Cloud data near disaster

This morning, I took the car into our local Kwikfit workshop on my way to celebrate the midweek Eucharist in St John's Canton. Father Mark arrived before me to prepare things before slipping away on an errand of his own. It's the first time I've seen him since the Spring, so I was glad to have a few moments to catch up with him.I was relieved that the exhaust adjustment was successful, so the car is altogether pleasant to drive once more.

To my horror, when I got home I had a message from Julie in the office today that the office OneDrive filesystem seemed to be missing six months worth of documents. Oh dear, something I did when tidying up her machine yesterday had evidently unintended consequences. An office visit and a joint investigation thankfully provided us with a way to roll back the filesystem to its state when she last worked on it, although it took us ages to find this. The trouble was that the Windows 10 upgrade from a machine running Windows 7 had left us with multiple OneDrive icons (deep down one or other had been originally a SkyDrive icon, before the name was changed). 

I had been suspicious that older machines with this kind of history weren't syncing properly, as I'd seen this at home. I deleted what I thought was a short cut, when it was File Explorer's main route of access to the on-line files. The other OneDrive icon was a shortcut to a copy of the file system (where it lives, I know not where) six months old. Windows 10 is meant to give you a hard drive filesystem copy of data in the Cloud, to sync for off-line use. If you access OneDrive files from any machine, as you might from a Network hard drive in the office, using a web browser and be sure to save to this location, there's no problem. But, when different machines are in use, and saving stuff off line on the machine to sync with the Cloud later, this seems create version control problems, with the risk that some stuff will get lost. Glad we haven't stopped backing up filesystem to a physical hard drive close to home. After that little incident, OneDrive now has to re-earn my trust

The news from Papworth is that Eddie is holding his own, recovering very slowly from surgery, still heavily sedated if not unconscious, and ventilated. A visit to the hospital is planned for tomorrow.

 

School Harvest Mass

An early start this morning to the the car to N.G. Motors to check out a noisy water pump and timing belt. Then a ten minute walk from Splott to Adamsdown to celebrate Tredegarville School's Harvest festival Mass, with over 200 children, staff, and a handful of parents. The children sang beautifully, but the public address system let us down so sadly the children who read were inaudible. The system has not been right since the BBC Songs of Praise recording weekend unfortunately, and the guy who takes care of it wasn't present. I was amazed at how well behaved a church full of children could be under the circumstances..They seem to appreciate the difference of being in a quiet solemn place, with little external noise, and sunshine streaming in to tight up the building. There's still room for a little awe in everyone's life.

I went then into the CBS office, to do some PC maintenance tasks, and whiled away the time until I got a message to say the car was ready. Not only a new pump and timing belt, but two new front tyres as well. The exhaust is still knocking against the car chassis, the mechanics said it was not properly aligned, so it'll have to go back to Kwikfit tomorrow for this adjustment to be made. This apart the 25 year old car now runs quiet and smooth, and handles far better. I think we'll be keeping it a bit longer.

Ann told us that Eddie had been transferred at high speed from Ipswich to Papworth hospital during the night, and was undergoing lengthy open heart surgery in an effort to repair the artery about to burst. Altogether, he was in the operating theatre for twelve hours, before coming to rest in the Critical Care Unit. Three massive hurdles overcome so far, and he's 'critical but stable' as they'd say. Time for us to watch and pray, nothing more.

 

Family misfortune

While I was out and about this morning, a message came through from sister-in-law Ann to say that Clare's brother Eddie had collapsed at home and taken emergency unit in Ipswich hospital. It wasn't clear from the symptoms whether he'd suffered a serious stroke or an epileptic seizure. Once they had him stabilised and gave him an MRI scan, the reality was different, more serious. An aortic aneurism, striking without warning. Stranger, still, as this was what killed his father in his eighties, he'd had a scan earlier in the year to ascertain whether or not he was vulnerable, and no risk detected.

Later in the day, pondering on this turn of events, I went for my annual 'flu jab at the GP surgery, and was also given an inoculation against shingles which I wasn't expecting. My mother suffered from high blood pressure, given diet and lifestyle factors that's not surprising, and she suffered a stroke on her first ever holiday abroad in the Black Forest. I've traveled more than they could have dreamed of, and have had a fairly stressful mobile lifestyle on times, but a different kind of diet has kept the worst problems at bay so far. With medication, my tendency to hypertension is more or less under control, though diastolic readings continue to vary wildly. A dear ex-colleague, John Duncan would put this down to what he called 'mercurial celtic temperament'. There are always stressful situations in life to respond to. The question is how resilient is it possible to remain as one gets older. I owe a great deal to what I've learned about coping well from regular Chi Gung and Tai Chi practice. I was thankful I had a class to go to this evening.

 

Back to Chromebook

A nice quiet lazy morning goes down nicely after a busy Sunday. Time to recuperate. I seem to need more of it these days. Then after lunch a walk. I also need constant exercise to stay fit. So, I walked first to the GP surgery with a prescription renewal, and booked myself a 'flu jab appointment, although I forgot to book an doctor's appointment as requested, but as the 'flu jab is tomorrow, all I have to do is remember to book as soon as I arrive. Then I walked part of the way to Victoria Park, hopping on a convenient bus to speed up the process of returning church keys from Sunday morning to Fr Mark, and from there walked over to the Staples store in Western Avenue and back, to buy a new Chromebook.

I gave Owain my 'early adopter' Samsung model. It has served me well over the past two years, and is in good nick, although its battery life is only four hours, about 60% of its original,. He's always made a bee line for it when he's visiting because of its convenient quick access for casual use. I've had my eye on a Toshiba Chromebook 2 for some time, as there's a model with a higher resolution screen which boasts more RAM and a better processor, although a Chromebook's speed relies as much on internet connectivity as anything due to its downloadable operating system. Staples had one one display last time I was in store, twenty quid cheaper than John Lewis, so my walk had added incentive.

There were rain showers as I arrived at the store. The rucksack I'd taken to carry home my purchase was too small for the containing box, and it slipped out and fell to the floor as I was leaving, fortunately not on a corner, so there was no damage to the box and none to the computer when I unpacked it. It was wonderful to set it up and be using it in under five minutes with all my Google account details and bookmarks in place. I'd waited a month before buying a new one, just to find out what it would be like to do without it, and rely just on the Asus Transformer for quick casual usage away from the office desk. 

Well, if you keep the Transformer switched off it takes minutes to book up and re-sync its registered accounts. The native browser is unbearably slow. Chrome and Firefox user interfaces are not fully consistent with desktop or phone versions. The software is showing signs of age in lacking user interface updates, and offering no convenient path to acquire them. I found I was repeating keyboard errors when writing or editing as use of certain keys is not the same as that acquired from habitually using other keyboards. While the keyboard itself is not that bad, the speeds of interaction of both keyboard and touch-screen with the display seem to fluctuate in practice. Such a relief to get back to the simple consistency and responsiveness of a Google Chrome device. Touch screens aren't always as precise as they need to be to avoid error, a good trackpad and/or a mouse is superior in my experience.

The other thing I like about Chromebooks is that the time from switch on to work is half a Windows 10 device and delivers a fully updated operating system. What Microsoft ads don't tell is the amount of time that has to be spent machine minding, either as the PC syncs filesystems, or while updates are installed, either at switch-off or start-up, and this can add a five minute delay to whatever you're doing. Time is always of the essence when you need information from an internet device. Closing many PCs while performing these essential routines may lead to it switching into sleep mode in the middle of updating, and that carries the risk of error. No problem if you rarely switch off your computer, but a risk if you're conscientious, and always switch off, to save battery or isolate from network hackers while unattended. 

Will Microsoft ever be as good as Google in delivering devices that address these issues at source? I find it very interesting that Microsoft partners are now marketing basic PCs in the same price bracket as Google Chromebooks, and with similar specifications. But, sales promoters always have to offer internet security packages to customers, to cover the glaring design deficiency in Windows operating systems, exploited in so many ingenious ways by global cyber criminals.

I notice that Five USA is currently promoting the launch of new CSI series on cyber crime. It'll be very interesting to see what kind of product placement (both hardware and software) features in the laboratory mis-en-scene.

Harvest Festival

Another early Sunday start, with an eight o'clock celebration at St Catherine's, which Clare attended, and read lessons for me. After a second breakfast together of coffee, pain chocolat and pain au raisin, bought from the Co-op on the way home, I went on to celebrate the Solemn Mass at St Luke's. I got back right on time to collect Clare for the trip to Llandenny for lunch with Chris and Wendy Bowler before ascending the Grwyne Valley to preach Harvest at Patricio for a congregation of twenty. 

