Lying low

I didn't have a good night. Three days on from the operation, although the wound is stabilising, it's been painful and uncomfortable for much of the day. It's a bit like the aftermath of having a big painful tooth extracted. It's such a relief but it still puts you on hold for a while. 

Post-anaesthetic tiredness has caught up with me, but it's not been possible to sleep except in short spells, so I have paced slowly around the house and garden, not covering much distance. This will be the first day in a couple of years when I have fallen well short of my daily target walking for only half an hour instead of at least two  - not that it matters, though I dread stiffening up for lack of exercise.

A lovely sunny day, but I needed to stay home while Clare and Kath went off to picnic on Monknash beach, south of Cowbridge. The roads to the coast were inevitably crowded being bank holiday Monday. For me sitting at all, let alone in a car is impossible at the moment. I'll have to postpone tomorrow's eye test, as I'm unable to sit in a chair. 

In between bouts of walking and resting, I finished my reflection for Corpus Christi, and wrote a sermon for next Sunday. Fortunately my mind is clear regardless of the state of my body. On previous occasions after surgery, down time has been necessary. I wasn't expecting the same impact after the removal of the suture, and wasn't warned adequately of this when the procedure was explained to me beforehand. But I have been here before and will get over it. Just staying in bed all day is no option, with the pressure on my rear end the way it is. Being careful about every move is what counts, and accepting tiredness. That's what I keep telling myself.

This evening there was a fascinating programme on BBC Four with top photographer Rankin tutoring half a dozen promising individuals of different backgrounds and experiences in a variety of different settings, with different kinds of story to be told in pictures - a boxing gym, a wholesale fruit market, a fashion shoot featuring models with disabilities. All of the students were using hefty full frame cameras with an assortment of lenses, mostly Canon, though I think there was a Nikon camera there too. Choice or product placement? I couldn't help wondering. It was the second in a series. Tomorrow I must watch the first one on catch-up. It was amazing to see the variety of expensive high tech kit used in the fashion shoot. The cameras were cable connected to a computer displaying photos almost instantly, big 25-50 mega pixel hi-res JPEG images, ten times bigger uncompressed. How things have moved on since the days of film, and yet for some photographers, film is still the definitive medium for quality and colour. 

I know I take quite good photos on times, and take a camera everywhere, to point and shoot at whatever attracts my eye, but this programme made me realise that I don't really think enough about photos I am taking, and what story I'm aiming to tell with them. Hmm - now that is quite a challenge to sleep on.

The eye of the beholder

After rising early, my annoying start to the day with Google Blogger was made more annoying by receiving a text message purporting to be a Pay Pal security alert, saying my account was blocked and needed unblocking with a clickable link to a URL to follow through. The text message header gave a full UK mobile number from which it originated, like the alert, most likely a fake, or else a number used to harvest phone numbers from people wanting to check it out. If spam text messages are sent to randomly generated phone numbers, harvesting responses is a way of finding out which numbers out of the random set generated are actually in use. Information that can be sold to other scammers. Either that or some cyber scammer has my mobile number, siphoned off in a hack attack on a website containing my mobile number - probably TalkTalk - at some time or another, but when? 

Only recently I set up a Pay Pal account, but didn't get as far as adding bank details to it. I've had almost daily nags to do so ever since. Enough to make me ask - do I really need this extra convenient financial facility? Isn't it just going to be one more set of emails I don't need, another area of cyber vulnerability I can well do without? So I closed the new account. I wonder how long it will take the email nags from Pay Pay to dry up?

In the mail today an envelope from the TV licensing authority telling us that we have to re-apply for a TV license: i.e. pay up in full within two months or else. It's only four months ago when I reached 75 that I became eligible for a free license and was refunded eight months worth of subscription money paid out in December last. The new license will expire end of July 2021. Well, I had four months for free, and never minded having to afford the license fee payment, because of the invaluable content and web services the Beeb provides, which we use every day. I greatly resent the government starving the Corporation of funds, and resulting cutbacks in content. It will in my opinion contribute further to the decline of British influence in the world. Just like brexit.

Clare and I cooked and ate lunch together, then I went out to the local shops for a few items, before a walk in the park. Clare went out to a meditation group at six, so we ate supper later than usual when she got back. We watched a fascinating hour long programme in Welsh 'Cefn Gwlad' (Back Country in English) about a very traditional Snowdonia sheep farm showing a shepherd's work around the year in great detail. 

The programme must have been made about twenty five years ago. The screen aspect ratio was 3:2 and the colour cast wasn't nearly as vivid  and saturated as prevalent nowadays. It made me wonder if it had been filmed rather than videoed on VHS. It made a pleasant and restful change from today's over bright, hyper-real HD screen colours. A resurgence of interest in 35mm film cameras and photography suggests a dissatisfaction with the digital given, as it seems un-natural, hard on the eyes. Nature's colours are far more varied and subtle than human attempts to emulate them digitally.

