Data migration

Another quiet Monday, lots of sleep, recovering from another eventful weekend, writing emails, with enough free time to spend on transferring the content of a contact detail file to the Chaplain's work email account, so it can display on the Xperia smartphone. Getting the data from text file to a format  which could then be imported wasn't impossible, but working out how to do it, would have been a trial and error process which might result in a hard to read data display. Doing the job line by line meant that corrections could be made, and duplicates avoided. A couple of hours worth of relaxed effort, but with a measure of job satisfaction, that my successors will get more value out of using the parish phone from day one.

Doing this was an uneasy reminder of the need to migrate the CBS record system to a new database, as there's no certainty that the forcoming Windows 10 upgrade will play nicely with the vintage MS Works database, which I've used for every information project for the past twenty years. It's one of those stand alone programs, with quite specific if limited uses, that's easy to learn and use, but its files, unlike those of the heavier MS Access aren't straightforwardly compatible with other databases. You can export data in a format that will easily integrated into another system, but are left with the task of building from scratch a display format that's at least equal to the one in Works which you've just left behind. 

This is one of those complex 'attention to detail' tasks I've been putting off for the past three years, but it's becoming increasingly necessary to tackle the job, due to the need to make this data usefully readable to a web as well as desktop application. There's much new learning needed for this, or else data migration could prove to be an expensive task.

 

Ready to go

The wind howled around the apartment block throughout the night, and it rained, but by the time I emerged to go to the office mid-morning, the sun was out and the streets were dried by the breeze. I walked down to the Mercadonna at the near end of Los Pacos beach to stock up on their own brand dark chocolate to take home with them. It's one which Clare discovered when she was here, and Owain also approves of. 

After lunch I walked to Torreblanca and back before another visit to the office. Finally, I remembered that I needed to register a Gmail address to use with the Chaplain's Sony Experia smartphone for downloading apps, something that wasn't bothered with by previous phone users. I can now take the phone with me back to Wales, and call people here at no cost using Viber over wi-fi.

Tomorrow I'm travelling just with a rucksack for camera kit and laptop. Everything else I need is at home. It'll be a pleasure to fly without a suitcase. Having said that, the rucksack feels heavy enough. It´s packed to go already, and all the warmest clothes I have with me ready for the ten degree drop in temperature when I step off the ´plane the other end.
   

Urban piety

After finishing off and printing out my sermon for Sunday, in an office busy with people preparing for the church's Autumn Fair tomorrow, I decided to walk the length of the promenade, all the way down to the bridge across the rio Fuengirola, a distance of about four kilometres. There was a small number of people sunbathing, a couple paddling, but I saw nobody swimming in the sea. The temperature of the sea makes it inviting to only the hardiest swimmers now, and today's air temperature was some degrees lower, very pleasant for walking out in the sun. And there are always plenty of walkers out here.

There's an arroyo - a dry stream bed - that marks where Los Boliches beach ends. It boasts a large statue of Our Lady clad in agreen robe and the Christ child,  above the title 'Queen of the Sea'. 

Nearby, on the bank above the arroyo, nestling next to El Presidente holiday apartment hotel is a small shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima bearing the legend 'Fatima en Los Boliches' , with a statue of the immaculata in the outside enclosed garden and within. 

It's evidently a popular place, not only with visitors but with local people. The walls and ceiling of the shrine are covered with passport sized photographs of individuals, people I imagine being prayed for.

It's an interesting application of now readily available technology as an aid to intercessory prayer. I couldn't see any little silver votive thank-offerings inside, as is traditional in many places of devotion associated with miracle cures, but there were hundreds if not thousands of photos, suggesting an intense piety which is both public and personal.

I didn't notice this the first time I walked in the vicinity. I left both my proper cameras back at the apartment so used the Sony Experia phone camera again, and was quite pleased with the result.
 

Weekend ventures

I spent much of my time yesterday in the church office, getting my sermon finished and printed out, completing the batch of CBS documents I've been working on urgently all week, with occasional walkabouts to relax, and a Scottish mutton pie for lunch from the Jodi's little pastry shop which I visited yesterday. Some good quality snacks here to showcase traditional British food. 

I was invited out to supper at Peter and Lay Reader Linda's house about five miles west of Fuengirola. The sun was setting spectacularly as I got in the car, so I decided to capture the moment on the Chaplain's mobile phone which I was carrying with me in case I needed contact numbers. It's a Sony Experia, and I felt confident of a decent result, although camera phone isn't as easy to use as a proper camera.

Driving in the dark on completely unfamiliar roads without sight of normal landmarks was trickier than I'd anticipated - should have done a dry run in daylight. Kilometre markers were on my map of how to get there, but a lapse of attention meant I could't figure out whether the numbers were increasing or decreasing, so I came off the N340 at the wrong exit, circulated around a giant shopping centre, got back on the highway, came off at another exit, still unable to figure out which way the numbers ran. Then I rang for guidance, and was soon on my way. I didn't expect to drive six kilometres further before the turn off. 

