Welcome to wi-fi calling

More clouds and showers today. After last night's direct message exchange with the EE helpline about the booster, another response which explained exactly how to find the Android o/s option to switch on wi-fi calls from a mobile phone, with no need for a clumsy complex app to intervene in the process. I switched on Clare's phone first, but thought my Blackberry was too old to include it, but when I tried the same routine I found the switch in a menu I didn't know existed, and now we can both make wi-fi mobile calls, as long as we're within wi-fi signal range. Best of all, I don't have to buy a new phone for now.

I had a welcome email from my friend Valdo in Aigle, recommending, if I needed a new phone, the Fairphone 4 which Ann-Lise bought last year and is very pleased with. It's built to be easily repairable, is manufactured in an eco-friendly way with materials ethically sourced. It's made by a Dutch company, guaranteed life of five years, and available though EE. It costs £500 however, more than double what I have ever paid for a mobile phone. But, it would be worth it if the Blackberry died. Battery life is half what it was when new and it is rather battered looking, but it still soldiers on. In reality I don't make that much use of the phone for making calls. I use it a great deal as a pocket computer in effect, more on wi-fi than on the 4G network. I don't use the available weekly allowances with my PAYG SIM card, so taking out a monthly contract and paying for a new phone over two years, as is the standard practice nowadays, in order to have fabulous amounts of data and calling time seems a pointless expense.

I drove to St Peter's Fairwater to celebrate the midweek Eucharist with over twenty people present, and joined the congregation for coffee in the hall afterwards. Among the worshippers was Jane Fenwick, wife of Fr Richard, a priest contemporary of mine, out this morning covering someone else's midweek service. We haven't met since they both stayed with us on a visit to Geneva over twenty five years ago. That was a delightful surprise.

When I returned there was the weekly veggie bag to collect, and then after lunch a grocery shopping trip to the Co-op before taking a walk in the park. When Clare went off to her Pilates class before supper, I recorded and edited next week's Morning Prayer audio. Later, I watched this week's episode of 'Shetland' and avoided the news, which is all about the Prime Minister's first day, and how the media pundits view her performance. All pretty tiresome really. 

Bye bye booster

A mild and cloudy start to the day. Clare went off to her study group after breakfast. I archived my latest photos from Spain and prepared lunch for Clare's return, The news media are obsessed with the state ritual of handing over the role of Prime Minister from Boris Johnson to Liz Truss, and endless speculation about her cabinet appointments, policy plans, and whether or not her first speech will be broadcast from outside Number Ten or indoors if it rains. An awful waste of time in my opinion.

I went for a walk along the Taff after lunch, saw and took photos of a solitary egret on the eastern shone, a place where I've seen just one hunting for food on several occasions in summers past. Apparently there are more of these birds upstream around Forest Farm area, but I've only ever seen a single one this far down.

We had an early supper as we had a six o'clock rendezvous with Fountain Community Choir members at a house twenty minutes walk away from home at the city end of Canton. Ten of us gathered to rehearse for a concert before Christmas of mediaeval liturgical and devotional music, some interesting and challenging things to learn. I felt completely out of my depth, and my vocal cords were stiff and unfit. The music was all new to me, and will be fun to learn. The rehearsal and concert schedule shaping up cuts me out of any more locum duties this side of Christmas, and that's just as well, given the gaps to be filled in maintaining the ministry of the church to its faithful remnant in coming months. I expect to be busy most Sundays and on weekdays.

Mother Frances has joined the singing group. I really hope she finds it's a fun adventure. As we arrived she sent me a message about a funeral a week Wednesday. Tomorrow I stand in for Emma at Fairwater's midweek Eucharist.

Our EE signal booster has stopped working, after seven and a half years of pretty decent service. I got in touch with EE by Direct Message and was told that the device was being phased out, replaced by 4G voice over internet mobile calls. Well and good if it works, but we can't get enough 4G signal on the ground floor of the house to be able use this facility - IF we have a phone designed to do this. Clare's phone does, my Blackberry is too old. There we are, built in redundancy at work. And no compensation. The signal booster and my phone are destined to become electronic waste for no good reason, and there's been no improvement in mobile phone service in the house since we moved in.

 

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?

Phone market madness

Yesterday, I stood in for Fr Mark again, celebrating the midweek Eucharist at St John's. Visiting for the first time was Sarah Harris, the new diocesan Community Mental Health Chaplain, who started work recently. She's visiting Parishes, to get to know her 'workplace', and be known by people in them. It's a pioneering ministry indeed, and a challenge to know how to go about it. One of the impressive things about churches these days, however, is the way some host groups involved with the care and concern of people suffering with different kinds of health issues, and outside of the NHS altogether. Great to think she's not starting from scatch.