Off-line working, old time style

I had a call this morning about a funeral in ten days time. The next of kin had to fly over from Ireland to make the arrangements as the deceased spouse was in a hospice over here. She was due to arrive at Pidgeon's office at one, so I arranged to go and introduce myself and discuss the service. It would be unthinkable to my mind, just to turn up at the crem with only a brief telephone contact beforehand. As most of the family are Irish Catholic and a few left over here indeterminate Protestant, I was glad to be able to brief them face to face.

On my afternoon walk the much warned of change in the weather started as the sun was going down, a clear blue sky slowly filled with clouds from the west. High winds and rain were expected, but there was no sign of that up to bed-time.

I occupied myself with more negative film scanning. I'm impressed by how stable my Windows Vista machine is, working with the scanner, permanently off-line these days because it doesn't need to be on-line with its outdated insecure browsers and antivirus. It boots into a functional state quicker than any comparable modern machine because it doesn't have to attach to the network, do security scans or software updates. It's still a useful working tool because it does what I need it to do without fail. Isn't that what tools are supposed to be?

 two more packs of photos from Monaco days, and reminders of just how many family and friends came to stay with us while we were there despite the dark days of conflict and rejection I endured in the last three months. The pain of that experience has long dissipated and I look at the photos with measure of detachment. I'd forgotten just how many photographs, film and digital, I took in those days. I guess I was comparatively well paid there and so able to afford to buy film and get it developed. 

Digital photography changed everything for me, even though initial investment in fast evolving cameras was expensive. I used an Olympus Trip travel camera in those days, and it gave excellent results. Digitally scanned negatives are superior in quality to the digital photos I took in those early days,  once they have been edited. I can see why there has been a resurgence of interest in old film cameras and photography. It may be more expensive than it ever used to be, but in some conditions the quality of digitised film delivers desirable results worth the expense and effort.

Candlemass

I celebrated and preached at St Paul's Grangetown this morning. When I returned home, Clare told me that Emma was presiding at the St Catherine's Eucharist, having resumed work after maternity leave. It's good that she's back in circulation, and will have several months of working with Frances before the parish welcomes a new Deacon for his training curacy. It's pleasing that ministry in the parish getting back up to strength. It means there'll be less for me to do, but that's fine by me, as I'm in Grangetown most Sundays at the moment and have the prospect of returning to Spain in March.

Apart from an afternoon walk, I spent much of the day again scanning old photos - a mix of pictures taken in Switzerland, and some in Barcelona when we went there to celebrate Anto's 40th birthday. I'm not writing much at the moment, the surge of inspiration has waned, perhaps because I enjoy the journey into our past lives through the photos I'm rediscovering. We were fortunate to visit or live in some lovely places during my full time working life, and this continues still, thankfully.
  

Counting down for a re-run

Lovely sunny autumn weather has stayed with us this past few days, and my sleep pattern has been less broken. Both of these factors have done wonders for my morale and energy level. Progress in healing has continued during this extra two weeks waiting for the next op, which naturally continues to dominate my thoughts, wondering if I'll be fit to travel afterwards, nearer to medical discharge.

Monday morning, the cleaners came early, the Clare went to the gym, and by ten, I was out shopping, with a call at the clinic to pick up a supply of night dressings. It's good to be awake often at first light though I doze until just before seven, then get up for breakfast. I've been a night bird all my life until this year. Now I'm beginning to enjoy early mornings, though not yet to the extent of getting out for an early walk to the river Taff to listen to the dawn chorus.

I remember when I was on locum duty Mojácar, in the autumn of both 2016 and 2017, getting up at first light and walking on the beach, visiting the nearby nature reserve five minutes away to watch families of egrets leave for a day's feeding out in the countryside, a wonderful sight. It's a pity the Bay wetland nature reserve is nearly an hour's walk from home. But then there's the murmuration of starlings early evening to watch out for down there. I've not yet seen that here, although I saw this amazing sight on several occasions, on locum duty in and around Vinaros.

Tuesday, I spent some time photographing Clare's collection of roses in a sun-bathed garden. They are still happily blooming. I used my HX300, Apha 68 and Lumix LX5 to take comparable shots, in an exploration of a digital camera problem highlighted occasionally by photographers complaining how difficult it can be to render the colour red faithfully. Red roses in sunlight don't reproduce well, losing definition, over-emphasising bright light, in a way that's hard to tone down. The photos from the most powerful of the three cameras, the DSLR, render the environment of the red rose in a superior way, but the red rendering is not as satisfactory as is desirable. With time on my hands some of my curiosity can be devoted to this issue. Is it a question of the right filter? Or white balance or ISO setting? I'll play around before googling.