Phone satnav is useful for giving location, but it can't give you a readable bigger picture to inform you of your whereabouts in relation to a destination further afield - especially fumbling in the dark! Once off the highway, I followed the map provided and was there only five minutes late, somewhat chastened.

I had a lovely evening meal and table talk with Peter and Linda. Both are retired from careers in the Royal Navy, she in nursing and he a submariner, and both with fascinating tales to tell. They have been involved in St Andrew's Chaplaincy for over thirty five years, and not lost their enthusiasm for its ministry. Getting home in the dark was hardly a bother, with a good idea now of landmarks along the urban highway to be spotted while driving in the dark. Glad to crawl into bed at the end of another challenging day.

I slept for a good nine hours, got up and did some washing after breakfast, which dried quickly in the bright winter sun. Then I went for a drive to the far end of town, retracing the first part of my journey last night to have a proper look, first at the giant Miramar shopping complex, with hypermarket and cinema, and then at the moorish Castello Sohail, dating from 956 on a 40m high promontory nearby overlooking the rio Fuengirola, where it meets the sea.

 

The Romans first occupied the site 1250 years earlier and eventually built its first fortifications of which now only traces remain at the base of the hill. It was renovated and opened as an events and tourism venue in 2000 and is an attractive destination for tourists and locals alike.

It was however closed to visitors, possibly for the winter season, to judge from the positioning of a single notice stapled high up on the west gate, but even in the heat of the day people were climbing up to look around and disappointed to find it was closed. There was no closure notice displayed at the base of the hill!

Along the west bank of the rio Fuengirola, as it meets the sea is a childrens' park with a tower and aerial runway that crosses the river. The leisure boats are in the shape of big water birds - 'swandolas'.

Sunday duty again - in Spain

After a good night's sleep, I got up at sunrise, did some Chi Gung and had breakfast. Val called for me at eight thirty, to show me the way to Benalmádena for the first Eucharist of the day. We parked the C3 outside St Andrew's Los Boliches, then drove in Val's car along the coast road in bright sunshine to the neighbouring town's huge church of Nuesta Señora del Carmen.

The undercroft chapel of San Josep is used weekly for Anglican services, Eucharist on first and third Sundays, and Morning Prayer led by a lay Reader second and fourth. It's a well, kept nicely decorated chapel with seating for eighty. Twenty people were present, and they sang with such gusto they could have been twice as many.

We then returned to Los Boliches in good time for the eleven thirty Eucharist, attended by forty people, another lively welcoming and sociable congregation.

St Andrew's Church and the Chaplaincy office are set in the ground floor of an apartment building 'Edificio Jupiter', property leased to the church and well adapted for liturgical and pastoral use for up to a hundred people. There's a little cafe next door, but refreshments were served after the service from the little kitchen/bar in the nave / community hall section of the church building.

Only a few stayed on this occasion, and after parting company with people, I was taken to the nearby home of Jim and Della for lunch, stopping for coffee at a bar on the way. Della has recently stepped down as church administrator and was able to brief me about how the church runs. I was also given the opportunity to Skype Clare and Rhiannon in Kenilworth from their computer, having not succeeded in hooking up to the office wi-fi earlier.

It was late afternoon when I left them, to return to base. I was taken to the vacated Chaplain's house to collect the returned Citroen C4 to use from now on. It's bigger a livelier, despite being diesel powered. I spent some time trying to figure out how to operate the official Chaplain's phone, a Sony Experia - also Android driven, but somewhat quirky in comparison to the Samsung, and the operating system language is Spanish. However, it does have all the vital parishioner contact numbers I'll need, once I get used to it. I added some chorizo and rice to the other half of the meal I prepared yesterday, and ate watching two very interesting BBC Four documentary and discussion programmes raising debate about the concept of Exile in Jewish history, spirituality and politics. It was based around the excavations of the site at a village in the Galilee district, where there was a first century town called Saphira. Findings there indicate close integration between different Jewish and Pagan communities remaining under Roman rule at the time of the first and second century 'Jewish Wars'. 

The point strongly made was that through trade even more than conflict, Jews lived dispersed throughout the world, and so exile spirituality had long been part of their culture. The fall of Jerusalem, and the subsequent destruction of the Temple was a landmark event, and as a result more Judean Jews were forced to join the diapora, but throughout Palestine especially Galilee, co-existence of Jewish communities with Christian and Pagan communities as established fact. It was part of Judean Jewish history and mythmaking that Palestine was exclusively theirs, other Jews saw things differently. Yet, 19th and 20th century Zionism re-invented this notion of Jews entering a possessing the land, not only right to return but right to take over and exclude, and this was the the ideology that governed the foundation of the land of Israel and its subsequent separationist policies. 

Documentary make Ilan Zev sought to make the point that the dominant foundation narrative is not the only possible intepretation of Jewish history. It could be beneficial to explore alternative perspectives in resolving the Palestinian 'problem' founded upon the overlooked facts of multi- cultural Jewish history in Israel itself.

Quite an unexpected and stimulating conclusion to my first Sunday of locum duty.