Wulf's Webden

The Webden on WordPress

15 November 2023
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Last Tomatoes 2023

The tomatoes in the polytunnel have had quite a lot of fruit on them over the last few weeks but it has been showing very little signs of shifting in colour. Today I decided to draw a line under the season, grabbing the last harvest of ripe and semi-ripe ones, abandoning the unripe ones and cutting down the rest of the vines.

It hasn’t been my best year for tomatoes, partly down to a late start and lax pruning regime but I’ve got some seeds saved and look forward to a better go in 2024, when I won’t be caught in the dilemma of not wanting to get going because I don’t know when the polytunnel will be ready.

14 November 2023
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Barrel Scraping

The appointment of someone who is no longer an MP to be our new foreign secretary sounds to me like trying to scrape beyond the bottom of the barrel. I was surprised that former Prime Minister, David Cameron, wasn’t already a member of the House of Lords but apparently he had to be appointed to that posthaste in order to legitimate his new role.

As I recall, he left politics under something of a cloud – an unhappy coalition with the Lib Dems to get into power, the ushering in of years of austerity politics, several strong suggestions of undue lobbying linked to personal gain and, perhaps most critically, the miscalculation of the Brexit poll. Instead of putting the matter of Europe to bed for a few years, it poured on petrol and set fire to the bed we had to lay on. That doesn’t sound like a triumph in the field of foreign policy as every indication was that Cameron was pro-European.

Could it be that Sunak is trying to reclaim the middle ground (difficult, as Starmer seems determined to come across as very average despite his strong background) or is it just that the Conservative party is getting increasingly desperate and willing to shove just about anybody anywhere in order to try and cling onto power? We could do with an early General Election next year, a change of power and ideally, another look at trying to change the system so people feel represented rather than polarised, whoever sits in the majority.

13 November 2023
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Onions In

I spent a bit of time at the allotment this afternoon – windy with occasional splashes of rain but I also got to enjoy some lovely golden light as the sun dropped towards the horizon. The main purpose of heading up there though was to do a bit more late autumn planting – more broad beans and some onion sets and garlic bulbs.

All of those are plants that can cope with the rough conditions of winter and it sets me up for harvests next year. I might have to put fleece covers over them if it gets very cold but, for the investment of a bit of time, I should get some good food in return.

12 November 2023
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Remembrance 2023

Except for the rare years when Remembrance Sunday falls on 11 November, I have three events to attend – a silence on the village green at 11am on 11th November, the regular church service on the Sunday morning and another service with laying of wreaths back on the village green in the afternoon of the Sunday.

I think it is a valuable series of memorials and it seems a shame that more don’t attend, although perhaps they were all down in town for the civic memorial this morning? I have to admit that nowadays the poem which comes to my mind on these occasions is not one of the classic war poems but a short one attributed to Steve Turner: “History repeats itself. Has to. Nobody listens”.

As our Home Secretary inflames hatred by arguing that anti-war protesters flame hatred, it seems all the more relevant. Oh for the day when we can justly forget what our ploughshare metal was once used for.

11 November 2023
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Fingernails would have been useful

Thinking back on yesterday’s banjo string changing experience, one thing that would have made the process easier would have been if I had fingernails. Perhaps I should be more precise: I’m not without fingernails but I tend to keep them pretty short, to avoid them getting damaged or dirty.

Or, perhaps that would have been a use for my fingerpicks? Fingerpicks are artificial fingernail extensions that a lot of banjo players use, giving a sharp attack and louder volume. I haven’t used them much as I don’t need the instrument to cut through in a band setting but I have got a set. Perhaps they would have helped with tasks like picking up the strings as they snaked through the bridge? Something to consider next time the task comes up if my nails happen to be in extra short mode again.

10 November 2023
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Changing Banjo Strings

I inherited my five string banjo from my dad. It even came with some neat wear patterns on the head and down the neck which make me look like a much more experienced player than I actually am. It also came with a set of strings of unknown age. They played okay but I suspected they were probably due for a change sometime soon, which I mentioned to my friend who comes round for some help in his learning of the instrument and he surprised me with a new set of strings.

That’s great but I thought I could return the favour in part by making the installation of the strings the subject of today’s lesson. Hopefully he won’t remember all the details when it comes to the time his own banjo needs a string change as I had to make a few further adjustments after he’d gone. I’ve not changed banjo strings before and they were harder to work with than bass strings – slick and tiny.

With that reworking though, I think all is now in order and it certainly livens up the sound. Now, which stringed instrument should be next for a new set?

