Wulf's Webden

The Webden on WordPress

16 July 2024
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Betty Harkness

Rosa 'Betty Harkness'
Rosa ‘Betty Harkness’

Betty Harkness is the name of this rose which was among several I enjoyed while visiting RHS Rosemoor earlier today. On this trip, I’d decided to use my Vivitar 90mm lens set at f/4, which gave a narrow depth of field and the ability to focus in very close. This was my most successful rose portrait, taking advantage of both those factors to fill the frame and show fine details mixed with areas of pleasing softness. In fact, although I had been planning to do some post production work, I decided that, in this case, there was nothing I wanted to change about what came straight out of the camera.

15 July 2024
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Bring Me Sunshine

I had a long car journey to make today and a lot of it (the portion down the M5) was in pouring rain – the type of rain that means switching on the headlights and the only choice about using the wipers is regular or fast. It is one of my least favourite types of condition to drive in. Still, at least it wasn’t sleet, snow or heavy rain in the dark of night.

Bring me some sunshine though and I’ll be a lot happier.

14 July 2024
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Many Languages

This morning saw us joining Jessie, the diocesan intercultural worship co-ordinator, to help lead the music in a service at St Theo’s in Rushey Mead, Leicester. I took my bass and Jane brought both flute and clarinet. It just so happened that when there wasn’t music in the required key, we did find dots for the key a tone above which made it perfect for a Bb instrument like the clarinet.

Some of the songs were in English but most used one or more other languages, so I’ve sung today in everything from Arabic to Urdu. Typically there were only one or two phrases to learn in each language and there was nothing particularly tongue twisting and a wonderful way of remembering that God’s love reaches round the whole world.

13 July 2024
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Sing Around Songs – 13 July 2024

For today’s sing around (in the hall at All Saints Thorpe Acre with Dishley), I took two instruments – my banjo and my tuba.

I used the banjo for my opening and closing contributions. My first song was Spencer the Rover, a wonderful folk song in which [SPOILER ALERT] no-one dies and everyone ends up living happily ever after. Later on, as we were almost at a close, I also got out Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think). There are various lyrics out there, not all of which I’m keen on, but the one I picked up from my ukulele club in Oxford remains gently comic throughout.

The main reason for taking the tuba was to give a premiere performance of The Birth of Heavy Metal, a solo medley I’ve worked up as a party piece for a concert the Charnwood Training Band are putting on in September. From the primordial swamp of some oompah music and a generic boogie blues, I then touch on Sunshine of Your Love and Hey Joe (two much covered songs from the era where blues rock was getting louder and heavier) before finishing on Iron Man by Black Sabbath, an early tune from a band that is almost invariably mentioned in any history of heavy metal.

I don’t think that anyone noticed that I’d left out Steppenwolf’s Born to be Wild, the first song I know of to mention heavy metal in the lyrics (although referring, I believe, to motorbikes). That was on the shortlist but got dropped for reasons of time. Why on tuba? As I’ve mentioned before, it is definitely a heavy, metal instrument…

12 July 2024
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Lids

This afternoon, I’ve been making lids. Specifically, I’ve been making lids for a couple of old recycling boxes to store kindling and small firewood. The boxes lost their original lids sometime ago but are other wise fairly sound so, with a cover too keep the rain out, they should do the job.

The first one was a bit more involved. I selected a number of planks from my scrapwood collection, cut a rabbet on both edges and joined them together. That should keep it fairly watertight although it was a lot of effort made harder by some unevenness and warping in the planks. The second one was much easier – an old pine headboard I picked up a few weeks ago cut into a rectangle and with a few small blocks on the underside to keep it in place.

I’ll have to see which design works better but, for now, both will do.

11 July 2024
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Dandelion on the Water

I was out on the water yesterday with a canal trip on a narrowboat (Dandelion) belonging to The Baldwin Trust. They are a local charity who facilitate affordable trips on the waterways from a base at Barrow Upon Soar. Jane organised the trip for us and some friends and family, including several with various physical needs around sight and mobility. Helped by a top notch crew who went out of their way to help everyone have a chance to be involved and do things like steering or helping with locks, we had a fantastic trip, which took us up to Loughborough (only one gate shy of our back garden) and back.

8 July 2024
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Missing Bits

Yesterday’s (generally excellent) gig would have been a lot harder if Jane hadn’t been on hand to pickup a few bits. Having packed everything up to accommodate my smaller FX unit, I’d forgotten to account for the fact I habitually keep my leads and page turner pedal in the case of the Helix LT. Whoops!

I did have a short (1m?) lead on hand but fortunately she was able to get the missing bits to me just before the start of the set (and I got them plugged in between the first and second songs). With more variety of playing experiences likely in the next few months, perhaps it would be wise to think about having an actual checklist rather than relying on a mental one!

7 July 2024
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CCB – Queen’s Park, 7 July, 2pm

This afternoon I’ve got my last gig of the summer season with Charnwood Concert Band, who are performing in the bandstand at Queen’s Park in Loughborough at 2pm this afternoon. The band get the benefit of a roof over their heads but the weather forecast is looking better than it was. There might well be a little rain shower some time during the hour but it shouldn’t be too heavy and it should be dry up until then.

That isn’t a promise of no rain but I’m hoping we’ll have conditions for a decent crowd to enjoy what I’m confident will be an excellent set of music.

5 July 2024
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The Hard Work Begins

As expected, Labour have won a sweeping victory and the Conservatives got their expected drubbing, although turnout was on the low side (second lowest in the last 100 years, at about 60%). Perhaps that will the the subject of my first letter to my new MP (Labour), congratulating him but asking what thoughts he has on increasing participation in future? He got a solid victory over the outgoing Conservative MP but the total Labour vote barely shifted. Most of the change appears to have been many former Conservative votes going to Reform (now the third party in the area although with less than half of the Labour share) and a few going to the Greens.

Labour did get their win. Now they have to work out what they are actually going to do and how much they can push towards their promises without actions they said they would avoid.

4 July 2024
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Patio Cleaning

I got my vote cast early this morning. Since my local polling station is in the car park of the nearby Lidl supermarket, that also gave a convenient chance to pop in and do a bit of grocery shopping. Poll don’t close until 10pm and the media is banned from commenting on election day so I’ll wait until tomorrow morning to check on the results.

Meanwhile, one thing I have done today is get the pressure washer out and give the patio a blast. I wasn’t sure how much difference it was making. A couple of the slabs showed clear improvement but the rest were harder to judge and I am wary about blasting away so much they begin to disintegrate! However, as the sun dried them I was quite pleased with the results.

This was with water only. Chemical cleaners might improve the results further but, with no obvious drain to direct the run off too and lots of plants in the ground, I decided that I didn’t want to add harsh solutions even if they might have given more of a ‘like new’ appearance at the end. Cleaner than they were will do for me.