Another looong day in the garden.....

Another long day in garden, shifting soil, putting bark chippings on the borders, manure on the fruit tree bases, pruning & dividing Rhubarb & Raspberry plants from neighbours garden & replanting into mine.

An afternoon visit to a friend at their new allotment to give them a spare crown of rhubarb & to see their progress at digging over a long neglected & forgotten plot - lot's and lot's of digging still required!

I also saw the most brilliant idea for forcing Rhubarb so I am going to give it a try. Cut the bottom 1/3rd off a small wheelie bin & use the top 2/3rds to cover rhubarb plant, easy access with the lid & total darkness - perfect for forcing an early crop!

All finished off with a nice soak in the bath, a roast chicken dinner with apple pie & custard to finish.

I will sleep well tonight......

Let the planting start!

I have now filled both of my new raised beds with all manner of manure, soil & organic material, so now the planting starts....

Blueberries, Loganberries, Raspberries, Strawberries, Rhubarb and Honeyberries (new to me, but I thought I'd give them a go) have all been selected and will be transferred into #1 bed by the end of the weekend. After that a couple of varities of Potato will be put in bed #2 with a couple of frames of french beans.

Carrots & peas are on the list to try & I may experiment with a couple of heads of Asparagus as well.

Oh what a lovely garden....

Sadly, not mine. Not even something I could aspire to in my garden workings, but very pleasant and tranquil nonetheless.

Excellent service deserves recommendation....

A couple of years ago I bought a Topfield 5800 Personal Digital Video Recorder, all was fine until a few weeks ago when it just died, I checked fuses etc., but nothing doing. After a bit of research I found a repair business. I called them & got some great advice & agreed to send my unit to them for repair & upgrade of a common fault that would have affected my unit at some time in the future as well.

Graham Robinson of Goldstar Computers is the business I found, he does SkyHD & Humax repairs & upgrades as well, I cannot fault his service & frankly the £45 he charged me was in my opinion not enough & has saved my going out & buying a replacement PVR for hundreds of pounds.

Website link is here - http://www.free-sat-tv.co.uk/

Wine find of the month....

Casas del Bosque - if you can find this in your local independent off license then buy some, for under £10 it's amazing wine and excellent value.

Locally I found it at Grape Expectations, it's also stocked by the Dorset Wine Company.

I think I was in it momentarily!

Le jardin aujourd'hui

The current status is as follows...

1. Lawn looking better - red thread treatment working. Growing well, needs cutting every other day!

2. Fruit tree's doing very well, lot's of apple's & pear's still hanging.

3. The new extended section of the garden is work in progress.
a. Fencing done.
b. Concrete bases for summer house & workshop completed, potting area base to be done next.
c. Oak sleepers have arrived for raised beds. Bank holiday weekend project!
d. Grass seeded a test area & it's sprouted!

The machines have taken over.....

How the hell did they get up there?

Recent visit to Longstock Water Gardens

Whilst my brother was over from Sydney, a few days out were had. Sunday was one of the nicer days weather wise & so after a pleasant lunch at the (newly extended & highly recommended) Three Cups in Stockbridge, a short wander around Longstock Water Gardens was had. It's not open all year round, so if you want to see these beautiful gardens you need to look here for opening dates. The gardens are part of the John Lewis Partnership & open in aid of various charities throughout the year.

Click on the images for full size versions.

An urban fox in London....

Spiders nursery....

Spring Rhubarb - Roasted with vanilla

If you have lots of rhubarb in the garden - like my neighbours.... (thankyou Phil & Sally!)and you have gone through the Rhubarb Fool, Syllabub, Compote, Flan, Chutney recipes, then try this one, it gives a much better flavour and can be used as is or as a base for better Fool\Syllabub\Compote etc...

Cut into 1" pieces, arrange as a single layer in roasting dish, add 1 split vanilla pod, sprinkle with 2 tablespoons golden granulated sugar, roast for 25 mins at 200'C, stir halfway through.

Anyone seen a small German chicken?

Back to the Future in Andover.....

Freezing rain.....

... it's the start of something cold!

A small part of my mother's legacy to me.....

... is being able to make wonderful things like these! As well as a thousand other recipes. Pearls of wisdom that I will treasure forever.

Let it snow.....

You take photo of me, I take photo of you.....

