Workaround

It rained quite a lot in the night and a strong wind blew. Doors not properly shut banged reacting to strong  gusts in our house and next door on both sides. Mid morning, the rain stopped the cloud broke and the sun shone through intermittently, but the cold wind persisted. Before lunch I transcribed another day from my travel journal, a day when I went on my own by minibus from Amman down to the Dead Sea. I must have forgotten to take my camera with me that day, as I have no photos to remind me of where I walked there. 

My memory of the journey is quite hazy, so I appreciated revisiting the trip with my written recollection. I took sixty eight photos on my Jordanian trip, and another thirty the week after when I visited Palestine and Jerusalem, so perhaps I ran out of film that week. They are all digitized now, but the digital quality, from scans made ten years ago isn't a patch on what's possible today. I'd love to make another trip the the Holy Land and Jordan if the pandemic passes and we are once more free to travel.

It was very cold and windy when I walked after lunch, which drove me to return home early, a couple of kilometers short of my daily goal. While I was out I had an idea about how to sort out a problem my sister June has in finding photos in her Google archive. She's using a digital camera that's so old that the CMOS battery in it no longer keeps information once the battery is drained. When it's been unused for a while and the battery is re-charged, the date needs re-setting, or else all the photos show a date in 2008. She has forgotten how to change the date, and in any case it's easy to forget that you need to keep on resetting the date every time the battery drains, which is often on a thirteen year old camera.

Photos with ancient file dates are automatically sorted and display a very long way down in the archive list. I had the idea of making a special album folder, and then searching for the 'lost' photos she needs and adding them. The album still displays inconveniently far down in the list, unless you include a photo with a current date, then the folder displays on-screed without the need to scroll. That'll save her some frustration, hopefully.

We watched most of a movie from 2008 called 'Hancock and Joan' about the melancholic comic genius Tony Hancock. Ken Stott, the actor who play the part strongly resembled him and imitated perfectly his characteristic voice and mannerisms. Then I went out again late evening for a brisk twenty minutes around the block under a sky that was clearing of clouds and revealing the stars. There wasn't a soul around, not even a night time jogger. If the pubs, restaurants, cinemas and theatres are all shut, there are few reasons left to be out and about. 

Photography with Rhiannon

I seem to have spent an excessive amount of time on line and on the phone through the weekend and since dealing with urgent business concerns. Not quite what I hoped for with Rhiannon spending the week with us, just something to be coped with, by getting up early and working late. Monday she went shopping with Grandma and did some baking. Tuesday we went on an expedition to Dyffryn Gardens, and I gave her a camera to use. The weather was very kind and congenial for picture taking. I was much taken by her skill and enthusiasm for taking pictures with our little Sony Cybershot W690 point 'n shoot with telephoto lens. 

In fact, she took over two hundred pictures of which no more than half a dozen were out of focus (as the battery was nearly empty and its motor functions slowed up). Most of the pictures she took were well framed and without motion blur, with some interesting close up selections. Quite something for a nine year old. I was quite thrilled to think that I have an accomplice who finds pleasure in capturing visual beauty and interest the way I do. Oh yes, all our family have cameras and take pictures as a matter of course, but what I saw yesterday was the hunter's glint in her eye as we wandered the gardens together.

Today, I showed her how to upload pictures to the Picasa website from her own Gmail account. It'll take a while for her to learn to use properly, and learn photo editing, but there's nothing like an early start. I had difficulty accessing Google+. It required date of birth and gender, if not a photo for her profile, information I had no right to give or encourage her to impart. She's old enough to use her account responsibly, but has no need to disclose any information that might make her vulnerable on-line. She's not too young to hold and use an account, which is, in any case, supervised by her parents, but why should such personal details be of any interest to anyone? Or the personal details of anyone supervising her? I used to take no interest in the issue of personal data acquisition by Google and others, but suddenly it's become personal.

Anyway we got her pictures up on the web and looked at them on the Asus Transformer when Uncle Owain came around for supper happily home from a great weekend of gigging in Berlin. I wouldn't be surprised if he moved out there before too long.

Photo Whit weekend

Yesterday, Clare had a school open day. I lazed around all morning, then went out in the afternoon to and photograph birds along the river Taff. I caught a few of a couple of gulls and a couple of crows in confrontation. Not as good as I'd like. It'll take a lot more practice to get the best out of my Sony Alpha 55.

No ministerial duties this Whit Sunday, so Clare and I attended Parish Eucharist together at St Catherine's. It was a lively occasion with three children baptized, members of families who already attend this church. It enjoys a healthy number of younger members, children and adults, reflecting the make up of the area and the pastoral effort made by the clergy team. It always strikes me how welcoming the elder congregation members are here, rejoicing in, rather than resenting the hustle and bustle of kids enjoying freedom to run around in a spacious building. 

After lunch I prepared the little Sony W690 for Clare to take with her on her trip to Arizona, then edited and uploaded recent photos, and we enjoyed our little garden bathed in warm Spring sunshine. Our little dual variety hybrid apple tree was attracting the attention of an unusual looking insect probing apple blossom for nectar. A few careful photos and later an internet search revealed that it was Bombyliidae - or Bee-fly in common parlance.

The Wikipaedia photo is better than mine, but capturing a few decent images was nevertheless a delight.