Coast walk

Yesterday, I delivered my accumulation of electronic waste products to the SFX Tech office over in Newport Road. I had difficulty finding it, despite the accuracy of Google Maps, as the 'Dominions House' building had no name plate. The building seemed to host only a Thai Massage Parlour. I rang the office to check I had the address correct, and found that I did. The office was on the first floor above the Massage Parlour! A strange location for an electronic recycling depot. The guy who came down to relieve me of my stuff was evidently in a hurry, so there was no time to chat and find out a bit more about the organisation. Most importantly, it's there and offering a valuable service to people with a bad conscience about electronic waste. When the CBS office finally closes there's somewhere we'll be able to take kit that can't be re-purposed.

We made the most of the beautiful weather today and drove to Penarth with a picnic, and took a walk along the coast path along the clifftop as far as Lavernock. The last time we did this was in April, just after my birthday. The hedges along the clifftop are overwhelmed with blackberry bushes. Unlike in Bute Park, there's a smaller proportion of fruit here ripe for picking at the moment. It's more exposed and peak fruit will probably come in a couple of weeks time. The berries here are smaller than ones inland. Even so, Clare with little assistance from me gathered just over half a kilo, which produced a beautifully sweet fruit syrup, perfect for Sunday's apple crumble.

The tide was right in when we arrived and slowly went out as we walked, revealing a red sandstone bed of rock at the base of the 100 foot cliff, decorated tastefully by the sea with a scattering of grey limestone pebbles. The fields behind the cliff path are awash with nearly ripe pale golden barley, and I spotted three different species of butterfly, thought I'd be unable to identify them. I watched a flock of several dozen finches burst from a garden hedge into the air, flying in a cloud formation with tail-enders zig-zagging to distract predator's attention from the majority of birds. This behaviour I've only observed at close quarters once before, at the Rio Aguas in Mojacar. Sadly, too quick for photos.

A Chinese family was out exploring the path. One of them quizzed Clare about the blackberries she was gathering. They hadn't seen them before, back home in Hong Kong, wild or otherwise.

We stopped for a drink in Cioni's, at the town end of the managed parkland area of clifftop, before a visit to Asda while heading for home. Clare needed some medical grade olive oil to soften earwax, but was unable to find any, but I came away with a couple of bottles of wine anyway.

We treated ourselves to supper at Stefano's Restaurant, before settling down for the evening. The last two episodes of Danish thriller 'Below the Surface' were aired on BBC Four. There was a sinister twist to an apparent islamist kidnap plot with  Russian spies succeeding in duping some extremist would be jihadis into a botched attack which then becomes a hostage crisis, whilst at the same time duping a top Danish military intelligence official in collusion. As ever the savvy hero saved the day and there was a happy family ending with another series to follow most probably. (Yawn)

   

Admissions of an electronic hoarder

According to yesterday's news, UNESCO designates 2019 as the International Year of the Periodic Table of Elements. It's 150 years since Russian scientist Dimitri Mendeleev discovered the  essential relationship between the natural elements, and mapped this systematically. On the back of this, there was a feature about the need to re-cycle redundant electronic goods to recover their rare earth component elements, as all digital devices make use of some of these. As earth's supply of the essentials is finite, there's a risk of industry running out of them. Scarcity ensures price rises, and competition to control remaining un-mined resources. Indeed, the persistent chronic state of war in the Congo is due to the territory being rich in strategic minerals.

This prodded me into discovering a company in Newport Road called SFX Tech which re-purposes usable computers and recycles the components in the rest, and arranged to deliver all this kit there tomorrow. The next thing was to find and sort kit I no longer use, which I've kept over the years 'just in case'. Thanks to Linux, much of my old kit works when fired up, even if it's too slow and outdated to be of use for the majority of today's purposes. I retrieved three laptops, one from 1998, one to 2004 and one to 2009, also three old Nokia phones, two modems, and a couple of personal digital organisers,  and a Nexus tablet, with broken USB port, now unchargeable, plus a variet of chargers and cables, British and European. Prior to the 1998 laptop, I had two others. A luggable PC I sold in 1991, to part fund the purchase of my first real laptop in 1992. This I finally got rid of in 2010.

I bought my first Amstrad computer in 1984, the first of four. Then there were four Windows desktop PCs as well, all disposed over the years as more capable kit became affordable. I wasn't an early tech adopter, waiting until newish kit was available at a discount, watching the retail market regularly. I guess I was never as attached to these devices as I was to the portable ones, having held on to the latter so long. I enjoyed having kit I could take with me on my travels, and the selection of wireless network plug-in cards and dongles added into the throwaway bag bears witness to this. 

All this changed when affordable smartphones came on the market. It's amazing to think how much more powerful and capable these are than all previous mobile devices. I think I've passed on a couple of smartphones after upgrading, but there are two spares in the house 'just in case'. I still have my work Blackberry and my personal Samsung Galaxy. Once CBS is wound up, I'll be down to one phone for the first time in seven years.

Well, there's less electronic junk taking up space in the house now, and more to go eventually, as the process of simplifying life advances with age. Having seen what trouble was caused after his demise due to my brother in law Geoff's accumulation of 'interesting stuff' acquired from decades of car boot sales, I'd feel better if I could minimise what remains of my acquisitions to 'really useful up to date stuff' once I'm headed for the Pearly Gates.