Space issues

A cloudy start to the day with chill wind. I woke up in time to upload today's prayer video, but it took half an hour to clear my phone of redundant data to permit WhatsApp to upload it without error. It's such a rigmarole. My 2016 Samsung phone doesn't have enough memory for current usage.The Blackberry work phone contract and number will expire soon. When it does, I'll swap the SIM over and reconfigure the Blackberry anew, a task that will bring hassles of its own, no doubt.

Official statistics published today have shown a marked decline in the death rate nationally. This is due not only to a significantly drop in covid related deaths, thanks to vaccinations, but also a reduction due to lock-down generally. Less road traffic resulting in fewer road accident deaths. Hygiene precaution against covid are equally effective against 'flu, so deaths from winter 'flu have been drastically reduced, suggesting that these benefits, not only for individuals but the health care system and workforce may commend themselves for re-use annually in future.

On my pre-lunch walk around Thompson's Park with my Sony DSLR, the battery declared itself drained after just a few shots, and I finally ran out of storage space on its SD card fortunately I carry spares for both, battery in camera bag and SD card in my wallet, ever since running out of space on a photo visit to the Chateau de Chillon back in 2017, fifteen years after starting digital photography. The size of photo files has increased a hundredfold in that time and SD cards a thousandfold, so for the most part storage space is not a problem, but running out can happen very quickly if you have a day when you take thirty to a hundred, as opposed to a day when you only take three to ten. 

Professionals carry lots of spares, as their life depends upon it, even if they upload direct to the web on the move. Much of what anyone takes may be nothing really special, but the fear of losing the one that's really worthwhile stalks amateur and professional photographers alike. When SD card prices dropped, it became affordable to use them archive originals, just as we did in the days of photo negatives, whether or not you kept copies on a hard drive or on the web. Keeping copies in several places makes it easier to find them in a hurry when off-line. It's a curious form of digital hoarding. I wonder why I do it?

Another funeral has come my way, a second one for next week. It seems the family wanted a Welsh speaking minister, but couldn't find one, so I was asked if I could manage to do something bilingually. It's not something I've been asked to do before, although I have celebrated the Eucharist in Welsh a few times, and once preached a prepared homily in Welsh. After practice I can read prayers intelligibly, which is what matters. I've done bi-lingual funerals with French and Spanish as the second language, and I have copies of all the Church in Wales liturgical material, tradition and modern, English and Welsh, so I should be able to to justice to the occasion.

All of the evening I spent on tomorrow's video reflection. Rather than talk to camera, I recorded a sound track first and then put selected photos to it, and it took much longer than I expected, but the end result was satisfactory. With this format the file size is a fraction of that of a proper video, so uploading won't be a cause of distress first thing in the morning!

Video hassles

Sunday worship on Radio Four first thing was from Brecon Cathedral, in honour of tomorrow's St David's Day. Archbishop John Davies preached, referring to his own call to ministry and reflecting his impending retirement. I remember meeting him first when he arrived as curate of Bulwark in Chepstow Parish, in the late 1980s where we lived during my time working for USPG as Area Secretary for Wales. I wonder what he plans to do in retirement? It seems strange to have been around long enough in ministry to see eight Archbishops of Wales come and go - Glyn, Gwilym, Derek, George, Alwyn, Rowan, Barry and now John.

What a delightful blessing to walk to church in sunlight under a clear bright blue sky in crisp morning air! There were thirty of us celebrating the Eucharist together again in St Catherine's. We're still hemmed in by 'no socialising' policy, even if we're careful to maintain social distance. No hanging around in the church grounds, go to the supermarket instead, or talk in the street with two metres (?) between you, if you want brief interaction or company of sorts. As if we weren't going to be careful, having survived this far!

It was warm enough to have lunch in the garden again today. I edited and wrote some of this week's parish WhatsApp Reflections before going out for a walk up to the Cathedral, and then to Llandaff Weir. It's the first time in many weeks that the footpath up to the weir has dried out enough not to feel treacherous underfoot.

After tea I set about recording tomorrow's St David's Day reflection, with a brief video introduction, a photo of Fran's icon and an audio commentary. I hadn't forgotten what I learned from recording my sister's eulogy last summer, and soon found out how to produce a viable video, which ran correctly on a PC, but not on a smartphone, producing only a perfect miniscule version. I tried every trick I could think of to get the video to display properly full screen without success. 