Autumn colours are only slowly emerging. There's still a great deal of greenery owing to the warmth at the end of summer. Clare was much impressed with the beauty of the valley and its ancient church secluded high up on a wooded hillside with fields falling away steeply below it. After the service apple cake and biscuits were offered, along with a drink of locally pressed apple juice. We'd had quite a differently flavoured apple juice to go with lunch. This is an area whose farms and gardens still harbour many old varieties of fruit, and evidently they are valued.

One of the churchwardens, Rob Yorke is a freelance country loving journalist, describing himself as a 'hunter naturalist'. We had an interesting conversation arising from some of the things I mentioned in my sermon. Such a discussion is quite a rarity for me these days, going beyond "Nice sermon Vicar" at the church door. I enjoyed just listening to the voices of local farmers chatting with their soft Black Mountain accents, a bit like Herefordshire but not quite. It was great to catch up with Chris and Wendy too, and savour their enjoyment of rural ministry while facing the challenge of new formed 'mission area' grouping of parishes.

We heard the Sunday edition of 'The Archers' on the way home in the car between Newport and Cardiff, and after supper watched a documentary programme about Mammoth Science, describing the forensic and molecular biological investigation of mammoth remains now being uncovered, not just fossilised, by preserved in Siberian permafrost, now thawing due to global warming. An amazing new body of knowledge, now offering indications that it wasn't the end of the ice age that killed them off, but early human hunters. 

Sadly the programme presenter had a habit of repeating herself in a way that added un-necessary length without additional information, as if viewers lacked the intelligence or attention span to take it in first time. This seems to be a deficiency typical many modern factual TV programmes. It's bad enough when a subject is dumbed down un-necessarily, but it comes across as poor video editing, or, that there's enough substance for a thirty minute programme, but it has to be spun out to fifty minutes, as that's what the team was hired to produce.

Tale of two new fathers

A Saturday afternoon walk in the sunshine through Bute Park took us into town to end up having a look around and tea in John Lewis'. It's our default outing  when we can't summon up the energy to go further. Walking across the fields to the Blackweir Bridge, I spotted one bird in a small group of crows which resembled the others physically, but was black with speckles and rough patches of white as if someone had thrown bleach over it, rather than the regular pale markings of the carrion crow. It had a crow's beak however. An albino?

 

No road closures today, but still there were lots of rugby fans in town again, to watch televised games in the Cardiff Arms Park stadium 'Fanzone'. Apparently it's been very popular. Cardiff businesses have certainly benefited from the additional influx of visitors this past few weeks, and construction projects are becoming a feature of city centre life again, as the Central Square redevelopment gets under way.

I've been thinking of Spain quite a lot recently, having much enjoyed autumnal living in Andalusia, and it prompted me to cook paella for supper. Curiously, it's something I rarely cooked in Spain, and it seems quite a while since I last did so here. With sermons ready to preach tomorrow, the only thing worth watching on TV was  Swedish crime drama 'Beck', with a case that explored insightfully the use of illegal migrant labour in Sweden. I liked the well drawn parallels between a young detective, an expectant father, and an illegal Chechen refugee expectant father. With ironic synchronicity both babies end up delivered in the same maternity unit. One father is free, the other injured and under arrest. What was interesting and different was the background stories of the 'illegals', their countries of origin and reasons for being far from home, vulnerable to exploitation. 

The same story could be told, based here in Britain. The differences would be in the countries of origin. Needs are much the same - refuge from conflict, need to earning money to support family back home. The understandable fear expressed by police is that terrorists hide behind vulnerable people, who hide anyway, not just from law enforcement, but from xenophobics, determined not to welcome them or let them be. Everybody suffers. The global failure to tackle inequality and poverty condemns us to a vicious cycle of violence, which even the most practical of idealists still cannot get a grip on.

     

Upgrades complete, web authoring re-starts

Things are a bit quieter this end of the week, thankfully, so a day of not doing much apart from a walk into town and back was very welcome. I seem to need good exercise as much as rest these days, if I'm not to feel out of sorts much of the time. The city centre was full of New Zealand rugby fans ahead of the evening's match with Romania. There was an atmosphere of congeniality and boisterousness, few signs of misbehaviour anywhere. 

My only complaint is the amount of fast food rubbish, discarded cans, plastic beakers and bottles parked on wall and window ledges, or in the gutters. Litter picking and bin emptying may well occur during as well as after the game. Maybe rubbish bins provided do become full too quickly to prevent this but in the end organisers of major sporting events could do something to nag supporters to make an effort not to dump their empties for others to clear up behind them.

There was no need for me to go into the office while I was in town. I just wandered around watching tens of thousands of visitors having a good time. Julie texted me to say she'd finally found space in her work schedule to let her PC do the Windows 10 upgrade. It had taken two hours in total and was done without hassle. 

That's the last of the machines I oversee to be upgraded, and I didn't have to do anything apart from advise Julie to keep to the routine of using Chrome browser to access emails, which she knows, rather than learn the new Edge browser, such a fiddle to configure to one's own needs, or the new email client, so far, still a bit unreliable. Better to stick with tools you've adapted to your workflow, than get distracted into learning new apps which sabotage effective working habits. Or, only put the effort into something new when your workflow is definitely unfit for new purposes.

The database is now working properly, at least until the next problem is uncovered. Now I can get to work on re-building the websites I made for CBS and the BCRP. I couldn't remember which web authoring tool I'd used a decade ago, but googling soon revealed a forgotten application 'NVU' for Windows, and its correlate KompoZer for Linux. The latter I was able to download and after a brief visit to the Linux Mint help forums, found out how to install and run. There are loads of free templates to make use of on different websites, but initially, all I want to do is try and reproduce the format of the pages I made sitting on Google Sites, and hard to link up to a proper URL, with such user unfriendly instructions. Now we've hiring our own web hosting space, a little learning by doing is possible before going live. I never thought I'd get back to doing this again after so long.

Short and long term planning.

I celebrated the Eucharist again yesterday morning with a class from Tredegarville School attending, and told them all about the church's patron St German of Auxerre, as planned. After the service, I went to the school to consult with head teacher Emma Laing about the all-school Harvest Eucharist in church next Wednesday, then went home to devise some material for insertion in the service sheet for the children. There was also another sermon to prepare for Sunday, to preach at St Luke's, here in my home parish.

This morning the two funerals took place, one after the other. The first one was in Pidgeons Funeral Chapel, and concluded at Thornhill Crematorium. The second followed after a twenty minute break, with a service only at the crematorium. It gave me a few moments to take a look at the re-furbished precinct outside the chapels, where people gather to examine floral tributes after the ceremony.  I'd not had time to notice on visits earlier in the year.  It was re-paved last year apparently, with the addition of raised marble 'benches' on which flowers could be laid for viewing without anyone having to bend over. It's a nice touch, and apparently was expensive to do. It's a durable permanent feature, good for another fifty years at least.

I was back in time for lunch, and then went into the CBS office for the afternoon. Julie discovered more glitches in the database I thought I'd got right last week, so I had to revisit the import process yet again to eliminate the problem and them rebuild. Will I ever get it as perfect as it needs to be, to ensure future durability I wonder. Now I have a good idea and some practice at using Libre Office Base, I must make an effort to migrate personal databases across from MS Works - a simpler task than what I've been working on lately, but maybe worth doing. There's always the possibility of losing the MS Works installation disk, and not having an application that can open the .wdb files. I try to think ahead long term about making access to my legacy of data easy for the children after I'm dead. It could save them a lot of extra frustration and grief.

The cure for excess mental exercise

It's Michaelmass today. No opportunity to get to Mass, so the liturgical readings of the day had to suffice as food for the soul. The alternative Old Testament passage is from the story of Tobias and the Angel (in the deutero-canonical Book of Tobit). It's not about Michael, like the mainstream passage from Daniel, but about the Archangel Raphael, who ministers healing. It's quite a beautiful poetic passage, which I can't really say I've noticed before, perhaps because this was not a book I ever studied during training.

Another bereavement visit this morning, followed by several hours of work on preparing services and eulogy/obituaries on behalf of the families, as in neither case did anyone feel able to take on the task. Then I had to prepare for the Wednesday morning 'school Eucharist' at St German's, honouring the patron saint himself whose body arrived back in his native Auxerre on 1st October, after his death in Ravenna, sixteen centuries ago. A nine hour road journey today took sixty one days that long ago. 

