I'm in awe of some of my arty friends, who are so productive and create such loveliness. Even some friends of mine who have been posting about what their naughty Christmas elves have been up to, complete with pictures.
Glancing through old posts, especially those from this time of year, I despair at myself; the same old aims pop up time and again. Lose weight, exercise more, earn some money, learn how to do all sorts of things, get everything sorted out, get a grip!
I spotted a post in which I talked about peyote stitch bezels around stones and the offending articles are still in the UFOs box, where I left them years ago when I couldn't decide how to create the bails. I had another look at them when a crafty friend came round for a cuppa and decided that I would not be able to get a pinch bail or even a jump ring into the beadwork, (because I didn't 'cheat' and use a strip of double-sided tape around the stone, so the beadwork is as tight as I could make it). Beaded bails it is, then.
With the turning of the year at Yule, and thinking about my recent creative impulse, I set a goal. I need to be more productive and to do a major de-stash, so I am going to make, create, renovate, repair, alter and complete 365 things.
I have an appalling record when it comes to personal goals, as they often dissolve and disappear within a month, displaced by important and urgent stuff or other interests. Given that I need to be smarter about the goal setting, I decided posting every day and having a photo of every object would be unfeasible and unsustainable, so I'll post periodically and keep a running total. Although 365 is one object a day, I probably won't complete one a day, but I shall have to try to produce more or less 30 things a month just to keep on track. If I run short of time I might start making lots of earrings (although that at least will help de-stash the beads and give me something to sell!).
I've a long list of crafty things I want to try, and have been saying for years that I should pick my art things up again.
Choreographies will count. Making/repairing elements of the garden will count. Making everyday meals will not count, nor will making a mess (something I can do with no effort at all!) I've also decided that blog posts won't count unless they are tutorials or patterns, but I do need to complete a lot of draft posts too.
So that's a major aim for the year, to bring things back into use and create lovely things. How do you think I'll do? Feel like joining me? Let me know what you think in the comments below!
A reflective journal of my Dancing, Gardening, Arts and Crafts, Working, Domesticated and Wild Life.
Thursday, 27 December 2018
Wednesday, 12 December 2018
A little pre-Christmas crafting
I'm having some sort of crafting hyperactive attention deficit, feeling compelled just to start something as the idea occurs to me. I've no idea why that is, but of course it's resulted in more WIPs than ever. The need to create some stock for a local Christmas Craft Market may be part of it; one of those opportunities which arise, to which I said 'Yes!' and then started to wonder whether I was up to doing it, when other stall holders seem so professional and focused (and don't just offer whatever has fallen out of their impulsive, compulsive crafting!).
Looking back over my books of design doodles and ideas, I realised there are so many which I haven't created. Why not? Lack of confidence, time, decision-making? Too much attachment to perfect outcomes? That needs to change.
For the past few years, I've been intending to experiment with some of the knit and crochet Christmas decorations so generously shared on Ravelry, and perhaps create one of my own. I made a couple of the 'pint-sized pines' and 'tiny trees' patterns and played with some little Fairisle pattern bags, which were unexpectedly time-consuming. Oh dear, my colourwork technique needs some work! I tinkered with making a mini-tree with purl-ridge swirls, but the decreases need some work to create an even shape. I also bought some tinsel yarn to try to make cork-bottle topper trees, and that seems to be working.
Clockwise from top left: Alpaca sweater, various little Christmassy things, including the swirly tree, Cup of Tea socks, Danube socks (still!) tinsel starting a bottle-topper tree, wavy Baktus scarf pending decisions about finishing the ends. There are other WIPs/UFOs elsewhere, too.
Another of the things in my ideas book was to make some gift tags out of old Christmas cards. I used to do this, but it was rather haphazard, just cutting around pictures so that they ended up all sizes and shapes, and using a standard hole-punch left a rather large hole. I thought I might offer packs of tags for sale, so they would need to look tidy. So I made a few cardboard templates and used a small hole punch with goldfingering as a tie. I think they look lovely and made 12 sets of a dozen tags for the craft fairs.
Looking back over my books of design doodles and ideas, I realised there are so many which I haven't created. Why not? Lack of confidence, time, decision-making? Too much attachment to perfect outcomes? That needs to change.
For the past few years, I've been intending to experiment with some of the knit and crochet Christmas decorations so generously shared on Ravelry, and perhaps create one of my own. I made a couple of the 'pint-sized pines' and 'tiny trees' patterns and played with some little Fairisle pattern bags, which were unexpectedly time-consuming. Oh dear, my colourwork technique needs some work! I tinkered with making a mini-tree with purl-ridge swirls, but the decreases need some work to create an even shape. I also bought some tinsel yarn to try to make cork-bottle topper trees, and that seems to be working.
Another of the things in my ideas book was to make some gift tags out of old Christmas cards. I used to do this, but it was rather haphazard, just cutting around pictures so that they ended up all sizes and shapes, and using a standard hole-punch left a rather large hole. I thought I might offer packs of tags for sale, so they would need to look tidy. So I made a few cardboard templates and used a small hole punch with goldfingering as a tie. I think they look lovely and made 12 sets of a dozen tags for the craft fairs.
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| Finished sets of gift tags |
I hope they'll sell; they may not, but it has given me some impetus to dive into my craft stash and be more productive. Tutorial (with a downloadable template, if I can work out how to do that) to come!
Tuesday, 30 October 2018
Officially Cold
The clocks have gone back to GMT and everything was covered in frost for the past few mornings. Halloween/Samhain is tomorrow, there has already been snow in the Scottish Highlands, and I'm wondering if the predictions that we're going to have a hard winter will be correct.
I've started to feel the cold (I normally run quite hot) so it's my cue to break out the wool socks, long sleeves, scarves, coats, jumpers and crochet blankets on the sofa. I'm not complaining; I love the changing seasons.
Autumn seemed to be a warm and gradual thing. We've had a lot of rain, but on the sunny days, I was distracted by spiders every time I went into the garden. Digging out compost bin #2 took a while, distracted as I was by the wildlife. So many fat, female Araneus diadematus hanging in their webs! I also found some other well-marked female spiders, but was confused about what they were until I had one in a magnifier pot and used an online resource. Even so, I couldn't get enough magnification to determine whether they were Metellina mengei or M segmentata. There were a few other spiders and harvestmen which I've not identified yet.
I don't know when the swallows slipped away this year. The local ones just disappeared at some point in September, and I saw some tail-enders fleeing westwards while I was driving over the Preselis, the weekend of the Autumn Equinox. The swifts seemed to disappear suddenly in mid-August. There were lots of blackberries this year (the best, as always, completely inaccessible) and lots of wasps. And yet again, I was completely useless with recording butterflies!
I saw potato plants flowering in the second of the free-standing compost heaps and a few weeks later dug out enough for a couple of meals. I really must get a grip on the vegetable and fruit growing next year. While I've been concentrating on the front garden this summer, the back garden has rewilded itself.
The new houses on the field behind me are still being built. During the summer, the work sometimes started at 7.30 am. No-one could accuse the builders of throwing these houses up! There is still ground-work going on (I don't know if they've finished laying the road) and the heap of subsoil nearest my back fence is taller than ever. Internal work has been going on for weeks now, and annoyingly, some of the lights get left on overnight. The buildings have been painted in candy colours which seem to glow in low light. In my opinion, it doesn't make them any less of an eyesore.
There's still a way to go with them. According to the planning, there will be some young trees planted, bird boxes put up and gaps left in the soffits for roosting bats, to improve biodiversity. I wonder how long it will be before they, and the houses themselves, are inhabited.
I've started to feel the cold (I normally run quite hot) so it's my cue to break out the wool socks, long sleeves, scarves, coats, jumpers and crochet blankets on the sofa. I'm not complaining; I love the changing seasons.
Autumn seemed to be a warm and gradual thing. We've had a lot of rain, but on the sunny days, I was distracted by spiders every time I went into the garden. Digging out compost bin #2 took a while, distracted as I was by the wildlife. So many fat, female Araneus diadematus hanging in their webs! I also found some other well-marked female spiders, but was confused about what they were until I had one in a magnifier pot and used an online resource. Even so, I couldn't get enough magnification to determine whether they were Metellina mengei or M segmentata. There were a few other spiders and harvestmen which I've not identified yet.
I don't know when the swallows slipped away this year. The local ones just disappeared at some point in September, and I saw some tail-enders fleeing westwards while I was driving over the Preselis, the weekend of the Autumn Equinox. The swifts seemed to disappear suddenly in mid-August. There were lots of blackberries this year (the best, as always, completely inaccessible) and lots of wasps. And yet again, I was completely useless with recording butterflies!
I saw potato plants flowering in the second of the free-standing compost heaps and a few weeks later dug out enough for a couple of meals. I really must get a grip on the vegetable and fruit growing next year. While I've been concentrating on the front garden this summer, the back garden has rewilded itself.
The new houses on the field behind me are still being built. During the summer, the work sometimes started at 7.30 am. No-one could accuse the builders of throwing these houses up! There is still ground-work going on (I don't know if they've finished laying the road) and the heap of subsoil nearest my back fence is taller than ever. Internal work has been going on for weeks now, and annoyingly, some of the lights get left on overnight. The buildings have been painted in candy colours which seem to glow in low light. In my opinion, it doesn't make them any less of an eyesore.
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| The view from my bedroom, 23 October 2018. |
Tuesday, 16 October 2018
Storm Callum and Dance Madness
My neck, arms, upper back and chest are all stiff and achy today, but not from the dance weekend we had planned. I'd been looking forward to it for weeks and had, I thought, put together a good running order for the show. In the event (ha!), it had to be cancelled due to extreme weather.
So I was a bit wary when I saw the storm warning for the weekend of the Lampeter Dance Festival, but hopeful that it wouldn't be so bad. We had Serena Ramzy, one of my teachers and a very lovely person, booked to do workshops and perform in the Saturday night show. I haven't seen her for years, so was looking forward to my weekend very much. The show was all planned and I thought I had put together quite a good running order.
When severe weather is forecast, do you cancel/postpone your event as soon as you know, and risk the weather warning coming to nothing? Or go ahead, with the possibility that by the time it's clear the event should have been cancelled/postponed, it's too late anyway? So many times recently, the severe weather warnings have been updated or disappeared entirely, or I have been out in it and the local weather didn't warrant the warning.
By the time we knew that it was going to be bad, it was a bit late to cancel, so I packed the car and some lunch and tea-time food and drink, checked the roads and flood alerts for road closures (none found), made sure I had my phone and charger, picked up my friend Rachel, and set off in the blustery wind and lashing rain.
It wasn't until we were half-way to Carmarthen that we could see water lying on the fields. In Carmarthen, the level of the River Towy was alarmingly high and the road running parallel to the old quay was already flooded and closed. As we drove north, it became clear that it was worse weather in Carmarthenshire than Pembrokeshire. Water was coming off the fields, bringing stones and other bits with it and forming ponds on the roads. There were a few people out in the vile weather, trying to clear drains of leaves.
I'd left a little early and we were still on time, despite having to navigate deep puddles and the road completely awash at New Inn. We got as far as a place called Cilblaidd, just outside Cwmann, when the traffic stopped. A monster of a 4x4 with good ground clearance was coming from the other direction. The driver wound down his window and said that there was no way that cars would be able to get through on the bridge ahead, and we should just turn round. I relayed this information on to the car next to us, who had pulled in to a little lay-by. They shrugged and went on ahead, so I used the lay-by to turn around. As I drove off, I could see them in my rear-view mirror, stopping, and then reversing and turning around themselves.
I was a bit dithery after that. What should I do about all the stuff for the show? Could we find another way around? With the worsening roads and weather, should we even try?
Even before we got back to Llanybydder, there was a place where the flooded road was deepening fast and the car coughed and almost stalled, which would have left us in the water. Rachel was a perfect passenger, letting me know how things were on the passenger side of the car, doubtless as stressed as I was, but no complaints or even a peep when I gunned the engine and shouted at the car 'no no no no NO!' and got us going out of the flood. I considered holing up in a pub that we passed but pressed on to a garage to use the toilet and see if there were any updates on other routes. One of the staff was on Facebook, picking up videos of raging water and updates about fallen trees and closed roads. Along the route, the heavy rain was playing havoc with the phone signal and I couldn't get live traffic updates, or call my friend Rose to let her know what we were doing. Rachel took care of the phone, looking for map and Facebook updates, messages and texts, whenever patchy signal allowed.
We decided the best thing to do would be to go home, back to my place, where we could hang out with the cats, eat our packed food, watch the telly and generally vegetate for a few hours. We got back down the Carmarthen, where Pensarn trading estate, which was just heavily puddled on the outward journey, was flooded (a few hours later, the river overtopped the 8-foot high flood walls at Llangunnor).
Once home, we could get updates. It seemed that the Bridge and Co-op on the way into Lampeter were already flooding at 9.30 am, after I'd set off. Llechryd bridge, which is usually a problem, wasn't just flooded but the water was running over the top of it, just the tops of road signs visible. The amount of water coming down the rivers was incredible, and many places were flooded up to at least a metre. And there was a sad fatality when a bus stopped because of a fallen tree, and a young man got out to see what was going on and was caught by a landslip.
And the dance studio where the workshops were based in Lampeter had also flooded. The whole event was cancelled. Even though the weather on the Sunday was due to be fine, with no dance studio and many of the roads still impassable, it was impossible.
It must have been a moment's madness to think this would be okay; things could have gone so badly wrong! The tension from driving for three hours in lashing rain, blustery winds and negotiating flooded roads means that I'm still aching, a few days later. Next time I shall listen to my instincts.
I am risk-averse to the point of being cowardly. I cancel classes when a yellow severe weather warning is forecast. I know from experience that it doesn't take much to block some of the local, rural roads with flooding or a fallen tree and have attempted to go out to events anyway, exhausting myself trying to find a way round or creeping along in the fog and heavy rain. Very few are as dance-obsessed as I am, so would not go out anyway, so it's just not worth trying to run the class.
When severe weather is forecast, do you cancel/postpone your event as soon as you know, and risk the weather warning coming to nothing? Or go ahead, with the possibility that by the time it's clear the event should have been cancelled/postponed, it's too late anyway? So many times recently, the severe weather warnings have been updated or disappeared entirely, or I have been out in it and the local weather didn't warrant the warning.
By the time we knew that it was going to be bad, it was a bit late to cancel, so I packed the car and some lunch and tea-time food and drink, checked the roads and flood alerts for road closures (none found), made sure I had my phone and charger, picked up my friend Rachel, and set off in the blustery wind and lashing rain.