I presume a student of some description was taking digital video in a car park in Winchester when I went back to my car, so I put my camera out of the window & returned the compliment.

The erections continue

Latest photo of the development next to my house. Things appear a lot closer than when viewed on a piece of paper!

Autumn has arrived...

... with a splash of colour in both vegetation & in the sky. An amazing rainbow tonight over my house & fantastic dark skies with changing light, sadly all over too quickly.

The first of many erections......

.... that will be appearing in the garden of my next door neighbour over the next 8 months.

Yesterday the builders developing the 1.5 acre site into 8 "desirable" (not in my world) homes, installed this fucking huge orange & blue monstrosity on site, so large it can actually overhang other gardens outside the site, particularly when the boom is extended to it's 30 metre maximum!

They have promised that it is at least nearly silent in operation & doesn't have a cab with operator at the top looking over all he could survey from it's 27 metre high point!

Mr Evans & his amazing Ferrari collection....

I popped over to Thruxton airfield today to see the Chris Evans Charity Ferrari run arrive & for the lucky (and wealthy) participants to be driven around in Mr Evans lovely red Ferrari Enzo by none other than The Stig!

Over the past couple of years Chris Evans has built up quite a collection of Ferrari cars, the most recent that was known publically was the 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO that he bought in May 2010 for a reported £12m. Today he had a bit of a surprise sprung on him at the circuit when he took delivery of the first UK Ferrari F458. With the registration 1 FAB applied, it really does look fabulous. He has FAB 1 on his Rolls Royce Phantom.

The Stig was thrashing the Enzo around the circuit when I was there, it looked very quick and sounded absolutely fantastic. Later on Evans drove the airfield owner Henry Pelham around in the £5m James Coburn Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder - FER 1.

UPDATE 23/07 - photo of actual F458 now finally uploaded.

The sign at my front door....

This has been up at my door for a couple of years, but it has of late caused great hilarity amongst visitors to my house, including delivery drivers and other bona fide callers. Even to the point where some have made a note of the text, so that they can get their own made up.

It works for the most part, apart from mute Polish artists selling their crappy artwork door to door. It certainly keeps the Jehovah's away!!

Self inflicted drinking challenge!

I've had an idea..... I'm going to consume alcoholic beverages from one of the countries playing in the FIFA 2010 World Cup on the days they are playing - hopefully whilst watching the game - the time difference & schedule is kind for a change.

I plan to Google the national beverage\drink of each country, so for Uruguay it will be Grappmiel - a mixture of Honey & Grappa - I feel a trip to a London Department store coming on!? For Mexico it will clearly be either Sol beer or Tequila - probably in a Lime Margarita, for Brazil it will have to be a Caipirinha made with Cachaca, Germany is a Becks beer or 3, South Africa has to be a Windhoek beer, which although brewed in Namibia appears to be very well adopted - but a drop of nice red wine wouldn't go amis either. Japan is easy with Sake or Sapporo, both very easily sourced. The national beer of Argentina appears to be Cerveza Quilmes, they even sponsor the Argentine National Football team!

The only conundrum is what to have for the first match England are playing vs USA, I hate bitter, so the idea of an English beer is currently losing out to a Budweiser or 6?

Suggestions welcome.

Work have made me an offer......

No, not that kind of offer (yet). The opportunity to purchase an iPhone 3GS for work, I purchase the handset (at a slightly reduced cost) and they continue to pay for my line rental & business calls, with the promise that they will pick up the data costs from Q3 of this year when they roll out work email on Smartphones for all & a load of internal apps.

So a couple of months to get up to speed with the interface & download some apps for me to play with, then hopefully a very powerful & useful business tool with email & instant messaging all built in to a small, handy personal device.

Having had a Blackberry Curve for quite a while now, I would have preferred one of those, but this way I have both Apple & Blackberry devices, I wonder if the next market leader will be the Custard!?

Continuing a theme....

Do I smell Birthday cake....

The demolition has started....

The demolition of my neighbours house for redevelopment has started.

When social networking gets abused.....

I have just had a lengthy discussion with a friend of mine who does not have any social networking accounts at all, no Facebook, no Twitter, no MySpace, not even a Flickr account.

