Clear headed six months after

Ah! The return of sunshine and blue sky, with pancakes for breakfast to lift the spirits. An average broken night's sleep, but I woke up with my head clear. Taking the meds didn't leave me feeling light headed or as slow thinking as I've come to dread this past couple of months. I've no idea what's changed to give me a  respite from my usual morning ordeal. I went out just after eleven and walked in Llandaff Fields for two hours, enjoying the sunshine and the subtle scent of Spring on the mild morning air. New leaves bursting through blossom on bare branches, such a blessing.

While I was out, Clare had a message from UHW about attending an outpatient clinic after lunch. It's not clear what this is all about. Her attempt to contact the relevant outpatient unit to find out ended in failure. Not enough weekend staff to answer calls? I googled the unit mentioned in the appointment message and  conclusioned that it's about  the outcome of a colorectal scan she had. A brief descriptive remark by the caller would have sufficed to eliminate confusion from the communication. Is any training given to messengers, human or digital, about how to deliver content intelligibly? After an early lunch, she took a taxi to UHW. Nothing new to report. She's been discharged now.no further treatment required.

After lunch I started work on Morning Prayer for Wednesday in Holy Week and wrote a reflection about reactions to uncertainity among characters portrayed in the Passion story. Then I went out for another walk in Llandaff Fields to make the most of the late afternon sunshine and my clear head. While I was out, a Mothering Sunday bouqet of flowers for Clare arrived from the children, and so did Owain. 

After supper he was most helpful in the process of making a complaint to TalkTalk which charged me a hundred quid severance fee for quitting at the end of contract after I had advised the company that I wanted to leave and did not intend to re-negotiate my contract up for renewal due to the poor quality of service provided. I have been putting this off for ages but feel I can face doing it now. 

I've had a good day. It's six months today since my stroke. It's said to take nine months for the brain to recover and adjust to any permanent damage. I'm tired now and ready for sleep, but my head feels no worse than it would after a disturbed night in bed. It is something to give thanks for. 

A business blame game

Another damp overcast day, but a fair night's sleep. After breakfast I recorded next Wednesday's Morning Prayer. The Biblical Reflection on an apocalyptic text from Matthew's Gospel was challenging to write, rather glum for Epiphanytide. Although my focus was reasonably sharp, I stumbled several times when reading the text. Editing took longer than usual. A recording made of half a dozen sound files, was tricky to piece together due to attention lapses. Although I woke up with a clear head, brain fog crept in. I recall feeling like this before as dehydration started affecting me, so I drank a few glasses of water and it helped me to concentrate and finish the job. 

In the morning's mail was another equipment delivery return mailbag from TalkTalk, which I'd not asked for and had no need of, as I returned their kit earlier in the week. I went out for a breath of fresh air and took the letter wrote last night around to the GP surgery. Clare had started cooking lunch by the time I returned home. After eating a spent an hour contacting TalkTalk via Direct Messaging to complain about the phone number not being switched over as requested, and the appearance of the equipment return bag. It was a frustrating exchange with TalkTalk blaming BT and BT blaming Talktalk for not reinstating our home phone number. The delay continues, and the work won't be completed until after the weekend. All I got was confirmation that the account closure process began on 7th January when our BT broadband service went live. No admission of responsibility for the twelve day delay in reinstating our existing home phone number, and dismissal of my compensation claim for lack of service. I think this is a story worth telling to the BBC's 'You and Yours' programme. Assembling all the pieces of evidence and transcribing the Direct Messaging thread will not be easy. Ashley says that telecoms companies deliberately make it difficult to change service providor. Will it prove worth the effort? I'm not sure. 

Coed Organics is no longer supplying us with a weekly organic veggie bag and we have to remember to stock up to avoid running out before the weekend. The sun was setting by the time I went out to buy veggies and walk in the park.

While writing after supper I had a text message from TalkTalk acknowledging my complaint and referring this to the dispute resolution team. The fact that TalkTalk considers a complaint a dispute presumes an adversarial stance on its behalf. So much for customer concern and quality of service. The company excels at damaging its reputation and wears down those with serious issues to resolve until they give up trying.