Then I had to start work on a Harvest festival sermon for next Sunday afternoon when I preach at the lovely Patricio church, at the head of the Grwyny Valley in Monmouthshire's borderland. So, there was no time to spare to complete the painting job, and barely enough time to start preparing supper before I went to Chi Gung class. I felt pretty tired and stressed out, but the hour's workout was just what I needed to get me down out of my head and on to my feet.

     

Supermoon eclipse vigil

After some camera preparation earlier on, I woke up just after one, and dozed until the eclipse of the moon began, then went downstairs and took pictures from the front lawn in a dressing gown and pyjamas, it was just warm enough, at ten minute intervals until complete obscurity. 

Surprisingly my little Sony HX50 did me proud until this point. The 'blood moon' effect was hardly visible through the viewfinder at any zoom magnification, so I switched to the Alpha 55, with its TTL electronic viewfinder and captured a few images, though none turned out to be all that satisfactory. If I'd persevered with changing settings maybe I'd have got better results, but by this time I was getting tired, and returned to bed. 

I woke up again with the dawn twilight and glimpsed the moon from the bedroom window as it was just touching the horizon, brighter than I'd seen it when it was full and high in the sky earlier, or so it seemed. Too tired to make the effort to reach for a camera, but the memory remains vivid and rather wonderful. In fact the whole experience was rather wonderful. The naked eye sees so much more than the above average consumer camera. 

You can see the pictures I took here

After breakfast we returned to Cardiff, Clare driving most of the way as I was somewhat worse for wear. We stopped to buy a picnic lunch at a service station outside Ross on Wye. The checkout guy noticed my cross and said "Tell me, does that cross mean you are a Christian?" "Yes, all my life and proud of it." I said. "Do you know about what's happening to Christians across the Middle East?" he asked. I assured him that I did, and we talked for a while until his next customer came to the till. He said he was from Lebanon, but not what kind of Lebanese he was. An exile, for certain, worried for kinsfolk and neighbours back home, no doubt, since his homeland of 4.8 million people has taken in a million Syrians.

A documentary photographer friend of Owain's has recently been working over in Lebanon, profoundly moved by what he witnessed. He returned feeling deeply ashamed of British Government attitude and policy towards suffering on this scale. Sending aid to refugees in places nearer to the land they left may seem like a well intended gesture aiming to make it easier to return when order is restored, but the pressures on a small country the size of Wales with over 50% more population than Wales to start with, are simply inhumane.

We got home early afternoon, and I set about painting the front garden railings and gate, boosted by warm bright sunshine. I was out of the house again to make a bereavement visit in Pentyrch at six, however. It related to one of two funerals I have Thursday this week. I learned about a man who'd died six months before he was expecting to receive a telegram from the Queen. He'd lived in the same house in Ely since it was built 93 years ago, in a street that has changed its name twice since he first moved in as a kid.

Sunday disruptions

An Eucharist to celebrate at St John's Canton this morning at eight, followed by a drive across town to St German's for an earlier than usual Sung Mass at nine thirty. Over the weekend the church is turned into a video recording studio for BBC's Songs of Praise. A series of artistes sing to camera against the aesthetic backdrop of one of Bodley's finest churches. 

The upheaval is disconcerting, and the re-scheduling of the service necessary to meet the programming demands. I was impressed at a full turnout of the thirty strong congregation, more accustomed to showing up at eleven - including two in wheelchairs. Everyone seemed philosophical about the disruption, seeing it as part of the effort needed to make their church known to the wider world.

The sacristy was full of recording equipment, furniture was displaced in the nave, and wiring trailed all through the sanctuary and high altar. It's the first time I recall ever having to step carefully over heavy cables while censing the altar during Mass. 

I heard that there had been problems overnight for the grossly underpaid lone security guard, from a gang of idle lads intent on making mischief, maybe with an eye to stealing the Beeb's mobile power generator parked outside. The guard was reluctant to call the Police in case this escalated into a real breach of the peace. It's a scandal that two weren't employed, as may be considered normal safe practice. No doubt if there were Police out and about, they'd be shepherding crowds of drunken revellers in the city centre a mile away. Locals gossip about a drug dealing ice cream van out in the evenings in this parish. Do the Police know or care?

After lunch, Clare and I drove up to Kenilworth, for another birthday supper with Kath, Anto and Rhiannon. She seems to have grown up a lot in the summer, what with leaving primary and starting secondary school last week. Now she's spending a couple of hours each school night conscientiously doing homework, and enjoying learning at a new level. I've given her my little travel laptop, all set up with Windows 10 and her own One Drive ready to use. Two weeks ago Owain took my Chromebook. I don't have that much need for travel kit at the moment, and am surprised to find how much I'm able to do with my Blackberry when I'm away from a desk. 

 

Tedious work but family pleasure nevertheless

This morning was given over to Sunday sermon writing. Rachel sent a message to tell us she'd won a local song writing competition for the Verde Valley River Association festival in Arizona, and would get to perform this live on stage tomorrow. We're thrilled for her. She's had such a tough time of it lately moving house in difficult conditions with little help, but she's come through, nevertheless.

Afterwards I began to think about acquiring independent web hosting for the CBS RadioNet site. With just a little surfing, I found a decently priced basic package with Host.com, and signed up for it. Next step will be to transfer our pages there and get them to work, a job I haven't done in ten years, so will need to re-learn, if I want to keep the layout and design of our existing pages on Google Sites. The sheer difficulty I had trying to link up some new company domain names to Google web hosting, since the company has changed its web security frontiers, left me feeling that we'd be better served by a simple and more easily controllable resource. Here's hoping I can make this work! 

Satisfaction with my efforts at database migration quickly faded today when Julie found some transfer anomalies I hadn't noticed. She was very kind about it, but this puts complete transfer to Libre Office Base on hold for another week. It may not be a fatal error, but I have to re-visit the creation process once more from the data source with a CSV file error check and then re-build - probably the fifth time I've done this recently. Errors, while frustrating, provide experience in the use of the Base program, and that's valuable as I find my memory for new routines of an abstract nature quickly fades. By the time I left the office, I'd got as far as making a better complete data table. All that remains now is to finish the job recreating display forms.

Owain came over early evening for a supper outing to La Cuina, a local Catalan restaurant at the bottom of King's Road, in honour of Clare's birthday, which actually falls on Sunday. The food was excellent, and so was the wine, from the Lleida area. One of the people running the restaurant is a teacher who proposes to launch a Spanish conversation group shortly. I put my name down on her list. It's high time to make use of all that I've been pumping my head with daily for the past nine months, using the Duo Lingo Spanish app.

 

Afternoon in the Vale

This afternoon, we drove Owain out to Coed Hills near St Hilary in the Vale of Glamorgan where he'd been invited to a humanist wedding celebration outdoors in the grounds of the Coed Hills Rural Artspace. It's a mile from the nearest bus stop, and buses are infrequent, so we offered to give him a lift and pick him up afterwards. We then went to Dyffryn Gardens, had a picnic lunch, then spent a few hours strolling around the gorunds, enjoying the different seasonal look of areas both cultivated and natural. There's always something fresh to catch the eye there, so we never tire of visiting.

We returned to Coed Hills at the appointed time, but the wedding banquet was running late, so it was nearly seven by the time we departed with Owain. Yet, it was a pleasure just to sit in the parked car in a field listening and looking out for birds in the hedgerow in front of us. As we made our way back along the A48 to Cardiff, the Harvest 'supermoon' was in clear view above the horizon. I'd have loved an opportunity to stop and take a picture, but there was no place where I could both see the eastern horizon and safely park the car. Never mind, it's the 'blood moon' eclipse tomorrow night, provided I have the stamina to stay up.

  

A peep over the fence

I went over to St German's again on foot this morning to celebrate the midweek Eucharist with a dozen communicants and the year four class of children from Tredegarville school. The children are amazingly quiet and well behaved, a tribute to the good nurturing the receive and high expectations of them on the part of their teachers. We kept a belated St Matthew's day, and I led them in a few short songs, although I'm not exactly sure if they do that on a regular basis any longer. Well, all I can do  is be myself and engage with them in the best possible way I know. On the way there a went into school at the end of morning assembly and met head teacher Emma for the first time. I'll need to have a planning meeting with her to arrange the Harvst Festival all-school service pretty soon.