Sadly a 3rd party has setup a Facebook account in his name and is now using it to maliciously comment on my friends employer Facebook Wall. As you may imagine, getting an email from the Company Chairman with what at first glance to him appear to be facts & an invitation to explain why he has made these comments somewhat perplexed my friend.

Difficult to defend yourself against & prove 100% that it's not you. Sadly the IT Dept of the business appears unable or unwilling to take the speedy action required & report to Facebook central.

So beware, it's not it's cracked up to be when it's abused. Am seriously considering closing down my account.

Early birthday present

My birthday present has arrived a week early, so I was advised to open it, just to make sure it was intact in the big green John Lewis bag the courier delivered it in. Luckily it was intact and better still when I plugged it all in to test, it looked and sounds fantastic.

First impressions of the Roberts Sound 43 DAB\CD\iPod sound system are very positive, it looks good, the sound is great & it is bursting with loads of features that I will use. The DAB signal is good and it doesn't get interference from my home power system dLAN. Sound wise I think it keeps up with the Bose Wave systems I have, as the Roberts will live in the garage I will have to take a Bose in there & compare with some suitable tunes.

St Georges Day 2010

The flag is flying over Rice Towers today, as it does every day.....

Mini heatwave

With the recent mini heatwave, Spring has finally sprung properly. So nice sights like this are commonplace in the local area. This site has been doing something like this for as long as I can remember, sadly the thatched cottage the owners live in burnt down last year, but slowly they are rebuilding it.

Random pic

Why does my left foot always get more scuffed that my right, even though I am right footed?

Great British....

... bovine.

Has Willie Walsh recruited some unusual cabin staff for BA?

No, a local farm shop has just installed this on the roadside verge to gain attention, let's hope it attracts rather that distracts.

Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite 5 gets content aware

A truely amazing step forward in digital image editing from Adobe.

Take a look at this..... link

German foray into über quality car market fails....

Quality goods review website Luxist reports....

"Since its launch eight years ago, Maybach has largely been characterized as a failed venture. The ultra-premium counterpart to Mercedes-Benz never reached the sales figures which its rivals Bentley (part of the VW) and Rolls-Royce (owned by BMW) have enjoyed in the superstrata of the luxury car market."

"In the face of even further lagging sales, however, reports now indicate that Daimler is preparing to wind down the brand and phase it out entirely. But not before the line-up gets a mild refresh. After that, Mercedes hopes to fill the niche with more exclusive versions of the S-Class...."

I've never quite got the idea of the Maybach when there are other very well established brands & models out there which have fulfilled the requirements of the super rich for a long while before the Maybach brand was re-launched. Having seen quite a few up close & driving around London, they look quite un-inspiring & bland, probably why they haven't done that well.

The message at my back door...

... should tell you how to act when entering my property.

I quite like the retro series of "Keep Calm...." merchandise, it seems to have become quite popular and now adornes all sorts of things from mugs to aprons to books and now this rug.

New gadget

I've just bought a Canon M80 portable Storage Device, secondhand from those nice people at mpbphotographic in Brighton.

It should retail for £570, but I was never going to pay that for a portable storage device.

Demonstrating near unique thinking by a technology vendor of late, I'm very pleased to note that it uses a BP511A battery that so many of other Canon devices use like the 5D, 30D & 40D, so no need for yet another charger taking up valuable desk space.

80Gbytes of mobile storage with built in CF & SD card slots. It supports all types of file formats & has a headphone jack as well, meaning it might get used on the train to watch films or TV programmes as well.

UPDATE 22/02 : what an amazing bit of kit! With one touch and the images on the data card taken out of the camera are backed up and ready to decant onto the PC at my leisure. The screen quality is excellent, just that bit bigger than the camera display and the controls are very similar to an EOS Digital camera, so very familiar.

Microlight pilot dies in charity flight attempt....

Martin Bromage a microlight, has been tragically killed on the first leg of an attempt to travel by microlight, 11,000 miles from the UK to Australia. Apparently (and subject to confirmation) Martin encountered particularly bad weather that even forced the rescue helicopter dispatched to assist him to return under emergency conditions. Media reports have stated that he was in radio contact with french authorities who were attempting to assist him and they had suggested alternate airfields for him to land at but he elected to return to the U.K.

Martin died in the English Channel just three hours into his six week charity flight, he made a series of distress calls before he crashed in low cloud and mist, it has emerged. Martin Bromage was due to land at the French coastal airport of Le Touquet at around 3pm but was forced to divert by mist, fog and low cloud and appealed to the French air traffic controllers for an alternative place to land.