Fortunately a conversation with Kath proved to be helpful. I re-recorded the little video introduction in landscape mode, and replaced it in the file editor, then rendered it as a 720p video. The whole thing only looked best on a phone in landscape mode. There's a problem I cannot resolve with mixed portrait and landscape display. If I could have done the whole thing on my phone without resort to an internal video editor, maybe this problem would not exist, but my phone doesn't have a video editor I know of. Kath has developed expertise at video editing on her Mac, and on a smartphone in the course of work this past few years. Rhiannon, doing video projects at home for drama college uses only a smartphone, and produces some impressive sophisticated results. Ah! These digital natives!

A remarkable twenty million vaccinations have done in Britain in the first three months of deployment. It's a logistic triumph for thousands of people working together. All deserve a medal of honour. Six new cases of the Brazilian covid variant have been detected among passengers travelling from there on a flight via Zurich, thanks to rapid genome sequencing of test samples. Five of the six people infected have been tracked and traced, A sixth didn't give sufficient detail on their form to make tracing possible, potentially sowing infection chaos, so a high speed hunt is on to detect the potential super spreader. 

If only people weren't so careless about giving their details or neurotic enough to want to obscure them in the interests of personal privacy. In a village, it's not unusual for everyone to know each others' business. Now we're in a global village. While there are many good reasons for safeguarding personal privacy on a host of different issues, matters of who we are, where we've come from and going need to be known for the sake of the common good, and such doesn't have to be broadcasted or exploited to this end. Nobody is exempt from the risk of being a carrier or a victim of this plague.

Alert level good news

A pleasant mild day with sunshine and cloud decorated skies. There are oceans of yellow daffodils, not only in parks but also in roadside grass verges, plus big white crocuses and smaller blue and yellow ones making a cheering sight wherever you walk. The maintenance team working on Blackweir Bridge has now returned the metal decking panels to their proper place. I believe they were taken up to do remedial work on the deck support structure, and maybe also to apply anti-rust paint. I don't suppose it means that the bridge will re-open any time soon, but at least, when it does re-open it'll be fit for purpose again.

I had to laugh this morning when I took a scam phone call from an English RP sounding robot voice claiming to be from HMRC about irregularities in my tax account, threatening me that the police were on their way to arrest me unless I pressed button one to talk to someone about it. That's one up from the Amazon Prime account anomaly robotic calls, we usually get, at least in quality. I'm so glad that for the past fifteen years or so I have filed my annual tax return on-line, so never have to worry about a paper copy going missing and causing confusion. The scammers must know very little really about the people they randomly dial with their messages. Those who get caught out are unlikely to have taken an interest in managing their own financial affairs, and not understanding that banks don't cold call people.

The work on replacing gas pipes in the street has almost reached our door. There are two neat holes in the tarmac waiting to be filled in with all the pipework exposed to view, and then it'll be our turn. You can see how new yellow plastic gas main piping has been threaded along the old iron pipework. Holes are cut in the old pipework allowing joints to be made for smaller bore piping to be run to individual homes, all very clever. Each house in turn has its supply cut off for a few hours while the job is done and the team leader lets you know when it's your turn.  

I've been invited to contribute a set of reflections for the Parish WhatsApp prayer channel next week. How nice to be starting with St David's day, and have Fran's Dewi Sant icon to talk about! I've now got to decide what to do with the other five weekday sessions. As we're resuming church services on Sunday, I think the rest of the week's reflections may well turn out to be about the Eucharist.

Today's good news is that the coronavirus alert level has been lowered from the most critical level five to level four. At level five, hospitals were at high risk of being overwhelmed by covid patients. Infection and death rates are falling steadily, but relaxation of restrictions needs to take much longer to avoid reversing the decline. About a third of the population has now been inoculated once, thanks to the coordinated teamwork efforts of medics, logistics and volunteer teams.

Birthday girls

Not quite such a damp day today, cloudy, but with occasional sunny breaks, the parks filling up again with people out walking, running, cycling wheeling prams and chatting and generally looking cheerier. I bumped into Janie, one of the St John's City Parish Church members who used to work in Debenhams in the St David's centre, alas now closing down for good.