It wasn't until we were half-way to Carmarthen that we could see water lying on the fields. In Carmarthen, the level of the River Towy was alarmingly high and the road running parallel to the old quay was already flooded and closed. As we drove north, it became clear that it was worse weather in Carmarthenshire than Pembrokeshire. Water was coming off the fields, bringing stones and other bits with it and forming ponds on the roads. There were a few people out in the vile weather, trying to clear drains of leaves.
I'd left a little early and we were still on time, despite having to navigate deep puddles and the road completely awash at New Inn. We got as far as a place called Cilblaidd, just outside Cwmann, when the traffic stopped. A monster of a 4x4 with good ground clearance was coming from the other direction. The driver wound down his window and said that there was no way that cars would be able to get through on the bridge ahead, and we should just turn round. I relayed this information on to the car next to us, who had pulled in to a little lay-by. They shrugged and went on ahead, so I used the lay-by to turn around. As I drove off, I could see them in my rear-view mirror, stopping, and then reversing and turning around themselves.
I was a bit dithery after that. What should I do about all the stuff for the show? Could we find another way around? With the worsening roads and weather, should we even try?
Even before we got back to Llanybydder, there was a place where the flooded road was deepening fast and the car coughed and almost stalled, which would have left us in the water. Rachel was a perfect passenger, letting me know how things were on the passenger side of the car, doubtless as stressed as I was, but no complaints or even a peep when I gunned the engine and shouted at the car 'no no no no NO!' and got us going out of the flood. I considered holing up in a pub that we passed but pressed on to a garage to use the toilet and see if there were any updates on other routes. One of the staff was on Facebook, picking up videos of raging water and updates about fallen trees and closed roads. Along the route, the heavy rain was playing havoc with the phone signal and I couldn't get live traffic updates, or call my friend Rose to let her know what we were doing. Rachel took care of the phone, looking for map and Facebook updates, messages and texts, whenever patchy signal allowed.
We decided the best thing to do would be to go home, back to my place, where we could hang out with the cats, eat our packed food, watch the telly and generally vegetate for a few hours. We got back down the Carmarthen, where Pensarn trading estate, which was just heavily puddled on the outward journey, was flooded (a few hours later, the river overtopped the 8-foot high flood walls at Llangunnor).
Once home, we could get updates. It seemed that the Bridge and Co-op on the way into Lampeter were already flooding at 9.30 am, after I'd set off. Llechryd bridge, which is usually a problem, wasn't just flooded but the water was running over the top of it, just the tops of road signs visible. The amount of water coming down the rivers was incredible, and many places were flooded up to at least a metre. And there was a sad fatality when a bus stopped because of a fallen tree, and a young man got out to see what was going on and was caught by a landslip.
And the dance studio where the workshops were based in Lampeter had also flooded. The whole event was cancelled. Even though the weather on the Sunday was due to be fine, with no dance studio and many of the roads still impassable, it was impossible.
It must have been a moment's madness to think this would be okay; things could have gone so badly wrong! The tension from driving for three hours in lashing rain, blustery winds and negotiating flooded roads means that I'm still aching, a few days later. Next time I shall listen to my instincts.
Thursday, 11 October 2018
Learning Curves
I'm having a love-hate relationship with the learning curve involved with getting everything working and myself up to speed with my new laptop.
I had a lovely time at the music course weekend and loved having K to stay. She was the perfect guest, easy, accommodating, unfazed by my chaos and clutter. We chatted almost non-stop.
And so to the homework assignments which are part of the course. I have CDs where I need to identify rhythms, musical instruments and music styles. I have a portable/external optical drive in the form of a DVD/CD read/writer. I haven't used it since my old computer died, but it worked fine then, so I should be able to plug in and play, right?
The new laptop has a couple of USB 3 ports, but only has one USB 2 port. Although you can plug a USB 3 connector into a USB 2 port (it just runs slower), you can't plug a USB 2 into a USB 3 port. It doesn't fit, and needs an adapter which I don't have. I have a little multi-port hub plugged into the USB 2 port, into which I plug frequently used things, like leads for transferring things off camera and phone, the dongle for a wireless mouse, and then there's a port free for anything else. My optical drive has a USB 2 port, so I plugged it into the free port on the hub.
The drive showed up in the Devices and Drives, and I looked at the properties to see that my laptop already had some sort of generic driver for it and thought that it was working properly. Cool!
I popped a disc in and closed the tray, and immediately the drive's icon disappeared. No error messages. The drive was stuttering away, evidently not reading the disc, the green light flashing on and off. I tried ejecting the disc but nothing happened - the button on the tray front wasn't working.
Okay, well I know this one of old. Into the desk drawer for a paperclip, open out one of the arms, poke it into the little hole next to the eject button on the tray, and it releases the catch.
Take a look in the tray, blow a few times just in case there's dust or fluff or something. Try again.
Same problem. Sounds as though there's a problem with the hardware, it's making such a horrible noise.
There is plenty of help available through the internet, lots of experts out there, although it really takes some sifting through to find the thing which might be the solution.
I searched using the make and model of my optical drive, adding 'troubleshoot'. The first thing I found was a video from some chap who was reviewing the same optical drive that I have, and had found that neither of the ones he had from new worked. Then there were lots of other reviews which said that it worked fine. No help there, then.
I found the manufacturer doesn't make it any more and had no information on it. I bought mine in 2013, I think, so it's 5 years old, which is practically antique in IT terms!
There were quite a few discussion groups and a couple of sites offering help for a 'modest sum'. Reading some of the discussion groups, with lots of experienced, possibly expert users chiming in, gave me plenty to explore.
From the various opinions, I gleaned the following possible issues:
- Too much play in the disc tray (= tighten up some little screws. They were already tight)
- Dirty head (= clean it. I would, but it can't run the cleaner disc)
- Drive failure, or all sorts of other impenetrable issues with the optical drive hardware (= so buy a new one. Even though they are relatively cheap, I'll hold off from spending if I can possibly help it!)
- Faulty lead, USB connector, USB port. (The former two were working, the latter definitely works).
- Faulty leads or connections in the hub. (Nope, other things plugged into the hub work fine)
- Original drivers needed (there's nothing available to download except some rather suspicious non-specific stuff, and the original drivers are on a disc, which, you guessed it, won't run)
- Windows 10 is not designed to work with external optical drives (I seriously doubt it, although there are a LOT of comments about the unreliability of optical drives, internal and external, with Windows 10)
- Updated drivers needed (Windows 10 doesn't give you an option to look for updates if it's only just installed a driver - logical, providing the driver works, and it thinks it does. It also thinks it's just a CD ROM, so I wonder if this is the source of a lot of the complaints that Windows 10 doesn't work, because the driver doesn't provide the full functionality?)
- Outdated USB controllers (it's a new machine, unlikely)
- Eject/deinstall, reboot, reinstall (the old, reliable 'turn it off and turn it on again'. No change)
- And then, four hours later the very last suggestion; to use a powered hub or plug the lead directly into the USB port, no extensions, as apparently optical drives use a lot of power to start up. I plugged it directly into the USB 2 port and it worked. Hurrah! However, it means I no longer have a USB2 port for anything else, so I could do with an adapter, as I automatically reach for a mouse. (And then tap it a few times and wonder why it's not working, forgetting that its dongle isn't plugged in.)
I was so excited, I let the system rip the disc without setting any options and then spent another ten minutes wandering around my new system trying to find where it had put the tracks. When I found them, they were .wma when I would normally have gone for .mp3 (but what do you expect when you let Windows Media Player loose on them? Tsk!). Then I found that my old reliable audio file converter software is no longer free. Okay, I get it, it's good software, why should the company maintain and update it for free? But it was the final straw and so late it was early (in the morning!), so I took my grumpy face off to bed.
The following day, I wondered about the complaints I'd seen that Windows 10 was unreliable with optical drives and wouldn't play DVDs; also the way that my system just saw this as a CD ROM drive. I had a look and could find options to burn discs but no, it would not play a couple of DVDs I had to hand, and therefore no options to rip or burn video off a DVD formatted disc either. Indeed, it turns out that Windows 10 is not supplied with this, assuming that everyone now streams stuff and uploads/downloads via cloud storage. Or something.
So every issue spawns another few, in this case, a USB 3 to USB 2 adapter, or possibly a powered hub, as I could do with being able to type without resting my arms on the front of the laptop, and a separate keyboard will either need a port for a connector or a dongle. Also, file converter software and DVD read/write software.
The list of things to learn and buy in order to give myself the capability I want seems never-ending. I keep asking myself when the complications will decrease to a level where I appreciate the benefits.
Ho hum, better get on with this running order for the weekend. Funny, I had one to do only 10 weeks ago or so, when my old system died. I never really appreciated how WYSIWYG and plug-in-and-play it was! I was wondering though: do others go through this learning curve with their computers and if so, how do they cope, or is it just my lack of knowledge? Comments welcome!
The list of things to learn and buy in order to give myself the capability I want seems never-ending. I keep asking myself when the complications will decrease to a level where I appreciate the benefits.
Ho hum, better get on with this running order for the weekend. Funny, I had one to do only 10 weeks ago or so, when my old system died. I never really appreciated how WYSIWYG and plug-in-and-play it was! I was wondering though: do others go through this learning curve with their computers and if so, how do they cope, or is it just my lack of knowledge? Comments welcome!
Tuesday, 18 September 2018
Fire-fighting
My jobs for this morning included cleaning out the veg racks, making vegetable curry and tomato soup, mounting new cork boards in the kitchen, sorting some laundry, stripping and remaking the bed, … actually, the list is endless. It didn't include washing all of the cat toys and the basket they live in, nor this blog post, but I so need a quick rant to get things off my chest.
It doesn't help that I was woken too early. At about 05.20 (the shipping forecast was just starting) I was awoken by Greebo yodelling at me and a strong smell of cat wee. I switched on the light to see his tail leaving the bedroom and went out to the toilet to find him sulking (lying with his back turned and taking the maximum amount of space) on the landing. I returned with loo roll in hand, just in case, to discover that he had sprayed my make-up case and peed in the cat toy box. I've no idea what this protest was about. It could be that I was ignoring him, which was because I was fast asleep. I cleaned up as best I could and left the yuk until I was feeling more human. The little beast sashayed back in some time later and woke me again (still too early!) by jumping onto me and purring loudly, butting the hand outside the duvet for head rubs. So cute, (apart from 6 kilos of cat landing on my ribs!) butter wouldn't melt.
The reason I need to clean out the veg racks (and their cupboard) is that a couple of onions I had in there suddenly collapsed into smelly pulp. The rest are okay, but having been in proximity to rotten ones, it's best they're used, hence the need for some cooking.
Several weeks ago, the sticky pad for the hook holding the kitchen notice board suddenly gave up and the board crashed down, breaking the dustpan and brush which were neatly standing beneath it. So in the meantime, I have had to buy a new dustpan and brush (which I find I like very much, but which I have also had to wash already. Greebo decided it needed scent marking, so he sprayed it and the utility room skirting and wall where I'd placed it). I also found that the pine frame of the kitchen corkboard had broken and there were a few holes in the cork too, so I needed a new one. And something to mount it on the side of the cupboard. And therefore also to clean the side of the cupboard so the mounts will stick well. And a trip to the dump to ditch the old board.
I know life is a problem-solving exercise, but it's not surprising I can't make any headway on my To Do list when new tasks which need some sort of urgent resolution suddenly appear, spawning a number of dependencies and sub-tasks. Fire-fighting (in the time management sense) is a good analogy, except that there's generally a team of fire-fighters. I can't delegate, there's only me.
The single-handedness is getting to me as I can only get so far with multi-tasking. I'm grateful for the technology which allows my coffee to percolate while the washing machine spins and I'm doing the washing up, having left the cat bowls to soak temporarily, but I can't change the light bulb at the same time as I'm putting a battery in the kitchen clock or mount cork boards while hanging out washing (not that I can hang out washing, it keeps raining. A tumble drier and new dishwasher would be nice, but no money for them!).
I went out to empty the kitchen compost, to find last night's wind (the tail end of Hurricane Helene, for which the met office removed the severe weather warning, since the gusts were only 40-ish mph instead of the forecast 60) has led to a massive tear in the canopy of the swing seat, and some of the attachments for the canopy frame have sheared and broken.
The compost trug is now full, so that will need to go into the compost bin, which itself is nearly full, and bin #3 will need to be dug out into bags to make more room for compost making. (So much gardening to do!)
I'd be much more relaxed about this, but I've got a guest this weekend, a fellow dancer doing the JWAAD music course. We have dance in common but don't otherwise know each other, so I've warned her that this place is chaotically messy with added cats. I've just been into the guest room to find coats and hangers all over the floor, where the clothes rail that they were on has fallen over. And the reason for that is because the plastic thingy which attached the rail to the stand at one end has split. Yet more things to do.
I've just saved and previewed this post, only to find that some of the text which I'd edited appeared in a different font. I couldn't immediately see the change of style in the editor, and ended up editing the HTML to fix it. Add 'finding out what's up with the insertion of a different span style when I've moved text' to the ever-growing list! Not such a quick blog post after all!
I suppose I'd better get on with it. Thanks for listening. Comments welcome below!
It doesn't help that I was woken too early. At about 05.20 (the shipping forecast was just starting) I was awoken by Greebo yodelling at me and a strong smell of cat wee. I switched on the light to see his tail leaving the bedroom and went out to the toilet to find him sulking (lying with his back turned and taking the maximum amount of space) on the landing. I returned with loo roll in hand, just in case, to discover that he had sprayed my make-up case and peed in the cat toy box. I've no idea what this protest was about. It could be that I was ignoring him, which was because I was fast asleep. I cleaned up as best I could and left the yuk until I was feeling more human. The little beast sashayed back in some time later and woke me again (still too early!) by jumping onto me and purring loudly, butting the hand outside the duvet for head rubs. So cute, (apart from 6 kilos of cat landing on my ribs!) butter wouldn't melt.
The reason I need to clean out the veg racks (and their cupboard) is that a couple of onions I had in there suddenly collapsed into smelly pulp. The rest are okay, but having been in proximity to rotten ones, it's best they're used, hence the need for some cooking.
Several weeks ago, the sticky pad for the hook holding the kitchen notice board suddenly gave up and the board crashed down, breaking the dustpan and brush which were neatly standing beneath it. So in the meantime, I have had to buy a new dustpan and brush (which I find I like very much, but which I have also had to wash already. Greebo decided it needed scent marking, so he sprayed it and the utility room skirting and wall where I'd placed it). I also found that the pine frame of the kitchen corkboard had broken and there were a few holes in the cork too, so I needed a new one. And something to mount it on the side of the cupboard. And therefore also to clean the side of the cupboard so the mounts will stick well. And a trip to the dump to ditch the old board.
