Downs and ups

My nasty bug hasn't given up without a fight, even after a couple of days of lying low at home, but I had to summon the energy to go in and celebrate the noon Eucharist today. Just my luck to be faced with the need to remount a dislodged cycle chain before setting out. I arrived just as the tower clock was striking the hour, to find that my key to the outside sacristy door wouldn't work, requiring me to enter through the South Porch, making me even later getting started. Afterwards, I set off on foot for a meeting of St John's Chaplains down at the HQ on Ocean Way, only to find I was a day early. It was clearly not my day. I should have gone back to bed. Instead, I spent a couple of hours checking subscriber data with Ashley over in Southgate House to conclude the afternoon.

There are two memorable things about today. The first is my discovery of a remarkable series of photos sent via Twitter from the International Space Station by a Japanese astronaut. I'm not a Twitter fan, nor a user, but to put this communications channel to such marvellous topical use can only be good for our sense of the world we are privileged to inhabit. Check it out - here. One of my best bits of new insight from visiting this site is that the Japanese have a different name for each daily phase of the moon. Like the Inuit having hundreds of words for kinds of snow, this tells you something about observation, and the value it's given in cultures other than ours. The other memorable thing is that several days ago I was invited by Ed Walker the editor, to be a guest blogger on the Wales On-Line website. I responded, and learned today that my post was published here yesterday.