This morning, I celebrated the Eucharist at St Catherine's with seven others. Emma will celebrate at St John's tomorrow, and I will just attend without communicating, to comply with the medical fasting requirements. In the afternoon I walked along the Taff, and got a few good heron photos, plus some blurry ones of a the bird taking off when disturbed by a dog playing in the river. Getting a big bird in flight or just taking off eludes me. It's one small unfulfilled goal. But then it took me several years to get any hoopoe photos at all, so patience and quickness combined are essential.

I went to bed early and watched the latest episode of 'Non Uccidere' to take my mind off tomorrow, about which I am getting nervous. The odd behaviour of this wound, exuding blood more during the hours of darkness than in the daytime continues to contribute to a broken night's sleep. Tonight I could do with a long slumber, but I doubt if I'll get it.
  

Digital Camera Odessy

Much rain, and overcast most of today and yesterday, so I occupied myself with domestic tasks and sermon writing, with a walk into town and back for shopping when conditions eased. Somehow the days slipped by, and in the evening Dan Cruickshank's series of programmes on the Land of the Pharoahs made interesting watching. He's an engaging storyteller, and the landscape photography was breathtaking.

With time to spare for reviewing my recent photographs, I have discovered that images from my Sony HX50 have all acquired a blemish, which is visible in lake photographs. Lens cleaning hasn't removed it. At first it was in the bottom right hand corner of the preview screen, and I found that if I switched from 4:3 to 16:9 proportioned images, the blemish was covered by the sensor mask. Then the blemish appeared in a new more central position. Changing back from 16:9 to 4:3 revealed that the blemish had moved to a new position, rather than a second blemish appearing. I assume that a spec of dust has penetrated the lens barrel and has settled on the sensor or on an internal lens. I have no idea if it's possible to get it cleaned, it could cost as much as a replacement model.

A quick check through this blog revealed that I bought this camera in February 2014. It has been a constant travelling companion ever since. Assuming I didn't accidentally reset the image counter in that time, I've taken eight and a half thousand photos with it. I started with digital photography in 2001. Before that, I used a lightweight Olympus trip and a Practica SLR 35mm film camera for 20 years. The Practica used DDR made Zeiss lenses, and was the start of a brand loyalty that led me to Sony digital cameras in the first place.

The HX50 was my sixth compact digital camera, the longest I've had in continuous use. I had a succession of four in nine years until I retired, a period during which digital image technologies advanced rapidly and consumer camera prices dropped, offering more for less. Its predecessor, a Sony HX5, I lost on a bike ride through orchards near Alcanar on the Valencia-Catalunya border in September 2012. I bought a replacement for it next day in Carrefour, with an equivalent ten times zoom. I still possess it, but rarely use it since I acquired the HX50.

The story of my relationship with my bulkier Superzoom and DSLR cameras has unfolded over the past five years, and evolves much more slowly. For me convenience and portability have a much higher priority, and yet, using a camera phone, no matter how good its quality may be, I regard as a no alternative, last resort. I never feel I have the same control over a touch screen device, and that's the deciding factor.
 
   

Final Sunday in Montreux

My last locum Sunday here today, and it was such a joy to welcome my cousin Dianne and husband Ian, who had driven down from Champex Lac to join us for the Eucharist. We had intended to meet up yesterday to see the desalpage des vaches in the Val d'Herens, above Orsieres. They had timed a week's holiday to coincide with this special autumnal alpine festival. I'd have had to arrive at 08.45 at Orsieres station to be driven up to where the event was to start at 10.00. 

After three hours travel on Friday, I thought it better to lie low yesterday and keep some energy in reserve for today, so they decided to drive down and worship with us instead. Dianne and I have known each other for over sixty years, having been raised in the same mining village in the years of our youth. Both of them have remarkable careers in journalism behind them and we share a love of Switzerland and alpine life. These days I still have considerable energy, but fewer reserves to draw upon. All part of getting old.

As with other visitors while I've been here, they marvelled at the typical traditional Vaudois nature of Church House, with its all wood upper storey after the service. They couldn't be persuaded to stop for lunch as they had others to meet after an hour long return journey, but we did spend an hour together drinking coffee and talking before parting company. Then I had to get my affairs in order for another journey up to Villars to celebrate Holy Communion again for a dozen appreciative faithful in Aiglon Chapel.

