Wulf's Webden

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21 September 2023
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World Food Garden

This week, I’ve had a few days away on the south coast – almost 300 photos to sort through and doubtless a blog post or three to come. One of the things we did was to pop by RHS Wisley both on the way there and the way back. As RHS members, we can get in for free so it was worthwhile even just as a toilet stop, despite the congestion caused by roadworks on Junction 10 of the M25 (we’d have had to pass by in any case), but it was much more beneficial than just that.

Wisley has seen a lot of development since we last had a chance to visit. Some of our favourite features have gone but I think new potential favourites have had a chance to take root. Of particular interest to me was the ‘World Food Garden’ set up in the Hill-top area. I missed the ‘model gardens’ (examples of how to create a garden in a small space) but, as a person with an interest in finding out what edible things can be grown in a UK climate, this more than makes up for it.

I wonder if the fenugreek seeds in the kitchen cupboard might still have the potential of sprouting…

20 September 2023
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Who *is* Jesus?

My latest sermon at church was an introduction to the teaching series for the term but I made time to address an important question: who is Jesus. See my answer below (sandwiched between a couple of songs, both of which got referred to in the talk).

Who is Jesus?

19 September 2023
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An Evening at the Movies

This coming Saturday, I’m going to be out with Charnwood Symphonic Wind Orchestra for a concert at Emmanuel church in Loughborough. It is on a cinematic theme and every piece conjures up one or move moments from movie history. You don’t have to worry if you aren’t very good at placing songs. I’m sure Andrea, our conductor, will share a few tidbits and I’ve created a set of slides drawing on posters and other iconic images to assist.

Tickets are £10 and can be purchased on the door (cash only) or online in advance. The church will be set out with the audience sat around small tables and you are welcome to bring your own nibbles and (soft or hard) drinks.

There are one or two pieces I’m still polishing the bass parts for (or at least certain details) but also several that I’m very excited about playing, including quite a few I’ve not previously had the chance to play out with the band.

18 September 2023
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Un nom fancy?

Calling that last batch of homebrewing “Cider 1+2” is functional but not very fancy. Therefore, from henceforth, I shall refer to it as Cidre Unplusdeux. I’m pretty sure that isn’t very good French but it is a much more intriguing name!

17 September 2023
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Cider 1+2

Both my demijohns of cider finished fermenting this week, so I decided to combine them at the bottling stage. Both had dropped to a specific gravity of about 0.993 from about 1.050, which suggests an ABV of around 7.6% and I got 11 500ml bottles from the process.

I’d describe them as being on the unsophisticated side. They are definitely cider but there isn’t a huge amount of apple flavour left, perhaps as a result of bringing the initial ABV up with added sugar. I did think about topping them up with a bit more sugar to see if I could get some in bottle carbonation but decided not to risk it – the yeast is aggressive and I don’t want to create “bottle bombs”. I think this would work well served very cold and / or with a measure of unfermented apple juice.

It won’t be long before I take the fruit off the tree at the end of the garden, which will call for another batch as well as dehydration, fruit pies and other uses. I might try increasing the initial gravity not by adding sugar or so much of it but by reducing the volume of the liquid. I can do that both by reducing the amount of water I cook the apples in (I really only need enough to stop them burning on the bottom of the pan) and perhaps also by evaporating some of the excess water once the juice has been extracted.

Traditional cider would be made just from juice squeezed from the apples without cooking but a basic press runs to about £50. Mind you, if I put a nominal price of £2.50 on my artisan cider, I’d only need to turn out 20 bottles to cover the price, which I could probably do in one season with the apples I have easy access to… and I expect I’d easily find more people who would either like the makings of cider or just freshly pressed juice.

16 September 2023
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Dog, No Pony

Have I ever been to a dog and pony show? Given that this colloquial term means an over-staged promotional event, I’d have to say that the answer is probably yes although I won’t dig back in my memory banks to expose the guilty. Have I ever been to a dog show though? The answer to that would be no, until today.

One of our neighbours is serious about dogs – looking after them, grooming them and often attending national dog shows. This morning, she mentioned to Jane that she was taking some dogs across to Long Clawson, a small village about half an hour from here. The event wasn’t well advertised but she’d given us enough information that we decided to take a chance on it and so we arrived not too long after the main event had started.

It was all very low key and good natured. Given that most of the dogs I’ve known tend to get overly excited around other dogs, the standard of canine behaviour on display was unexpectedly high, although there is a certain measure of owner-selection about that. If you are going to a field full of people and other dogs you don’t take the over-excitable ones who are likely to play up.