Martin’s trip was a charity attempt and he was hoping to raise money for Help for Heroes which supports wounded British soldiers, he has a JustGiving charity page here and if you are minded to do so it would be nice to continue to donate to the charity to support his efforts.

Another film review....

This time Guy Ritchie's remake of Sherlock Holmes.

I like quite a bit of the work that Ritchie has done in the past like Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch & RocknRolla so I hoped that this new film might fit into the list of Ritchie films that I enjoyed.

Luckily it does, and comes in at #2 in the Ritchie list behind Snatch which is probably one of my top 5 favourite films ever.

Robert Downey Jr. & Jude Law seem to bounce off each other very well, it is clear that the budget increase by working with Warner Bros. has helped quite a bit in making this a very polished and extremely enjoyable film.

The door is left wide open for Holmes & Watson to re-appear in a further installment to persue the evil Professor Moriarty, let's hope the returns on the first film make the 2nd possible and equally enjoyable.

It was so enjoyable, I will probably end up seeing this again at the cinema, and will definately buy it on DVD when released.

Avatar 3D

It seems that yesterday was the day to see Avatar in 3D, purely by coincidence it seems that about 6 of my friends went to see it (in different places) on the same evening.

My 10 simple observations.....

1. It's way too long - 2 hours 45 mins even in a comfortable new cinema chair is too much.

2. Amazing 3D effects work really well, much better than I expected.

3. If you wear normal glasses and have the choice of switching to contact lenses for the viewing do it - I will be going back to watch it with my lenses in.

4. Book early and get the seats right in the middle of the cinema.

5. If you go this week and are driving to cinema take de-icer, because when you come out after 3 hours your car will be iced over again.

6. It does actually have a story and some good characters.

7. George Lucas HAS to make another Star Wars film using the 3D technology.

8. Go the loo before you go to the theatre, even if you don't need to go, just go and try.

9. The switch between live action and CGI works - something that I thought would be difficult.

10. Go see it!

Christmas dinner with a wine older than me....

... I finally opened it.

I had cooked an amazing fore-rib of roast beef that I knew would be perfect with a very special bottle of wine.

So I took the 1966 Lynch Bages from the wine rack and proceeded to prepare it, bringing it up to room temperature slowly, but when I started to open it the cork broke in half - bugger I thought, I've left it too long, or it wasn't stored correctly..... all the things race through your mind. Luckily I managed to get the rest of the cork out without issue. I had a quick sniff of the cork and the now open bottle. No it didn't smell of vinegar, nor any sign of mustiness or any other off putting whiff.

I left the bottle to rest for a while, then decided to decant it, just incase there were large sediment deposits, which suprisingly there weren't, just a stubborn streak of sediment down the side of the bottle and a little towards the bottom of the bottle.

Then a little taste pre-dinner, just to make sure it was alright.

What an amazing wine! All the tanins mellowed to nothing, blackcurrants and spice with chocolate were all the aromas and flavours I could think of as I tasted it.

I bought this bottle years ago as it was the closest I could get to my year of birth, I chose Lynch Bages as that was the first really good growth Claret I ever tasted at the age of 17 working in a restaurant.

Sadly the 1966 Krug I bought in Bentalls 15+ years ago hasn't survived as the cork gave up the ghost a while ago, and the level is now below the neck label, so this is probably quite expensive vinegar by now. Luckily it looks like the 1967 Port I found a few years ago in Berry Brothers & Rudd is very much intact and the level is well in the neck still. Win some, loose some.

Today I discovered.....

....Costco! A friend took me to the warehouse in Reading by Green Park (next to the big wind turbine you can see from the M4 at J11)

What a place. I've done warehouse shopping in the US before, and Cash 'n Carry in the UK, but never anything quite like this.

Some great deals were to be had, on big ticket items I think a fair amount of research will have to be done, but on everyday household stuff, food & booze it seems that great savings can be had, but everything seems to come in such large quantities!?

Although it was late on a Wednesday and it was cold & snowy & J11 is a nightmare it seemed relatively busy, but still fairly easy to get in, get what you want & get out. Application pending!

If you drive in the UK.....

