Wulf's Webden

The Webden on WordPress

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!

11 September 2023
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Return of the Rain

After what seems like an endless succession of baking hot days (in reality, probably a week or so, with overcast, misty starts to most of the mornings), the rain is returning and the temperature is returning to more of a seasonal norm. About time – the water butts are ready for a top up!

10 September 2023
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Double Duty

Double duty at church for me today, both leading the service and leading the music. It’s doable but not quite as easy as the combination of combining either of those two duties with preaching. Next time it comes up, perhaps I’ll try leading the service from the same position where I’m leading the music (or perhaps it will just be easier because it isn’t one of the hottest days of the year!).

If you want to see the results, the video is now online:

9 September 2023
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Kick the Cat

It was another sing around at The Plough Inn in Loughborough today. I took the double bass but neither of the songs I’d done most preparation on were ones I was leading. One was The Beatles’ classic When I’m Sixty Four, for a friend who passed that milestone last week and the other was a tune from The Spinners called Kick the Cat. My mission was to do something along the lines of the bassline from the 1988 live version below, including the inserted melodies:

Kick the Cat

Credit to bassist John McCormick for creating that little workout for me to follow!

The two tunes I led were Proud Mary and You Can Do One, Ron. Something about a river and a riverboat seemed a suitable balm for another hot day and it is a good one for others to join in. The latter is my recent rewrite of the classic Da Doo Ron Ron, making it about a less than wonderful man and turning it into a bit of a tongue twister to boot!

8 September 2023
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Getting Ready for a New Term

The main thing I’ve been doing today, apart from finishing off the upstairs windows, has been working on getting the songs for this term’s training band agenda onto ForScore on my iPad. I got a collection of files today, some of which could go straight in and some of which (such as Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as an Eb Baritone Sax part) needed a bit of work.

I’m a bit picky about the scores I work from because I’m reading my scores from the iPad screen, which is clear but small. It would be quicker to just throw it all in as I received it but a bit of work up front should make for a much more enjoyable playing experience over the next few months.

7 September 2023
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When I’m Cleaning Windows

Having become a bit of a 21st century boy, I often go online when I need to accomplish household or other tasks. Jane washed our net curtains yesterday so today’s task was to wash the windows before they went back up. Here’s the video which set me on my way:

The tl;dw (too long, didn’t watch) version is to avoid the kind of spray shown in the video still above. Instead, this Canadian window cleaner recommends water with a bit of regular dish soap – not too much but enough to get the surfactant effect of the soap. Once the window is washed, the water is mainly removed with a squeegee, using a slight shake back and forward to get it started and moving it across a few degrees forward of 90° so the water runs down to the bottom. You can get more detail and demonstrations by watching the video.

It worked pretty well although the mop device I used to put the water on possibly made the window a bit wet (lots of splashing) and the small squeegee I used meant more passes. Good results though on the downstairs windows (Jane was impressed) and I’ll get to rinse and repeat for the upstairs ones tomorrow.

6 September 2023
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Picking Over the Bones

Guess which shop I’ve been in today. A few weeks ago, the news emerged that Wilko were in trouble and then that they had gone into administration. Today they have announced the first two swathes of branches that are going to close. The Loughborough one is spared, at least so far, but it still marking down prices and not filling in the gap.

Walking through felt like being a vulture picking over the bones. On the other hand, every bit of stock sold might sweeten the deal for someone to sort the business out, take it forward and look after the staff.

I came out with some long bamboo canes for the allotment and a few packets of seed, while Jane picked up a hairbrush. All are the kind of things we’ve bought in there before and will miss being able to pop down the road and purchase there in future if it ends up becoming something very different.

5 September 2023
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The Band is Back

The band is back, which is to say that a new term has started for Charnwood Concert Band tonight. I was quite surprised there was nothing to sight read that I’d never seen before although there were certainly a few points to pay attention to. The Symphonic Wind Orchestra starts back next Sunday (gig at Emmanuel church in Loughborough on 23 September) and the Training Band next Tuesday.

3 September 2023
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Portable Power

Having had that long blogging break, I sometimes have to search back to see if I’ve posted about something I’ve been meaning to mention. One of those topics is portable power, particularly for musical exploits.

The bands I’m in often have outdoor gigs during the summer months and it isn’t unusual for a convenient mains plug to be unavailable. That is one of the reasons I have been working on the tuba but, while I’m able to keep up the training band now, I’m not quite ready for the some of the pieces done by the more senior bands. For a bandstand gig in May, the conductor of the concert band hired a portable power source from a company called Jackery – essentially like the power banks I am familiar with for phones but on a bigger scale. It used to be that you needed a leisure battery and an inverter to plug in outside but modern technology puts this all in a small, neat bundle.

That experience worked out well – over the course of a couple of hours I barely scratched the surface of the power available with my amp and FX unit while being able to support the bottom end of the band. In fact, I was so pleased with it, I went out and bought my own unit – a slightly smaller model from the same company. The Explorer 240 is their smallest model but, with a few more outings under my belt, I can confirm it easily handles my requirements for two or three hours gigging.

Have bass — and amp and power supply — will travel!

2 September 2023
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Aztec Sweet Herb

Earlier this year, I picked up some small plugs of Aztec Sweet Herb, also known as Colada or by various Latin names, including Lippia dulcis and Phyla scaberrima (having multiple Latin binomials rather defeats the point of the system for clear identification). I was intrigued by the idea of something I’d not come across before and added it into an order for some tomato and cucumber plug plants.

I planted it at the allotment and it is doing well although it turns out I’d got the wrong impression when I expected it to climb. It is more of a ground cover plant that is able to tumble down from a height. It has an intriguing and rather attractive scent and the (advertised as edible) leaves taste remarkably sweet when chewed. I’ve finally got round to doing some further research, trying to work out what to do with it now the plant is well established. I think the extensive article on live-native.com was the most useful although a short post and subsequent discussion on houzz.com was also interesting.

Sweetening, particularly added to tea, seems to be the main culinary use (not so much within baking or other cooking, as the sweetness compounds are damaged by high temperatures). There are also a range of traditional medical uses given. However, there are some points for concern. The leaves contain camphor, which webmd.com describes as unsafe to consume (“Consuming camphor can cause severe side effects, including death”. Eek!).

I think I’ll make occasional use of it in drinks for my own consumption but mainly enjoy it as a plant with a pleasant scent when brushed against. It also sounds like I need to propagate it and keep some protected from frost as it isn’t regarded as cold hardy. It doesn’t seem completely thuggish in its growth habits so perhaps I can also use it in patches where I’ve cleared away things like creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens), which is both poisonous and quick to colonise up at the allotment.