I know life is a problem-solving exercise, but it's not surprising I can't make any headway on my To Do list when new tasks which need some sort of urgent resolution suddenly appear, spawning a number of dependencies and sub-tasks. Fire-fighting (in the time management sense) is a good analogy, except that there's generally a team of fire-fighters. I can't delegate, there's only me.
The single-handedness is getting to me as I can only get so far with multi-tasking. I'm grateful for the technology which allows my coffee to percolate while the washing machine spins and I'm doing the washing up, having left the cat bowls to soak temporarily, but I can't change the light bulb at the same time as I'm putting a battery in the kitchen clock or mount cork boards while hanging out washing (not that I can hang out washing, it keeps raining. A tumble drier and new dishwasher would be nice, but no money for them!).
I went out to empty the kitchen compost, to find last night's wind (the tail end of Hurricane Helene, for which the met office removed the severe weather warning, since the gusts were only 40-ish mph instead of the forecast 60) has led to a massive tear in the canopy of the swing seat, and some of the attachments for the canopy frame have sheared and broken.
The compost trug is now full, so that will need to go into the compost bin, which itself is nearly full, and bin #3 will need to be dug out into bags to make more room for compost making. (So much gardening to do!)
I'd be much more relaxed about this, but I've got a guest this weekend, a fellow dancer doing the JWAAD music course. We have dance in common but don't otherwise know each other, so I've warned her that this place is chaotically messy with added cats. I've just been into the guest room to find coats and hangers all over the floor, where the clothes rail that they were on has fallen over. And the reason for that is because the plastic thingy which attached the rail to the stand at one end has split. Yet more things to do.
I've just saved and previewed this post, only to find that some of the text which I'd edited appeared in a different font. I couldn't immediately see the change of style in the editor, and ended up editing the HTML to fix it. Add 'finding out what's up with the insertion of a different span style when I've moved text' to the ever-growing list! Not such a quick blog post after all!
I suppose I'd better get on with it. Thanks for listening. Comments welcome below!
Tuesday, 21 August 2018
Hang the Diet!
Saturday lunchtime, I took my bleary, scruffy Saturday self off to Milford to buy a few everyday basics (milk, coffee, bin bags …). There seemed to be a lot of traffic, so I followed it (out of curiosity) down to the docks and found a food festival on Mackerel Quay. It turned out to be the Welsh heat of the British Street Food Awards. The place was absolutely heaving with people (and lots of dogs on leads!) but I found a (free) parking space easily enough. Having skipped breakfast (no coffee in the house!), my tummy was growling at all the delicious smells wafting around. Free entry. Oh yeah, hang the diet, let's eat!
With 15 or so stalls, including a beer tent, there was plenty to choose from. My first stop was for a vegetable Malay curry, sweet and fragrant with coconut rice. A sign for squid attracted me, but I went for their monkfish taco with a charred sweetcorn salsa and mojito dressing, which was superb. I finished my three course lunch with a very gooey brownie, which was described as chocolate and laver (the seaweed), but I couldn't detect any trace of the latter. It did contain pistachios, which I love, but I didn't like the extreme gooeyness.
I spent more time chatting than eating. There were deckchairs (including three giant ones facing the waterway, which the kids were loving to clamber onto and sit three abreast!) and benches in the centre of the stalls and it was a very relaxed atmosphere, despite the lack of sunshine. It's perfectly normal here to fall into conversation with complete strangers, and have other people join in. The general consensus was that the event should be held every year, or perhaps even have just local producers every month.
Yes, it really was that grey. I hung around for a bit, waiting for the doughnut stall to reopen. It's difficult to see on the photo, but there is a long queue. Their light, fluffy doughnuts were worth the wait, but they were having serious difficulty meeting demand.
Something I should have filmed was the rather surreal effect of disembodied masts slowly moving past the back of the stalls at the end of the quay, as yachts moved through the lock between the marina and the Haven. With the weather becoming increasingly drizzly, I decided to go, stopping to shop (coffee!) on the way home.
The Sunday was a little brighter, so I fetched a friend from Haverfordwest for a spontaneous spot of 'Sunday lunch'. I had a barley and bean 'risotto' (overpowering herbs!) while my friend had sausages in a bun (but what sausages, with onions and sauce, I was almost tempted myself!) and I treated myself to sweet chilli squid. We finished with a luscious ice cream and a cuppa back in the chaos of my place (so my friend can feel better about the state of her flat, because it's tidy compared to mine. It's all relative.) My cats proved, once again, that they are antisocial little furbags.
I could so easily have missed this event. I don't generally get the local papers, Facebook frequently doesn't bring up the local stuff I might be interested in, and I often only find out about things after the event. Overloaded with information, it's often only by looking for something specific that I catch what's on. I made a pact with myself to make an effort to get out to some more cheap or free and fun things to do. Which, I've a feeling, is something far easier said than done!
With 15 or so stalls, including a beer tent, there was plenty to choose from. My first stop was for a vegetable Malay curry, sweet and fragrant with coconut rice. A sign for squid attracted me, but I went for their monkfish taco with a charred sweetcorn salsa and mojito dressing, which was superb. I finished my three course lunch with a very gooey brownie, which was described as chocolate and laver (the seaweed), but I couldn't detect any trace of the latter. It did contain pistachios, which I love, but I didn't like the extreme gooeyness.
I spent more time chatting than eating. There were deckchairs (including three giant ones facing the waterway, which the kids were loving to clamber onto and sit three abreast!) and benches in the centre of the stalls and it was a very relaxed atmosphere, despite the lack of sunshine. It's perfectly normal here to fall into conversation with complete strangers, and have other people join in. The general consensus was that the event should be held every year, or perhaps even have just local producers every month.
Yes, it really was that grey. I hung around for a bit, waiting for the doughnut stall to reopen. It's difficult to see on the photo, but there is a long queue. Their light, fluffy doughnuts were worth the wait, but they were having serious difficulty meeting demand.
Something I should have filmed was the rather surreal effect of disembodied masts slowly moving past the back of the stalls at the end of the quay, as yachts moved through the lock between the marina and the Haven. With the weather becoming increasingly drizzly, I decided to go, stopping to shop (coffee!) on the way home.
The Sunday was a little brighter, so I fetched a friend from Haverfordwest for a spontaneous spot of 'Sunday lunch'. I had a barley and bean 'risotto' (overpowering herbs!) while my friend had sausages in a bun (but what sausages, with onions and sauce, I was almost tempted myself!) and I treated myself to sweet chilli squid. We finished with a luscious ice cream and a cuppa back in the chaos of my place (so my friend can feel better about the state of her flat, because it's tidy compared to mine. It's all relative.) My cats proved, once again, that they are antisocial little furbags.
I could so easily have missed this event. I don't generally get the local papers, Facebook frequently doesn't bring up the local stuff I might be interested in, and I often only find out about things after the event. Overloaded with information, it's often only by looking for something specific that I catch what's on. I made a pact with myself to make an effort to get out to some more cheap or free and fun things to do. Which, I've a feeling, is something far easier said than done!
Wednesday, 1 August 2018
It had to happen ...
There's no good time for a computer system which is in daily use to go down. I'd been expecting mine to die for a while, and had been thinking long and hard about what I needed for the past couple of years. Bought in 2005, there was no doubt mine was extremely outdated. It had XP as its operating system, support for which was withdrawn a few years ago. It was a good operating system, but my PC didn't have the processor speed or RAM to cope with an upgrade, nor (I suspect) the internal space for new cards etc. so it became one of those 'if it's not broken, don't fix it' things. However, as versions of operating systems and the main Microsoft Office package moved on, it became increasingly difficult to maintain compatibility. I bought a terabyte external hard drive a few years ago as backup, and then started using it as my main storage too, as the 145 GB hard drive seemed permanently full and the whole thing was getting slower and slower. Then my dear old PC started making some alarming noises (especially when Norton kicked in and hogged the processor). So I started looking seriously at what I would need by way of RAM, processor speed and storage, checking the requirements of the applications I rely on. At least a new computer with up-to-date apps would support more work potential for Plan B.
My stepson, who works in the industry, observed that it didn't much matter what I went for, as it would be so much better than what I had. Knowing that modern apps come with system requirements, I'm unconvinced.
As a friend who used to work in IT sales observed, it's a minefield out there, and this may be an understatement. Computer hardware and software are fast-moving beasts. When I started looking, Windows 7 was just moving to 8, and then almost in a blink of an eye to 8.1 with Office 13 the latest thing. Each upgrade required more RAM, more processor speed, more storage, and more of anything means more expensive too.
My Dad and I had been talking about getting a PC built to order, but I thought this might be an expensive way to go, and it seemed like it was necessary to know more about chipsets, graphics processors and internal gubbins than I could get my head around. I'd got to the point where I thought I probably needed a laptop to act as a backup system and provide a flexible, mobile solution (it's great having a smartphone, but I'm hardwired for a qwerty keyboard and preferably a mouse, and proper word processing capabilities at the very least),
And then, just as I was starting the running order for the Cardigan Belly Dance Festival a little over a fortnight away, and just as I had seen an email requesting changes to a book I'm editing, my old computer went FUT! Literally, with a bright flash from the back and a smell of scorched dust. And a lot of loud swearing.
I used my phone and a library computer (almost as slow and unreliable as my old one!) to do some searching and had several conversations with my Dad about requirements. I went into the local branch of a chain store which sells computers and had a browse around, gravitating immediately to a couple of laptops which turned out to be top end, though not gaming machines, with prices starting at £1500. Typical of me to go for the expensive options; even so, I was a bit shocked at the prices. So many advertisements with offers on laptops would lead you to believe you can get something really good for under £300. Yeah, right.
It's always a case of any two, but not all three, of fast, good or cheap. I needed one quickly, with a reasonably good specification in terms of RAM, processor and storage, and it soon became clear that in order to achieve the latter in particular, it would be rather more expensive than I had intended. The cheaper laptops were fine for social media and online shopping, but wouldn't support any productive work on documentation. Even the next level up, marketed for students, weren't really up to working with the full Office package. We excitedly explored a 2-in-1 Microsoft Surface Book, until it became clear that even the 13" screen with an i5 processor was approaching the £2000 mark, and even then, it would need a faster processor to run the Adobe Creative suite software which I'd intended learning into and exploring to take my digital art to the next level. We'd be looking at £2500 before adding the cost of software and other peripherals, like a wireless keyboard, new monitor, new printer - even the stylus didn't come with the machine, which seemed like a damned cheek for something so expensive.
In the end I chose a machine with 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, an Intel Core i5 DDR4/quadcore processor, with a clock speed of 1.60 GHz, but with a maximum 'turbo frequency' of 3.40 GHz. Just looking at the numbers, that didn't seem any faster than my old Intel Pentium 4 running at 3 GHz, except that it's not meaningful to compare processors like that. Used to a 19" monitor, I went for a 15.6" as the 13" seemed too small, even though I intend to find a way to plug my old monitor in. And like my trusty old workhorse, the new one is also a Dell.
As a not-very-techie-but (I think/hope) fairly competent user (#itsnotrocketscience!) moving from an old XP desktop to a Windows 10 laptop, I expected a steepish learning curve and to have to take time to get apps and other things set up and learn where everything is. The user interface is quite different, so I'm gradually fumbling my way around. The track/touch pad is the best I've used in my admittedly narrow experience of laptops and the keyboard isn't too bad, although the different layout and key spacing from my old one has me hitting hash instead of return a lot of the time and inadvertently putting caps lock on. Having my forearms resting on the front of the laptop while typing isn't ideal - I could do with a lower desk. It's really fast and the fan, when it comes on, is so quiet, compared to my old system. I plugged in my external hard drive and found to my immense relief that I could read and use the files immediately.
I've had it a week and the teething troubles are still outweighing the good bits. I'm permanently in a state of how does this work, what-does this mean, why isn't this working, what am I supposed to do? Grrr, aggravation, right from the start when registering the machine. Why do I have to select business or personal. It's both, why can't it be both, what's the difference? Much of the online help and feedback, which Dell and Microsoft invite, seems to go unanswered, or has answers which take three paragraphs to give no intelligible information and are applicable to a previous operating system.
Things have been somewhat erratic, Having watched something on YouTube, a few hours later, it wouldn't work. I can't remember the exact wording of the error message that came up, but it wasn't clear whether it was a problem with YouTube or the browser, or possibly something else. 'Try again later' didn't work and eventually I gave up and went to bed. It worked the next day.
Having set up the printer, everything apparently okay, I went to print, and the computer told me that the printer was offline. It wasn't. It was on, both in terms of power and on the WiFi network, and the computer could obviously see it because it queued the document. Switching various things off and on, retrying, etc, didn't do anything. I wondered if I needed drivers and went off to look, but found conflicting information. And lots of unanswered feedback and questions about whether Kodak printers were compatible with Windows 10. There was very little information and only one driver on the Kodak site, and something about drivers automatically loaded from the Windows end, which left me none the wiser. A couple of hours later, I jumped out of my skin as the printer started printing the page I'd sent. No dialogue from the computer. What the hell happened there?
The LCD screen seems to have a grey-blue colour cast and isn't reproducing colours at all accurately. I didn't really notice how bad it was until, fed up of trying to find a way to adjust brightness and contrast, I was looking at some photos and found that the colour reproduction was way off. Again, conflicting information - apparently the LCD screen on a laptop shouldn't need adjusting, but this looks like a colour profile issue. But instructions on colour management seem to be aimed at monitors as separate devices, So the suggestion is to plug in a monitor to test the LCD colour reproduction. I'd need a VGA-USB-C adapter and even the expensive Dell version doesn't include this laptop in the models with which the adapter is supposedly compatible, and I can't find any reason why. I might buy a cheaper one just to test it out, otherwise I can't think how I'm going to make any progress with this, short of taking it back to the shop ...
,,, which I'm very loath to do right now, as I'm in the middle of gathering all the music and dancer details for the show this weekend. I have the running order and playlists to do, as well as preparing my own mini workshop and notes for attendees, and finishing my choreography as well as preparing my costume and trying to find some time to rehearse. Some music tracks which played yesterday now don't play today on Groove Music (which was the app which popped up automatically to play tracks). Okay, so I'll play them with Windows Media Player. Nope, 'a problem occurred' and when I clicked the link to take me to the Windows help and support, I had half a dozen lines applicable to Windows 7, starting with 'Unfortunately, specific info about the error isn't currently available'. If not now, then when? And lots of forum posts wondering whether Windows Media Player works with some update or version (or something) of Windows 10. Which left me wondering how I could find out which version or update I had. Again, Windows support was no help, I found what I needed from How-To Geek. See, if they can do it, why can't you, Microsoft? #notrocketscience.
