Wulf's Webden

The Webden on WordPress

22 April 2026
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Spring Blossom Bottled

My Spring Blossom brew is now bottled. It had dropped from 1.034 to 1.005 gravity so bang on the target ABV of 3.7% and I actually managed to get 16 bottles (8l beer) out of it which is a slightly above average yield for my brewing. I wonder if that was helped by only boiling the wort for 30 minutes? The original recipe called for a 90 minute boil but I’ve been gradually reducing the length on all my beers in recent years. Since the results seem just as good and it saves both time and energy, I think I’ll stick with it.

It is too early to say exactly how it will turn out after bottle conditioning but the little bits of leftover you get to sample during the bottling process seem promising. What had sat in the sample tube for a few days (I actually did my sample reading last Saturday and it would have been ready then) had dropped very clear so it all bodes well for a few weeks time when I can crack the first one open with the hope that it has finished conditioning. Meanwhile, time to think about what to brew next and to make sure I have the necessary supplies in.

21 April 2026
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Jupiter

I think Jupiter was one of the planets that was visible in the clear mid-evening sky when I was gigging with the Charnwood Symphonic Wind Orchestra on Saturday evening. It is on my mind though because Jupiter, by Gustav Holst and arranged by William Owens, is also one of the pieces the Charnwood Concert Band is preparing for our concert in East Leake on 16 May.

Some of it is slow, beautiful and, certainly from the bass perspective, pretty easy. Other parts are in fast, syncopated 2/2 time and, it would be fair to say, challenging. We rehearsed it tonight and I’ve now got a couple of extra bits to write into my copy at the conductor’s request, supporting the trombones and other low brass… and to practise so the hard parts don’t feel too much more difficult than the ones I presently find easy.

20 April 2026
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Potting Up Tomatoes

Over the past few days (and for a few more to come), I’ve been potting up tomatoes. The ones showing at least a reasonable amount of their first true leaves are going into pots that should be large enough to see them through to the point they get planted out in the polytunnel next month. The exception will be ones that put on particularly big growth before I’m ready to plant them – I don’t want healthy plants being checked because their roots are getting congested.

The BBQ we had yesterday was fortuitous because several of the items we had to cook came in plastic trays just at the point when I was wondering how to accommodate more pots on the end of the dining room table (our best light source – my grow lights – is kept for the younger seedlings).

The other advantage of potting up, apart from not impeding plant growth, is that it has freed up space for some more plants to get a start. I got some squash and courgette seeds going yesterday in my heated propagation space and some kale today, which should be ready for harvests in the summer, autumn and beyond.

19 April 2026
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First BBQ of the Season

Today’s lunch was accomplished by means of our first BBQ of the season. It is quite early in the year but means we’ll have made at least one use of the grill by the time we get to the end of 2026!

18 April 2026
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Sing Around Songs – 18 April 2026

We were round at Mo’s this afternoon and I had to leave early, so opted for ukulele rather than double bass! I led two songs – You Got To Move and Will the Circle Be Unbroken, both pretty simple songs that suit the bluesy end of my voice and are easy for others to join in on. Early departure was because I’ve got a gig with CSWO this evening so I had to get away in order to finish my preparations for that.

17 April 2026
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Solfege

I was recently involved in a discussion with a bassist from Spain about the Solfege system. I’m used to it as a system of relative pitch and he is used to each syllable being a specific pitch (so what I’d call C, he’d call Do). That meant I found this video, stumbled across this evening, very interesting:

16 April 2026
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With

I’ve been doing a lot of SQL in recent weeks drawing on the knowledge I’ve built up over years. However, I’ve still managed to pick up one or two approaches that were new to me.

One of those is the WITH keyword. You can declare a series of temporary tables (WITH mynewtable AS (SELECT statement…)) and then use in the query that follows. In the past I would have solved that with gnarly joins or dropping subqueries further down but there is something rather elegant about creating some temporary tables first. It keeps things neat and avoids some of the deep folds in which bugs like to hide!

Anyway, WITH is a strong contender in the unlikely event that someone asks me for my current favourite SQL keyword!

15 April 2026
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Looking Down on the Garden – April 2026

Looking Down on the Back Garden - April 2026

This month’s picture features a pigeon perched on the door-runner guard on the polytunnel and you can also see the new fence down the right hand side. Reviewing the whole album of photos, I can see that this year follows the typical pattern of the March to April transition bringing a substantial greening up – many plants that were bare or at best barely budding last month have their little solar energy collectors unfurled to take advantage of the lengthening days and rising temperatures.

14 April 2026
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Wielding the Baton

This evening our training band conductor was unable to make it so I stepped in. I’ll be doing the same next week as well so I decided an upgrade was in order for the stick I’ve been using as a baton. It was really nothing more than a thick splinter of wood with black tape round the handle and white tape along the rest of it. I’m still using it but I’ve now designed and printed a curved base to give a better grip and it did an decent job in its first test tonight.

To get the shape, I sketched out my idea on paper, created a curved profile of one half using Inkscape (allowing a mixture of measurement and moving things by eye) and then did a “rotate extrude” in OpenSCAD to create my model for 3D printing. Originally I’d planned to drop some waste plastic inside the handle to add a bit of extra weight (and dispose of it in a helpful way) but I ended up needing to get the print done quickly. I’ll have to find another use for my plastic waste but I think the feel of the finished piece is quite successful.

All I need to do now is work on my conducting skills!

13 April 2026
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Taking Up Fencing

In the last couple of days, Jane and I have taken up fencing… and replaced it with new fencing. The boundary fence between us and next door was getting fairly dilapidated so we finally got round to replacing it. Originally we’d planned to do the job during winter but the first part of this year was so wet we had to delay a bit. Extra foliage made it a little harder but I think we’ve done a decent job.

The next job to finish is taking apart the old fence panels, salvaging any decent wood and disposing of the rest. Meanwhile, I can definitely feel the work out in my shoulders – there is a lot of lifting and carrying involved. At least we’ve got concrete fence posts, which made the job easier than if we’d also had to replace rotted wooden posts… apart from the last one which is set just a little too wide and need a bit of engineering with some of the wood I’ve recovered so far in order to fit the panel firmly in the gap.