.... you should take a look at this article on the BBC News website.

It details the fatal road accidents in the UK from 1999 to 2008.

Some quite staggering statistics.... "On average, some seven people are killed every day on the roads in Great Britain. Hundreds more are injured, many of them seriously, often with life changing consequences.

In 2008 alone, 2,538 people died and nearly a quarter of a million were injured.

In the past 10 years, the death toll has amounted to 32,298. As such road crashes are the largest single cause of accidental death for people aged between 5 and 35 years."

Take a look at the maps and put your postcode in, the level of detail is quite chilling, it really brings home just how dangerous a simple thing that most of us take for granted really is.

Mein Mercedes ist defekt!

Yet again the little A-Class is back at Mercedes-Benz of Salisbury with a problem. This time it's either a fuel leak(!?) or a problem with the fuel tank sensor or gauge. I have been told that if it's a wiring problem it's not covered by waranty which seems odd, whilst I understand that "working" parts such as brakes, valves, motors etc wear out or if there is damage to a fuel line because I have driven over something then it's not covered - but wiring is fixed and it's not covered?

The only thing that made the taking of the car to Salisbury interesting was that there is a Maybach 65 in the showroom! Then on the way home another Maybach was heading into Salisbury - two Maybach's in Wiltshire - what's going on?

Armistice Day....

I received this by email today....

The average British soldier is 19 years old…..he is a short haired, well built lad who, under normal circumstances is considered by society as half man, half boy. Not yet dry behind the ears and just old enough to buy a round of drinks but old enough to die for his country – and for you.

He’s not particularly keen on hard work but he’d rather be grafting in Afghanistan than unemployed in the UK . He recently left comprehensive school where he was probably an average student, played some form of sport, drove a ten year old rust bucket, and knew a girl that either broke up with him when he left, or swore to be waiting when he returns home. He moves easily to rock and roll or hip-hop or to the rattle of a 7.62mm machine gun.

He is about a stone lighter than when he left home because he is working or fighting from dawn to dusk and well beyond. He has trouble spelling, so letter writing is a pain for him, but he can strip a rifle in 25 seconds and reassemble it in the dark. He can recite every detail of a machine gun or grenade launcher and use either effectively if he has to. He digs trenches and latrines without the aid of machines and can apply first aid like a professional paramedic. He can march until he is told to stop, or stay dead still until he is told to move.

He obeys orders instantly and without hesitation but he is not without a rebellious spirit or a sense of personal dignity. He is confidently self-sufficient. He has two sets of uniform with him: he washes one and wears the other. He keeps his water bottle full and his feet dry. He sometimes forgets to brush his teeth, but never forgets to clean his rifle. He can cook his own meals, mend his own clothes and fix his own hurts. If you are thirsty, he'll share his water with you, if you are hungry, his food is your food. He'll even share his life-saving ammunition with you in the heat of a firefight if you run low.

He has learned to use his hands like weapons and regards his weapon as an extension of his own hands. He can save your life or he can take it, because that is his job - it's what a soldier does. He often works twice as long and hard as a civilian, draw half the pay and have nowhere to spend it, and can still find black ironic humour in it all. There's an old saying in the British Army: 'If you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined!'

He has seen more suffering and death than he should have in his short lifetime. He has wept in public and in private, for friends who have fallen in combat and he is unashamed to show it or admit it. He feels every bugle note of the 'Last Post' or 'Sunset' vibrate through his body while standing rigidly to attention. He's not afraid to 'Bollock' anyone who shows disrespect when the Regimental Colours are on display or the National Anthem is played; yet in an odd twist, he would defend anyone's right to be an individual. Just as with generations of young people before him, he is paying the price for our freedom. Clean shaven and baby faced he may be, but be prepared to defend yourself if you treat him like a kid.

He is the latest in a long thin line of British Fighting Men that have kept this country free for hundreds of years. He asks for nothing from us except our respect, friendship and understanding. We may not like what he does, but sometimes he doesn't like it either - he just has it to do.. Remember him always, for he has earned our respect and admiration with his blood.

And now we even have brave young women putting themselves in harm's way, doing their part in this tradition of going to war when our nation's politicians call on us to do so.

So tomorrow at some point and maybe every day, please stop for a moment and if you are so inclined, reflect on the plight of our armed forces in the trouble spots of the world.