Clare and I met in town this afternoon, to take her to the EE shop to buy her a new phone as part of her Christmas present. Last Friday I bought myself a new Samasung Galaxy J3, and Clare decided she liked the look and feel of it. She has been overspending on a contract in excess of her light use, and decided to switch to a PAYG contract like mine. With no need for a work phone these days, I'm a relatively light domestic user, and find PAYG flexibile options suit me well. Clare arranged to switch her account, but it won's start until mid-January, but it seems a good idea to see if she could get the same deal as I got on a new phone. 

Not so, it turned out, even though she is switching to PAYG, having spent more money than me on phone bills over the past year, the price for a SIM free phone to use with an existing contract account was still 25% more than I paid for mine. This made no sense to me whatsoever, despite the attempt of the rather rude young salesman to explain away the ridiculous price differential. In the end, we left the shop and decided to defer the phone purchase until the new year, when Clare's PAYG arrangement starts, unless there's an even better deal in the post Christmas sales. 

Disappointed at failing to obtain a phone as a present I visited several phone shops to compare prices, and was astonished to discover how wide is the prices range for a SIM free phone, or a phone locked but able to take a SIM only contract account with a particular service provider, a difference of a third to a half of the cost of the phone. Ah well, we live and learn. Now I have to find another present for Clare, just when I thought everything was settled.

SIM satisfaction.

I celebrated Wednesday's 'class Mass' at St German's, then returned home and cooked lunch, before taking Clare to the train for Coventry. She's looking after Rhiannon over the weekend, while Kath and Anto are gigging far up north in Cumbria. Apart from a couple of hours watching episodes of Spooks and Happy Valley on catch up TV, the rest of the day was devoted either to Lent blog writing or preparing material for the office. Somehow, even when I have time to myself and only me to look after, I still end up getting to bed later than intended.

I woke and breakfasted earlier than usual this morning, and having had less sleep than I really needed, I spent the morning doing very little, quietly, with the occasional doze in the armchair thrown in. One nice thing about being retired is not feeling guilty about such treasured indolence. I spent the afternoon in the office, by way of a visit to the Central Square building site, to take more photos of the construction work on the foundations, now under way.

I chatted with a lorry dispatcher outside a gate on Wood Street. He told me proudly that he'd seen 143 lorries of excavated subsoil off-site the day before. These are big vehicles, and must be carrying a 20-30 tonne load, so that's about 3,000 tonnes a day. The basement car park will be four and a half metres below ground level, 150 by 250m surface area. The weather as pretty rotten lately, but I was surprised later to discover it's over three weeks since I last visited the site to snap the progress.

After a wasted trip to the bank failing to satisfy all the requirements for signatory changes to the BCRP Board account, I spent another hour and a half on MS Publisher in the office, the set off to St German's for Stations of the Cross at seven. On the way, I called in the EE shop in Grand Arcade to top up my personal PAYG phone, and was told that I needed to exchange my old Orange SIM card for an EE SIM card, as before too long it would cease to be functional, now that the merger of companies at technical and administrative levels is moving to completion. As I had ten minutes to spare, I waited around in the shop until a PAYG SIM could be issued and top up payment taken.

Since Orange UK became EE, about three years ago, I have been unable to log into my phone account to check balance or top up as the Orange site denied all knowledge of me and my phone number or email address, although I could still top up by other methods. Also my present phone, about two and a half years old, has always needed to acquire the network manually, except when I'm abroad, where an Orange SIM still works automatically.

As soon as I returned home after Stations of the Cross, I swapped the SIM cards and found it worked automatically first time, perfectly. Moreover, I was able to download the EE mobile phone app, to enable me to check my balance and top up on-line if I wish to do so. Nice to have the phone working properly at last.

Epiphany Day

Yesterday was such a grey chilly day, I missed the open sea and blue sky of the Mediterranean. I went the office for a couple of hours, then met with Clare and went shopping for a new phone for her, as the cntract, taken out for a new phone after her previous one was stolen in Taormina - two years ago already! After much agonising and a little persuasion, she settled for Samsung Galaxy Mini S III like mine only in white, as these are on offer at less than half the price I paid for mine sixteen months ago, with an EE sim-only contract.

Much of the evening was taken up with setting it up, with Clare learning as she went along, and much comforted to find that it works well indoors, since we received our EE signal booster box last Friday. There are so many configurable features on a smartphone that initial confusion is unavoidable, but by this morning, she was exploring and enjoying different features for herself, with just the occasional 'What does this mean?' about some arcane unfamiliar menu term.

The sun shone this morning, and there weren't many clouds around, a cheerful start to Three Kings Day was most welcome. A few days ago, I heard about a BBC2 radio programme which broadcasted a two hour compilation of live recordings of Frank Sinatra in concert. I listened and enjoyed, then recorded it on my old Minidisk player, to digitise and listen again when the download expires in iPlayer. It took me a while to remember how to operate the device, as it's years since I last used it. Digitising is now turning out to be something of a challenge, as I can't configure Audacity to play back what it's working on to ensure that I get the sound levels right. It's amazing what you forget it you don't use technical resources on a regular basis.

