Tag: Beau Miles

Late Night Grande Hotel TWTW # 139

On By tontowilliamsIn books, Garden / Allotment, The Week That Was, tv

The start of this week was plagued by some ghost alarms on my phone. For an unexplained reason my phone started playing an alarm at 05.30 each morning, even turning itself on to do so. There were no alarms set on the phone and it took a couple of days to work out what was going on. Fortunately I’m normally up before this time and my phone charges in another room to the bedroom overnight so it was more of a nuisance than a disturbance.

Eventually it turned out to be a problem linked to a fitness band that I haven’t used in over a year which (at the time) had synced to the health app on my phone and was causing the alarm from there as part of the sleep / wake function.

If this happens to you, turn off the “sleep schedule” in the health app and the alarms should stop – unless of course you want to be woken at a specific time.

It seems that a recent OS upgrade has caused this and a number of other problems. I’m also suffering from my podcasts app mislabeling the podcasts in the library so that sometimes it doesn’t play what it says it is supposed to be playing.

Sometimes these things are just too complicated for our good.

So how are you? Other than the above my week has been pretty good.

I had a visit with my Mum in her care home. She was in good form, all other things considered and it was one of those lucky visits where there is no one in the slot after mine so that the staff let mine overrun so we had extra time together. It doesn’t happen that frequently but it’s good when it does.

Reading

I finished John le Carre’s The Honourable Schoolboy this week. It’s set in a very different time period, but it’s interesting how pertinent it is to today with different conflicts around the world and with Russian spies surfacing in unlikely places.

I had planned to read something else next but thanks to Hermes the rather useless delivery company who appear to have lost the package with that book in, I’m probably going to have to change my plans. Hermes only seem to have AI for customer service and no humans, the AI is insistent that they are trying “very hard” to deliver my package but I fear that they are just very trying. Sadly they also have another package of mine which is a part of Ann’s birthday present, so I’m not hopeful that they’ll manage to deliver that one either.

Allotment

The weeks of rain and warm weather have been kind to the weeds and I spent a long time on Saturday on my hands and knees weeding different bits of my plot to try and get on top of them. I had some success and the piles of weeds speak in testament to my efforts.

It’s also been good for other things, and as usual the squashes and courgettes have gotten away from me to the extent that I was leaving some on the site’s “swap” table for anyone who wants them.

I also lifted the last of the onions – it’s been a really good year for those and I’m considering switching permanently to the new supplier I tried this year for all my onions. This is in part down to the consideration that I’ve heard our allotment shop is not going to be ordering potatoes or onions sets this year.

RIP Nanci Griffith

Watching

We’ve been watching the new series of Ghosts this week. It doesn’t feel as strong or as funny as the previous series but it’s still much better than a lot of things on at the moment.

We’ve also been watching Hemingway which has been interesting and has added quite a bit to my knowledge of the life of the author.

Well that’s it for this week, I have a proposal to prepare in the week ahead but other than that my diary is looking quite empty, although I dare say I’ll be waiting around at some point for a parcel that may or may not be delivered.

Whatever you’re up to, stay safe and take care.

Extremes of Time and Weather TWTW # 131

On By tontowilliamsIn books, Dog, Garden / Allotment, Quick Links, The Week That Was, Wilson's Story, work

It feels like it’s been a long week, but I also feel like I’ve been particularly time poor this week, with the days themselves passing very quickly. The weather has flipped during the week, from hot and scorching at the start to wet and cooler by the time I am writing this on Sunday.

There isn’t an update that I can provide on Wilson, other than to say lots of things have been ruled out, but there is still one set of results outstanding. He’s back with the vet on Tuesday to have some stitches from a biopsy site removed. Hopefully by then that outstanding test will be back. It’s difficult to see him so unwell it makes my heart hurt, but he’s pretty stoic and seems to be very much himself beyond the visible symptoms.

I’ve had a few new sign-ups this week, some off of the back of a book review (see below) that I published, and also a few (I think) from being involved in AudioMo.

If you’re new here and wondering what an earth you’ve signed up to, welcome. This is my website / blog, by training I am a biologist and by profession I generally make most of my income from being an independent environmental consultant. Outside of that I have a fairly wide interest in all sorts of things. I normally publish a post like this on the weekend at the end of the week (TWTW = The Week That Was), and talk about what I’ve been doing in the previous week, links to things I’ve found and anything else that I think might be interesting. Other occasional posts will appear at other times e.g. book reviews.

Thanks for signing up, but if after reading my ramblings you’re regretting your decision feel free to unsubscribe, there is a link to do so in each post if you subscribe by email. Obviously I hope you’ll stick around.

I also post on Instagram and Twitter where I am also @tontowilliams

Work. I had a virtual meeting with a client on an ongoing project that has been significantly disrupted by covid. It doesn’t feel like there is much work there for me in the near future.

Reading. Not that much. I’ve been dipping back into Ernie Pyle’s stories of the second world war in Italy in 1943, and also the war artist Edward Ardizzone’s second world war diaries. By coincidence these are also from the same time, but the similarities and differences between the two men’s experiences are quite marked.

I also published a review for Rob Cowen’s book The Heeding which I’ve been holding at the request of the publisher until the week of publication. It’s such a great book, and I’d recommend it, particularly if you like narrative poetry.

I always carry a notebook. They normally last a few months until they’re full, and then I swap them out for a new one. I write ideas for stories, shopping lists, nature observations, draw sketches and all sorts of other things in them.