In the meantime, I thought maybe the tracks would play through iTunes and as I generally sync my iPod to ensure I have the show tracks backed up on there as well as on a USB stick, I tried downloading iTunes. And found that apparently it's not available for my laptop. According to Apple, this laptop should be capable for it, but Windows store only offers it for a different version of Windows 10. I managed to find my system information; my version is 15063, the one required is 16299, which is apparently a PC (as in desktop?) version. But again, there's no real information about how to get that build version, what it relates to. The link just takes you through to Windows 10, as if the choice between their Home, Pro, Education etc. editions is all there is. I have a lot of my music in iTunes format and some credit in the store. I've found a link to download build 16299 but nothing that helps me to know if it's safe to do so.
Returning to the Microsoft help and support, I put in the code from the Groove Music error message to find a thread dating back to Windows 7 in 2012 with exactly the same problem, basically that the audio playback stops working due to an unknown error. Again, with non-answers about codecs and third party software not working with Windows, until an addition from someone last year on Windows 10 with the same problem and an observation that YouTube playback is also affected. Sure enough, YouTube has stopped working again.
Oh dear, this post has turned into a rant. All this is making my brain hurt and the hours I'm spending just trying to get things to work have resulted in a literal pain in the arse from sitting for too long. After a week's ownership, I'm still struggling to get back up and running effectively and hoping I haven't made an expensive mistake.
My stepson, who works in the industry, observed that it didn't much matter what I went for, as it would be so much better than what I had. Knowing that modern apps come with system requirements, I'm unconvinced.
As a friend who used to work in IT sales observed, it's a minefield out there, and this may be an understatement. Computer hardware and software are fast-moving beasts. When I started looking, Windows 7 was just moving to 8, and then almost in a blink of an eye to 8.1 with Office 13 the latest thing. Each upgrade required more RAM, more processor speed, more storage, and more of anything means more expensive too.
My Dad and I had been talking about getting a PC built to order, but I thought this might be an expensive way to go, and it seemed like it was necessary to know more about chipsets, graphics processors and internal gubbins than I could get my head around. I'd got to the point where I thought I probably needed a laptop to act as a backup system and provide a flexible, mobile solution (it's great having a smartphone, but I'm hardwired for a qwerty keyboard and preferably a mouse, and proper word processing capabilities at the very least),
And then, just as I was starting the running order for the Cardigan Belly Dance Festival a little over a fortnight away, and just as I had seen an email requesting changes to a book I'm editing, my old computer went FUT! Literally, with a bright flash from the back and a smell of scorched dust. And a lot of loud swearing.
I used my phone and a library computer (almost as slow and unreliable as my old one!) to do some searching and had several conversations with my Dad about requirements. I went into the local branch of a chain store which sells computers and had a browse around, gravitating immediately to a couple of laptops which turned out to be top end, though not gaming machines, with prices starting at £1500. Typical of me to go for the expensive options; even so, I was a bit shocked at the prices. So many advertisements with offers on laptops would lead you to believe you can get something really good for under £300. Yeah, right.
It's always a case of any two, but not all three, of fast, good or cheap. I needed one quickly, with a reasonably good specification in terms of RAM, processor and storage, and it soon became clear that in order to achieve the latter in particular, it would be rather more expensive than I had intended. The cheaper laptops were fine for social media and online shopping, but wouldn't support any productive work on documentation. Even the next level up, marketed for students, weren't really up to working with the full Office package. We excitedly explored a 2-in-1 Microsoft Surface Book, until it became clear that even the 13" screen with an i5 processor was approaching the £2000 mark, and even then, it would need a faster processor to run the Adobe Creative suite software which I'd intended learning into and exploring to take my digital art to the next level. We'd be looking at £2500 before adding the cost of software and other peripherals, like a wireless keyboard, new monitor, new printer - even the stylus didn't come with the machine, which seemed like a damned cheek for something so expensive.
In the end I chose a machine with 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, an Intel Core i5 DDR4/quadcore processor, with a clock speed of 1.60 GHz, but with a maximum 'turbo frequency' of 3.40 GHz. Just looking at the numbers, that didn't seem any faster than my old Intel Pentium 4 running at 3 GHz, except that it's not meaningful to compare processors like that. Used to a 19" monitor, I went for a 15.6" as the 13" seemed too small, even though I intend to find a way to plug my old monitor in. And like my trusty old workhorse, the new one is also a Dell.
As a not-very-techie-but (I think/hope) fairly competent user (#itsnotrocketscience!) moving from an old XP desktop to a Windows 10 laptop, I expected a steepish learning curve and to have to take time to get apps and other things set up and learn where everything is. The user interface is quite different, so I'm gradually fumbling my way around. The track/touch pad is the best I've used in my admittedly narrow experience of laptops and the keyboard isn't too bad, although the different layout and key spacing from my old one has me hitting hash instead of return a lot of the time and inadvertently putting caps lock on. Having my forearms resting on the front of the laptop while typing isn't ideal - I could do with a lower desk. It's really fast and the fan, when it comes on, is so quiet, compared to my old system. I plugged in my external hard drive and found to my immense relief that I could read and use the files immediately.
I've had it a week and the teething troubles are still outweighing the good bits. I'm permanently in a state of how does this work, what-does this mean, why isn't this working, what am I supposed to do? Grrr, aggravation, right from the start when registering the machine. Why do I have to select business or personal. It's both, why can't it be both, what's the difference? Much of the online help and feedback, which Dell and Microsoft invite, seems to go unanswered, or has answers which take three paragraphs to give no intelligible information and are applicable to a previous operating system.
Things have been somewhat erratic, Having watched something on YouTube, a few hours later, it wouldn't work. I can't remember the exact wording of the error message that came up, but it wasn't clear whether it was a problem with YouTube or the browser, or possibly something else. 'Try again later' didn't work and eventually I gave up and went to bed. It worked the next day.
Having set up the printer, everything apparently okay, I went to print, and the computer told me that the printer was offline. It wasn't. It was on, both in terms of power and on the WiFi network, and the computer could obviously see it because it queued the document. Switching various things off and on, retrying, etc, didn't do anything. I wondered if I needed drivers and went off to look, but found conflicting information. And lots of unanswered feedback and questions about whether Kodak printers were compatible with Windows 10. There was very little information and only one driver on the Kodak site, and something about drivers automatically loaded from the Windows end, which left me none the wiser. A couple of hours later, I jumped out of my skin as the printer started printing the page I'd sent. No dialogue from the computer. What the hell happened there?
The LCD screen seems to have a grey-blue colour cast and isn't reproducing colours at all accurately. I didn't really notice how bad it was until, fed up of trying to find a way to adjust brightness and contrast, I was looking at some photos and found that the colour reproduction was way off. Again, conflicting information - apparently the LCD screen on a laptop shouldn't need adjusting, but this looks like a colour profile issue. But instructions on colour management seem to be aimed at monitors as separate devices, So the suggestion is to plug in a monitor to test the LCD colour reproduction. I'd need a VGA-USB-C adapter and even the expensive Dell version doesn't include this laptop in the models with which the adapter is supposedly compatible, and I can't find any reason why. I might buy a cheaper one just to test it out, otherwise I can't think how I'm going to make any progress with this, short of taking it back to the shop ...
,,, which I'm very loath to do right now, as I'm in the middle of gathering all the music and dancer details for the show this weekend. I have the running order and playlists to do, as well as preparing my own mini workshop and notes for attendees, and finishing my choreography as well as preparing my costume and trying to find some time to rehearse. Some music tracks which played yesterday now don't play today on Groove Music (which was the app which popped up automatically to play tracks). Okay, so I'll play them with Windows Media Player. Nope, 'a problem occurred' and when I clicked the link to take me to the Windows help and support, I had half a dozen lines applicable to Windows 7, starting with 'Unfortunately, specific info about the error isn't currently available'. If not now, then when? And lots of forum posts wondering whether Windows Media Player works with some update or version (or something) of Windows 10. Which left me wondering how I could find out which version or update I had. Again, Windows support was no help, I found what I needed from How-To Geek. See, if they can do it, why can't you, Microsoft? #notrocketscience.
In the meantime, I thought maybe the tracks would play through iTunes and as I generally sync my iPod to ensure I have the show tracks backed up on there as well as on a USB stick, I tried downloading iTunes. And found that apparently it's not available for my laptop. According to Apple, this laptop should be capable for it, but Windows store only offers it for a different version of Windows 10. I managed to find my system information; my version is 15063, the one required is 16299, which is apparently a PC (as in desktop?) version. But again, there's no real information about how to get that build version, what it relates to. The link just takes you through to Windows 10, as if the choice between their Home, Pro, Education etc. editions is all there is. I have a lot of my music in iTunes format and some credit in the store. I've found a link to download build 16299 but nothing that helps me to know if it's safe to do so.
Returning to the Microsoft help and support, I put in the code from the Groove Music error message to find a thread dating back to Windows 7 in 2012 with exactly the same problem, basically that the audio playback stops working due to an unknown error. Again, with non-answers about codecs and third party software not working with Windows, until an addition from someone last year on Windows 10 with the same problem and an observation that YouTube playback is also affected. Sure enough, YouTube has stopped working again.
Oh dear, this post has turned into a rant. All this is making my brain hurt and the hours I'm spending just trying to get things to work have resulted in a literal pain in the arse from sitting for too long. After a week's ownership, I'm still struggling to get back up and running effectively and hoping I haven't made an expensive mistake.
Tuesday, 17 July 2018
Heatwave!
Blazing June really lived up to the name this year. Instead of the usual change at midsummer into a pattern of wet westerlies, the rain has been noticeably absent for over a month, until yesterday morning, when, for a few hours, it varied between drizzle and downpour.
It was fine but still chilly at the end of May, the Lilac and the Ladies Smock a fortnight late. At the start of June, good weather was forecast and there was the usual rubbish reporting of temperatures in the high twenties, as if that were everywhere and not just the home counties. At the end of the first week of June, the warmth had begun to break through and it suddenly seemed as though we'd caught up after the late spring.
I don't remember any rain until the morning of 17 June, when there had already been a little shower when I went to empty the moth trap, and I finished that just in time before another light shower. I have a snapshot of Xena sprawled on a bit of old wood in the back garden, surrounded by damp soil, taken on 20 June. I think that might have been the morning I found about 2mm of water in a bucket. I found this website quite useful as an aide-memoire, but it only shows humidity, rather than rainfall. Then no rain, it just got hotter and hotter until we had days and days of weather in the mid-twenties, too hot to work in the garden for long. This was cool compared to what the home counties had to endure. The poor cats spent all their time trying to find patches of cool shade to sprawl in, often in the long grass, under the hedge, in a shady spot on the patio, or flopped onto the tiles in the utility room.
On 29 June I was fed up with feeling as though I was melting and declared a beach afternoon. A friend and I went to Broadhaven, where we set up the UV shelter, covered ourselves in factor 50 and had a picnic and a swim as the tide came in over the hot sand. The water felt a bit chilly - reported on the lifeguards' board as 14 degrees. I'd found my pocket kite and took it along, but there was scarcely any wind, so it would not stay up.
Eventually, on Sunday 1 July, there was a yellow weather warning for thunderstorms. I watched the lightning maps for a while as the storm played south of Exeter and then made its way up to Somerset to give a Chard a bit of a show before it fizzled out. Anyone on holiday in Brittany and Normandy would have had to shelter from tremendous thunderstorms, the maps thick with yellow and red dots from lightning strikes! The weather warning here came to nothing. Another one for last Friday was cancelled too. Some showery rain was forecast, and I leaned on my fork in the front garden, sweaty face turned to the sky as the first drops fell ... and then stopped.
It feels as though I've spent weeks with sweat dripping down my back and into my eyes. Yesterday evening, a cool 14 degrees tempted me to put on a jumper. The forecast is still reasonably fine, cloudy with sunny spells and several degrees cooler, with another light shower due later.
There was a time during the winter/early spring, when the ground was completely waterlogged. I remember sploshing my way down the garden, with water pooling on the surface in places. Now, any dampness is locked in the baked clay soil. Worms have tied themselves in knots to aestivate deeper in the soil. Plants without tap roots and which like damp soils, like Primroses and Lady's Smock, have struggled and in some cases died. I'm not sure whether my new, expensive roses will make it, either, despite my best efforts to keep the pots watered. On the other hand, the brambles have loved it, sending up new shoots from their deep roots.
The Big Butterfly Count starts this Friday and schools break up for summer holidays next week. I wonder if decent summer weather will continue, or will the westerlies bring rain? We could do with a downpour to clear the air.
It was fine but still chilly at the end of May, the Lilac and the Ladies Smock a fortnight late. At the start of June, good weather was forecast and there was the usual rubbish reporting of temperatures in the high twenties, as if that were everywhere and not just the home counties. At the end of the first week of June, the warmth had begun to break through and it suddenly seemed as though we'd caught up after the late spring.
I don't remember any rain until the morning of 17 June, when there had already been a little shower when I went to empty the moth trap, and I finished that just in time before another light shower. I have a snapshot of Xena sprawled on a bit of old wood in the back garden, surrounded by damp soil, taken on 20 June. I think that might have been the morning I found about 2mm of water in a bucket. I found this website quite useful as an aide-memoire, but it only shows humidity, rather than rainfall. Then no rain, it just got hotter and hotter until we had days and days of weather in the mid-twenties, too hot to work in the garden for long. This was cool compared to what the home counties had to endure. The poor cats spent all their time trying to find patches of cool shade to sprawl in, often in the long grass, under the hedge, in a shady spot on the patio, or flopped onto the tiles in the utility room.
On 29 June I was fed up with feeling as though I was melting and declared a beach afternoon. A friend and I went to Broadhaven, where we set up the UV shelter, covered ourselves in factor 50 and had a picnic and a swim as the tide came in over the hot sand. The water felt a bit chilly - reported on the lifeguards' board as 14 degrees. I'd found my pocket kite and took it along, but there was scarcely any wind, so it would not stay up.
Eventually, on Sunday 1 July, there was a yellow weather warning for thunderstorms. I watched the lightning maps for a while as the storm played south of Exeter and then made its way up to Somerset to give a Chard a bit of a show before it fizzled out. Anyone on holiday in Brittany and Normandy would have had to shelter from tremendous thunderstorms, the maps thick with yellow and red dots from lightning strikes! The weather warning here came to nothing. Another one for last Friday was cancelled too. Some showery rain was forecast, and I leaned on my fork in the front garden, sweaty face turned to the sky as the first drops fell ... and then stopped.