On my walk back to the town centre I passed the former St James' church, now converted, or being converted into apartments. There's a tall grey hoarding right around the grounds. Whether it's just a security measure or an enclosure for a garden is difficult to say. It's certainly a good way of reducing the amount of rubbish that can be dumped there and protects the stained glass windows from further damage, but it doesn't look good, so I'm wondering if there's planning permission for this. Also there is nothing by way of a notice board or advertising hoarding to describe what's happening, if anything within the old church building. What was noticeable was the appearance of the two beautiful angels with censer bas reliefs surmounting the north porch entrance. Their stonework has been scrubbed clean and the doors renovated. I'd love to know what work is going on there now. I must ask when I am next in school.

After lunch, I spent the afternoon writing a circular email reading for distribution to RadioNet users, with news about the BCRP, also picking up the threads of the database migration job before going into the office. It took so long, I ended up not going in at all. It will be a relief to put this into action and get on with something else. I have more copy writing to do, and neglected website re-building to do or get done. There are things which I have 'left undone which I ought to have done' and now they are beginning to crowd in on me, with obligations to learn more new things I've been avoiding. I feel quite impatient with myself.

Back into routine

Feeling quite tired yesterday after a busy weekend, so had a lazy morning, catching up on uploading photos to Picasaweb. Already last week's active leisure time enjoyment recedes into the distance. I went into the office in the afternoon to complete preparations for the evening's BCRP Board meeting. Chairman Gerry arrived early and briefed us on recent meetings with various interested parties, giving me a head start on things he wanted to say to the Board. Very helpful, as I am the default scribe for the meeting. It was a lively meeting securing our plans for a Business Crime Manager appointment and an annual meeting with a timetable. More work for me in pushing forward the publicity element of who we are and what we do, to my mind rather neglected until now. Having an active and interested management board makes all the difference.

After another tired and lazy morning, I turned to my scribbled notes from yesterday's meeting and set to work on producing a coherent set of minutes. Three hours later, despite enduring a fifteen minute migraine aura which came and went without further consequences, the job was complete. I was quite surprised at how much detail I did recall, once I joined notes to emerging thoughts. Sometimes it seems that I forget minor details very quickly, but the reality is that things are slower to register, but can be recalled, given time. Just like an old hard drive with little empty space left. For the moment however, I can still turn out a decent job, providing I work hard enough.

This evening I rejoined the Chi Gung class in St Mary's Church Hall. It's a year since I last attended, and it did me a power of good. There were were a good mix of familiar and new faces, and Christie was on excellent inspiring form, gentling us all back into action. A perfect antidote to excess mental effort. It was dusk when I walked back home. How the nights are drawing in. The chill of autumn promotes brisk walking rather than a leisurely stroll.

  

Homecoming

A nice sunny day for the journey back to Cardiff yesterday, with a stop in Rhyadyr for lunch at the Old Swan restaurant, where the men ate excellent sausage and mash and the women ate vegetarian lasagne. Mark and Saralee re-packed their belongings chez nous, and then we dropped them off at the Angel Hotel for their overnight stay and early departure, just after the roads had been re-opened to traffic and Westgate Street pubs overflowing with World Cup Rugby fans celebrating or drowning their sorrows after the game.

We had a quiet evening catching up after the week away. I watched the first episode of 'Beck', another Scandinavian crime drama series replete with interesting characters including the detective whose cases are portrayed. He's not as melancholic as dear old Wallander.

This morning I celebrated Mass first at St Saviour's Splott, and then at St German's. There was a child chorister at St Saviour's, and when we sang 'Lord of the Dance' at the end of the service, she danced on the spot all the way through. I wished others could have felt free to do the same. In coming weeks I am scheduled to do the St German's Wednesday morning Eucharist with a class of children from Tredegarville church school attending. One is a whole school Harvest Festival celebration. That'll be fun. It's time I re-visited the school and made the acquaintance of the new head teacher. I haven't been back since I left, five years ago. It'll be interesting to see how things have changed since then.

 

Yr Eifel and Nant Gwrtheyrn

Up behind the hamlet of Pistill, where we're staying is a collection of tall mountains, rising up out of the sea or the inland plain. Driving east on the B4417, ascending to the hill village of Llithfaen, we were able to take the upland road to a parking place from which we could hike up or around the twin peaked Yr Eifel (564m), either to visit the remains of a large Iron Age settlement on its eastern flank, or simply to follow the national coast path over Bwlch yr Eifel pass (350m), which we chose to do.

The summit was hardly visible due to cloud while we were there. For a while it covered the pass as well. I took the track up to the lower peak in the mist, with scant hope of reaching to top, but I did take a look at the exterior of the telecoms installation just below the peak, from professional curiosity. Sure enough it was owned by Aquiva, the infrastructure company that grants a license to use the CBS digital TETRA system. There was no phone signal up there, only on top of the pass, emanating from a cell relay some distance below, I suspect.

We walked back to the car park and had picnic lunch there, admiring the remarkable monument to the men who worked the three marble quarries of Nant Gwrtheyrn in the cliffs along the shore a thousand feet below us. With no haste and great care we descended the narrow road to Nant Gwrtheyrn village. Since the closure of the quarries the village has acquired a second life as a national center for Welsh language learning through residential course and conferences. Clare has wanted to visit here for years, and now she's seen for herself, wants to come and attend a conference here.

The two rows of quarry workers' cottages have been converted into conference accommodation. New classrooms are nearing completion adding to existing facilities. The village chapel has been restored and transformed into a meeting place and visitor centre, recounting the quarry's history. There's a new restaurant and cafe overlooking the sea, with fast and open wi-fi. A long golden beach, is only a short steep walk away. It's not so much a place of pride in Welsh language and culture as a place of delight and loving enthusiasm for it. Yet another place of pilgrimage to add to this week's itinerary. 

Although the summit of Yr Eifel remained in cloud all day, the sun shone down in the valley and on the shore below. I can't believe how fortunate we've been during our stay in here Llyn, connectivity excepted.

Considering how many people come from around Britain and the rest of the world to visit coastal Wales, it really is a scandal the extent to which it is deprived of fast broadband and 4G connectivity. It's not good enough to say it's too costly to upgrade per residential user, when there are millions of transient users who are paying for the service elsewhere in the country and have come to rely upon connected devices for informing themselves about everything, and keeping safely in touch when out and about. Ironic - they say you can get a 4G signal on top of Everest and Snowdon for that matter, but not in Nefyn or the tip of the Llyn Penisula. Perhaps the British Parliament or the Welsh Senedd should meet in Llyn for a week or so, and learn for themselves what others have to put up with.

It's forty five years today since I was ordained priest and ten years this month since I first started writing a blog. Surprised that I'm still going strong, as much in love with the Word and words as ever.

 

 

Snowdon walk

The day started cloudy. It felt as if rain might follow but the clouds were high and got higher, so we set out for Llanberis via Dyffryn Nantlle to show Mark and Saralee something of the slate industry landscape.

We stopped at the Trigonos centre to show them Plas Baladeulyn, where we stayed with Rachel last month, before ascending to Rhydd Du and thence to Llanberis.  We stopped for the second time this week in the vicinity of Caernarfon, where a 4G phone signal could be acquired. My work Blackberry showed its merit in supplying a transient wi-fi hotspot which the others could use to catch up on life back home in the USA, while I took a work phone call. It's quite rare to have to use this facility, given how frequently wi-fi is now available in public places, but such a blessing in time of need.

Mark and Saralee walked up to the half-way mark on the path to Snowdon summit. Clare and I were less ambitious this time, walking only a quarter of the way up before returning to Penceunant Isaf tea room for respite and a chat with Steffan our host while we waited for the others to rejoin us for tea.

Then we paid a brief visit to the National Slate Museum during its last half hour of opening for them to have a look around, before travelling back to Nefyn. It was a long journey but worth the effort, and once again the weather was kind to us all day, with only the briefest of showers on the mountainside.

Pilgrimage, ancient and modern

Today we drove to the far end of the Llyn Peninsula and walked in glorious sunshine on the coastal path opposite Ynys Enlli - Bardsey Island - such a wonderful gentle landscape of grassland, gorse and heather, tranquil, populated with grazing sheep and walkers like us. 