We're into the third week of gas pipe upgrading going on in the street. The crew are digging individual holes at the point where each house is supplied from the branch main and working their way up towards our house. Much use is made of bright yellow plastic warning fences around working areas so the street is more colourful than usual at the moment. At the same time, a house opposite is having its downstairs brick partition wall removed to create one long room, a noisy duty process, bringing in an additional truck to cart away the brick rubble. The house was recently sold. Work started immediately, before the next occupant moves in. 

Today is Rhiannon's 17th birthday, also that of Mother Frances, so WhatsApp family and church streams have been flooded with greeting messages today. Kath and Anto made a surprise greeting video, secretly contacting family and friends inviting them to contribute a greeting video clip. The result was delightful and hilarious. All the birthday greetings were framed within an artfully constructed 24/7 news programme format. A smartly groomed Anto was presenter and Kath was a roving reporter. Video footage of places around Kenilworth was used as a backdrop for Kath to stand in front of and introduce greeting contributors. All thanks to iPhone apps she's mastered in the course of her promotional work for Wriggledance. Clare and I each contributed our limericks, and a greeting using the Beatles song 'I saw her standing there'. Much fun was had all round, though we didn't get to speak to her in person. She must have been on the phone to friends all day!

Encouraged by the speed of the vaccine roll-out and signs that infection and death rates are dropping as a result, the prime minister has introduced his four stage plan for a (provisional) return to normality over the next four months. The early report from Israel that around 80% of people vaccinated aren't getting re-infected by covid-19 or acting as infection carriers seems now to be echoed by early findings here and that's a relief. Work is already in progress on an oral vaccine equivalent, which would be so much easier to distribute. By this autumn the majority of the UK population will have been vaccinated with 10-20% remaining who can't or won't be vaccinated.  Phenomenal progress has been made in the past year,

Early years schooling re-starts in Wales today, with a phased return envisaged for all the rest. Full return is proposed over the border in England in early March, but again it's provisional on there being no more nasty infection statistics. Westminster pronouncements are more cautious these days, the cheerleader approach of Boris to these matters last year did more harm than good. The thought that coronavirus, like 'flu cannot be eliminated totally and that we'll have to learn to live with it, is now being fed into public discussion. Likewise the idea of a vaccination passport. But it's still a long road back, even to whatever the 'new normal' is going to look like, still full of unknowns and surprises we may not welcome.

Unintended consequences

Another early morning the the promise of sunshine, descending into wind driven showers by the time I went out for some fresh air before lunch. I curtailed my walk rather than get wet, returned and cooked lunch. By the time we'd eaten and cleared up, the sun was out again, but this time I went out carrying my light rain trousers in my big jacket pocket. And it didn't rain! The Taff is running high again, though not as high as last week. In the coming week we're promised the return of cold weather and snow, although the air temperature will continue to fluctuate from day to day between two and ten degrees, like this week. In the park, not only are daffodils and snowdrops out but also early crocuses. It's like we're having someone else's weather.

Clare and Kath between them have organised another four day stay in the Oxwich Bay Hotel caravan park in the last week of July. Two caravans for the six of us again. We were lucky to get the booking, as every UK holiday destination is experiencing high demand, as travel outside of the UK is unforeseeable in the light of new quarantine restrictions, let alone restrictions on flights. Stricter measures are imposed almost daily across Europe at the moment, as infection rates continue to rise. The EU lags behind Britain in the distribution of vaccines, there are major practical problems with the demand outstripping the supply, not to mention the conflictual politics of distribution. 

The European Commission made a  poor judgement call at the outset, and is now trying to compensate for it with strong-arm tactics, thinking it can get its own way by throwing its weight around. This is deeply disappointing and serves only to justify the brexiteers case, even though in just a few weeks it is proving disastrous for the flow of trade. If only Britain had stayed in the EU and put more effort into reforming the Commission, given that many European partners are also unhappy with the way it has habitually worked, and generated problems for members states.

News today of a fourth vaccine, an American one, about to be authorised for use in the UK. Batches of this one have also been ordered and should in use later in the spring. Nearly seven million people in Britain have been vaccinated, but it'll be a while before this has an impact on rising numbers of infections and deaths. It seems that infection clusters are being noticed in some offices where people are working together, even when correct H&S restrictions are in place, also in family groups, more so than in supermarkets and schools. Apparently, eighty percent of cases are now of the new coronavirus mutation, a measure of how much more contagious it is than the earlier version.

This afternoon, after completing my walk for the day, I watched this week's episode of 'New Amsterdam' on More Four catch-up. The programme has been re-scheduled from ten o'clock on Thursday evening to one thirty Friday morning, which is most annoying. I can't find any explanation for which it has occurred.