It feels as though I've spent weeks with sweat dripping down my back and into my eyes. Yesterday evening, a cool 14 degrees tempted me to put on a jumper. The forecast is still reasonably fine, cloudy with sunny spells and several degrees cooler, with another light shower due later.
There was a time during the winter/early spring, when the ground was completely waterlogged. I remember sploshing my way down the garden, with water pooling on the surface in places. Now, any dampness is locked in the baked clay soil. Worms have tied themselves in knots to aestivate deeper in the soil. Plants without tap roots and which like damp soils, like Primroses and Lady's Smock, have struggled and in some cases died. I'm not sure whether my new, expensive roses will make it, either, despite my best efforts to keep the pots watered. On the other hand, the brambles have loved it, sending up new shoots from their deep roots.
The Big Butterfly Count starts this Friday and schools break up for summer holidays next week. I wonder if decent summer weather will continue, or will the westerlies bring rain? We could do with a downpour to clear the air.
Monday, 9 July 2018
Early June moth trapping
Compared to the 23-24 May, there were many more moths in the trap when I looked at it early on 5th June. I had so much quiet fun, and had forgotten how addictive going through the trap contents can be. You just never really know what you're going to get. But, deary me, my identification skills are so rusty, I'm still trying to sort everything out a month later!
A benefit of setting up the trap on my patio is that I can sit on the swing seat while I empty it and record the contents (and the swing seat canopy shades the light from shining directly into my next-door neighbour's back bedroom. The light doesn't bother me, but it would be unfair to disrupt other people's sleep!)
Another benefit is that, if it's warm enough, I can deal with the contents while I'm still in my pyjamas and then go back to sleep for a couple of hours.
I sat in the early light, with just my cats, the moths and various birds for company. Well before the builders in the field behind me started work with their noisy machinery, I could hear a skylark singing. The jackdaws in the chimney were talking, the young making sleepy chackling noises. Sparrows cheeped and twittered and the Blackbirds took turns in and out of the privet. It was bliss.
As it was already light, some of the moths in the box were impatient to go and a few escaped before I could record them. Remembering my training and tips from the former Carmarthenshire county moth recorder, Jon Baker, (if you're slow on ID, photograph everything as you empty the trap), I grabbed my camera and managed to snap the next escapee as it settled briefly on the paving. So pretty! What are you?
I'd caught an unusual angle, but I recognised the white markings; a Gold Spot, Plusia festucae. I've only had one before, several years ago, when I found a pupa loosely attached to a broken flag iris stem by the farm pond. I mused over the white markings I could see through the case ...
and kept it
safe for a week or so until it hatched into a fresh and beautiful
adult, which I then released back near the pond.
With the moths in the box fairly secure, I looked around for those which hadn't settled in the trap. A strikingly-marked moth was sitting on the side of the growhouse. Yet another which is common but new to me: a Treble-bar, Aplocera plagiata ssp plagiata. It occurred to me that I should start a new list of the moths I've had since I moved to Pembrokeshire.
As I worked my way back to the box and then through the box contents, the number of different species began to mount up. I found another 'Ooo, what are you?' and new one for me on the frame of the swing-seat: a Figure of Eighty, Tethea ocularis.
My digital camera isn't the best for close-up shots, but it's proving an essential aid. This cute, tiny thing is responsible for at least some of the leaf-mines on the lilac. Like so many micromoths, it only has a Latin name: Gracillaria syringella. There are English names around for most of the common micromoths, but few have been formally accepted. It would make things easier - the multi-syllable Latin names can be cumbersome. I saw this was informally called a Common Slender, although I would have thought Lilac Leaf-miner would be more accurate. Although you could argue that it's neither lilac-coloured, nor exclusive to lilac (it likes privet, too, and it's welcome to it!).
Reviewing the photos, I realised that some snapshots weren't as helpful as I'd hoped. Many of the smaller micros are shown in the books in side view and I'd taken a dorsal (top/back view). Then there are some moths which are highly variable. Thank goodness for online sites and help from other local moth recorders!
There were loads of Common Marbled Carpets, which needed to be checked in case they were in fact Dark Marbled Carpets. Dark Spectacles, checked in case they were just The Spectacles. I tussled over the difference between two very similar, but subtly different moths, one of which was a Poplar Grey. The other was a Knot Grass, and I remembered I'd seen a Knot Grass caterpillar sometime previously. A third, plainer grey moth turned out to be another new one for me, the Miller. Were the Small Square Spots really SSS or Ingrailed Clays? (Working from forewing base to tip, is the colour pattern of the outer crossline dark-pale-dark (=Ingrailed Clay) or just pale-dark (=Small Square Spot).) I even managed, with much cross-referencing to other online photos, to identify the two pugs (Grey and Common).
It's like a game of spot the difference (and spot the moth, in the case of a Poplar Hawk-moth which had settled on the pebble-dashed wall) where you also need to take into account the likelihood of the species' occurrence, based on flight season, distribution and status (abundance, or not) for where you are in the UK.
Did I say something about a lack of moths here when I emptied the late May catch? Silly girl, be careful what you wish for! I ended up with 121 moths of 48 species (and that's of course not including the ones which got away!). I'm not going to list them all here, the photos above pretty much cover the wow factor! Highest numbers were Elephant Hawk-moth (13) and Common Marbled Carpet (11). No wonder it's taken me a long time to sort them all out. Hopefully, surely, I'll get quicker as I get back into practice!
A benefit of setting up the trap on my patio is that I can sit on the swing seat while I empty it and record the contents (and the swing seat canopy shades the light from shining directly into my next-door neighbour's back bedroom. The light doesn't bother me, but it would be unfair to disrupt other people's sleep!)
Another benefit is that, if it's warm enough, I can deal with the contents while I'm still in my pyjamas and then go back to sleep for a couple of hours.
I sat in the early light, with just my cats, the moths and various birds for company. Well before the builders in the field behind me started work with their noisy machinery, I could hear a skylark singing. The jackdaws in the chimney were talking, the young making sleepy chackling noises. Sparrows cheeped and twittered and the Blackbirds took turns in and out of the privet. It was bliss.
As it was already light, some of the moths in the box were impatient to go and a few escaped before I could record them. Remembering my training and tips from the former Carmarthenshire county moth recorder, Jon Baker, (if you're slow on ID, photograph everything as you empty the trap), I grabbed my camera and managed to snap the next escapee as it settled briefly on the paving. So pretty! What are you?
and kept it
safe for a week or so until it hatched into a fresh and beautiful
adult, which I then released back near the pond.With the moths in the box fairly secure, I looked around for those which hadn't settled in the trap. A strikingly-marked moth was sitting on the side of the growhouse. Yet another which is common but new to me: a Treble-bar, Aplocera plagiata ssp plagiata. It occurred to me that I should start a new list of the moths I've had since I moved to Pembrokeshire.
As I worked my way back to the box and then through the box contents, the number of different species began to mount up. I found another 'Ooo, what are you?' and new one for me on the frame of the swing-seat: a Figure of Eighty, Tethea ocularis.
 |
| Look, it says '80' on the wings! |
My digital camera isn't the best for close-up shots, but it's proving an essential aid. This cute, tiny thing is responsible for at least some of the leaf-mines on the lilac. Like so many micromoths, it only has a Latin name: Gracillaria syringella. There are English names around for most of the common micromoths, but few have been formally accepted. It would make things easier - the multi-syllable Latin names can be cumbersome. I saw this was informally called a Common Slender, although I would have thought Lilac Leaf-miner would be more accurate. Although you could argue that it's neither lilac-coloured, nor exclusive to lilac (it likes privet, too, and it's welcome to it!).
 |
| Gracillaria syringella |
There were loads of Common Marbled Carpets, which needed to be checked in case they were in fact Dark Marbled Carpets. Dark Spectacles, checked in case they were just The Spectacles. I tussled over the difference between two very similar, but subtly different moths, one of which was a Poplar Grey. The other was a Knot Grass, and I remembered I'd seen a Knot Grass caterpillar sometime previously. A third, plainer grey moth turned out to be another new one for me, the Miller. Were the Small Square Spots really SSS or Ingrailed Clays? (Working from forewing base to tip, is the colour pattern of the outer crossline dark-pale-dark (=Ingrailed Clay) or just pale-dark (=Small Square Spot).) I even managed, with much cross-referencing to other online photos, to identify the two pugs (Grey and Common).
It's like a game of spot the difference (and spot the moth, in the case of a Poplar Hawk-moth which had settled on the pebble-dashed wall) where you also need to take into account the likelihood of the species' occurrence, based on flight season, distribution and status (abundance, or not) for where you are in the UK.
Did I say something about a lack of moths here when I emptied the late May catch? Silly girl, be careful what you wish for! I ended up with 121 moths of 48 species (and that's of course not including the ones which got away!). I'm not going to list them all here, the photos above pretty much cover the wow factor! Highest numbers were Elephant Hawk-moth (13) and Common Marbled Carpet (11). No wonder it's taken me a long time to sort them all out. Hopefully, surely, I'll get quicker as I get back into practice!
Saturday, 30 June 2018
Spring Gather and the Big Flock 2018
Having missed the Joon Dance Spring Gather workshops last year because of my damaged back (right QL), I wanted to join in this year's, despite my worries about walking/dancing on uneven surfaces. With lots going on in early April (visiting teacher workshops in Lampeter, relaunching my belly dance classes) I managed to mix up days and dates and ended up missing the first day's workshops. I only realised because I caught some comments on Facebook after day 1, and hurriedly made arrangements to participate in day 2.
On day 1, I missed a guest teacher who led sessions in Solva woods and on the beach. The weather wasn't too bad and everyone seemed to have had a good time, using the environment to inspire movements and phrases.
On day 2, it was overcast, cold and breezy with rain forecast. We gathered at Solva community hall, then walked to a nearby play area with swings and other bits of kit. It was refreshing not to see a sign stating that the equipment was for children's use only. Why shouldn't adults have some fun too? The assumption always seems to be that it will encourage rowdy youths to gather, threatening younger children and breaking the equipment. We were an inter-generational group, all ages, and not all that rowdy either. We had a fun couple of hours exploring the equipment and generating movement ideas, then showing each other, before the wind picked up and icy rain started to slap at our faces. By the time we got back to the hall, it was coming down hard.
Luckily Zosia had booked the hall and we could spend the afternoon creating short pieces inspired by the three environments. Even though I'd missed day 1, the others in my group brought me up to speed and I had great fun being a tree, being a rock on the seashore. (What was that strange hand gesture? It was a limpet or periwinkle travelling over the rock/my body to graze on the algae.) Repeating some of the playground moves without the equipment, remembering how it felt to be hanging and twisting around a chain was interesting in a somatic way; recalling the feel of the cold metal, the way my body moved. All good fun, even when we couldn't hear each other for the clatter of rain and hail on the roof!
Big Flock was a public event open to anyone on Newgale beach, Pembrokeshire on April 2018 organised by Holy Hiatus in collaboration with Joon Dance. People were invited to be part of a human murmuration and asked to wear mainly greys and blues. We were also warned to wrap up well, and considering the cold wind and hail the previous day, that seemed like a good idea. However, the day turned out bright and sunny and I ended up taking my fleece jacket off and wearing it tied around my waist!
The original music used for the film was composed by Andy Wheddon and you should be able to see Ruth Jones' film of the Big Flock 2018 on Vimeo here.
On day 1, I missed a guest teacher who led sessions in Solva woods and on the beach. The weather wasn't too bad and everyone seemed to have had a good time, using the environment to inspire movements and phrases.
On day 2, it was overcast, cold and breezy with rain forecast. We gathered at Solva community hall, then walked to a nearby play area with swings and other bits of kit. It was refreshing not to see a sign stating that the equipment was for children's use only. Why shouldn't adults have some fun too? The assumption always seems to be that it will encourage rowdy youths to gather, threatening younger children and breaking the equipment. We were an inter-generational group, all ages, and not all that rowdy either. We had a fun couple of hours exploring the equipment and generating movement ideas, then showing each other, before the wind picked up and icy rain started to slap at our faces. By the time we got back to the hall, it was coming down hard.
Luckily Zosia had booked the hall and we could spend the afternoon creating short pieces inspired by the three environments. Even though I'd missed day 1, the others in my group brought me up to speed and I had great fun being a tree, being a rock on the seashore. (What was that strange hand gesture? It was a limpet or periwinkle travelling over the rock/my body to graze on the algae.) Repeating some of the playground moves without the equipment, remembering how it felt to be hanging and twisting around a chain was interesting in a somatic way; recalling the feel of the cold metal, the way my body moved. All good fun, even when we couldn't hear each other for the clatter of rain and hail on the roof!
Big Flock was a public event open to anyone on Newgale beach, Pembrokeshire on April 2018 organised by Holy Hiatus in collaboration with Joon Dance. People were invited to be part of a human murmuration and asked to wear mainly greys and blues. We were also warned to wrap up well, and considering the cold wind and hail the previous day, that seemed like a good idea. However, the day turned out bright and sunny and I ended up taking my fleece jacket off and wearing it tied around my waist!
The original music used for the film was composed by Andy Wheddon and you should be able to see Ruth Jones' film of the Big Flock 2018 on Vimeo here.
Thursday, 28 June 2018
Hog Heaven
I've been aware for a while that someone other than my cats has been helping themselves to the cat food. I put it down to interloper cat, who is back after a long absence. Sometimes, it sounds like an animal eating as quickly as possible, and I've gone out to see a black and white rear disappearing down the garden. Once, while Greebo was sitting on the patio step with his back to the door and had completely missed that the interloper cat had gone in and back out again!
At other times, though, it sounds more delicate. And both cats have been with me, and apparently not inclined to go see off an interloper.
The other evening, I heard the delicate rattle and crunch of cat biscuits being eaten, so went through to the utility room to see who was responsible ....
I've known there was at least one hedgehog around here since I moved in. The cats found poop in the back garden, and I've seen some in the front (it's a long way round via the park if you're a hedgehog and can't just stroll through the house, also assuming the fencing allows a way through, so probably at least one hedgehog). I've occasionally heard some snuffling and rustling. Now this one seems to have become so used to trundling into the utility room and back out again that noises in the house don't cause a rapid exit, nor do the bemused cats watching as their food is being eaten (I wish I'd been quick enough to get a photo of them too, the expressions on their faces!). Not even me, standing and watching. Satisfied, s/he (no idea which sex it is) bimbled out again, round bottom bobbing along as s/he carried on down the garden path and under the lilac tree.
So - meet Bimblebum, (good name, I think) who is now popping in every evening to raid the cats' bowls and any spilled bird food. Yes, I know I've named a wild animal for the second time in as many months. It's just a distinction for this hog here, as opposed to any others (although if two were to turn up for food, I probably wouldn't be able to tell them apart). Yes, I know, soft as butter, letting them all eat me out of house and home.