I spent the evening after supper writing a homily for the Eucharist I've been asked to offer at St Catherine's the Wednesday after next. Curiously, enough I found this exercise quite  refreshing. I may sleep well tonight.

TalkTalk's customer disservice

Last night was nightmarish. Medication upset my digestive tract which produced painful pockets of wind that kept me half awake. Everything I worry about, consciously or unconsciously surfaced and awakened anxiety. I felt out of control, unable to get to sleep. When I finally dropped off after an hour away I slept late, missing the GP 8.00am phone queue to book an early appointment, rather than wait five days for one I have booked. I sent a text message to Ashley to ask if he could help me troubleshoot our lack of landline phone connection. He has a lot of experience and understanding of telecoms issues. Once he found that he couldn't get through on our established number he went into action with an inquiry which revealed that TalkTalk has not released our landline number for switch-over. 

The TalkTalk operative he got through to alleged I had cancelled the instruction to end the account, when my complaint about TalkTalk service was resolved before Christmas. The message received from TalkTalk about my complaint gave me no opportunity to acknowledge and confirm just a phone number to call and resume discussion about closing the account, which I had no reason to respond to. 

TalkTalk is obliged by law to switch over if a customer requires it. I arranged with their returns team to mail their equipment back to them and done so already. There is no excuse. On the basis of not being able to reach me by phone, Ashley lodged a complaint BT could pursue with TalkTalk to relinquish control of the number. It will take another four days for this to take effect. That's twelve days we have been deprived of our landline. Ashley made it clear that it was urgent 'for medical reasons'. He thinks it justifies making a complaint to OFCOM for compensation. I couldn't have got this far without him.

This is not the first time I've had issues with the quality and clarity of communications from TalkTalk. It was one of the reasons why I decided to close my account in the first place. I've decided to contact the BBC 'You and Yours' consumer programme to tell them the story. I need to gather the relevant evidence in preparation for an OFCOM complaint in any case.

Exhaustion plagued me through a morning of intense phone conversation. I went out and walked for half an hour to clear my head, then prepared veggies for lunch while Clare cooked a savoury dish with a block of tofu - weird bland stuff, but improved by her treatment. I slept soundly in my armchair for a hundred minutes after we'd eaten and finally felt less fraught and clear headed. Then we went for a walk in the park together until dusk. It's been unpleasant, bone chillingly damp all day, but I need the exercise to cope with what I'm going through.

After supper I wrote a detailed review of the medications I'm prescribed and their impact on me to send to Dr Jordan. I have an appointment next week, but can't be sure I'll be able to mention everything that has an impact on me, so nothing gets forgotten in our face-to-face interview. It took me a couple of hours to piece together what I needed to remember and express it clearly. So tiring. Bed time already.

Broadband outage frustration

I slept more soundly, far better than I have done for a while, but was still aroused in the early hours by the newd to pee - as much as I have done for months since the stroke, due to these medications I'm taking, but I came through feeling refreshed,  clearer headed and not lethargic, thanks to acupuncture! 

I didn't push myself to do much until mid-morning when I recorded and edited this week's Reflection and Daily Office for St Hilda. It's a bit irksome with my impaired eyesight at the moment. The mouse cursor readily gets lost in the upper left of the screen and I have difficulty recognising where it is to retain mouse control. Maybe if I work my eyes with persistence the exercise will improve my vision, re-establishing disrupted connections in the brain. Talking of which, our broadband is off-line. Such a nuisance. Only yesterday TalkTalk announced a price rise. Is it time to swap service providors?

For now I have to go upstairs to get a 4G signal to continue working, then shuttle files between phone and computer with a USB drive. We've become utterly dependent on stable internet for everything we do. No good can come of this. I'm wondering if the present outage is an infrastructure issue, a hacking crisis, or a solar flare disrupting every internet connected device.

Both Kath and Owain called for a chat this morning. Rachel tends to call at night due to the time zone difference. 

I cooked cod with sweet potatoes leeks and carrots for lunch. Afterwards a siesta in bed for a change, before going for a walk in the park. While I was out I started thinking I should brief my sister about the power of attorney signing application. I sent her a message - at least I can get a 4G signal outdoors. When I got home, I got the signed documents together to send to June. I decided to send a copy of an email from the Public Guardian's Office explaining how to deal with the problem. 

