Maintenance day

I drove up to El Perello this morning to visit the Bona Fe church drop in centre there, aware conversations about the chaplaincy news might be necessary, especially as there is no Sunday service in L'Ampolla this Sunday. Walking to Bona Fe after parking the car, I noticed several on the main street several pastelerías with chairs and tables in the main street, with conversation as much in English as Spanish. Carol was looking after the place, and her husband Brian was making preparations to put up the long awaited drop in centre sign over the door. I met a couple hailing from the south eastern valleys of Wales, who've retired here. It was lovely to hear their accents, as they originated just a valley away from where I was born.

Afterwards, I visited Isa and John again. This time, after lunch I did some update maintenance tasks on Isa's Windows XP computer, installed anti-virus software and Skype, and showed her how to make calls, and I'd promised on my last visit. I enjoy the pastoral challenge of making sense of computers' operating quirks and deficiencies to those who aren't well versed in technical matters. Admittedly, the problem with getting older is retaining the information, whether understood or not. The less frequently you use a machine the harder it is to remember. It's a year or so since I last worked on a 2005 XP laptop, so simply recalling some procedures as well as explaining them took a while. I'd forgotten how time consuming machine minding can be with a decent older machine, even with a fair speed broadband connection delivered by satellite to a house in the countryside. By the time all was accomplished, the sun was heading toward the horizon, and it was dusk when I arrived back at the Vicarage. 

I supped watching a ludicrous sci-fi movie about the next supposed generation of intelligent war planes. An excess of CGI animation and special effects to no good purpose, and an implausible plot made this an utter waste of time. Just as bad as machine minding while XP does fifty Windows updates.