Outside the coastguard look out hut on the highest promontory of the hills surmounting the sea cliffs, Clare got chatting in Welsh to a couple visiting from Llanelli down south. He revealed that he was born in Llyn and moved south when he married a South Walian. When I asked him which village, he said "Pistill". Then he mentioned the name of Pen Isa'r Lon farm as his birthplace, the very house in which we're staying. He was much moved by the co-incidence. He remarked approvingly on the cross I always wear and said they attended a Pentecostal Church back home. We parted with warm handshakes and a photograph.

I made my way back to the car, in need of a drink of water, then walked down to where St Mary's well was indicated on signage and maps, in the fold of the terrain leading down to the water's edge. This was where ancient pilgrims made their way to take a boat across to visit Ynys Enlli, the isle of twenty thousand saints. The last part of the descent to the waterline has no steps and is quite rough, but just before the going got tough for someone like me walking in sandals, a spring of water breaks out of the cleft of grassy ground and trickles across the rocks into the sea. That's the well, no physical structure, just pure water, flowing from the ground. A place where salt and sweet water mix was always a place of wonder in ancient times. The sheer peacefulness of this wild yet gentle place remains awe inspiring.

On the steep climb back up from the spring, which for me involved chasing a single butterfly to photograph, I met a man descending, who stopped and asked me what I'd found below. I described the spring I'd located above the water's edge, and as we parted company, he expressed the hope that whatever he discovered he'd experience the grace to be found in the place - an unusual thing for a stranger to say, except perhaps in a place much visited by pilgrims walking in hope through the past millennium.

I met up with the others picnicking in the lee of a stone wall close to the car park, and after lunch we made our way down to Aberdaron, to visit the lovely church and village next to the beach, where the poet R S Thomas spent twenty years of his ministry and wrote some of the most spiritually profound poetry of the twentieth century. St Hywyn's Parish Church is currently having its roof renovated. It's open for visitors, but half of it is a building site. I was reminded of that year in St John's City Parish Church, when we succeeded in keeping the place open to visitors for the three months it took to repair and redecorate the building interior.

I bought a volume of R S Thomas' collected poems in the village store, to compensate for the absence of any volumes of his later than 1978, which was the last time I bought anything of his. Nourishment for years to come. I love his sparse style and vivid use of imagery. To my mind his work has a touch of the zen master about it. I found the others huddled outside a shop overlooking the beach, taking advantage of the free wi-fi signal to connect with the outside world. The wi-fi where we're staying is still ignoring us, cause of huge frustration to us, who normally take connectivity for granted.
 

Clynnog Fawr

Today we drove into Caernarfon, about half an hour away from Nefyn. We visited the Castle and had lunch in Jake's Cafe, just inside the old town walls. Before heading for home we crossed the river Arfon and walked along the shore, just after the high tide turned. I caught sight of a curlew landing to feed just thirty feet from the promenade, and was delighted to catch a few photos at relatively close range. It made my day.

On the return journey we stopped in the hamlet of Clynnog Fawr, which has an unusually large Parish Church, for this region, dating from 15-16th century. A spacious monastic collegiate church before the reformation, important for pilgrims because of its association with St Beuno, a founding father of Christian life in Gwynedd. In the sixth century he established a 'Clas' here, a small group of monks living and learning together, welcoming and teaching others. 

There's a separate chapel to the southwest of the church said to have once been a shrine and possibly Beuno's burial place, although other places like Pistill's ancient church also claim this honour. Several churches and associated hostels flourished along the route, in the mediaeval heyday of pilgrimages from Holywell on the eastern border of North Wales to Ynys Enlli, Bardsea island. 

These churches are in a fight for survival in our times of decline in traditional Christian faith, yet this route is still walked by latter day pilgrims and spiritual truth seekers, looking into the past of this beautiful numinous region to find inspiration and guidance for the future, whether they are committed church members or not.

Port Dinllaen

The local weather forecast for the week is a mix of cloud, rain and sunshine, rather changeable. It's hard to check regularly as this area suffers from lack of good connectivity, whether by landline or by mobile phone. The advertised wi-fi at our holiday let is non-existent, either too slow or too congested with other users to let us log on to the hotspot SSID displayed. It's rather frustrating, and reminds me of how it was in Aberteifi town when we holidayed there a couple of years ago.

It was a day to explore local shores, however, with more sunshine and blue skies than cloud. We drove to Morfa Nefyn the next village, and thence to nearby Porth Dinllaen beach car park, to walk on the coastal path along the peninsula through an impressively sited golf course, as far as we could go. There was a colony of a dozen or so cormorants inhabits the tiny offshore promontory of Carreg Ddu, offering some rewarding photos.

We returned along the shore path to the Ty Coch Inn for a superb pub lunch with local craft brewed ale. It's a secluded unspoilt hamlet right on the water's edge, with an interesting history. This and the neighbouring Nefyn bay were once home to herring fishing and fishing boat construction. A bid was made in the early nineteenth century to attract the main ferry to Ireland to this sheltered bay, but lost out to Holyhead, across the water in Anglesey. The Ty Coch pub and out-buildings were intended to  be a point of departure for travellers to Ireland, but the venture failed, leaving the peninsula as a rural backwater when fishing and boat building declined, until the arrival of the golf course, and modern tourism. 

A lovely day of walking, concluded with an excellent shared meal and conversation. We're taking turns to cook for each other.

 

In the steps of St Beuno

Went to the Nefyn village store early to get some sugar and a Sunday newspaper, to learn of Jeremy Corbyn's victory in the Labour leadership election. The tabloids disgraced themselves as ever with their expressions of ill-will in catchy headlines and copy. They've been sniping for weeks, aided and abetted by establishment politicians fearful of losing their grip on the reins of power. Thousands of people have ignored the messages projected by media moguls, to elect Corbyn. I don't much like all of his policies, but he is a decent straightforward man and a radical politician. The vote in his favour is an impressive act of contempt toward to powerful elite of manipulators who have controlled the British mass media for generations. Where do we go from here I wonder?

I found the Parish Church of Dewi Sant in the village, advertising an eleven o'clock service, so I returned for breakfast then came back with Clare to attend the service. It was led by the lay Reader and in the absence of the Vicar, it was Ministry of the Word with Communion by Extension. One priest looking after nine churches, and a group of churches struggling to come to terms with the need to re-shape its offering of services so that one priest and one active lay reader could cope. 

Before the service there was a report on recent meetings held to try and establish a new pattern of services and pastoral revision. Many things are as yet unresolved, people are reluctant to change their worship habits. Thankfully Bishop Andy is not enthusiastic about church closures, but rather looking for fresh ways to ensure they stay in use as assets to aid church growth. But there's no doubt that more ministerial support and leadership is required, even just to make effective change happen. Nine small worshipping groups in small communities in a large rural area that gets lots of visitors. It's a tough challenge indeed, as it is elsewhere across the Province.

After the service and a bit more shopping, we returned, then went for a walk along the coast path, as far as the lovely church of St Deiniol, foundation dating back to the time of the saint himself in the sixth century. This was one of several churches he founded in North Wales. It's on the old pilgrims' route to Ynys Enlli – Bardsey – the island of ten thousand saints, a the end of the peninsula. This was a popular enough route a thousand years ago, for there to be hospices in the area, serving both hale and hearty travellers and the sick. There was a lepers' hospice and the north side of the chancel has a lepers' window. 

The present building dates back to the 11-12th century, and has a beautiful round font carved with celtic knot work, that must be at least nine hundred years old, if not older, like the one in Patricio which I visited earlier in the year.

Journey to Nefyn

By ten this morning I'd picked up Saralee and Mark from their hotel. By eleven they'd decanted their essential week's luggage into our two small suitcases, to fit everything needed into the car boot. By eleven fifteen we were on our way up the A470 in decent travelling weather, making our way to Nefyn, on the north coast of Llyn. 

We stopped for a hearty pub lunch in Builth Wells, then for tea in Porthmadog harbour, did our food shopping in Lidl's on the outskirts and arrived forty minutes later than planned. This meant that the owner was leaving us late for a supper engagement and gave us hasty instructions to get us started. 

We failed to ask the wi-fi password, and found the weak and variable phone signal didn't aspire to 4G, and just occasionally in down-times offered to connect us to Irish BT services – on a clear day you can see the mountains of County Wicklow in Eire from our holiday house at Penisarlon farm on a hillside above the cliffs in the hamlet of Pistill a mile and a half east of Nefyn itself. 

The view was amazing, as the sun set through a sky alive with fast moving small clouds. What a great place to stay, with or without proper connectivity.