My first concern was whether the cat biscuits were okay for hedgehogs. Bimblebum seemed to be enjoying them very much and rejected the dish of soft food when I offered it, turning back to the biscuits. Luckily, I have a friend who established the Pembrokeshire Hogspital (also on Facebook). She reassured me the biscuits would be good for the teeth and suggested it might be a female feeding babies. If that's the case, the most likely location for a nest would be under the pile of privet prunings by the back fence - handily close to compost bins and heaps with their larder of slugs and snails, and there's a little path of well-flattened grass leading underneath. Alternatively, the shed, which I seldom go into because it's such a struggle with the door half off its hinges, but that gives any nesting hedgehogs, or birds, access.
A couple of nights ago, there was much rustling and snuffling, as Bimblebum went the length of the garden, down the hedgeline and up through the rough grass, then slalomed back via the evening primroses before dashing over the bare ground to the lilac. There was a lot of eating going on, and a surprising turn of speed when bimbling is too slow. I've been concentrating on the front garden, so the back has escaped from me (again), but it seems like it's hog heaven here.
Hopefully s/he's not taken up residence in the house!
At other times, though, it sounds more delicate. And both cats have been with me, and apparently not inclined to go see off an interloper.
The other evening, I heard the delicate rattle and crunch of cat biscuits being eaten, so went through to the utility room to see who was responsible ....
I've known there was at least one hedgehog around here since I moved in. The cats found poop in the back garden, and I've seen some in the front (it's a long way round via the park if you're a hedgehog and can't just stroll through the house, also assuming the fencing allows a way through, so probably at least one hedgehog). I've occasionally heard some snuffling and rustling. Now this one seems to have become so used to trundling into the utility room and back out again that noises in the house don't cause a rapid exit, nor do the bemused cats watching as their food is being eaten (I wish I'd been quick enough to get a photo of them too, the expressions on their faces!). Not even me, standing and watching. Satisfied, s/he (no idea which sex it is) bimbled out again, round bottom bobbing along as s/he carried on down the garden path and under the lilac tree.
So - meet Bimblebum, (good name, I think) who is now popping in every evening to raid the cats' bowls and any spilled bird food. Yes, I know I've named a wild animal for the second time in as many months. It's just a distinction for this hog here, as opposed to any others (although if two were to turn up for food, I probably wouldn't be able to tell them apart). Yes, I know, soft as butter, letting them all eat me out of house and home.
My first concern was whether the cat biscuits were okay for hedgehogs. Bimblebum seemed to be enjoying them very much and rejected the dish of soft food when I offered it, turning back to the biscuits. Luckily, I have a friend who established the Pembrokeshire Hogspital (also on Facebook). She reassured me the biscuits would be good for the teeth and suggested it might be a female feeding babies. If that's the case, the most likely location for a nest would be under the pile of privet prunings by the back fence - handily close to compost bins and heaps with their larder of slugs and snails, and there's a little path of well-flattened grass leading underneath. Alternatively, the shed, which I seldom go into because it's such a struggle with the door half off its hinges, but that gives any nesting hedgehogs, or birds, access.
A couple of nights ago, there was much rustling and snuffling, as Bimblebum went the length of the garden, down the hedgeline and up through the rough grass, then slalomed back via the evening primroses before dashing over the bare ground to the lilac. There was a lot of eating going on, and a surprising turn of speed when bimbling is too slow. I've been concentrating on the front garden, so the back has escaped from me (again), but it seems like it's hog heaven here.
Hopefully s/he's not taken up residence in the house!
Sunday, 17 June 2018
Mr and Mrs Blackbird
I tried to make a dent in the overgrown privet hedge as soon as the weather stopped being vile, which this year was in April (and even then, not for long ...)
I only managed one session before the pair of blackbirds who nest in the hedge made their feelings clear. They were creating their nest, please could I stop and go away!
In early May, I was sure they were sitting, although I wasn't sure I heard chicks. Mr Blackbird has a particular call when he came back into the garden, a sort of 'Hi Honey, I'm home!' Then they seemed to spend time away from the nest and although I didn't see the young birds, it was as if each had one which they were feeding from the safety of the hedges. They also spent a lot of energy alarm-calling from the garden next door, and with my cats on their best behaviour, I knew it wasn't their fault.
Then it all went quiet. Mrs Blackbird came out of the hedge every so often, but there were several days where I didn't see or hear Mr Blackbird at all. Then last week I saw him with a beak stuffed full; he flew into the privet and swapped places with Mrs Blackbird. A little listening and observation confirmed they were feeding chicks.
Mrs Blackbird is the more confiding of the two. She's wary of the cats (quite right too!) but seems to realise that if I'm around, I'll warn them off.
Over the past couple of weeks, I've been concentrating on the front garden, digging up all the grass and weeds (the bindweed is horrendous!), removing stones, glass, bits of plastic and so on, leaving freshly turned earth. Mrs Blackbird has noticed and has started to hold up progress and give me an excuse to sit down to rest more frequently as she pops down to inspect the recently dug areas. She gathers a beak full of grubs and worms, poops to lighten the load and then flits back over the house into the back garden. She also seems to have remembered that I am the distributor of dried mealworms, and occasionally just looks meaningfully at me until I toss a handful her way. She has started to come within a metre of me if I'm sitting and still, while I talk to her quietly.
My blogging was interrupted earlier by Mrs Blackbird shouting/alarm calling. I strode out of the back door, demanding 'What's going on here?' whereupon Xena slunk guiltily from the patio area and Mrs Blackbird flew from the patio to the washing line, still shouting in alarm. Xena would not stay in, and my disapproval was enough to send her up to the end of the garden while I tossed a handful of mealworms down for Mrs B and looked at where she'd been. After a few minutes, a chick popped out of its hiding place behind the tool store and eyed me expectantly. Mrs B had evidently been using one of my first strawberries as baby food.
The cats are in, much to their disgust. A fresh round of alarm calls showed that the cats had gone to sit, all eyes, ears and whiskers, by the glass patio doors from the dining room, so I've had to shut that door as well. I'm hoping she has the sense to guide the chick to somewhere less obvious and accessible while she's left in peace to feed.
I only managed one session before the pair of blackbirds who nest in the hedge made their feelings clear. They were creating their nest, please could I stop and go away!
In early May, I was sure they were sitting, although I wasn't sure I heard chicks. Mr Blackbird has a particular call when he came back into the garden, a sort of 'Hi Honey, I'm home!' Then they seemed to spend time away from the nest and although I didn't see the young birds, it was as if each had one which they were feeding from the safety of the hedges. They also spent a lot of energy alarm-calling from the garden next door, and with my cats on their best behaviour, I knew it wasn't their fault.
Then it all went quiet. Mrs Blackbird came out of the hedge every so often, but there were several days where I didn't see or hear Mr Blackbird at all. Then last week I saw him with a beak stuffed full; he flew into the privet and swapped places with Mrs Blackbird. A little listening and observation confirmed they were feeding chicks.
Mrs Blackbird is the more confiding of the two. She's wary of the cats (quite right too!) but seems to realise that if I'm around, I'll warn them off.
Over the past couple of weeks, I've been concentrating on the front garden, digging up all the grass and weeds (the bindweed is horrendous!), removing stones, glass, bits of plastic and so on, leaving freshly turned earth. Mrs Blackbird has noticed and has started to hold up progress and give me an excuse to sit down to rest more frequently as she pops down to inspect the recently dug areas. She gathers a beak full of grubs and worms, poops to lighten the load and then flits back over the house into the back garden. She also seems to have remembered that I am the distributor of dried mealworms, and occasionally just looks meaningfully at me until I toss a handful her way. She has started to come within a metre of me if I'm sitting and still, while I talk to her quietly.
 |
| Mrs Blackbird: So, where are the mealworms then? |
The cats are in, much to their disgust. A fresh round of alarm calls showed that the cats had gone to sit, all eyes, ears and whiskers, by the glass patio doors from the dining room, so I've had to shut that door as well. I'm hoping she has the sense to guide the chick to somewhere less obvious and accessible while she's left in peace to feed.
Friday, 15 June 2018
Ridge and Furrow cowl
This seemed like a good pattern to use up some of my mighty acrylic DK stash and it had been languishing in my Ravelry queue for ages, so I started it in mid February.
Initially, I loved it. I chose navy as the main colour, and another 16 contrast colours: teal, moss, olive, moorland green, sapphire, violet, lavender, lilac, magenta, claret, royal purple, aubergine, royal blue, mid-blue, petrol and pine (a dark bluish green). With 5mm needles and a provisional crochet cast on, I was off and it progressed quite well. I decided to work forwards and backwards through the colours twice and loved the colourful garter stitch ridges standing out against the navy background.
The more I knitted, the more I fretted about getting the ends neatly and securely knitted/woven in. I'd dismissed the idea of somehow carrying the various yarns up one of the edges. I put it down for several weeks while I researched methods of tidily working in the ends and picked it up again just to get it finished. By three quarters of the way through I'd fallen out of love with it, and then became even more fed up when it came to tidying up all the loose ends. At least picking up stitches onto a 5mm circular needle in order to finish the edges was quick and I liked the colourful purl 'blips'.
It's very nice, but the hassle of knitting it has cured me of wanting it for myself. I've decided this one is for the sales basket on my craft sales table at a local midsummer fun day next weekend. This one-off is destined for someone else!
Initially, I loved it. I chose navy as the main colour, and another 16 contrast colours: teal, moss, olive, moorland green, sapphire, violet, lavender, lilac, magenta, claret, royal purple, aubergine, royal blue, mid-blue, petrol and pine (a dark bluish green). With 5mm needles and a provisional crochet cast on, I was off and it progressed quite well. I decided to work forwards and backwards through the colours twice and loved the colourful garter stitch ridges standing out against the navy background.
The more I knitted, the more I fretted about getting the ends neatly and securely knitted/woven in. I'd dismissed the idea of somehow carrying the various yarns up one of the edges. I put it down for several weeks while I researched methods of tidily working in the ends and picked it up again just to get it finished. By three quarters of the way through I'd fallen out of love with it, and then became even more fed up when it came to tidying up all the loose ends. At least picking up stitches onto a 5mm circular needle in order to finish the edges was quick and I liked the colourful purl 'blips'.
It's very nice, but the hassle of knitting it has cured me of wanting it for myself. I've decided this one is for the sales basket on my craft sales table at a local midsummer fun day next weekend. This one-off is destined for someone else!
Thursday, 7 June 2018
D18 Dance Festival
This time last year, I was working on the Desert Rose contemporary belly dance veil fusion collaborative choreography. I really wanted the group to take it to Arts Care Gofal Celf's annual community dance showcase, but we had only scratched the surface of the work and would have been nothing like ready to show it, so I didn't apply for a slot.
I would have happily resurrected it for this year's showcase, D18, but two of the four dancers are no longer available, and it's the sort of piece where the patterns and cascades of repeated movements only show up with more than a few dancers.
In preparing the relaunched classes, I was working with a couple of Natacha Atlas tracks, in case any dancers wanted to learn some choreography, potentially performing it at the Cardigan Belly Dance Festival, first weekend in August. I asked for a slot at D18 this year in the hope that the classes might take off, and had arranged additional rehearsal time for anyone wanting to perform something quick and simple. And if no one wanted to perform, then I could do a solo and hopefully attract some attention to my classes.
The dance showcase is over a weekend at the Torch Theatre in Milford Haven, with morning workshops and afternoon shows. I skipped the Saturday (so much to do!) and I didn't go to the workshops (knees feeling fragile and complaining a bit after bouts of digging the garden), although I looked in on one where an agile man was apparently mimicking an insect travelling low across the floor. There is no way I could have attempted that! During lunch in the cafe I saw a tech whom I knew from summer school, and found that we were on the main stage! I've only danced in the studio theatre before now. That being the case, I thought I had better go up to the auditorium to wait for a slot where I could orient myself on the stage.
The show was a fairly casual affair, with music handed in a little before hand, no tech run and some flexibility in the running order, handled really very well by the compere and technical team - only one or two small glitches. There were college groups and groups for dancers with learning disabilities, young children, professionals - a real mix, but largely contemporary and street dance, some of it really beautiful and technically skilled, some just sheer fun. I loved it!
I'd decided on a semi-improvised piece with veil to Soleil d'Egypte, reasoning that my usual baladi improvisation might be a little inaccessible for some of the audience. (As it turned out, there were a couple of people in the audience who had done belly dance and would have got it!)
I'm increasingly finding it difficult to warm up sufficiently to dance my best at haflas and the like and this was no exception. I went into a back corridor and ran through a good five-minute warm up, before putting my belt on and slipping into the wings during the piece before mine.
Then it was time. I felt quite small on the big stage. I'd given my camera to a member of the audience who agreed to record my piece, but I forgot to explain the zoom, so looked quite small on the film too. The bright 'sunlight' lighting bleached out features, and the camera struggled with the contrast, but the pic below was one of the better moments, although most of it has been cropped out.
And then it was over! People seemed to enjoy it and I had random compliments afterwards, as well as a couple of enquiries for class details. One woman came to chat and explained that she was just visiting, had done some belly dance but had given it up and since we were more or less the same size (actually, she's nothing like as rotund as I am!) she had some costume to send me. I gave her a business card with my address, and a few days later, a gorgeous green and gold Egyptian-style overskirt/belt arrived. I'm so very touched by her generosity.
As for the piece, I was originally thinking of a class choreography without veils, but after dancing with one, have changed my mind. Now I need people in class ...! Or am I going to be repeating this solo at the Cardigan Belly Dance Festival in August?
I would have happily resurrected it for this year's showcase, D18, but two of the four dancers are no longer available, and it's the sort of piece where the patterns and cascades of repeated movements only show up with more than a few dancers.
In preparing the relaunched classes, I was working with a couple of Natacha Atlas tracks, in case any dancers wanted to learn some choreography, potentially performing it at the Cardigan Belly Dance Festival, first weekend in August. I asked for a slot at D18 this year in the hope that the classes might take off, and had arranged additional rehearsal time for anyone wanting to perform something quick and simple. And if no one wanted to perform, then I could do a solo and hopefully attract some attention to my classes.
The dance showcase is over a weekend at the Torch Theatre in Milford Haven, with morning workshops and afternoon shows. I skipped the Saturday (so much to do!) and I didn't go to the workshops (knees feeling fragile and complaining a bit after bouts of digging the garden), although I looked in on one where an agile man was apparently mimicking an insect travelling low across the floor. There is no way I could have attempted that! During lunch in the cafe I saw a tech whom I knew from summer school, and found that we were on the main stage! I've only danced in the studio theatre before now. That being the case, I thought I had better go up to the auditorium to wait for a slot where I could orient myself on the stage.
