30 January 2025
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PC Clinic

I did my first session supporting the University’s Student PC Support Clinic this afternoon. It was a bit daunting to approach but turned out to be pretty low key. I’m not yet familiar with the breadth of systems available to students so it meant a mixture of relying on my native computer intuition and my ability to look up and follow the details of online help information.

I did need a bit of support from colleagues on a couple of cases but also managed to get several figured out on my own. I’ve got another session to do at the end of February and haven’t yet booked in any more after that but it will probably be useful to keep my hand in from time to time. The Windows 11 upgrade project I’m working on should be wrapped up towards the end of the year but there is always going to be a need for IT support.

29 January 2025
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Hazel Coppicing

Today’s Green Gym session was hazel coppicing at the Outwoods. Hazel is a vigorous tree that responds positively to pruning. In fact, you can chop an established plant down to almost nothing and it will respond by growing back. Better yet, the growth tends to be multiple long, straight branches. At some point in the distant past, this was noted and the practises of coppicing and pollarding were developed to farm the plant for material as well as keeping it from becoming too large and unstable or swamping other trees.

Pollarding, which we are going to experiment with on a tree in our back garden, involves encouraging from a point round about waist to chest height. That has the advantage of an open under-storey and also not involving too much bending to maintain. Coppicing just takes the whole plant back to the ground and lets it regrow from there.

Actually, it isn’t quite level with the ground. That would probably work but there is a risk the plant would get swamped and it would also grow back unpredictably. The method we were using was to aim to trim the branches back to form a low bowl with every cut angled. The ones round the outside will be about 1-2cm above the ground at the lowest point and the central ones will be a little higher, although it depends on the diameter. That prevents water settling on the exposed ends and starts the new growth gently fanning out in all directions. In a year or two, it will form a small shrub and sometime over the next five or six years it will ideally be harvested again with the amount of time influencing what the resulting sticks are best suited to – perhaps three or four years for weaving into structures or six or seven years to created quite robust frameworks.

28 January 2025
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Somewhat Closer

I see that my favourite homebrew supplier has moved somewhat closer. No longer is Crossmyloof Brew based at Crossmyloof in Glasgow, Scotland but near Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, England instead. I think the former owner has retired and someone else has stepped in to keep the company going. In some ways, the difference is academic, as it is still too far to pop over to pick things up but I have put a small order in because it is about time I made a start on my first beers of 2025.

Those will be a stout, based on a recipe I’ve used a couple of times before (although I think the last time was my final brewing session in Oxford), and a version of Boddington’s Mild, which should be a relatively lightweight brew and great for quaffing after labouring in the garden or down at the allotment.

27 January 2025
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All My Own (3D) Work

As expected, I’ve done a fair amount of 3D printing since getting the set up finished on Saturday evening (easy set up but hosting a guest took priority). I’ve since run a number of things off using the small amount of white PLA that came with the machine and the spools of black PLA and white PETG I bought at the same time. Both PLA and PETG print very well so I’ve run various things off in each.

Up until this afternoon through, all of that had two things in common. They were things I had downloaded from online sources and they were all items to enhance the printing system – cable clips, a bed scraper and so on. Even the Gridfinity bins I printed were done with the purpose of storing the waste material from the two different types of filament. When I gather a bit more (I’ll need bigger bins!) I’ll look into melting and moulding the waste into things like coasters and other simple shapes.

What I did today took a step forward. Working with a design I’d started earlier in OpenSCAD, I created and printed my first item from scratch. It wasn’t anything complex – just a 1cm high circle of plastic with a portion of the perimeter missing, as a prototype stage for the downpipe diverter I want to construct. With this item, I wanted to check that it would securely snap onto the pipe I had in mind, tight enough to hold and loose enough to adjust. It looked a bit small when it came off the plate but proved to be perfectly sized.

Later this week, I can develop the design to incorporate several functional improvements. However, I’ve crossed the Rubicon of 3D design and established that, yes, I can dream up an idea, model it and print it.

26 January 2025
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Calvary Walk

This sign, at nearby Mount Saint Bernard Abbey, tickled me. The Calvary walk is a garden which includes various reminders of Christ’s journey to Calvary and features some quite narrow, steep steps. Putting a sign to warn visitors is an eminently sensible idea, so I’m not mocking that. However, I wonder if there was a bit of sly monastic humour behind the first few words? After all, choosing to follow Christ on his Calvary walk – what Jesus himself referred to as “taking up your cross” – is inherently dangerous. You can’t come out with your life intact because you need to die to self to take that path!

25 January 2025
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RSPB Garden Birdwatch 2025

Along with our visiting friend, Simon, we took part in the annual RSPB garden birdwatch this morning. You spend an hour watching birds in your garden and note down the highest number of each species you see landed in your garden. This year, we saw six goldfinches at once, which is well above the county and national average of one; the local population of this colourful bird is doing well and has got used to visiting the feeders in our garden. We only got three sparrows, though although sometimes we get ten or more at once. In that case it makes our return average – although I’ve always counted them as a regular visitor to all my gardens, others (including Simon) rarely see them at all.

A little later in the day, we also saw two reed buntings. Those are unusual visitors for us – it is the first time we recall seeing them in our garden. I wonder if they were disrupted by yesterday’s high winds? There is what I would expect as more usual habitat for them about a mile away, where the canal merges into the River Soar. I cheekily included them in our online return although I did also include a note to say that they were seen after the main count.

24 January 2025
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Entering the World of 3D Printing

A few days earlier than originally expected, I was excited to receive my first 3D printer this morning. I ordered a Bambu A1 mini just after Christmas, when the already low price (for the market) was further reduced by a sale. I had been considering it for a while but the price drop made it seem an ideal opportunity and I’ve got a list of things I want to print, including a number of custom items I’ll have to first design.

The joy of expectation was a little blunted by some controversy over the last week about changes Bambu Lab seem to be making to their system which could limit the use of third party components and software. On the other hand, if 3D printing works for my needs then this is probably just my first device and not the only one I’ll ever buy. If the A1 mini lives up to its reputation for ease of use and reliability, I’ll be good for a while yet.

So far I’ve got it assembled but haven’t switched it on yet. I’m also hosting a university friend this weekend, who travelled down despite Storm Eowyn creating challenging conditions, so playing host wins over playing with new toys! Expect more posts on the subject soon – perhaps even a new blog category (DIY will do for now; I’ll make that decision if there are lots more posts).

22 January 2025
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Dud Bottle

I had a dud bottle of my Fawkes Bitter today – no little pop when the cap came off and no carbonation when I poured it out so I wasn’t surprised when it tasted off. The next bottle was fine but I’ll have to watch that – I used quite a few 330ml bottles that formerly had Belgian beer in and I’m not sure they cap as reliably as some of the other bottles I use. As a tasting note, the second bottle was exactly what I look for in a homebrew beer and that’s the first dud in quite a while.

21 January 2025
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Got a Solo

I stuck my hand up at the Charnwood Concert Band rehearsal tonight so I’ve now myself an 8 bar bass solo in our version of Mack the Knife. The arrangement is a concert band affair, with everything written out with dots, rather than the kind of thing you might to expect in a big band, where a solo section would probably indicate chords but I think I’ve figured out how they flow. That is similar to the sources I had (iRealPro and The Real Vocal Book) but not quite the same, so I’ll do a bit more work and then see how it sounds at next week’s rehearsal.

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