After an early supper I walked in the dark across Llandaff Fields to the Cathedral for the Solemn Eucharist of the Epiphany sung by the choir to Schubert's Mass in G. Amazing to think that the composer who wrote the 'Winterreise' lieder could also create such exultant spiritual sounds. But this says a lot about the complexity contained within every heart and life, I guess.

There were about fifty in the congregation, with thirty choir and servers present. No sermon tonight, just a quiet thoughtfully conducted service with the Cathedral beautifully lit internally and externally to offer that sense of being an ocean of light in winter darkness. Just perfect for the occasion. I slipped in through the side door as the altar procession arrived, so was able to slip into the choir without disruption. At the end, I slipped out into the darkness without staying to speak to anyone, savouring the hour of peaceful seclusion as I strode home across the fields, rejoicing in the Light no darkness can overcome.
   

Incompatibilities

Quite apart from checking and organising financial affairs when I come home, there are always office jobs to be done. I spent time today making a MS Publisher version of a training manual for retail workers, devised by CBS colleague Sarah, entitled 'How to Make an Arrest'. This involved going into town and taking photos of the City Centre retail zone to supply up to day graphics, but it will be up to Sarah to complete the enhancements. Needless to say, we discovered that our versions of MS Publisher are incompatible. Now that's what I call a crime against computer users. Backwards file compatibility is one of the essential attributes of any working system. Unfair.

This afternoon the switch over of the BT SIM card of my work Blackberry Z10 from Vodaphone to EE was completed. Needless to say, because EE reception in our area is so poor, compared to Vodaphone, that I cannot get a signal on the ground floor, once I cross the threshold. So, I have to go up to the attic our out in the street to call someone. The good thing about the Blackberry is that it is quick to pick up a signal automatically, whereas the Samsung Galaxy Ace II automatic facility has never worked, and any time the signal drops, it has to be re-set manually. Inconvenient and such a waste of time. Instant connectivity wherever you are, is an illusion created by marketing people, and an unfulfilled ambition on the part of the technologists. Why create and promote an expectation when you cannot be sure to deliver?

    

Lost and found

In the post this morning, a jiffy bag from Margaret up in Llanafan containing my lost Samsung Galaxy Ace II, missing presumed damaged or stolen, when all the time it was hiding in the black leather back seat of her car from that delightful afternoon back in August when she showed us around her parish. And still holding its charge. Amazing! All I have to do is get it un-blacklisted by Orange, and Owain can have it to use, since I already have a new phone, and he wants an Android smartphone to get him started, as he's been using a conventional mobile for years.

Clare had a school open day, so I was left to my own devices until mid afternoon, and just pottered around - emails, blog, sermon for tomorrow - not enough blue sky to be worth a photo expedition on my own. We went into town and ended up having tea, as we often do, in John Lewis' before returning home for supper and the last episode of 'The Young Montalbano', a splendid series faithful in content and spirit to the original featuring the detective in mid-life crisis.

Return of The Hole

Two years ago a hole appeared in the road surface near the house. It was patched, but then collapsed into a bigger hole, which was excavated properly to investigate, then filled in and a two metre square area of street was re-surfaced. This past week, at one corner of the patched area, another small hole, big enough to contain a football has appeared, so Clare rang the non-emergency service contact number to report it. First she had to overcome her surprise in discovering that the service now operates via the South Wales Police switchboard which puts callers in touch with the relevant Council depertment. I wonder how long it will take to get done?

Talking of holes, since we moved into Meadow Street three years ago, Orange mobile phone signal reception has never been good. It's barely adequate in the attic, and it's just about possible to receive, although not to send texts from indoors downstairs, nor make or receive a call without the line hanging up after seconds. Usually we have to go out into the front porch to make or receive a call. We concluded we were in a reception black hole and that was that. When I acquired a Blackberry for use in the CBS work, we found reception on the BT network generally good enough for the phone to function normally. It should be, after all because we can see the BT tower from the attic window. I still don't enjoy using the Blackberry, but love the fact that it 'just works'.

This week, and not for the first time, the Orange, sorry EE it's now called, service was out for several hours at a time, even when we walked down the street to look for better reception. Annoyed, I tweeted about the fact that on times Everything Everywhere = Nothing Nowhere. I noticed that someone else had tweeted about the EE 3G transmittor being down and to switch to 2G reception only. It seems that others locally, and in other parts of the country are having similar problem, judging by the complaints appearing on Twitter. It doesn't sit well with EE boasting about the fastest 4G service. Consistency and reliability are more important than speed to ordinary users.