The show was a fairly casual affair, with music handed in a little before hand, no tech run and some flexibility in the running order, handled really very well by the compere and technical team - only one or two small glitches. There were college groups and groups for dancers with learning disabilities, young children, professionals - a real mix, but largely contemporary and street dance, some of it really beautiful and technically skilled, some just sheer fun. I loved it!
I'd decided on a semi-improvised piece with veil to Soleil d'Egypte, reasoning that my usual baladi improvisation might be a little inaccessible for some of the audience. (As it turned out, there were a couple of people in the audience who had done belly dance and would have got it!)
I'm increasingly finding it difficult to warm up sufficiently to dance my best at haflas and the like and this was no exception. I went into a back corridor and ran through a good five-minute warm up, before putting my belt on and slipping into the wings during the piece before mine.
Then it was time. I felt quite small on the big stage. I'd given my camera to a member of the audience who agreed to record my piece, but I forgot to explain the zoom, so looked quite small on the film too. The bright 'sunlight' lighting bleached out features, and the camera struggled with the contrast, but the pic below was one of the better moments, although most of it has been cropped out.
 |
| When you forget to explain the zoom function to the person kindly recording your piece with your camera ... |
And then it was over! People seemed to enjoy it and I had random compliments afterwards, as well as a couple of enquiries for class details. One woman came to chat and explained that she was just visiting, had done some belly dance but had given it up and since we were more or less the same size (actually, she's nothing like as rotund as I am!) she had some costume to send me. I gave her a business card with my address, and a few days later, a gorgeous green and gold Egyptian-style overskirt/belt arrived. I'm so very touched by her generosity.
As for the piece, I was originally thinking of a class choreography without veils, but after dancing with one, have changed my mind. Now I need people in class ...! Or am I going to be repeating this solo at the Cardigan Belly Dance Festival in August?
Tuesday, 5 June 2018
The word of the month begins with D ....
I've suddenly become totally dissatisfied and utterly fed up with my baggy body and frankly ridiculous belly. There. I've said written it. I'm not sure what happened; I still believe in body-positivity, but just feel that for me, enough is enough. Time for things to change, starting with my diet (again).
The last time I made major changes was in 2012-3, when I was awaiting an operation on my foot and the osteoarthritis in my knees was in full flare. I stopped eating meat, swapped a whole load of foods for lower fat, lower sugar versions, really concentrated on salads and seasonal, healthy eating. I did lose a little weight, despite times of frustration when I couldn't seem to shift the scales or get much done outside.
I kept a spreadsheet of the weight loss, and it shows I lost 8.3 kg in 2013. Mind you, half of that was in the last week, when I was ill. My habit of being ill before Christmas means that I start each recorded year at Yule a couple of kilos lighter than I might otherwise be, and then start the new calendar year having put a couple of kilos back on! Thus it was in January 2014, then, despite best intentions, things went sort of pear-shaped, before becoming positively more rotund with the stress of moving house in 2015. At the time I moved house, I was at my heaviest ever - all those take-outs and comfort-eating of chocolate!
I'm now 8 kilos lighter than I was 3 years ago, and 4 kilos lighter than at the start of this year. It's better than nothing, but too little, too slow! My weight bobs around like a cork. I lose 0.6, then 0.7, gain 0.9, lose 0.1. gain 0.4, lose 0.2, gain 0.6, lose 0.3 (bringing me back to where I started). Aaargh, pass me the chocolate ice-cream! Seriously though, it just means that my healthy eating is fine for maintaining my current weight, not losing it!
With a couple of friends now a shadow of their former selves and another couple singing the praises of the Keto Diet, I decided that some positive action was necessary. I remembered a conversation I had with someone years ago, about my craving for (addiction to?) carbohydrates. She suggested that my craving stemmed from an inability to process gluten properly. At the time, I didn't pay too much attention because I love bread and it doesn't cause me bloating, stomach pains, tiredness or any of the other symptoms usually quoted for gluten intolerance. Since then, I've discovered that it may be more to do with an inability to process carbohydrates effectively, so reducing my carbohydrate intake would certainly do no harm.
Rather out of character for me, I signed up for the 'Low Carb Program', endorsed by Diabetes.co.uk, mostly for the recipes and inspiration. I'm going to ease myself into this rather than charging headlong into their meal plans, as the vegetarian 40 day challenge involves eating an average of 3 eggs per day just in the first week, and shopping for over 70 items. I haven't costed it out precisely, but I'm pretty sure it would blow my budget to smithereens, not to mention the impact on the fuel bills (and time!) for all the extra cooking involved. Some things look tempting, so I'll begin to experiment and be a lot more mindful of the carbohydrate content and portion sizes.
It's good that the warmer weather is here and I can indulge in salads.
The last time I made major changes was in 2012-3, when I was awaiting an operation on my foot and the osteoarthritis in my knees was in full flare. I stopped eating meat, swapped a whole load of foods for lower fat, lower sugar versions, really concentrated on salads and seasonal, healthy eating. I did lose a little weight, despite times of frustration when I couldn't seem to shift the scales or get much done outside.
I kept a spreadsheet of the weight loss, and it shows I lost 8.3 kg in 2013. Mind you, half of that was in the last week, when I was ill. My habit of being ill before Christmas means that I start each recorded year at Yule a couple of kilos lighter than I might otherwise be, and then start the new calendar year having put a couple of kilos back on! Thus it was in January 2014, then, despite best intentions, things went sort of pear-shaped, before becoming positively more rotund with the stress of moving house in 2015. At the time I moved house, I was at my heaviest ever - all those take-outs and comfort-eating of chocolate!
I'm now 8 kilos lighter than I was 3 years ago, and 4 kilos lighter than at the start of this year. It's better than nothing, but too little, too slow! My weight bobs around like a cork. I lose 0.6, then 0.7, gain 0.9, lose 0.1. gain 0.4, lose 0.2, gain 0.6, lose 0.3 (bringing me back to where I started). Aaargh, pass me the chocolate ice-cream! Seriously though, it just means that my healthy eating is fine for maintaining my current weight, not losing it!
With a couple of friends now a shadow of their former selves and another couple singing the praises of the Keto Diet, I decided that some positive action was necessary. I remembered a conversation I had with someone years ago, about my craving for (addiction to?) carbohydrates. She suggested that my craving stemmed from an inability to process gluten properly. At the time, I didn't pay too much attention because I love bread and it doesn't cause me bloating, stomach pains, tiredness or any of the other symptoms usually quoted for gluten intolerance. Since then, I've discovered that it may be more to do with an inability to process carbohydrates effectively, so reducing my carbohydrate intake would certainly do no harm.
Rather out of character for me, I signed up for the 'Low Carb Program', endorsed by Diabetes.co.uk, mostly for the recipes and inspiration. I'm going to ease myself into this rather than charging headlong into their meal plans, as the vegetarian 40 day challenge involves eating an average of 3 eggs per day just in the first week, and shopping for over 70 items. I haven't costed it out precisely, but I'm pretty sure it would blow my budget to smithereens, not to mention the impact on the fuel bills (and time!) for all the extra cooking involved. Some things look tempting, so I'll begin to experiment and be a lot more mindful of the carbohydrate content and portion sizes.
It's good that the warmer weather is here and I can indulge in salads.
Monday, 4 June 2018
Salad Days: Watermelon and Feta Salad
During a trip to St David's while my parents were here, we had lunch at a hotel and I had a Watermelon and Feta salad. It was rather too heavy on raw red onion and rocket for my taste, and over-priced, but I was surprised how well the watermelon went with feta cheese. So here's my version:
Onto my usual base of lettuce (iceberg in this case), cucumber and tomato I've tossed some cubes of feta and watermelon (about a sixth of the melon, but I'll leave quantities up to you.)
It's that simple, and luscious.
Onto my usual base of lettuce (iceberg in this case), cucumber and tomato I've tossed some cubes of feta and watermelon (about a sixth of the melon, but I'll leave quantities up to you.)
It's that simple, and luscious.
Thursday, 24 May 2018
Back into moth recording
Late May, and while the weather is still a bit chilly due to cold winds, I noticed moths coming to lit windows and decided it was time to carry out one of my aims for the year: get back into moth recording. With my parents visiting, I hoped I might find something interesting for them to look at.
It turned out that there wasn't much in the trap when I got up at the crack of dawn. In some ways, this was a good thing; a big catch to work through would have taken a long time, especially as my identification skills are so rusty. On the other hand, the few moths here compared to the number and variety I had back on the farm is a bit depressing.
The results, in 2013 checklist order since I need to get back into good recording habits!
70.054 BF1727 Silver-ground Carpet Xanthorhoe montanata : 2
70.226 BF1906 Brimstone Opisthograptis luteolata : 3
72.020 BF2060 White Ermine Spilosoma lubricipeda : 1
73.002 BF2449 Dark Spectacle Abrostola triplasia : 1
73.032 BF2425 Nut tree Tussock Colocasia coryli f. medionigra : 1
73.102 BF2302 Brown Rustic Rusina ferruginea: 2
73.329 BF2102 Flame Shoulder Ochropleura plecta : 5
23.5.18. 15 moths, 7 species. (Wot, no micros? - Ed)
I only realised I had a Dark Spectacle (rather than The Spectacle) when I looked at my photo and saw the cross-lines edged with reddish-brown. The moths I puzzled over were the Nut-tree Tussock and the Brown Rustic. The latter was because, after a late spring, could I really have Brown Rustics in late May when they normally appear from June? But the white marks on the leading edge of the wing and the cross-lines are the key and this male is quite fresh. I must look out the stones and slate I used to use for taking moth photos, although my thumbnail gives an idea of scale.
As beautiful and accurate as Richard Lewington's illustrations are in the Field Guide, I don't think they do the Nut-tree Tussock justice, as it's much fluffier and more beautiful in real life. I thought I'd seen it before, but couldn't think what it was and initially looked at the Tussock moths, which are in a different family. The word 'tussock' niggled at me and a scan down the index and through the illustrations confirmed the identity of my lovely visitor.
Having managed to ID everything (eventually), I feel less daunted by my rusty ID skills. Bring on the next session!
It turned out that there wasn't much in the trap when I got up at the crack of dawn. In some ways, this was a good thing; a big catch to work through would have taken a long time, especially as my identification skills are so rusty. On the other hand, the few moths here compared to the number and variety I had back on the farm is a bit depressing.
The results, in 2013 checklist order since I need to get back into good recording habits!
70.054 BF1727 Silver-ground Carpet Xanthorhoe montanata : 2
70.226 BF1906 Brimstone Opisthograptis luteolata : 3
72.020 BF2060 White Ermine Spilosoma lubricipeda : 1
73.002 BF2449 Dark Spectacle Abrostola triplasia : 1
73.032 BF2425 Nut tree Tussock Colocasia coryli f. medionigra : 1
73.102 BF2302 Brown Rustic Rusina ferruginea: 2
73.329 BF2102 Flame Shoulder Ochropleura plecta : 5
23.5.18. 15 moths, 7 species. (Wot, no micros? - Ed)
I only realised I had a Dark Spectacle (rather than The Spectacle) when I looked at my photo and saw the cross-lines edged with reddish-brown. The moths I puzzled over were the Nut-tree Tussock and the Brown Rustic. The latter was because, after a late spring, could I really have Brown Rustics in late May when they normally appear from June? But the white marks on the leading edge of the wing and the cross-lines are the key and this male is quite fresh. I must look out the stones and slate I used to use for taking moth photos, although my thumbnail gives an idea of scale.
 |
| Brown Rustic Rusina ferruginea |
As beautiful and accurate as Richard Lewington's illustrations are in the Field Guide, I don't think they do the Nut-tree Tussock justice, as it's much fluffier and more beautiful in real life. I thought I'd seen it before, but couldn't think what it was and initially looked at the Tussock moths, which are in a different family. The word 'tussock' niggled at me and a scan down the index and through the illustrations confirmed the identity of my lovely visitor.
 |
| Nut-tree Tussock Colocasia coyli f. medionigra |
Sunday, 13 May 2018
Spring Steps socks
After the Hermione’s and wearing my pair of ‘Desk Drawer socks’, I
decided perhaps my own ‘Everyday’ socks could be improved and that I should have a quick experiment. I didn't fancy the Stylecraft Head Over Heels 'Sugar Loaf' for a pair of my own socks (I've had enough pink for the time being from the 'Olympus' colourway used for the Hermione socks), but I wouldn't have bought the yarn if I didn't think it was quite pretty. Lovely, fresh, pastel colours would put a spring in someone's step, so I decided that this pair should go into my stock, either for sale or as a raffle prize or giveaway.
Here's the pattern:
Yarn & Needles: 4 ply yarn sock yarn on 2.75mm dpns
Cast on: 64 stitches
Cuff: 16 rounds K1P1 rib (as on the Hermione’s Everyday Socks, but fewer rounds)
Leg: 54 rounds
Heel: Priscilla Wilde’s No Mess No Fuss Short Row Heel, worked over half the total stitches (32) with 12 central stitches and 10 stitches on each side.
Work short rows back and forth, slipping the first stitch purlwise at the start of each row, leaving an additional stitch at the end of each row with a gap where the work is turned. Once there are 10 stitches on each side of the central 12 stitches, work lengthening rows, knitting or purling 'across the gap' using K2tog, then make a stitch knitwise on the RS rows, P2tog and make a stitch purlwise on the WS rows, then turning the work and slipping the made stitch purlwise to start the next row, until all the side stitches have been worked back in, and not forgetting to make stitches after the last K2tog and P2tog to end up with 32 stitches back on the heel needle.
Foot: 60 rounds
Toe: Rounder toe with a side 'band'. Decrease rows 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16 and then every row from 17 onwards, (or for fewer cast on stitches, 1, 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, onwards, depending on how long or round you want your toe to be) knitting the first and last stitches and working SSK on the second and third stitches, K2tog on the penultimate 2 stitches of the instep/top of the toe and sole/under toes.
When only 10 stitches are left on the heel needle, work all of the instep stitches (with the last decreases) onto a single needle and use Kitchener stitch to close the toe.
Verdict:
Here's the pattern:
Yarn & Needles: 4 ply yarn sock yarn on 2.75mm dpns
Cast on: 64 stitches
Cuff: 16 rounds K1P1 rib (as on the Hermione’s Everyday Socks, but fewer rounds)
Leg: 54 rounds
Heel: Priscilla Wilde’s No Mess No Fuss Short Row Heel, worked over half the total stitches (32) with 12 central stitches and 10 stitches on each side.