Night at the opera

Back to the office this morning to complete the commissioning of the new PC, trimming its desktop of all those surplus crapware program tiles, and installing Libre Office. I'd forgotten my flash drive with the installation files on it, and set about downloading them again, happily a speedy affair on our BT office broadband. Much to my surprise, when installation had started I discovered that I was in possession of the newest Libre Office version 5. I hadn't noticed any mention of this in my daily tech blog reading. I then had to update the other machines in the office, and later at home. Even if the improvements are relatively minor, it's always worthwhile. It's got a lot quicker and slicker in the past year, whilst retaining, thankfully a more familiar user interface. Some commentators regard it was 'old fashioned' compared with MS Office. It's not as eye catching, but it's far easier to use, as it draws on one's existing experience by being familiar to use and giving fewer puzzles to solve as you get to grips with it. For old users, that' s a great plus. I don't care if it works on a tablet or a phone. It works and works best where it's most needed, on proper static office hardware.   

I got away from the office in time to return for a late lunch, and worked at home until it was time to go to the Millennium Centre for Bellin's opera 'I Puritani'. I felt sure we'd seen it before, and racked my brains to remember where and when. The music seemed remotely familiar, also the performance setting, but less so the plot. Eventually I recalled we'd seen it in Geneva's Grand Theatre about twenty years ago, and it was an occasion when I'd fallen asleep, probably exhausted after a day of skiing. I made an effort not to doze of this time. Slowly it dawned on me that my poor recollection may have something to do with my dislike of the story-line – Bellini or his librettist's antipathetic perception of English seventeenth century protestants. Great entertainment for a mainly catholic early nineteenth century audience, maybe, but hollow and inaccurate viewed down the wrong end of the telescope of time. 

As ever, the chorus was superb and the lead performers impressive. The first scene and last scenes were set in the Lodge of an Ulster Orange Loyalist order in modern times. Those in between were set in Puritan times. The production was making a point about the contemporary social and political legacy of puritanism, but it lacked consistency, especially given the flawed nature of Bellini's plot line. The idea was messy and confusing, even if neatly delivered by WNO. It's sheer coincidence that this should be on stage just as the Northern Ireland Assembly Government staggers into crisis with DUP withdrawals from office over the alleged secret survival of the presumed disbanded IRA. I just hope WNO have no plans to take this on tour to Belfast in the foreseeable future.

We got home to a message announcing the safe arrival in Cardiff from Spain of our American friends Saralee and Mark. Tomorrow we're off to explore the Llyn Peninsula together for the week.

Database migration

This last few days I have been working in quiet moments on mastering the intricacies of the Libre Office Base module, the open source equivalent of MS Access, by a process of trial and error. My aim is to migrate CBS company data from MS Works to a more modern program able to run on Windows and Linux, and maybe even Mac machines, with data files compatible with successive upgrades. 

I can't say MS Works has ever let us down. It has run successfully on every version of Windows for the past 20 years in which I have installed it on each new machine I've bought, though not when I've run Linux on them as well. I live in dread of the unlucky chance of losing the last MS Works installation disk I acquired in 2002, and no longer be able to use it on new machines.
 

The first task was to edit out material for archiving, and add new material on subscribers' web accounts, all of which has emerged over the five years since I first set up the company database. Then I had to figure out how to bind the data with the program in a core database table, then how to devise presentation forms using the data. The help files were barely adequate, but with trial and error I had something to show for a dozen hours of effort, when I went to the office this afternoon. 

Julie's feedback gave me a few more ideas of what I needed to do before making the switch to the new Libre Office Base program. My other task was to set up the desktop PC ordered to replace the troublesome Acer. After registration and set up, taking the best part of an hour, it too turned out to have a Windows 8.1 operating system, and needed up grading to Windows 10. By the time this was under way, it was time to leave for home, yet again.
 

This evening the BBC Four Proms broadcast recording from last Saturday featured 'cellist Yo Yo Ma in a continuous performance of Bach's six 'cello suites. I listened to the podcast of these last Sunday with great pleasure and recollection of student days when we first listened to these, and engraved them on our memories. Watching the live performance was an added bonus. The music will echo in my mind for many days to come.

Colloge changes

Finally yesterday, the car exhaust repair was completed, at great expense, but it's great to have it back again outside the house, to use on those occasions when public transport won't work. 

This morning I had an appointment with the Dental Hygienist and drove to the Llandaff North surgery, in order to be able to return in time to then walk back to Llandaff for for catch up chat with Fr Mark Clavier, Vice Principal of St Mike's. Sadly he's leaving in the New Year to become Vice Principal of St Stephen's House in Oxford. Proposed policy changes for the future role of the College in Church in Wales ministerial formation imply a different sort of future for residential training than the one envisaged when Mark was appointed, before Peter Sedgwick retired. In such circumstances, Oxford makes him an offer he can't refuse, one which will make full use of his gifts. 

It's sad that the Church in Wales loses a gifted scholar and pastor with enterprise and imagination to bring to ministerial formation. Stephen Adams, another long standing staff member is also moving to Cowbridge after ten years at St Mikes. I wait with interest to see who will be appointed in their places, to implement the required changes.

A feast of Bach

Without the car today, it was necessary to take a bus. I walked down to Cowbridge Road, and took a 13 as far as the old bus station. It couldn't go any further as there were road closures around the city centre, due to a 10k road run disrupting normal traffic. From there, it took me just twenty minutes to reach St Germans in good time. Bright sun shone into the church during the service. It's a great place to worship in good weather. Afterwards I had a lift home with a congregation member living nearby, so I got in for lunch at my usual Sunday time. Owain had just emerged from the shower after a long lie-in to recover from a late night, so we ate together before he left for Bristol.

Last night we missed Yo Yo Ma's performance of the six Bach 'Cello suites at the BBC Proms, but Clare found the repeat with her iPad, and we listened to it together. The sound levels weren't very satisfactory and I couldn't get the iPad to feed sound into our hi-fi system, much to my annoyance, so eventually I found the podcast on my phone, and played the second half of the recital at better volume over the hi-fi. Performing all six suites in one go is certainly a virtuoso tour de force for a sixty year old. His pace was quite brisk for many of the dances. I couldn't imagine moving at that pace, but it was impressive. I prefer Pablo Casals and Paul Tortelier versions, both more measured and lyrical, as befits Europeans for whom the nature of the folk melodies employed by Bach would be part of their deep cultural heritage.

Some of the pieces from the 'Cello suites have been transcribed for guitar and I few of them I have been trying to learn to play properly for the past fifty years, with scant success, though much love. In University days we got to know them well, as we bought the Casals Deutsche Grammophon records of Suites 1-4, and played them until we knew the off by heart. We either couldn't find or afford suites 5-6, so it's a delight to listen to them with fresh ears, barely acquainted with them. Our dear friend David Barker, a 'cellist, like my Dad and daughter Rachel, played to us selections from the suites as he was learning them. He died of cancer thirty years ago, and there are melodies here which I cannot hear without thinking of him. Often we sang folk music together in our youth, just for pleasure rather than performance. I still grieve his untimely death.

 

Bio-diverse Canton

This morning we visited The Apothecary shop at the bottom of Llandaff as Clare was in search of a particular herb tea. The owners have turned their , back room into a congenial little tea room, where you can try out many of the brews on sale in the shop and sample some fine looking vegetarian and vegan cakes made by small local providors. What an interesting idea. Clare picked up a leaflet about the open day being held at the nearby Chapter Arts Centre Community Garden, so we went over there to have a look around.

 

Chapter Arts centre, once a secondary school has a large open forecourt in front of the main building once a playground. Two thirds of it have been re-assigned from parking to an area with a series of raised flower beds with bushes, trees and an enormous variety of vegetable and flower plants. There are beehives out the back of the building and a greenhouse in one corner. It's worked by enthusiastic volunteers, and interestingly isn't managed in a regimented way. All kinds of plants grow together side by side, higgledy-piggledy rather than in neat rows. I guess the accent is on bio-diversity, and showing how what are thought of as weeds co-exist, as in the wild, with flowers and edible things. 

We paid to get it, as the Open Day is a charity fund raising event, and were treated to a free drink and a piece of home made cake. An accordeonist and a recorder player were duetting outside, playing folk dance tunes and promoting Pentreffest the annual folk music and dance festival to be held next month in the village of Rudry, the other side of Caerphilly Mountain from Cardiff. We brought home a pot of Chapter honey, utterly delicious. Urban honey benefits from an environment with cultivated gardens and parks presenting much greater floral diversity to bees than rural areas dominated by agrarian mono-culture. Nature's own subtle commentary on what we've done to the land.