With the roads being clearer, and no diversions this time, the drive up to Villars and back via Ollon, the shorter route, was easy and enjoyable, although descending a steep road with hairpin bends at twilight required careful attention, especially after the nightmare with fading brakes on the slower steeper descent via Bex, last time round. I sensed my slower speed was an annoyance to some other motorists, who overtook as safe opportunities presented. It was only in the home stretch I realised the supplementary read fog lights were on unnecessarily, and I was mortified. 

Driving an old Subaru Impreza, apart from my aforementioned scary experience, has been quite a pleasure. It handles with the reliable precision of a sports car, reassuring when precision driving is essential to avoid trouble. It's as good as my VW Golf back home, albeit with lighter steering. Even so, it would have been far nicer to have been able to timetable and carry out a train journey to Aigle connecting with the narrow gauge mountain railway to get to Villars and back. Evening trains, like buses, are few and far between.

When I chatted with our English organist at the service, he told me that he was an entomologist with an expert interest in alpine butterflies. He worked with a Swiss expert, surveying or you could say auditing a immense variety of habitats and their species across Switzerland. It was amazing, he at this time when rare species are disappearing throughout the world, that there are remote places in alpine meadows where site specific species survive, so long as habitats remain undisturbed by anything foreign to their local ecosystem. 

For this reason, he declined to offer his services as a tour guide to butterfly watchers, preferring to keep these locations secret, as camera toting enthusiasts were capable of losing awareness of their environment altogether, end up trampling the habitat the creatures rely on to survive. This reminded me of the news cameraman in Latin America, who filmed himself being murdered by a soldier at a public demonstration. Also of wedding guests toting video-cams attempting to interpose themselves between priest and couple during the solemn vows. It's so easy behind a lens to lose awareness of the impact of your presence on your surroundings. The acquisition of the image becomes everything and this is, in a way, akin to idolatry - note to self, beware!

   

Celebration and commiseration

This morning I returned to St John's to celebrate the Eucharist, having left only twelve hours earlier, as we were invited to the engagement party of Martin and Andrew, two members of the congregation who are preparing for their Civil Partnership ceremony at the end of October. Sadly I'll still be in Spain on the date, so I was pleased to have this opportunity to give them my good wishes in person. The nave of the the church was lined with several rows of trestle tables for the buffer meal, and there must have been a hundred guests, many of them from the churches of the Benefice. A splendid occasion.

By nine o'clock this morning, the church was spic and span, and the bunting was being taken down. I'd have left the decoration there if I'd had the choice, as a reminder of the lovely evening of fellowship we had the night before, in which some of the twenty people in the congregation took part. Afterwards, I went on to Saint Luke's, leaving behind my sermon, which meant preaching from memory. When this happens I go slower, and worry about going on too long. Fortunately, I didn't notice anyone looking at their watches on this occasion. 

For a change today I had braised lamb, which Clare bought and kept in the freezer for either Owain or myself. I thought this was an occasion to open one of the special bottles of wine that we received as a Golden Wedding anniversary gift, a 2003 Anjou vin rouge. Drinking something this old is quite rare for me. The last I recall was a 1966 Medoc presented to us on our 30th Wedding anniversary back in our Geneva days. It's amazing that wines can keep their complex flavour and aroma for such a long time, if in gentler and more subtle way. Something to take time over. Half a bottle today, half tomorrow. Definitely not everyday wine drinking pleasure.

After drinking wine at lunchtime, I walked in the rain, late afternoon, rather than drive, to make a bereavement visit to a family in a new gated housing area opposite Leckwith Stadium. In his youth the deceased had been a naval rating on board the Royal Yacht 'Britannia'. I was shown photos of him standing tall in the background, escorting Princess Diana and Prince Charles on their honeymoon voyage. He didn't make a career in the Navy, but like many young men, the experience of those years and skills learned made him capable of earning a decent living in the wider world. A four year battle with cancer cut short his life. Sad that any grandchildren will never be able to hear him say "I was there on Britannia for the Royal Couple's honeymoon." But now Britannia has been retired, and the ship is no longer a household name for rising generations, this family story will take a little more explanation that it would have done at the end of the last millennium. 

I read an article recently about making use of manual settings on a DSLR camera, so this past couple of days, finally having understood the use of switch settings on lens and camera body, which I've avoided by staying on excellent Auto settings for the past four years, I've revisited old style manual SLR usage, taking flowers in the garden after the copious rain of the past few days. It'll take a while to regain the skill required to get the sharpest focus on an object when there are several possible points of focus within immediate range. On Auto, the lens is very sensitive to movement and makes minute refocusing adjustments, and I'm always conscious of the low level noise this makes when framing a picture, like background chatter. With Auto switched off, the camera is quiet. That's good for concentration, and you actually need more of it, to get the handheld shot you're after. Nice to get around to this at last.