Later I watched the latest episode in the 'Rebecka Martinson Arctic Murders' series - this week portraying drug dealing way up in the north of Sweden, where drug trafficking happens across borders and involves Finnish and Russian drug gangs. and something akin to the 'County Lines' distribution networks operating in Britain. Two police officers' family members are involved, and so far there's been one accidental death by ketamine overdose and a drug distributor murdered. It's a two parter, so next week will reveal whether ot not this gets resolved without more fatalities. It's only story telling, I know, but it's not a big city or even a suburban crimmie for once, but rather a back-country tale strongly resembling the big city - and why? Due to the ubiquity of mobile phones and social networks. The internet has, indeed, abolished distance, 

 

Vaccination in sight

Yesterday I walked 13km and went to bed really tired. I slept until nine this morning, an hour longer than usual, and still felt tired until I went for a damp if refreshing walk before lunch. It rained hard overnight, but intermittent light showers driven by a warm wind persisted throughout the day with the temperature again hovering around ten degrees. Heavy rain returned this evening, there's no escaping it.

We heard from Diana that she and Pete, like us in the third priority tier for vaccination, were advised to  arrange to be on the standby list for a jab. It seems that empty spaces due to gaps in the schedule, plus the finding that some vials of vaccine deliver more than the expected number of doses mean that it's possible to inject more people than planned on any day. Rather than waste spare doses people on the standby list willing to travel across the city can be called upon at short notice to be vaccinated. 

Clare wonders if we should get our names on the list. She is keen to be able to visit school again. There must be many more people in our age group who are more vulnerable than us. Social distancing, masking and washing hands will still be necessary after vaccination to avoid all possibility of transmitting the virus for those rendered immune to it. We can't travel out of Cardiff, can't go shopping or socialise as long as the present lock-down persists. I'm not anxious to get vaccinated as soon as possible if others are needier. There have been glitches in the vaccination schedule anyway, due to the bad weather, but NHS Wales is confident that the mid-February target of reaching everyone in the top three priorities will be met.

There are more serious problems in the EU, as the Commission failed to order sufficient vaccines to meet the requirements of member states. It was reported that vaccinations stopped in Madrid as supplies ran out. Britain for once was pro-active in ordering vaccines three months before the European Commission, giving rise to a degree of brexit smugness which is doing nothing to maintain goodwill. The Commission is demanding a share of supplies manufactured in Britain, and threatening legal action if it doesn't. Not an unreasonable request, but as stocks are already committed to the UK market, it's unlikely for the moment. Not a healthy situation.

Epidemiologists are right to insist that nobody is safe until the global population has been vaccinated, rich and poor alike. It's going to be a challenge, as there are cultural reasons for people in some countries to resist being vaccinated, as has been discovered during initiatives to vaccinate populations against other infectious diseases. The scaling up of vaccine production is happening apace all over the world. Supplying enough for seven billion people is a huge logistic and medical challenge, but it seems that manufacturing high volumes presents problems of its own. 

Vaccine components are grown on cultures. Larger cultures produce more, but not always as efficiently or predictably as smaller scale productions, so that precise predictions of industrial scale output aren't available. It's possible this will change given the ingenuity of bio-chemical engineers, but success in improving production isn't a certainty. The one good thing about this crisis is the way it brings to public attention the value and importance of all kinds of scientific endeavour working for the common good.  

Vaccination marathon at the start line

At bed time last night I took off my Fitbit for re-charging. It only takes about an hour, and I can rely upon waking up every couple of hours, to retrieve it and wear it again. Yes, I wear it at night as it has its motion sensing chip is programmed to monitor sleep patterns, an interesting thing to review from time to time. In fact I slept longer than usual and forgot to put it back on until gone six. So according to the smartwatch app, I only slept an hour. This reading can happen once a week, but the Fitbit and the app doesn't admit the need to re-charge. When it sends me my weekly health review, my sleep time average is reported as seven hours instead of the 'recommended' eight, even though I usually sleep eight hours plus every night. Worse still, it sends a digital reproach telling me I'm not getting enough sleep. Smart monitoring? What a joke!