Anyway, dog show and a pleasant trip out to the countryside ticked off and I wouldn’t be averse to another one at this informal end of things.

15 September 2023
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Cutting and breaking

I’m working on creating an outside storage bench from old pallet wood: somewhere to sit but with space under the seat to store things like bags of compost and other things that have been cluttering up the growing space in the polytunnel this season.

I started the project a few weeks ago and constructed a back panel as well as identifying a base for it to sit on. Today I was working on the base, removing bits of wood that aren’t needed in order to increase the internal storage space. It was hard going because, with a pallet, the pieces are joined with long annular nails. The rings round the nail shaft give them their name and mean they tend to not come out without a fight. It is even more challenging when you are trying to retain the integrity of the boards you remove

With a combination of tools, including a brick hammer inherited from my Dad’s collection which I hadn’t previously found a use for, I did fairly well but it did take some time. A bit more work is needed, probably cutting down and fitting the planks I removed to fill in gaps in the base. After that, there will still be plenty more engineering and materials problems to solve but at least I’ve made a bit more progress.

14 September 2023
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Foot Tambourine

A friend surprised me today with the gift of what I can best describe as a foot tambourine. It is a partial tambourine which you attach to your foot with an elastic strap so your foot taps are more audible.

I need to do some practise with it so that I can do different patterns like every beat, the back beat (2 & 4), just the 1 and other time signatures. However, it should be very handy when I want to add an extra rhythm layer to various music making endeavours.

13 September 2023
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The Fall for Toddlers

Toddler’s Church started its autumn term at All Saints Thorpe Acre with Dishley today. One of my tasks was to come up with a story for the first letter of our Bible alphabet. A for Adam and, of course, for apple. How could it be anything else but the story of our fall… but how to tackle that for pre-school children (and their parents / carers)? Here is my attempt:

We’re starting our term with the first letter of the alphabet – A. Things that begin with the letter A? [wait for apple]. Did you hear the joke about the apple? What’s worse than taking a bite of an apple and finding a worm? Taking a bite and finding half a worm! What about some names that begin with A [wait for Adam].

Our story today is about a man called Adam, his wife Eve, an apple and a kind of worm.

Adam and Eve lived in a wonderful place called Eden that God had made. All sorts of birds and animals lived happily together and the fruit on the trees and bushes was always ripe and tasty. God often came to visit and there was only one rule – don’t eat the fruit growing on just one of the trees. It was called the tree of knowledge. Nowadays, you won’t find it anywhere on earth but some people think it looked a bit like an apple tree, so we’ll call the fruit an apple.

Sadly there was a wicked creature in the garden, an evil snake who, unfairly, gives all other snakes a bad name. In those days, some animals could talk and Adam and Eve would often chat to them. Unfortunately, Eve got chatting to the evil snake, who persuaded her to take one of those apples which God had said were off-limits. Worse still, when she told Adam, he ate some too.

I think the right thing to do would have been to find God and tell him what they had done but they tried to hide it. Maybe you’ve done something naughty and tried to hide it from the people who love and care for you? You certainly can’t hide something from God and, although he was very sad, he had to send them away from that wonderful place called Eden.

Worms in apples aren’t that common but, if you do find one – hopefully not half of one – remember Adam and Eve’s mistake. It can be hard not to do wrong things but, when you do, try to say sorry to the person you hurt and to God instead of trying to hide them away.

12 September 2023
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Should have taken my reading glasses

I’ve been a long-time wearer of spectacles to correct my distance vision but, over the last few months, I’ve increasingly noted that my close-up vision has become a bit suspect too. If I needed to read small print, I’d have to lift my glasses up and look quite closely, but not too closely. I got my eyes tested early in the summer and came out with a new set of regular glasses and a set of reading glasses.

Unfortunately, I don’t always carry the reading glasses around with me. I could have done with them tonight at Training Band. I was sitting next to our trombonist who has had a problem with her emails and hadn’t got the music for the new term. She could make some headway looking at my tuba parts but they often dip below the trombone’s safe range. For one of the pieces, I also had a trombone part on my iPad so I took a photo of my tuba score on my phone and then loaded up the trombone one.

Having practised it yesterday it was just about doable but it was certainly tiny. That would have been an ideal outing for the reading specs, which were sitting safely on my music stand at home!