28 March 2026
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The only downside of bass instruments is that they tend to be on the large size. For tonight’s Training Band gig, I had both my tuba and double bass to tote around! All went pretty well though. I managed to get a nice resonance for most of my tuba playing and although one riff didn’t quite drop from my fingers in the first duet song I did, we took off pretty well in I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free.
27 March 2026
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There was some noise last year about a Bible Society report which suggested a “quiet revival” was underway, with church attendance increasing particularly among young men with no previous church connection. It caused a fair ripple of excitement across Christian churches but that report has now been withdrawn. It turns out the YouGov organisation which provided the base data hadn’t been as scrupulous as it should have been about the integrity of its information. As the Trojans found out, you should always look a gift horse in the mouth!
I wonder if the attention given to the report will have prompted some young people to visit a church or explore Christian faith? Perhaps so and maybe some of them will stick. Meanwhile, the life of the Christian church will continue as it has done from the beginning not with attention grabbing headlines but with the love of God poured out into human hearts and all that flows from the actual truth rather than just stories we want to hear.
26 March 2026
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An advantage of fountain pens is that, when the ink runs out, you replace just that component of the system rather than throwing out the whole implement. However, because I have been using ink cartridges, I haven’t been realising the full benefits of that. The plastic package is still a disposable item and you actually get less than 1.5ml of ink per cartridge. There is a measure of convenience – I have had situations where I’ve changed cartridges while away from home – but now that I’m mainly working from home that is a slim argument.
I’ve recently picked up some converters (refillable cartridges) that fit the Lamy pens I’ve settled on and some other bits and pieces: syringes to help filling with out too much mess, some brown ink and another pen! Given I already had half a bottle of black ink, I could have tried the experiment more cheaply but it will pay back for itself over time. Ink for one year in cartridge form costs about £10 and I’d be using about 15ml of ink as well as throwing away 12 plastic cartridges.
I did my first top ups (black for my main pen and the brown ink in the new pen) and it is all working neatly so far. I did take the precaution of doing the ink top ups in the bathroom sink but, with that facility, I don’t think I’ll end up in too much of a mess. I’m also looking forward to doing some sketching with the brown ink.
25 March 2026
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Many of the acronyms dreamt up as bulletin boards turned into email lists then forums and social media sites have drifted out of use. It is quite a while since I saw someone note that IANAL (I am not a lawyer), which used to be a caveat for giving legal sounding advice off the top of your head. However, it is certainly true that I am not a vintner.
We tried the first bottle of the rosé wine bottled earlier this year. It was very still, which is a good thing. The previous batch got increasingly fizzy – not regarded as a desirable attribute for red wine – and ended at the point when you would get more of a fountain than a drink! However, while it has lost the overtone of pear drops, it remains quite sour. I tried the idea of back-sweetening with icing sugar… and it produced a cloudy result that tasted like a sour drink with icing sugar in.
I think it will want another couple of months at least before we take another sample and see if time is mellowing it at all. If not, maybe we need to try it with fatty food that needs something to cut through or even just put it straight to cooking purposes? However, I wouldn’t say that the sourness tastes like vinegar so there is a reasonable chance that it will improve.
24 March 2026
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This Saturday evening Jane and I are playing with the Charnwood Training Band at Sileby Methodist Church (King Street, Sileby, LE12 7NA). The performance starts at 7pm (expect doors open from about 6:30pm) and we are raising money for The Alzheimer’s Society.
We had our final pre-gig rehearsal tonight so, although we won’t be perfect, I’m confident we’ll put on a decent show. I’m also doing a double bass and flute duet with a flautist friend and there will be a few other party pieces to look forward to as well.
23 March 2026
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I still haven’t mastered the art of sharpening but I do realise that different types of blade benefit from different tools and techniques. For gardening blades, I recently bought a Sharpal 129N which has a very aggressive action but seems good for thick, heavy blades. I don’t think it would be the tool for the refined edges needed on kitchen knives but, for something like a hoe, the tungsten carbide adds a quick edge.
It has done well in a couple of tests at home – I’ll take it to the allotment later this week when I’ve got some weeding to get on with and where the diamond rod I was using seems to have lost most of its effectiveness.
22 March 2026
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Spring is here – look at the marvellous magnolia next door… and that Photinia glowing red in ours in the morning sun!
21 March 2026
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In the most recent edition of the Broadleaf magazine from the Woodland Trust, we spotted a walk not too far from where we were headed on a recent trip to Devon. It was about 10km in total but the map above shows the actual route we took – a bit shorter but a decent stroll with the ups and downs.
Click on the image for more pictures for the walk, which was a good use of another beautiful spring day.
20 March 2026
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We’ve visited RHS Rosemoor this week, taking advantage of the glorious spring weather being enjoyed by much of the UK at the moment:
I took this panorama shot on my iPad, which seemed to add almost a soft filter effect to some of brighter areas… or that could just be a side effect of lots of detail (9000px wide) shrunk down to fit any screen I’ve been able to view it on.
17 March 2026
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As I’m going through a phase of doing a lot of file editing using a command line terminal (SSH to a different machine), I am building my skills with Vim as opposed to gVim – in other words, no mouse!
One useful trick I’ve discovered in the last week or two is for helping deal with split windows. I knew the commands to introduce horizonal and vertical splits (:sp and :vsp respectively) and I could move between the sections (Ctrl-W and then a direction key) but I wasn’t sure how to resize the partitions. Most of the time I just want them evened up and it turns out Ctrl-W = is the necessary command sequence.
It sounds obvious when you know it, which makes it easy to remember and is proving very helpful indeed.