It was more difficult off-line than I expected. First find the email you want to print, on your phone, next download a copy you can transfer to a USB stick, not as straightforward as you expect. The phone user interface is too fiddly and complex to make this easy. I have a super little USB drive with a B interface at one end, C at the other, to enhance transfer from phone to computer. It worked fine, though I had trouble finding the file as there's so much stuff on his handy little utility. Once I did, I printed the email copy to include with other documents to mail to my sister, then headed out in the dark to the Post Office. It was empty, a few minutes before closure. What luck, considering time wasted getting the email printed. 

I went to the Coop for fresh chicken thighs to roast. Success despite the frustrations, grateful that getting the job done didn't exhaust me. I spent the evening relaxing, watching an old black and white movie of 1953 on BBC Four called 'Desert Rats' about the siege of Tobruk in the North African campaign of World War Two. So many soldiers with Received Pronunciation accents, stilted dialogue and an all male cast. I remember seeing it on telly when I was a boy, over 65 years ago. A classic low key celebration of courage and stubborn endurance in a post-war war movie. 

Communications feedback

After breakfast this morning I drove Clare to the Dunelm Mill superstore on Newport Road, to buy a special between-the-knees pillow to help avoid hip joint pain when lying in bed. As soon as we left the house there was a heavy downpour of rain. There was traffic chaos at the junction of Cathedral and Cowbridge Road East, due to a collision which slowed down traffic in all directions. 

Things got complicated when I received a call from TalkTalk's complaints department while driving. I had to ask for a call back later. This came in while I was entering the store's car park, so I had to defer the call a second time. Third time lucky, we were sitting in the store cafe having a drink. The call was a follow up on our broadband outage before Christmas. I wanted to feed back to the support team about the help desk. The line quality on a mobile phone from the help desk the other side of the world, was poor, the operative spoke too fact with an unfamiliar sounding accent. This made the diagnostic process more difficult and less efficient, as I had to repeat questions and ask for answers to be repeated when I didn't understand. 

The trouble shooting process took 45 minutes, twice as long as it needed to as a result. In fact the operative redirected me to the Direct Message channel for completion. When I had a repeat outage a day later, I just used the Direct Message channel, but this also took 45 minutes with all they typing involved and waits for a response. It must be especially difficult for a person calling on an audio landline with no access to a  smartphone or computer if the help line operative is hard to understand. Anyway, point taken, and my coffee was cool enough to drink when I rejoined Clare. We drove home by a different route to avoid city centre gridlock. The rain stopped, the clouds parted and the sun shone by the time we had lunch. 

Google keeps reminding me my free account storage is more than half full, in the hope that I'll be willing to rent more space. I have no intention of doing this. Occasionally, I check what photo albums I keep in a specific account, then download an album to keep on a spare hard drive, if I see no need to keep that set of photos ready to display. I set out to do this after we'd eaten, and found that I couldn't achieve deletion of photos in an album (and then delete the empty album) as there'd been a change of interface. It took me a couple of hours to find out that I now have to go into the timeline of photos in the cloud in order to locate and delete them and then delete them from the deleted bin. It was much easier previously. 

I can imagine users being daunted by this rigmarole and ending up paying for extra storage they don't need. A cunning way to milk users of cash. The use of info about account holders is a massive income generator already. That's what comes from offering free accounts and data storage in the first place. Microsoft does the same. Windows eagerly reminds users to synchronise all their data to One Drive, and it's not easy to prevent this happening by default, Microsoft presumes everyone must want to, but there's a vested interest embedded in this, as the company's AI bots learn everything about users and exploit this to think for you and suggest what you should do - slow steps to enslavement - in my opinion.

We went out for a walk after lunch. There was no return of the morning's rain, it was just cold and windy. Dangerously high winds are threatened for places further north. It looks as if we'll miss out down south however. As ever these days, I needed to walk further than Clare. Her arthritic hip is imposing imitations on her walking, but she doesn't give up! She went out again after supper to sing in a community choir that rehearses in Canton Uniting Church. For me it was time to give some thought about my Sunday sermon. I worked on that for an hour, and then found a new euro thriller series on ITVX in Swedish, Danish, German and English to watch for an hour before bed.

