Car decision

I took the car in for repair this morning, and walked back most of the way, having shopped at Lidl's on Tyndall Street en passant. I took the bus from Westgate Street to Canton Cross, to bank a cheque in my local branch, then popped in to Constaninou's next door for a haircut before heading home for lunch, well shorn and exercised.

I went to the CBS office in the afternoon, and met with Ashley to enquire of BT about SIM unlocking. It's not necessary on phones we issue, he was told. They come unlocked, presumably so that any of the network SIM card providors BT has take over in recent years are not a cause of un-necessary problem to users. Everything now comes under the umbrella of EE, which should include Orange, O2, T-mobile and Vodaphone. So, Clare's SIM card was inserted into the Galaxy III and worked first time, showing her caller i/d, once Ashley had, found the configuration menu to reveal rather than withhold details.

Earlier in the day I saw a notification on my Blackberry which told me that Ian has co-incidentally set up an Instagram account for the Business Crime Reduction Partnership. It'll be interesting to see how he will develop this in action. Slowly CBS and the BCRP moves towards having a decent web presence, it's long overdue as it's something I've not had opportunity to work on properly.

Then, I had a phone call from Phil at N G Motors to discuss work needing to be done on the car. The coolant leak is the least of the worries. There are brake discs, a shock absorber and a wheel bearing to be replaced, all cost more than the car is worth. But then the new tyres and exhaust last autumn also cost more than the car is worth. Despite wear and tear, it still runs well and has little structural rust, so will survive another MOT. It's reliable and it's still nice to drive. With these repairs I can put off the buying a new car for a lot longer, perhaps another year. Our car has long stopped depreciating in value. Why pour money into something newer that will start to depreciate as soon as it's been purchased?

     

Saturday tech and movie time

Owain departed after a late breakfast this morning. I spent some time 're-purposing' a work phone made redundant by the continuing upgrade cycle. It's a Samsung Galaxy III, functional and in good condition. Clare's phone is a Samsung Galaxy III Mini, just like mine. It's slightly newer and has more memory, but its connectivity has never been as good as mine, and no remedial fix has ever been effective, so it's probably a hard to detect fault in the aerial, as all else works fine. The new phone works just fine, but will have to wait until Monday to check of it can be used straightforwardly with a different network SIM card from the one the phone was first registered with.

In the afternoon, we walked in the rain to Staples on Western Avenue, to buy an Epson wireless printer and a Toshiba CR 104 Chromebook, like mine, for Amanda. A little shopping around had determined a price on both that was good enough to pay for an extra set of ink cartridges for the same price I'd have paid elsewhere. Carrying the kit back involved a capacious rucksack, long arms and patience. We got wet, but that was preferable to losing our parking space in the street, always crowded on weekends.

After supper, I used iPlayer to catch up on the first episode of 'Hinterland', set in the cefn gwlad up behind Aberystwyth, in and around Llanafan Parish uplands, which we discovered the summer before last when we visited our friend Margaret LeGrice, Vicar of that six church benefice. The lead actors in the series are melancholic, serious, preoccupied, in keeping with the often bleak storyline and stark landscape. It's beautifully crafted, and best of all, as normally bi-lingual as the social environment in which it is set. It's must-watch for Welsh people everywhere. The portrayal of the environment, the dialogue in either language and the relationships between characters are honest, resonant, authentic. A triumph of Welsh film making.

Then we watched together the ever comic and colourful with dark undertones second episode of 'Young Montalbano'. Much more complex threads in the storyline, but each thought provoking. Best of all in this episode was the banter between Montalbano and the parish priest about attending marriage preparation classes. It was very true to life, the excuses busy men make to avoid have to sit through life coaching sessions from someone they believe have no direct experience to draw upon in talking to them about intimate relationships.

After this I finally got around to writing and printing the baptismal homily which I'd devised in my head one very late night this week, and scribbled a few notes before falling asleep. And was late to bed again, thankful that I don't have an early start tommorrow.