Work short rows back and forth, slipping the first stitch purlwise at the start of each row, leaving an additional stitch at the end of each row with a gap where the work is turned. Once there are 10 stitches on each side of the central 12 stitches, work lengthening rows, knitting or purling 'across the gap' using K2tog, then make a stitch knitwise on the RS rows, P2tog and make a stitch purlwise on the WS rows, then turning the work and slipping the made stitch purlwise to start the next row, until all the side stitches have been worked back in, and not forgetting to make stitches after the last K2tog and P2tog to end up with 32 stitches back on the heel needle.
Foot: 60 rounds
Toe: Rounder toe with a side 'band'. Decrease rows 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16 and then every row from 17 onwards, (or for fewer cast on stitches, 1, 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, onwards, depending on how long or round you want your toe to be) knitting the first and last stitches and working SSK on the second and third stitches, K2tog on the penultimate 2 stitches of the instep/top of the toe and sole/under toes.
When only 10 stitches are left on the heel needle, work all of the instep stitches (with the last decreases) onto a single needle and use Kitchener stitch to close the toe.
 |
| I even managed to knit a matched pair! |
- K1P1 rib looks smart, but I think I like K2P2 rib better for the cuff. I used to do 12 rounds only (1"/2.5 cm) but think the deeper 16 rounds looks better.
- The no mess etc short row heel is certainly faster than wrapping or lifting or whatever other technique to try to tighten and gap-close short row heels, but I still find the resulting triangular heel doesn't fit me so well (although it will be fine for anyone who doesn't have big round heels like mine!) German short rows seem to give a better finish, but I prefer Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel, which seems to give the best finish and shape of all of them.
- I've decided I like this rounder toe better then the one I was previously working, so I'll put this on my socks from now on, but I'm not sure about the side 'band' formed by working the decreases 'one stitch in'. I wonder if it makes a difference in terms of wear.
- I arranged the yarn start for the second sock to knit a matching pair, but a variation in the yarn meant that the second toe was a little different. Best laid plans, eh?
Friday, 13 April 2018
Belly Dance Classes Relaunched!
Since effectively stopping classes last September, I've been doing a lot of planning, soul-searching and casual market research. I thought I would record and share the results and planning process!
'I think I'm probably too old (this from a 30 year old and a 73 year old!)'
Too old at 30? But seriously, you are never too old. You can work gently and within your comfort zone, at your own pace, and sit down and rest if you need to, whatever your age. I try to provide inclusive classes, whether for age, shape/size/level of fitness, disability, or gender.
'I want a midweek, evening class.'
Only one respondent wanted a daytime class, most were working or otherwise occupied (volunteering, other activities) during the day. Fridays were too vulnerable to weekend plans and the desire to just get home and put feet up at the end of the week.
One respondent wanted a class which started early, so they could go from work, but most wanted to at least be able to go home and change. (The danger is, of course, that once home, it can be hard to motivate yourself to go back out again!)
'An hour's class is enough - an hour and a half can feel like too much.'
So all classes are now an hour long, with an option for extra rehearsal time after class for those who wish to perform.
'It shouldn't end late - I want/need to be home by 9.30.'
(Because I have caring responsibilities/need to be up for work the next morning)
So classes are 7.00-8.00 pm, rehearsals 8.00-9.00 pm.
'I don't want to have to travel far - preferably not more than 5 miles.'
('Because it adds to costs, and time away from home - a consideration if you have other things to get done, or caring responsibilities.')
The location of classes is an issue; they are best placed in the population centres; that is, towns, rather than out in the villages. That said, being in town is no guarantee of attendees, particularly with the competition from other activities for attendees and venues.
With Narberth's Bloomfield Centre an established venue for the Thursday class, and Hubberston and Hakin Community Centre newly available on Tuesdays for a Milford Haven-based class, the main issue was to find a place for the Haverfordwest Wednesday class.
I checked out a dozen venues (over a couple of months - it took 3 weeks just to discover the booking contact for one venue!), only to find that none were suitable; either they were booked, or booked until 8.00 pm (therefore only for a late class), or they were too expensive (including one where if you wanted a full hour's class, you would have to book and pay for the venue for two hours). Or there was no adjacent parking (I have a lot of clobber, including a heavy suitcase) and no safe access after dark between the hall and a 'remote' car park. In the end, I rebooked Spittal, which is a nice hall and reduces the distance for anyone coming from the Fishguard end. Those in Haverfordwest then have a choice - Spittal or Hubberston.
And there's always car-sharing to split travel costs ....
'I don't have transport.'
It's difficult when you don't know anyone, but there are potentially car shares available, including a couple of spaces in my car for Narberth and Spittal classes.
'I can't/don't want to have to commit to classes.'
('Because of health conditions, cash flow, shift working or other activities, caring responsibilities.')
I understand that (however much it creates difficulties for me as the provider). So don't feel you have to 'commit', but do make an effort to come when you can, and let me know when you can't. Simple.
'I don't want to pay for a block of classes in advance.'
('Because I can't afford it, or I know that I might not be able to make all of them, so will feel like I'm paying for nothing and not getting my money's worth.')
Talking to other teachers, having students pay for a block of classes in advance is a recommended way to get a bit of commitment and attendance at classes. But I have seen in practice that this doesn't necessarily work, (see the comment above).
I did some research into motivating students, but it was largely based around 'youth' type classes such as ballet, modern/jazz, street dance, where it's mostly the parents/guardians who are paying for the lessons, and incentives such as freebies and discounts work both for the students, who then want to come to class and provide the pester-power, and the payers.
I settled on having a drop-in rate of £5 for occasional attendees, and reduced rates per class for pre-paid cards for 6 or 12 classes. Yes, these are paid in advance, but the cards are flexible. They are for any of my Imago classes, in any of the three venues, and also for £5 increments towards Imago workshops. So you can go to two classes one week and none the next, then one the following week, whatever you want. You can split the card with one or more friends (though you'll have to decide who holds it). You need to remember to present them at the start of class. And they are valid for 6 months or at least until the end of July, depending on how classes go.
I've had a 'class card' system before, and it worked quite well, although I formerly also had cards for 24 and 36 classes, which weren't used. When I was looking for the old cards file to update it and print new ones, I found that my class rates have scarcely changed and the 6-class card price is the same as it was in 2011! What's not to love about that?
'I don't want a course, because if I miss a week I'll feel left behind.'
Okay, so no 'course'. The lesson plans will still include learning moves, drilling, follow-along or improvised dance, combinations and various props, but if you miss a week, it's no biggie. You'll still be building your dance skills, you can ask questions and request things to be covered in class. Just come and enjoy, week by week, whatever we're doing.
'I don't want to have to fill in a load of paperwork. Learning plans, induction tick lists? I'm here to dance!'
Some paperwork is necessary so that I have your details and can keep in touch if a class needs to be cancelled and to record who is there week by week. Otherwise, having a learning plan or a tick sheet for moves is up to you.
'I don't want to feel like I'm the only beginner.'
My classes have always been mixed level, as there have never been enough dancers to justify separate classes for beginners and improvers. I believe very firmly that everyone still does 'the basics' (you never really stop drilling isolations, hip circles, eights and undulations) but more experienced dancers will do them better and with frills on (layers, shimmies!).
With relaunched classes, there should be other beginners. Everyone is different and working at their own pace, finding some moves easy, others not so much. Perhaps bring a friend who is also a beginner?
'I want to join a class with several people already in it.'
This is a really difficult one. These are effectively new classes, and although I have had lots of enquiries and enthusiastic replies, it may still be the case that few people come. If it's not a course or block of classes which people have to commit to, then there are no guarantees how many people will turn up each week. If you're a little nervous, it's natural to want to lie low and hide at the back for a bit, or if you are dropping in for the social contact as well as some dancing, then finding you are one of three in a class could be enough to make you drop back out again.
The only solution to this is for people to come to class! Turn up for class, and bring a friend or two, the more the merrier!
While I was writing this, it occurred to me that much of it deals with reasons why people don't come to class. Hopefully the answers and solutions I've found will be reassuring and motivating, but it still leaves me with one question:
Why do I do this?
Because I love 'belly dance', in all its forms. I love the music and rhythms, and the way dance flows out as you let the music fill you. I love to teach. I love seeing frowns turn into grins as dancers discover what their bodies can do, or that others have the same issues. I love the energy and fun to be had from dancing in a group. I love the way that dance can dissolve barriers and reveal the truly beautiful souls of the dancers. I believe there are very few valid reasons not to dance and that, if you let it, it will transform your life.
'I think I'm probably too old (this from a 30 year old and a 73 year old!)'
Too old at 30? But seriously, you are never too old. You can work gently and within your comfort zone, at your own pace, and sit down and rest if you need to, whatever your age. I try to provide inclusive classes, whether for age, shape/size/level of fitness, disability, or gender.
'I want a midweek, evening class.'
Only one respondent wanted a daytime class, most were working or otherwise occupied (volunteering, other activities) during the day. Fridays were too vulnerable to weekend plans and the desire to just get home and put feet up at the end of the week.
One respondent wanted a class which started early, so they could go from work, but most wanted to at least be able to go home and change. (The danger is, of course, that once home, it can be hard to motivate yourself to go back out again!)
'An hour's class is enough - an hour and a half can feel like too much.'
So all classes are now an hour long, with an option for extra rehearsal time after class for those who wish to perform.
'It shouldn't end late - I want/need to be home by 9.30.'
(Because I have caring responsibilities/need to be up for work the next morning)
So classes are 7.00-8.00 pm, rehearsals 8.00-9.00 pm.
'I don't want to have to travel far - preferably not more than 5 miles.'
('Because it adds to costs, and time away from home - a consideration if you have other things to get done, or caring responsibilities.')
The location of classes is an issue; they are best placed in the population centres; that is, towns, rather than out in the villages. That said, being in town is no guarantee of attendees, particularly with the competition from other activities for attendees and venues.
With Narberth's Bloomfield Centre an established venue for the Thursday class, and Hubberston and Hakin Community Centre newly available on Tuesdays for a Milford Haven-based class, the main issue was to find a place for the Haverfordwest Wednesday class.
I checked out a dozen venues (over a couple of months - it took 3 weeks just to discover the booking contact for one venue!), only to find that none were suitable; either they were booked, or booked until 8.00 pm (therefore only for a late class), or they were too expensive (including one where if you wanted a full hour's class, you would have to book and pay for the venue for two hours). Or there was no adjacent parking (I have a lot of clobber, including a heavy suitcase) and no safe access after dark between the hall and a 'remote' car park. In the end, I rebooked Spittal, which is a nice hall and reduces the distance for anyone coming from the Fishguard end. Those in Haverfordwest then have a choice - Spittal or Hubberston.
And there's always car-sharing to split travel costs ....
'I don't have transport.'
It's difficult when you don't know anyone, but there are potentially car shares available, including a couple of spaces in my car for Narberth and Spittal classes.
'I can't/don't want to have to commit to classes.'
('Because of health conditions, cash flow, shift working or other activities, caring responsibilities.')
I understand that (however much it creates difficulties for me as the provider). So don't feel you have to 'commit', but do make an effort to come when you can, and let me know when you can't. Simple.
'I don't want to pay for a block of classes in advance.'
('Because I can't afford it, or I know that I might not be able to make all of them, so will feel like I'm paying for nothing and not getting my money's worth.')
Talking to other teachers, having students pay for a block of classes in advance is a recommended way to get a bit of commitment and attendance at classes. But I have seen in practice that this doesn't necessarily work, (see the comment above).
I did some research into motivating students, but it was largely based around 'youth' type classes such as ballet, modern/jazz, street dance, where it's mostly the parents/guardians who are paying for the lessons, and incentives such as freebies and discounts work both for the students, who then want to come to class and provide the pester-power, and the payers.
I settled on having a drop-in rate of £5 for occasional attendees, and reduced rates per class for pre-paid cards for 6 or 12 classes. Yes, these are paid in advance, but the cards are flexible. They are for any of my Imago classes, in any of the three venues, and also for £5 increments towards Imago workshops. So you can go to two classes one week and none the next, then one the following week, whatever you want. You can split the card with one or more friends (though you'll have to decide who holds it). You need to remember to present them at the start of class. And they are valid for 6 months or at least until the end of July, depending on how classes go.
I've had a 'class card' system before, and it worked quite well, although I formerly also had cards for 24 and 36 classes, which weren't used. When I was looking for the old cards file to update it and print new ones, I found that my class rates have scarcely changed and the 6-class card price is the same as it was in 2011! What's not to love about that?
'I don't want a course, because if I miss a week I'll feel left behind.'
Okay, so no 'course'. The lesson plans will still include learning moves, drilling, follow-along or improvised dance, combinations and various props, but if you miss a week, it's no biggie. You'll still be building your dance skills, you can ask questions and request things to be covered in class. Just come and enjoy, week by week, whatever we're doing.
'I don't want to have to fill in a load of paperwork. Learning plans, induction tick lists? I'm here to dance!'
Some paperwork is necessary so that I have your details and can keep in touch if a class needs to be cancelled and to record who is there week by week. Otherwise, having a learning plan or a tick sheet for moves is up to you.
'I don't want to feel like I'm the only beginner.'
My classes have always been mixed level, as there have never been enough dancers to justify separate classes for beginners and improvers. I believe very firmly that everyone still does 'the basics' (you never really stop drilling isolations, hip circles, eights and undulations) but more experienced dancers will do them better and with frills on (layers, shimmies!).
With relaunched classes, there should be other beginners. Everyone is different and working at their own pace, finding some moves easy, others not so much. Perhaps bring a friend who is also a beginner?
'I want to join a class with several people already in it.'
This is a really difficult one. These are effectively new classes, and although I have had lots of enquiries and enthusiastic replies, it may still be the case that few people come. If it's not a course or block of classes which people have to commit to, then there are no guarantees how many people will turn up each week. If you're a little nervous, it's natural to want to lie low and hide at the back for a bit, or if you are dropping in for the social contact as well as some dancing, then finding you are one of three in a class could be enough to make you drop back out again.
The only solution to this is for people to come to class! Turn up for class, and bring a friend or two, the more the merrier!
While I was writing this, it occurred to me that much of it deals with reasons why people don't come to class. Hopefully the answers and solutions I've found will be reassuring and motivating, but it still leaves me with one question:
Why do I do this?
Because I love 'belly dance', in all its forms. I love the music and rhythms, and the way dance flows out as you let the music fill you. I love to teach. I love seeing frowns turn into grins as dancers discover what their bodies can do, or that others have the same issues. I love the energy and fun to be had from dancing in a group. I love the way that dance can dissolve barriers and reveal the truly beautiful souls of the dancers. I believe there are very few valid reasons not to dance and that, if you let it, it will transform your life.
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