It’s taken a bit longer to fill each one during covid times (although I have been writing more in my main journal) but this week it was time to swap the old for the new. In this instance from a Field Notes to a Moleskine. Moleskine went through a patch where their paper quality wasn’t all that great but they seem to have gone back to better paper stock again so I’m trying a newer book from their limited edition Lord of the Rings series.

Allotment. The rain has been great, but it has really promoted week growth, so I’ve been doing quite a bit of weeding. I also harvested the last of the broad beans this weekend, and have now dug over that part of the plot. I’m planning on sowing some more salad crops in the space which I’ll do next weekend if not before.

Links.

Covid: How have allotments helped people during the pandemic?

After walking to work, Beau Miles has now tried paddling to work:

That’s it for this week. Depending on how things work out in the week ahead, I might be travelling to Oxfordshire to celebrate George Orwell’s birthday, and I have that appointment with the vet but otherwise no specific plans.

Whatever your plans, take care and stay safe.

Digging In TWTW # 116

On By tontowilliamsIn books, Dog, Garden / Allotment, photography, The Week That Was, walking, Wilson's Story




Greetings from my allotment. No I’m not there typing this but I was thinking about this week’s post earlier when I was there. Thinking that for many weeks I haven’t had all that much to report about my plot but I’m hoping that as this week I’ve actually been able to turn the soil a bit as we’ve had a dry spell and the heavy clay is less heavy and therefore less likely to do me an injury when digging, that there will be more news to tell.
I’ve been thinking about what I need to do over the coming few weeks to get things moving into spring properly and realise that I’m probably a bit behind with seed sowing, so this coming week I’ll be making some headway on getting things moving in the right direction.


Reading. My reading this week has been more listening that reading as I’ve been working my way through some audiobooks.
I’ve been listening to Austin Kleon’s audiobook trilogy of Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work & Keep Going. I have actually read all of these and they’re a great resource to dip into but I’ve found quite a few things by listening to the audiobooks, that I missed when I read them. It’s been interesting just thinking about how my brain works differently when listening as opposed to reading – ears over eyes.

Also from Austin Kleon was a post linking to the artist Julian Onderdonk who is one of the artists who I added fairly early to my Artists Twitter list.

Shaman Balls – Craig Childs

We had a trip to the vet this week. A planned appointment for Wilson to have some blood drawn for his regular checkup and adjust his medication if need be. We haven’t got the results yet but we’re not expecting any nasty surprises. Fingers-crossed.

Watching – The Commute Walking 90km to Work. I’ve done this a few times over the years, but I think the longest I’ve done was about 8 miles each way and I left early and got home late to make sure I was on time for the start of my day. I’ve been enjoying Beau Miles latest video this week. It reminds me how much I’ve missed walking during this latest lockdown. Fingers-crossed that everything will continue to move in the right direction and in another few weeks the only being able to go out once a day for exercise rule will be relaxed.

I’ve had my film cameras out this week. The sunlight has been great and I’ve loaded a roll of infrared as much to have an experiment with different exposure, iso and other settings ahead of being able to get out properly and take photos. My theory is that experimenting in controlled conditions in my back garden mean that I can make better judgements later. I also broke my cable release and have had to order a new one.

Well that’s it for this week. It’s my birthday on Tuesday, not that I’m expecting to be doing anything much different, but I am planning on doing some different things from my usual routine.

Stay safe and take care.

More Than Meets The Eye TWTW # 90

On By tontowilliamsIn books, Garden / Allotment, Kindle, photography, The Week That Was

Hot enough for you? This week has been a little bit unbearable at times, at times it reached 36.6ºC in our back garden, it’s a bit of a sun trap but that’s a bit ridiculous. Then again I’ve been talking about climate change professionally for most of my career to date so it comes as no surprise, unfortunately the time has really passed when we could have done something about it. The best we can probably hope for now is working out how to live with it. That and the other extreme weather; rainfall, flooding, landslips, lightning strikes, high winds, hurricanes and wildfires. Three people died this week as a result of a landslip, many older people will probably also die as a result of the high temperatures (or with them as a contributory factor) and that’s after coronavirus.

I feel a bit like I’ve been wasting my time all these years, there’s been a lot of talking the talk, but little walking the walk. So much opportunity has been lost.

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My infrared film came back from being processed. For a first attempt I’m quite pleased with the results. So much so that I’ve ordered some more rolls of the same film and I’ll be having another try when it arrives. I’m going to try an even darker filter this time, one that blocks out even more visible light. This will be more of a challenge because I’ll need to set the camera up first, and then add the filter (you cannot see anything through it with the naked eye), and it will also need longer exposure times.

The flowers are the most impressive. As you can see from the photo’s above the three infrared images are of the same plants of the normal regular colour images. I took some landscapes too. Again for comparison you can see the images of Portsmouth Harbour taken from the same spot with infrared and an iphone camera.

I fell down a bit of a YouTube rabbit hole this week, watching the videos made by Beau Miles. I started here:

I’ve been reading all sorts of things this week, more of what I was reading last week with London War Notes, but also some Sherlock Holmes short stories. I also have the next in the Jackson Lamb series – Joe Country – queued up on my kindle to read.

I’ve not spent that much time on the allotment this week, it’s been too bloody hot. I have been going down in the early hours of the morning to water, and spent a bit of time there at the weekend when it was a little cooler to pull some weed and do a couple of other small jobs.

That’s all from me for this week. Stay safe and take care.