Non-communication

Such a relief to wake up under a blue sky today. I got up and ate breakfast listening to Sunday Worship on Radio Four, celebrated the restoration of Notre Dame de Paris, and its spiritual significance for the city and for the wider world. The cathedral choir sang French Christmas carols and anthems, and the service was led by Dr Isobel Hamley, Principal of Ridley Hall Cambridge, an Anglican born and bred in France. An unusual broadcast service for the first Sunday of Christmastide.

I was in the bathroom getting ready for church when I received a text message notification from OpenReach reminding me of tomorrow's engineer visit, the one that I got confirmation of cancellation on Friday afternoon. I contacted TalkTalk again via Direct Message and went through the same 40 minute cancellation procedure as yesterday. The call handler confirmed actions were taken yesterday but there was a 'technical issue' at their end which meant the message had not been sent or maybe wasn't delivered. 

I received a second confirmation of cancellation from TalkTalk, having requested they ask OpenReach to send me confirmation of cancellation. I also registered a complaint about this procedural failure and was only just in time for church, having had to conclude the message exchange on my way into church. At least I have an audit trail if an engineer turns up tomorrow, and OpenReach decide to penalise me for a call out for which I requested cancellation - screenshots of the relevant Direct Messages and acknowledgement of my complaint.

I slipped into St Catherine's, drained by the effort of all that concentration on the screen keyboard, and with a sore wrist. There were just thirty of us for the Eucharist. I was grateful to receive Communion after what was for me the disappointment of Christmas Day without Communion. We had a delightful family time at Black Patch, though cycling through all the festive season popular songs, and a few carols crooned sentimentally was just a reminder that my sense of duty and devotion to the liturgy of the church isn't shared by my family any more, if it ever was. 

I was reminded of a similar sense of estrangement in church when I heard there will be no Eucharist on New Year's Day, just as there was no Eucharist on St John's Day. It's one of Canton churches Patronal Festivals. My offer to cover services so parish clergy can take a break was not taken up. There seems to be an unspoken change of policy about public worship offered by the Parish. Retired clergy have no say in these affairs unless they are asked personally what they need, and what they have to give. Complaining or politicking over issues of change does nothing to support church leadership, it's just an embarrassing unwelcome nuisance. If I'm angry, resentful, or disappointed about anything, it's up to me to find a way to deal with my heavy heart.

I was in no mood to stop for a drink after the service. We did some shopping at the Co-op, then went home for lunch. I went for a long walk in the park afterwards, checked the verges for snowdrops - just in eight days there are many more appearing and about to flower, but none of them are as large as the plant near the campsite. A single daffodil with a developed bud on it has appeared on the verge near the stables. I got home just before sunset.

There was nothing of interest to watch on telly after supper. I said Evening Prayer then fell asleep in the chair until bed time, though I didn't feel especially tired. This Day of Rest seems to have drained rather than refreshed me.

Stations on Monday

Up at eight, on another cold damp day. Routine housework after breakfast, then preparation of the six month's worth of material I've used in making Sway to prepare for an afternoon session on Sway with Paul, who will be taking over the editorial job after Easter. Thankfully, she's tech' savvy, and introducing her to the basic process was less difficult than I thought it might be. After a two hour session Fr Andrew dropped in to say hello and answer a couple of enquiries, and then left with Paula to spend time getting to know her, as he'll be working with her as Sway editor in future.

I drove through rush hour traffic to reach St German's for Stations of the Cross followed by Mass at half past six. It took half an hour, but that's no worse than the journey in reverse on a Sunday lunchtime. There were eighteen of us for Stations, and nine stayed for Mass. Prof Norman Doe and his wife attended and gave much needed musical support to the singing of Stabat Mater verses in between Stations. Norman had a trip to Istanbul before Christmas to a gathering of Orthodox hierarchs convened by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholemew to celebrate the publication of an English edition of his research work on Orthodox Canon Law. As international Canon Law colleagues Norman had helped with preparing this publication, and he was treated to a private audience in addition to attending the public one. A unique experience!

