the service, in consequence, with a few minutes of delicious silence. I told a little of the story of the Bible Society's world wide work, and afterwards found there were some who are familiar with it. I felt a little like I did back in to eighties when I was often out and about preaching 'world mission' sermons and telling stories about the work of church agencies at home and abroad.

While I was just about to eat lunch on returning, I had the exchange of calls about the funeral on Wednesday which I'd been expecting last night, and then made arrangements to visit the widow, who lives just up the valley from Arboleas. She gave me clear instructions, which I tried to follow on Google maps with little success. Putting the address into the search bar produced nothing. So I tried using Microsoft's Bing map search engine. That produced no result and the area map was far inferior. Using Google Street View again, as I did yesterday, I followed the main road towards the house to the point at which there was meant to be a right turn. Indeed there was, but there was no view of a street, only a view of tarmac'd stretch of road without houses. This convinced me that neither map nor Street View have been recently updated.

It's not uncommon here for streets in new housing developments to remain un-named for several years after houses are built and occupied - they are simply known by the original developer's plot numbers. Keeping street maps up to date is by no means an easy task when there are so many new developments to cover all over the world. 

When Street View was first came to Cardiff city centre, it showed pictures of the redevelopment work well in progress, from late 2008. Earlier still, Google Earth had shown aerial photos of the city centre dated October 2006, the week when demolition began. You could even see a huge yellow machine that eats old buildings parked on a flattened site. It would be another five years before this aerial view was updated. I lost track of when Street View caught up with the place transformed, but do know it was a year or so after the work was completed in summer 2009. I pitied foreign visitors using these services, having heard about the wonders of the new shopping centre and finding images of a building site instead. Not good for tourism! My protests yielded nothing, but that was in the days before I could complain publicly on Twitter.

A couple of weeks ago, I broke my HSBC code generating device, used for CBS business internet banking. I didn't feel I could throw it away intact, so I reduced it to pieces to throw away, and extracted the tiny lithium battery for safe disposal. It's always a challenge to find a battery disposal unit at home and abroad. Here in Mojacar however, there's a collection point facility I've not seen elsewhere. There are tall advertising panels at certain points along the street, and built in to the base of some is a safe disposal unit. Ingenious. I must have walked past one nearest to the apartment a dozen times without remembering to drop off the battery. Tonight, on my evening paseo, I finally remembered, musing to myself that sometimes you can overlook doing the right thing, even when it's possible and right in front of you.
       

Tredegar House visited

Last night I went to bed early and slept a full nine hours, and woke up at first light. No lie-in for me as, at Clare's insistence, I needed to visit the GP surgery early to secure an appointment for today, rather than wait for one tomorrow booked weeks ago. The reaction I had to that wasp sting extended beyond a swollen hand to a body rash, uncomfortable and sometimes painful. I was fairly sure it was an allergic reaction to the sting, but she wanted to be sure it wasn't something worse.

Ashley texted to tell me about the double murder of a young couple on their way to work in Queen Street at six this morning. While I was waiting for my appointment in the surgery, I overheard someone saying that the culprit might have been a homeless person. I was thankful that the police very early on announced an arrest and went out of their way to state publicly, and with firmness that this was not a homeless person and not an act of terror or a random killing. 

Apparently, there's been a recent upsurge of new homeless people and new beggars on city centre streets. Despite the valiant efforts made by the city's social work homelessness team, and legions of volunteers, the problem persists. The willingness of gossips to suspect the worst of some of the poorest and most vulnerable people around reflects the fear, suspicion and resentment attached to their persistent presence. It's a shameful reflection on prevalent uncaring social attitudes. 

By half past ten, I was telling my story to the doctor, who confirmed that it was nothing worse than I'd expected, and prescribed me some anti-histamine tablets to help send the slowly diminishing rash on its way a little quicker. She also concluded my current hypertension review, scheduled for tomorrow and gave me this year's anti 'flu jab, all in fifteen minutes, which means I don't need to return for tomorrow's appointment. I then bought some croissants and a pain au raisin at the Co-op store nearby, and headed back home for Clare's birthday breakfast.

Later, we drove to Newport to visit its National Trust masterpiece, Tredegar House. We spent several hours exploring the remarkable stately home, once the house of Welsh landed gentry, the Morgan family. It buildings date from the late fifteenth to eighteenth century, and it's surrounded by beautiful gardens and well kept estate lands. Being landowners, the Morgans became wealthy during the industrial era because all goods transported through their properties were subject to charges, but times changed and family fortunes declined. Before being bought by Newport Council and handed to the National Trust for conservation and management, it had a spell as a Convent secondary school, as the family had become Catholic in the nineteenth century.

It was a damp overcast day, during which it never quite rained properly. There were far more visitors for such a dull weekday than we'd expected. The car park was full, although some of the occupants may well have been commuters leaving their cars conveniently within walking distance of their work places in a nearby business park. Those with a National Trust car sticker don't have to Pay 'n Display like the rest, fortunately. We had very pleasant lunch in the restaurant created in the old estate brew house, in between looking at the house and wandering around the gardens. Work was just beginning on erecting scaffolding around the main house for work on renewing the roof which leaks badly. Some of the rooms had token displays only, rather than being entirely closed, and the guides freely talked about the project to make the place fully watertight again, and looking forward to re-opening after winter closure for the work to be completed.

Clare first visited Tredegar House for the National Eisteddfod a decade or so ago. My first visit was for a Visit Wales tourism promotional event, not long after starting at St John's about thirteen years ago. I was surprised at how much about the property and its lands I had forgotten, or not taken in at the time. It's one of those places I'm sure we'll be visiting again once the roof is fixed and all is back to normal. Having had this outing and lunch, Clare didn't want to go out for a birthday supper, so I cooked supper instead, and followed it up by giving her a long relaxing foot massage to finish the day.

  

Picture hunting

We had a visit from our trusty gas fitter this morning, to perform the annual service and safety check on our water and central heating boiler. God to know that it's safe to have around, especially as it sits in the corner of the room which I use for a study. 

I've rearranged the study furniture yet again this week and feel even more pleased with the result, as I can now open the window fully, and have enough space to sit on a chair that's not at my desk and survey the garden. Great for bird-watching, if ever any of the small garden birds return. There's been a real dearth of them since several trees in neighbouring gardens got taken down or pruned last year. Theses days, what we see mostly are crows, pigeons and gulls. Robins and sparrows visit more rarely than they used to.

I spent a productive afternoon in the CBS office, working on a new website for the Business Crime Reduction Partnership. It must be nearly five years since I last built a website using the Google Sites facility, and it took me a little while to refresh my memory and find my way around the web app.

In the process of getting started I took a photo from the office window with my phone of the Central Market and St John's. The quality wasn't good enough for permanent use, and there weren't many people out shopping to make it fit for purpose, but playing around with size and shape was a useful exercise to get me started. Then I hunted in my vast archive of city centre photos, and found one that was suitable, taken on a busy day on the Hayes.

When I looked closer, I realised there was a line of security fences in the background on the right hand side, some of which, though not all of which could be cropped out of the picture. It was over five years old. If I'd looked closer I might also have noticed that some of the shop fronts have changed since then. It was a simple reminder of how even a modern city centre with 'iconic' buildings doesn't stay looking the same for long, and that's entirely discounting the ephemeral events that can temporarily change the look and feel of the place from week to week. Catching views of the place in a period of limited but normal activity is what's needed for a web page, unless it's one to be updated week on week, and that's high maintenance for a modest set of information providing static pages.

I shall simply have to take a camera in with my and shoot some new ones, the next time there's a decent sunny day.