Owain arrived in time for supper and a good chat before heading out for a late gig at Gwdihw in town. Before bed we watched the last episode of 'The Young Montalbano' for the second time around. Next Saturday I believe a new series of  Danish crimmie 'The Bridge' is set to begin, but we'll be up in the Llyn Peninsula with Mark and Saralee, over from Seattle from a European holiday, starting in Belguim, then going to Spain, and finally, with us to North Wales. If we have tell in the place we've hired, I doubt if it will get switched on, as there'll be so much to talk about. It's the best part of five years since we last saw Saralee.

A repair and replacement week

After celebrating the midweek Eucharist with ten people at St German's Wednesday morning, I took the car into Canton Quikfit depot to get something done about the exhaust, which sounds like a hole is developing. Later, I had a phone call to say it needed the catalyst replacing, and had to be ordered.  It was going to be expensive. Time to think. At 24 years old the car's scrap value is a hundred pounds, but it's mechanically in good nick and the bodywork surprisingly sound for a car of its age.

Clare's nephew and godson David had expressed an interest in the car's potential and having it when we've finished with it, during our East Anglian birthday party visit, as it would be a worthy candidate for restoration, or customizing for racing if one was so inclined, not that we'd want to take this course but we're minded to hand it on to him when we change cars. It has to be driveable when we do, as he lives in Scotland, so I decided there was no option but to go ahead, spend the money and keep the car for a while longer. 

Thursday afternoon there was another call to say that the catalyst's sensor was also irretrievable due to corrosion. More expense, and delay while the part is ordered. Today, a third call to say that a further pipe section has to be ordered. More cost, more delay until Monday, which means a car-less weekend. The only useable component of the exhaust remaining is the muffler section which Quikfit replaced several years ago. We don't use the car that much. It's only when it's not there at our beck and call that we notice.

Meanwhile, back at the office, the Acer desktop failed yet again to self-repair. It remains stuck in a loop after re-boot, with no error message to indicate the real problem. So, this afternoon I unplugged it, put it back in its packaging and returned to John Lewis'. Rather than a like for like replacement I've decided it's better to go for the HP equivalent, even if we have to wait a few days for one to arrive at the store. In the five weeks since it was purchased, I don't think we've had more than five days use out it. Most disappointing, and such a waste of time, all that machine minding while it pretended to repair itself.

A warning light that doesn't

I received disconcerting news from Ashley that his new Acer all in one desktop machine was yet again misbehaving and not starting up as intended. It's cycling in a re-boot - repair mode loop, it seems to be caused by unadjusted power settings putting the machine to sleep or switching off, depending on how long it's been left. Normally the machine is left on permanently, cond configured to stay on, with only the screen blanking on idle. I had to do this when it needed reverting to the OEM Windows 8.1 or else the 148 updates would never have been completed. As it was with those reboots that demand consent, it took several days to get the machine in to a state where the upgrade to Windows 10 could take place. This returned to power settings to default and neither of us noticed, so the same old story started again.

The machine's power tell tale light is so dim, it's impossible to tell if it's switched on. Neither does it  blink when in suspense, so one is fooled into thinking it's switched off. Pressing the power button is supposed to switch on or wake up the machine, not sure which. But prolonged pressing of the power button brings up the 'Advanced Startup' menu, which you may or may not need, depending on whether the machine thinks its been properly switched off or not. Without any useful tell-tales, this produces a vicious cycle, for no apparent reason. Only after reading up on 'Advanced Startup' on the Microsoft website was I able to find a way to understand the issue. But as today is bank holiday, I had better things to do than go into the office.

After a lazy morning, we went for a walk along the Taff Trail as far as Llandaff North and had a drink in the Railway Inn before walking back. I cooked a seafood paella for supper, and made an effort not to think about work and time consuming operating systems of any kind.

 

Recollection in Bristol

Another visit to St German's this morning to sing the Solemn Mass. Nice to have a late relaxed start to my Sunday. I was asked if I'd be willing to cover more regular duties during Fr Dean's absence, and said yes for three of the four Sundays of the coming month. October Sundays are already fully booked, though nothing beyond that so far.

We drove over to Bristol to see Amanda and James after lunch, and Owain came and joined us, which was delighful. He told us all about his visit to Bristolian artist Banksy's Dismaland Bemusement Park in Weston super Mare, and showed us photos he'd taken on his 'phone. He said how much he'd laughed, how much it made him think, with its hard-hitting satirical social critique of modern consumer society, ruthlessly mocking the fantasy escapist ethos of Disneyworld, and reminding the audience of the many horrors of injustice and violence which mar the contemporary world. 

We also reminisced about life in St Agnes Vicarage when Amanda came to live with us, Owain was a toddler, thirty five years ago and there were aspects of life in the St Paul's area that had some of the bemusing characteristics of Banksy's Dismaland. We drove him back to his place in Redfield on our way home, passing through the edge of St Paul's, down Ashley Hill. Superficially, it all looks less run down now than it did in those days, but looks can deceive, Owain suggested. 

It's thirty three years since we left the St Paul's area, for me to do the career break R.E. teacher training course, which made an adult educator of me, rather than a schoolmaster. Two years later, I bought my first home computer, and a decade before the internet became public property, slowly found my way into understanding the coming digital era and what it meant for society as well as science. 

Sixteen years earlier, as an undergraduate researching data to back my final year Chemistry project in Bristol University, I awakened to the important potential of the development of Information Science, then in its infancy, and the use of computers as its tools. The data processing mainframe computers of those days filled a large room, yet my Amstrad CPC 464 in 1984 was just as powerful, if not more so. How much further have computers and information technology come in the thirty years since then, and the world is such a different place due to what can now be achieved for better or worse through data processing of every kind.

Afternoon in the Beacons

The weather was just right for a country walk, so we packed a picnic lunch and headed up the A470 to the Brecon Beacons, turning off to take the country lane along Pontsticill reservoir, parallel with the track of the Brecon Mountain Railway, which I last visited with James about eight years ago, but first visited as a Boy Scout on a hiking expedition back in 1956-7, when a small group of us took the train from Maesycwmmer to Pontsticill, on a railway line which sadly closed not long after, only to have the reservoir stretch revived by train enthusiasts a decade later. We drove on, up over the pass that leads down to Talybont reservoir, to walk in a steep stretch of forest area that contains a series of fast running streams and waterfalls in a stretch of Forestry Commission terrain little exploited yet well frequented by walkers and picnickers. 

We sat by a fast flowing stream to eat our sandwiches, watching a couple of children exploring the water carefully, barefooted, and wondered how often urban kids got to do things like this with their parents nowadays. We passed an Asian extended family as we walked up, carrying food and equipment to a level clearing where they were going to prepare food for a feast, by the looks of it. Well worth the effort in such a beautiful setting. On our way back down, I noticed several men from the group we saw earlier, gathered at the top of a small waterfall performing their ritual ablutions before prayer. So refreshing to be able to pray together unhindered in the great outdoors, I thought to myself. 

After our walk, we called in for a drink and cake at the charming Old Barn tearoom, set in a lovely garden clearing in woodland, a few miles away from the waterfalls. The farmhouse is quite remote from others at the far end of the lake from Ponsticill village, but whenever we've called in there, it's been busy, as trail bikers and walkers as well as picnickers can easily find it, due to its discreet well placed home made signposts distributed around the area. We're very fortunate to have such lovely countryside to visit within easy reach of Cardiff. 

And to end the day, another episode of 'The Young Montalbano' to make us smile.

Upgrading - various

Wednesday afternoon, as I was going into the office, I bought a prime lens to go with my Sony Alpha 55. No telephoto capacity, just a set focal length F1.8, much like my old Praktica SLR film camera. In fact the 49mm UV lens filter from the Praktica fitted the new lens, although sadly it's acquired a scratch and will only be temporarily useful. This kind of lens works best for portraits and landscape. I shall enjoy exploring how to use it, having got used to variable focal length lenses on all the different digital cameras I've had over the past 15 years. I can't believe it's that long since I started to abandon 35mm film photography.

Thursday was broadband upgrade day - at some time unspecified, the line would drop, and then restart and it would all happen some time before midnight, as the TalkTalk upgrade letter said. It was a day when there were several work matters I needed to deal with and be on-line for, thankfully the old speed link was stable and uninterrupted until just after two. By then I'd done all I needed to do. It was much later in the day when I got around to unpacking the new router and installing it. 