I got home a lot quicker than it took me to drive to church, had a late supper, and then watched a crimmie called 'Above Suspicion' which I found on ITVX. Clare wanted to watch 'Mr Bates versus the Post Office' but discovered that our TalkTalk digibox wasn't upgrading the old ITV hub to ITVX, so she had to watch it on her tablet instead. There we were, the two of us, side by side with headphones on, watching different things on our mobile digital devices, with the telly in the corner switched off. The shape of things to come.

Basma emailed saying that her tribunal hearing had gone well. The judge had spoken to her reassuringly. She can expect a formal decision in a fortnight and has the right to submit a new appeal immediately after a refusal of residency. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. I sent her another talk, the fifteenth in the series I have done, to prepare her for baptism, and started writing a couple more. 

I think today is the first time since I was last poorly when I completed half of my daily walking distance. Too much else to do, not to mention the awful weather for much of the day.

A delivery too late

A very cold bright day, so I stayed in, writing until lunchtime. Another email arrived from Yodel to say our TalkTalk equipment parcel is on it's way and is fiftieth in the delivery queue. This gives us no idea whether to expect it today, tonight or tomorrow. It's just as well that I postponed the Open Reach installer's visit to the 17th of this month. But what a co-incidence that I should receive an appointment for an ultrasound scan of my gall bladder on the same day! Thankfully, it's late in the afternoon and the installation appointment is in the morning.

The Yodel parcel deliveryman turned up a quarter an hour after the original installation time slot was due to end, so it's just as well I re-scheduled. I sent a direct message via Twitter to TalkTalk reporting what had happened, suggesting that they should review their scheduling and their supply agent ability to deliver the goods on time. It's important to give feedback. 

I unpacked the parcel to look at the new router. It attached to the fibre broadband supply through a dedicated form of ethernet plug, which will be connected with a converter box to the fibre optic cable, once installed. This turns the digital optical signal into an electrical one to deliver to the router. I could have set it up myself had the fibre optic cable been installed, except that the engineers are obliged to test the entire new system, once it's running and settled down after the initial connection is made.

After lunch I walked for an hour and a half. The evening sky was magnificent with a scattering of high cirrus clouds turning lovely autumnal colours as the sun set. Most of the trees are bare now, making tens of thousands of starlings visible as they restlessly gather and move from one back of the river to another before settling to roost for the night. In the evening I roosted in front of the telly again, having prepared everything for recording next week's Thursday Morning Prayer. That can wait until tomorrow.

Encouraging news

After breakfast this morning I had a phone call from the appointments office in UHW Heath to ask I could take a pre-op assessment this Saturday morning. A delightful surprise and and indication of my surgeon's commitment to resume normal activities as soon as possible. Determination in the face of a nightmare of a backlog of patients needing treatment if news reports are to be relied upon. If all is well on Saturday I may even get an appointment for my final round of surgery.

Recently, in our area many building companies are working on houses. It's consequence of people having to stay at home during lock-down and not spending much, so money saved gets spend sooner or later on jobs needing to be done or major home improvements. A house opposite in our street has been undergoing a substantial loft conversion for several weeks now, taking advantage of the dry weather, and it's nearly complete. The house changed hands a few months ago and couple moved in that until today I haven't seen let alone meet. Pascal is from Nantes and Miriam from Bilbao. She and Clare got to talk in the street because she'd seen me out and about in my Basque beret, bought in Bilbao back to 2009. 

When I got back from my walk of the day, Clare introduced me to Miriam on the street. We chatted in Spanish, occasionally lapsing into English and even French, covering a wide range of subject for over an hour. On my own doorstep, I get to use the Spanish I have learned over the past nine years more than I have done in all my time among expats in Spain. Wonderful! One of God's little surprises, just as I strive to get used to not being able to travel in Spain again.

The new phones we bought last week don't include an answering machine. I needed to get TalkTalk to activate the native answering service. When I visited their website, I discovered that our contract had just expired. I set a phone notification eighteen months ago last time I renewed it, but it hasn't yet arrived. So I did what was necessary, and then tried to find out how to switch on the answering service. I had to resort to usng Twitter's instant messaging service, like I used last time I had a broadband malfunction, and had an exchange with one of their helpline people. The first time I tried, the system wasn't working properly as it was still updating my subscription renewal, but the second time, it did work. That was how I discovered that using TalkTalk's answering service will cost me an extra pound a month. Altogether with my renewed contract, I'll be paying fifty three pounds a month. It works pretty well. Is there better value for money out there? Maybe, but what I have is consistence and continuity where I need it most.

