Wulf's Webden

The Webden on WordPress

19 March 2024
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Badged

We’ve had visits from junior schools at church but today was the first time in… well, the first time in so long that I can’t honestly remember that I’ve been into a junior school. It was as part of a church team to run a session called “Experience Easter”. We normally host it but are having an issue with the toilet drains at the moment so, for 2024, the team is going out to the schools instead.

I don’t remember schools being so fortified in the past. I’m not talking lava-filled moats and 50′ walls but there are substantial fences and gates operated by switches inside what could best be described as “the compound”. Signing in wasn’t just a matter of putting my name in a visitors book but filling in details on a touch screen and, at the end of the process, being photographed and having a bespoke badge printed for the day.

Does it really make a worthwhile contribution? I don’t know but I imagine that it is expensive. What happens when part of the system goes down? Does the school shut or temporarily relax the rules? It is commendable that schools are making an effort to keep their pupils and staff safe but I hope they are going the whole hog and also having professional groups test those defences. Too many stories in history and legend, including but not limited to the “Trojan horse”, show how a little bit of cunning can often subvert what were imagined to be comprehensive defences.

All of that has nothing to do with what our team brought to the children who took part in the “Experience” but, as someone who used to work at the information end of the security market, I’m interested to think about what I experienced and its strengths and possible weaknesses.

18 March 2024
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The Pace Increases

As a reminder of how quickly the pace of gardening tasks increases at this time of year, it was only about three days ago that I was thinking about planting seeds and looking at most of my attempts so far mainly being bare earth or having tiny seedlings just beginning to poke through. Today I spent an hour or more potting things up (and taking advantage of the days growing every longer).

That is exciting but also a reminder to try and stay on top of it. At this time of year, it would be very easy to go from being safely ahead to as behind as most years!

17 March 2024
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Eternal Flame

There was a bit more sight-reading to be done at tonight’s band, with an arrangement of Eternal Flame by the Bangles. I’m just taking a listen back to it now and trying to figure out if the bass part on the recording is a fretless bass or keyboard with a fretless bass patch? I do remember a similar sound on one of the keyboards that we had at school round about the time the song came out and it sounds a bit too measured and inorganic to my ear for most fretless bassists (although not impossible).

Maybe I’ll dig my fretless out and see if it has the right sound although, mixed in with a whole bunch of wind and brass instruments that weren’t on the original, it probably doesn’t matter too much.

16 March 2024
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Bluegrass – March 2024

There was another bluegrass session at The Plough Inn today (sadly, possibly the last one there before it closes) and this time I took my banjo and stayed for the whole lot.

The tunes I led on were I’ll Fly Away, Bad Moon Rising and Diving Duck Blues and neither of the latter two are particularly known as bluegrass classics. However, they are easy to follow along and well-known and all three went down well.

The first track was a bit poignant for me – I picked it in remembrance of a friend from Oxford who I heard today has recently passed away. I will miss him but, for his sake, I’m glad he has come to his glad morning.

15 March 2024
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Seeds, Seeds and More Seeds

March is certainly a key month for getting seeds going. Almost every day, there seems to be a bit more activity to note. For example, the second lot of our Cucumber ‘Telegraph Improved’ seeds had germinated and needed putting in soil yesterday and today I started off both some Broccoli ‘F1 Monclano’ and some Lettuce ‘Cos Little Gem’.

Tomorrow? I’ve got several choices and, with successional sowing already underway for things like radishes in the polytunnel, plenty to keep me going to the even more exciting point when I’ve got ample robust little plants to put out into the positions where they will grow to maturity.

14 March 2024
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Zapped Again

Another session as a research participant today – similar to the last one but an hour and a half long this time. I do hope it produces some worthwhile results because it isn’t the most comfortable experience in the world although I was interested to note that, despite the longer session time, I didn’t have quite the same struggle walking afterwards.

It was also a chance get the bike out as Jane was off with the car. I was pleased to find that, apart from having to pump the tyres up and spray on a bit of oil it was still in good working order – good old bike (I’ll see what my leg muscles are saying tomorrow!)