Happily it started up quickly and was soon delivering a much smoother service in getting the household devices all on line without IP address clashes. I say smoother rather than faster, as I've formed the impression that Windows 10 computers still load programs with a degree of latency, more than one would expect for faster modern day computers. Once fully loaded the speed is obvious, but while they load an assortment of internet checks are being made. How I wonder are really necessary? I think it is presumed that people will leave computers permanently on with programs open, or else configured with a pre-load feature operating at boot time, to give you a quicker program start, but a longer wait from switch on to first use. 

It used to take four or five minutes to get a computer system up to speed. Windows 10 gets you to a login screen in under ten seconds, unless inconveniently updating at the time. This always seems to happen to me when I'm in a big hurry to get started. How impatient we've become! Loading programs and work files, brings the time from switch on to starting work down to a minute. In the early days of home computers, there were office suites of programs etched on ROM chips, were extensions of the ROM based operating system. You were ready to find the work file you wanted in seconds from switch on. The nearest matching device for speed today is a Chromebook with fast broadband, though less so when off-line. Such systems are limited in scope, but great if your needs are limited. A good smartphone or tablet always on even when charging, is also quick to get you working, though I'm not a virtual keyboard fan, and prefer a traditional computer to work on. Other devices get used mainly for media consumption.

Today is Kath's birthday. We exchanged messages and greetings in Spanish. They're staying in Toledo on their way home from Sta Pola. I've been enjoying the smooth and uninterrupted quality of broadband access. As at work, this takes a certain tension out of doing what you have to do, as well as reducing delays - except to the imagination, which works at a pace that's not time dependent. After lunch I went for a stroll to Llandaff Fields with prime lens equipped camera to see what I could see and record. I take pleasure in enjoying the bigger picture, landscapes and townscapes are what I look for. The prime lens challenges me to look at detail. Its range of focus gives you a sharp clear subject set in a de-focussed background, so you need to think carefully about what you're looking for in a picture as well as what you're looking at. 

I stopped and had a coffee in Cafe Castan. So glad it continues to flourish, ministering food and drink to park visitors. It's a real enhancement to the locality, and the staff are friendly. Then, late afternoon I went into the office for a couple of hours, and found myself with the task of completing the re-install of Windows 10 on the new Acer desktop PC. It crashed badly and had to be reverted to factory settings, Windows 8.1, then 148 updates had to be made before it could be accepted in the queue for upgrading to Windows 10. 

This dragged on for days, leaving Ashley un-confident about whether or when he could use it, so I finished the job and re-configured it, turning a short visit to talk business into a long one machine minding, so I got home late for supper, resentful that these processes don't always function as smoothly as intended. I never found out why this PC's crashed in the first place. It might have been something simple, sync or an email attachment failing to find an app to open it, locking up the system and leaving the machine useless until it drops into sleep mode. The on/off switch tell tale is so dim, you cannot tell whether it's off or in sleep. At that stage, a wrong move may have caused damage that confounded the various system repair and recovery options. There was no success in recovering settings data stored in OneDrive either, hence the need for a hugely time wasting factory reset.

After supper, we settled down together in front of the TV and watched 'The Last Quartet' a fine film about the middle aged members of a string quartet, thrown into crisis by the impending retirement of one of its members, based around the sublime music of Beethoven's last quartet. Wonderful.

Night out

For our Monday morning drive back to Cardiff, we chose a longer, potentially less congested route, following the A14 north to the M6, turning west on the A45 towards Warwick, for just about half distance, and from there a familiar route across country to the M5 and M50 back into Wales, along the route we use to get to Kath and Anto's. There were certainly fewer traffic queues, but it still took us six hours, as it rained for the first two third of the journey, and we needed several stops. Clare drove the middle section of the journey, the first time she's done a long stretch since her shoulder operation, with no ill effect, which was pleasing.

We returned to find a note from the postman that his attempt to deliver our new high speed TalkTalk broadband router had failed, as we were away, so I'll have to collect it tomorrow. The new service is due to begin on Thursday of this week. Hopefully it will resolve the problems we've been having due to an overloaded slower connection, and justify the extra expense.

This morning, on my way to celebrate the midweek Eucharist at St Saviour's Splott again, I called at the Post Office main sorting office to pick up the router parcel, not to be opened until the new service goes live, apparently. I had intended to go into the office late afternoon, after taking Clare to the Heath hospital for an eye check-up, but I dozed off in the chair, still recovering from yesterday's long drive unfortunately - old age taking its toll. Then Ashley and I conversed at length over the phone and I completed some work tasks on-line. Another good reason for having better connectivity.

Instead of cooking, we went out to Stefano's Restaurant for supper, as they were having one of their live music evenings, with a variety of singers performing operatic and music theatre songs for an enthusiastic audience of diners. Well, why not it's still holiday season, isn't it? said Clare.
 

Felixstowe Sunday

An internet search last night enabled me to download a useful pdf list of churches in Felixstowe with their Sunday service times. I needed this to find somewhere I could attend an eight o'clock Eucharist, to free me later in the morning to drive Owain back to Ipswich train station for his journey back to Bristol. In these days of clergy shortages an early service can be hard to find, Fortunately, there was one advertised nearest to our B&B at the Parish Church of St John the Baptist, just five minutes walk up the hill. It's a well appointed Victorian High Church gothic building, by Sir Arthur Bloomfield, containing a superb collection of stained glass and a mosaic high altar reredos of the Lord's Supper. 

I was warmly welcomed by several people on arrival. The liturgy was 1662 Book of Common Prayer with KJV readings and a decent address on the Gospel of the day. There were 18 worshippers. I came away refreshed and happy to know that a normal and traditional early service was still available, even though the Parish is currently in an interregnum. 

I got back to Dorincourt Guesthouse in good time to enjoy a cooked Sunday breakfast. Then, Owain, Clare and I drove out to the Landguard nature reserve car park to save time, and walked from there around the peninsula, dominated by its fort, guarding the estuary since the seventeenth century and in continuous use from 1667 until 1956. As well as being an English Heritage site of military interest, the fort is now home to Felixstowe Museum. On this morning it was also host to a classic car rally.

As we were about to turn around and head back to the car, another large container ship rounded the headland, though not one of the giants. It was close enough to shore to identify as the 'MSC Valencia', registered in Madeira. I wondered if she plied her trade from the Puerto de Valencia, as it is also a big constainer shipping port, sister June and I discovered during our visit there six years ago.

After we'd taken Owain the station, Clare and I took a picnic lunch out, and sat on the edge of the promenade with our feet on the shingle, watching two young children running about tirelessly on the shore, braving the waves and getting wet with glee. The rain held off just long enough, then we returned to our room, and enjoyed a couple of hours siesta before joining Eddy and Ann, David and Liz for an Indian takeaway supper and an evening of family conversations. So much more congenial than a six hour return drive back home.

 
Here's a link to all the photos taken during our stay

Giants at Felixstowe

We were blessed with a fine day for Eddy and Ann's joint birthday celebration, in the form of a grand buffet lunch for twenty in their lovely back garden at Kirton. Before we drove to Ipswich to collect Owain from the train before joining them, I walked west along Felixstowe's promenade in the direction of the container port for half an hour, as far as the nature reserve on the Landguard Peninsula at the mouth of the Orwell estuary. 

A pleasing feature of modern environmental conservation activity is how information about flora and fauna in the local ecosystem are described in wayside interpretation panels. It enables one to see the environment with fresh eyes. I learned that Landguard peninsula is one of the driest areas of Britain, and that Britain has no less than one third of Europe's shingle beaches. Both factors determine the kind of vegetation that thrives best here.

The east bank of the Orwell beyond the peninsula is occupied by the port. When I first photographed Felixstowe's shore, five years ago, there were five giant cranes on the horizon, loading containers on to ships. Now seven are visible, evidence of development taking place, even during a time of deep economic recession. 

The port now hosts some of the world's largest ships on routine visits to Britain and ports in Germany. Holland and Belgium. Yesterday, we caught sight of one of the giants of the United Arab Shipping Company leaving for Hamburg where it starts its return journey to Quingdao in China.

A quarter of a mile long, holds full to capacity and decks piled high, it carries nearly nineteen thousand shipping containers. Seeing this was an unexpected bonus of our seaside sojourn.