Next up, car insurance renewal at the end of the month. Another tenner on the premium if i pay on-line, but then, I am a year older now, and no matter what my record or how careful I am, the more I am seen as a liability by underwriters. Given how little we use the car these days, using a taxi when we need it would probably be less expansive than have a depreciating asset in need of maintenance parked outside the door.

Historic anomaly

Another Bank Holiday Monday, a bright and sunny day, perfect for a walk to the far west side of the Parish to visit a couple whose one year old son I will be baptizing at St Luke's in a month's time. Both are busy young professionals and this was the best opportunity we could arrange to meet for a briefing. It was nice to discover that both of them come from churchgoing families. 

They were married three years ago in the 12 century chapel of St Pierre, near Chepstow, a place where I remember celebrating Holy Communion according the the 1662 Book of Common Prayer in the days when I worked for USPG and helped in local churches on weekends when I wasn't away preaching. 

St Pierre was a chapel of ease belonging to the mediaeval manor of the same name, in the Parish of Mathern. It's now a prestigious golf club. It was one of a few Church in Wales churches which didn't in those days adopt the new service book, calling on the legal right to retain the old liturgy as long as the church committee approved. I wonder if it's still in use there?

I got back in time for lunch. We intended to go out down the Bay to visit the Urdd Eisteddfod, but we never got around to it, as both of us pottered around with other things to do.

We're currently being hit by robo-scam calls as I call them, threats to have broadband disconnected and this one offering a press button menu of several options, all of which probably are expensive to activate. These seem to be voice activated, and if you pick up and say nothing the rest of the call message isn't triggered. The number on the dial display points to a Glasgow exchange, and several different numbers get used. The scammers use genuine but redundant numbers in the i/d displayed by the device they use.

We get about half a dozen calls a day, between nine and six. TalkTalk offers a reporting service to get the numbers blocked, but it's actually quite an inconvenience to do this since these keep changing. We could deploy the call filtering service TalkTalk offers, but I'm not sure about the impact of this on occasional legitimate callers. It's bound to be annoying, so we'll have done no more than shift our annoyance to someone else.
   

Enter YouView

Friday, we drove over to Bristol in beautifully sunny weather to visit James and Amanda, who returned from hospital earlier this week. James went into school to get some help with sorting our a course for next year. By the end of the day he'd  applied for a BTech Computing course at the near by Filton FE College. This is a good move, as he has set his sights on working in the computer games industry eventually.

A conversation with a telephone sales rep from TalkTalk at the beginning of the week, led to us being offered a free subscription package upgrade at no extra cost. This includes a TalkTalk YouView digital box, which arrived today. It gives us the full range of free view offerings plus a wide range of catch-up TV options and a channel for renting movies in addition. All I had to do was connect it to the router, and run the set up programme which despite a few ambiguities in the on-screen instructions worked well. We had arrived home just too late to see an edition of 'A place in the sun' house hunting programme, focussing on the Orihuela region, not far from Sta Pola, where Anto and his sister still have their mother's apartment. The first test of the new device was to find the programme in the roll-back schedule and watch. It couldn't have been easier.

Saturday was a quiet day, apart from our afternoon walk around Bute Park, with tea in the Castle grounds restaurant before heading home. It was good to take advantage of our Cardiff Castle Key cards, which not only give us free entrance as citizens to the Castle, but a discount on refreshments as well. In the evening we had the treat of watching the first of the new series of 'Wallander', said to be the final series, charting his life as he slips into illness and old age. Impressive acting as ever.

Clare and I went to St Catherine's for the Parish Eucharist this morning, and walked to Riverside Market to shop for organic veggies and cheese. The weather was again beautiful, but the pollen in the air hit me hard, and swollen sinuses took away the pleasure of the walk and laid me low for the rest of the day. There's been something of an improvement from the course of antibiotics which I finished last night, but allergic reaction to the prevailing atmosphere is still the order of the day.