9 November 2023
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Ruby Return

Yesterday afternoon, I made use of some of the new brewing supplies I’d ordered in last week and set to work on my first batch for the new season. One of Jane’s favourites out of the various recipes I’ve tried over the years was based on Graham Wheeler’s version of Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby [Graham Wheeler. Brew Your Own British Real Ale (3rd ed.). CAMRA Books (St Albans) 2009. p103] so that’s what I set about cooking up.

I had all the necessary ingredients to stick to the recipe although I did add in a small amount of black malt too. I think that was from the first batch of grains I bought at least seven years ago but black malt is highly cooked and more about colour. If it had been pre-crushed it probably would have to be thrown out but it came as whole grains and I seem to be working through the original 500g bag at no more than 50g / year and less than 0.1% of any given grain bill!

One idea I carried forward from the previous batch I brewed was to scale up my ingredients a bit. For several years, I’ve been calculating around a starting point of 10l water but, with my previous batch I mashed with 10l water and then used another 4l of water to sparge (rinse) the mashed grains after removing the bag from the mash tun. My notes said that felt a little too much for the boil stage so I reduced it down to 3l of sparge water. By the time that had been boiled for an hour (and left to cool overnight) I ended up with about 9l of wort. There are several more points of wastage along its journey to become beer but I should end up with around 8l bottled rather than the 6l I’d typically get for sticking to the 10l water method, making the process about 25% more efficient.

Getting the fermentation going this morning took longer than I’d hoped as I had to do a bit of improvisation along the way. I realised the siphon tube I’d planned to use was dirty inside and, rather than risk introducing infection, I opted for pouring most of the wort into my plastic jerry can and using a jelly bag (part of my jam making kit) to get the last litre out with a relatively low amount of sediment. My experience is that the sediment doesn’t particularly seem to hurt the fermentation process but it does make getting it cleanly bottled more challenging and makes it more likely that I’ll produce several “gushers” (bottles that need to be opened near a sink!).

The wort has gone into the fermenter with some “Midland” yeast from Crossmyloof Brew, which is similar to the commonly used “Nottingham” strain. Adjusting for temperature, the original gravity was 1.058, bang on target and suggesting that my use of additional sparge water helps get the expected level of goodness from my grains.

8 November 2023
by wpAdmin
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Twelve Good Men

Larry Norman fans might remember the third verse of his blues rock tune, Twelve Good Men: “I’ve got this black leather jacket, the one I had through all my youth…”. I didn’t have a black leather jacket through all my youth but I got one for my eighteenth birthday which was the main outer garment I wore for most of the next decade.

Such garments are long lasting but they don’t go on forever. I can’t honestly remember quite what happened to it but there came a point when it became too “well-ventilated” and eventually it must have got retired and disposed of. I’ve still got another black leather jacket though and, since the denim one I’ve been wearing a lot this summer is becoming both seasonally unsuitable and threadbare itself, I’ve been back to BLJ mode for the last few days.

By the way, here’s the song that lived in my head for much of my original leather jacket days:

7 November 2023
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Spit and Brass

Compared to basses and guitars, brass instruments take a lot more routine maintenance. Most of the time, a quick wipe down the strings after playing is enough. To be honest, I rarely even do that unless it has been an unusually sweaty gig and they seem none the worse for it.

On the other hand, brass instruments like my tuba take a bit more care. As a consequence of breathing hard through it to produce the notes it builds up quite a lot of liquid, a combination of spit and condensation. The instruments even come with a spit valve. I remember the first time I attended a concert band rehearsal many years ago and how mystified I was why almost everyone else had a wet patch under or next to their chair!

Every now and then, a brass instrument will need a deep clean and that is equivalent to neck adjustments and other infrequent set-up operations on a bass. Quite frequently through I’ll need to take out the valves and removable pipes, dry them down and re-grease them. If I don’t, I start to find the instrument producing a choking sound and notes become harder to sound clearly.

It is a bit gross to think about but fortunately not too tricky and I think I’m getting into a reasonably good habit although, it must be said, out of sheer necessity.

4 November 2023
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Today’s music (4 November)

We had a busy sing around session at the Plough this afternoon, so only a couple of songs per person. I took a plain old guitar (not even in a fancy tuning) and my contributions were I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free and Sweet Home Alabama. I love the lyrics of the first one but I’m not entirely in sympathy with the second song, so I changed the first two chords from major to minor in order to register an objection (and create an interesting musical challenge).

I also had a gig with the Wulfpack at an event run by the local African and Caribbean club. We mainly used the set we did for the Moroccan Earthquake fundraise at the start of October but with a couple of extra songs squeezed in just before the end.