13 March 2024
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Dust blower

The projector in the hall at church overheated again today during the toddlers session. Fortunately we’d got through most of what we needed it for and the newish song I was bringing was simple enough to teach verbally.

We’ve been through this several times before. The solution, thus far, has been to try cleaning the projector in situ (mounted on the ceiling!) and, if that doesn’t stave off the problem, to take it down for a more thorough clean, which was today’s unexpected task.

It got used for the Alpha course tonight – so far, so good. However, I think it will need a few more hours of service before I’m quite ready to breathe a sigh of relief.

12 March 2024
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Ruby Return Finished

Today I’m finishing off my Ruby Return beer, which was bottled in November. I’d say that this tastes like the best bottle of the batch. Taste, of course, is a pretty subjective thing but it makes me think that, next time I brew that recipe, I’ll let it sit for a bit longer in the bottle.

It’s a risk of course, as not all homebrews keep so well, but I will make sure I add that observation back to my notes.

11 March 2024
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Back from the Guitar Doctor

I got my Sei bass back from Leicestershire Luthiers this morning. It wasn’t particularly cheap (over 3/4 of the price of the Squier bass I bought a couple of years ago) but fixed some ongoing issues that would have stretched or exceeded my skills and, even with the old strings on, sounds brand new again. I think the chance for a thorough tune up has been worth it and I look forward to getting it back into use.

I did get the new strings in over the weekend so I’ll get those fitted in a bit. I’ll wait a few days though and let the freshness I’m enjoying now wear off.

The main change, apart from some essential maintenance, was changing the battery cover to use magnets rather than two tiny screws to hold it in place. The battery now sits on a little bit of blu-tack rather than foam so it shouldn’t pop out under its own weight. I might need to add a little bit of fabric sticking out as, despite a little hollow, my fingernails are often too short too easily get into it. However, this may encourage me to start making use of the active mode a bit more often again; one of the reasons I’ve been put off is that I have a morbid fear of the battery dying mid-set and being left fiddling around with a screwdriver trying to swap it out!

10 March 2024
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Dill Pierogi

Towards the end of last week we had grilled sea bass for dinner, a fairly frequent treat but one that I’d given a twist to with some fresh dill. What that meant was that I had most of a packet of dill left and I was wondering what I could use it for which wasn’t another fish dish. A bit of Internet searching and I settled on a recipe from delish.com for dill and cheddar pierogis as a starting point.

Pierogis are a filled dumpling popular in Poland and other eastern European countries and with similar treats found in other places around the world. The outer layer was made from butter (240g) and salt (7.5g), mixed and then combined with a liquid made of 45g unsalted butter melted in 60g water. I combined that in a food mixer and then added 1 egg and about quarter of the remaining dill (finely chopped). That helped bring the dough together and I mixed further until it had reached a smooth ball, which I wrapped in clingfilm and left to rest on the counter.

The next step was to slice and soften a medium sized onion in butter with some salt and pepper – about 10-15 minutes with some stirring to get a golden colour. While that was cooking, I also diced a couple of smallish potatoes and softened them in salted water. Drained and mashed, those became the filling mixture, along with half of the cooked onion, a bit of kefir (sour cream in the recipe), cheddar, some finely sliced cooked ham and about half the remaining dill and some salt and pepper.

I decided to use my pasta machine to roll the dough out, working on half of it at a time. I got it fairly thin, although not quite as far as I normally take pasta dough and cut out 7.5cm rounds, which had a blob of filling before brushing round the circumference with water, folding in half and pressing. That was a fiddly job. Next time, I might try the little pasty makers I’ve got to see if that speeds things up. The other important thing to remember is to be fairly stingy on the filling; if it splurges out at the folding stage, the pierogi will fall apart during cooking.

The method advised not rerolling the dough, to avoid making the result too tough, but to use the rest to make wide noodles. Pierogi and noodles all went in boiling water for about five minutes and then got served up with the rest of the mash and some reheated broccoli from the day before. Oh, and garnished with the last of the dill.

Looking back, a bit fiddly in the pierogi construction but quite simple and very tasty. One to try again and refine.