It's been a cold day, so I switched over to my ancient padded ski jacket for my daily exercise, and in doing so left my keys in the pocket of my rain jacket. Before heading to the park, I took a kilo of used batteries to recycle in Tesco Metro after lunch, then had a much needed haircut, my first for three months. On the way to the park I called in at home, and that was when I realised I didn't have my keys. Clare had already gone out for her walk of the day. Oops! But never mind, she's more than likely to be there when I return as she doesn't walk for as long as I do. Changing coats tends to be a nightmare if you rely heavily on pockets rather than a bag to carry your stuff around, as I do. 

Today, the first batch of covid-19 vaccines arrived in Welsh hospitals, as they did all over the rest of the UK thanks to a phenomenally efficient logistic operation which has brought supplies from Belgium over the weekend, flown in I believe by military transport. Initially, medical and care workers will receive their jabs starting from tomorrow, then most susceptible people by virtue of their age or medical condition. Half the population of Wales should receive the vaccine by Easter next year. Meanwhile, cases continue to rise in Wales whose infection rate is now the highest in the UK. 

No idea when Clare and I will get vaccinated, and it's clear that no matter when that happens, our present lifestyle and precautions will need to continue well beyond gaining hoped for immunity, and the decimation of the infection rate. I don't think this is understood very widely yet, perhaps because mixed messages conveyed by the government and tabloid press tend to raise false hopes of an early return to normality. This may be the beginning of the end, but as the top medics are saying, "This isn't a sprint, but a marathon" And one could add that it's a marathon over an obstacle course. 

Vaccinating half to two thirds of the UK population is not only complex to deliver through a winter with all its weather hazards, there's also brexit from the end of this month promising major disruption to the transport of goods internationally putting the food supply chain as well as industrial productiveness at risk. Unemployment is already rising due to known uncertainities. If the economy collapses, resulting in increased poverty and deprivation, it will exacerbate existing conditions favourable to the spread of virus contagion. Brexit is destined to undermine the resilience and health of the population, just as it needs all possible help to recover. As scripture says "Without a vision the people perish", and even more so when vision is blurred and blinded by lies and false promises.

An hour after sunset, I think I caught a glimpse of Saturn and Jupiter appearing in close proximity to each other above the south eastern horizon, so close that to the unaided eye and a poorly configured camera, they appear as one bright light. It wasn't for long as high level cloud soon moved in obscuring stars and planets alike, I wonder if weather will permit a proper look before the end of the month as this conjunction of planets that hasn't been seen on earth for nearly 800 years? Maybe I'll have time to learn how to optimise the capabilities of my cameras and their telephoto lenses, tripod mounted.

Distribution Authorised

Another successful video upload on time this morning, and after breakfast, a walk to St Catherine's to celebrate the Eucharist with nine others. It's the first time I've celebrated since my Golden Jubilee, and any nervousness I might have felt beforehand was soon dispelled once I got going.

First thing this morning, the formal announcement was made of regulatory approval for Pfizer/BioNtech's covid-19 vaccine, followed by a report being made to Parliament, setting out the priority list of categories for receiving it. It seems we're in the third category down the list which probably means a wait until early in the new year.  Medics, care workers and clinically at risk people must come first. 

The logistics of vaccine delivery from factory to hospital and GP surgery is exceedingly complex, but the growth of on-line shopping due to the pandemic has brought an expansion of delivery service capacity of every kind, and with this expertise to rise to the challenge. In the meanwhile, as the Prime Minister is keen to insist,  everyone has to continue to be very careful,  and stick with the restrictions imposed as infection numbers are still worryingly high although the growth rate is slowing. 

After lunch and a brief snooze, I collected the weekly veg bag from the drop off point, and then went for a walk down to the weir and back. It was good to see a football match being played, but just one. There may have been others earlier I guess. There are often several going on at the same time out in Pontcanna Fields on a Wednesday.

Most of England is going to be subjected to new tiered restrictions from this weekend, which are going to hit pubs and bars very heavily, and this is causing wide spread anxious complaint, given that measures are tough on so many densely populated urban communities. It's the price the government thinks has to be paid for a few days of family Christmas festivities. Curbing pub drinking hours so drastically will either see team and office Christmas parties cancelled or driven into unregulated indoor social areas, which are not so easy to police for compliance about group meetings. It'll happen in Wales too. Socialising is a desperate need for so many who live alone and have been without direct social contact for half a year. How will they react? Will this plan succeed without people quietly defying the impositions or not? And if they do will non-compliance add to infections or not? Only time can tell.