Author Archives: essiep

Magic telebox

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2°C, dry but cloudy (getting warmer, huzzah!).

Over-run by remotes from new gadgets. I only intended to buy a Blu-ray player so I can watch my latest video rental. That first part failed with me feeling annoyed with Argos for mis-labelling the player. I wanted a player with built-in wireless which can then show BBC’s iPlayer on the TV. The catalogue was labelled as such but once I got it home and looked it wasn’t. For that model, you have to buy a USB dongle, otherwise no wireless. This was annoying because the Argos woman said I can’t return this unless it’s faulty. Anyway, they found an alternative, a Sony device with wireless built-in. But…

Behind the counter was a range of ex-display stuff including a FreeSat box that I intended to buy with next month’s salary. At half-price, I took it.

Good things: the best is the picture quality. Not so much the extra resolution, but far more convincing colour and tonal depth than the previous white sky box. the sound is better too. The set-top box will record from TV from next week’s schedule, setting is just too easy.

That draining cold is receding this week. It had better take my cough with it.

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Chopping Eucalyptus

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-1°C, bright sun

This morning I had left is loads of logs, too big to fit in the fireplace. It’s a great way to warm up to chop logs though. My trip to the shops to get a wood splitting maul failed today so I resorted the mallet and bolster chisel. That mallet is a 4lb-er, short-handled type, but it was still rather hard work. The wood grips the chisel thinking it’s in an Arthurian legend.
There is a young guy who lives further down this road who is an arborist. He says it’s the eucalyptus that’s the problem. It’s a resinous wood that hardens as it seasons. I should have chopped it when it was freshly felled. Ah!
Nice guy, he has little work on this week and has offered to call round with his chain-saw.

Get the Maul

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0°C, Ice is drying

Frozen roads this morning made walking this morning simply frightening. There was a glassy layer over everything. Railings and cards looked wet, but touch them and the glassy surface is dry and bitterly cold.

The firewood supply is getting lower but splitting the bigger logs I have takes ages. I’m going to try a maul. It’s a narrow headed axe with a nice long handle that should let me put a big swing behind it. If not, it’s still a good way to warm up on an icy February day.

Point me to Mecca

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0°C, sleet.

There is a sort of ante-room leading to my classroom, it’s quite small and closed by a strong, fire-door. Sometimes kids go in there to quietly revise, socialise or just get away from it all during lunchtime. Today I nearly tripped over a girl dressed in black and wearing a headscarf. She was crouching down and then standing back up, time and time again. She must be Muslim and be doing the daily prayers thing. She’s lucky I didn’t knock her flying if I’d flung the door open at just the wrong moment. There was a mat laid out in the room and she knelt on there a few times. I went into my room another way instead.

Should I have popped my head round and pointed left to say “but Mecca is that way”? She was facing south west and Mecca is South-east from the UK.

12 mph

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-4 to +1°C. Light clouds. No ride, 40′ on turbo.

Drive to work. It’s far too icy after last night’s fog dropped to the ground in the early hours. Then it froze. Traffic was thick which meant an average road speed of 12 mph. That is crap, if I did a speed like that on the bike, I’d be ashamed of myself and would keep quiet about it.

The car wasn’t entirely happy about today either. When I start it, the radiator fan runs on full even with ambient temperature at -5°. Does that mean a temperature sensor has failed?

My moment of maths glory today. A guy at work showed software that draws graphs and he placed a circle on the origin with X^2+y^2=4. His question was how to double the radius of the circle. And, it was me that got it out of all the staff. Then, warming to the subject, I got the expression that moved the circle along the x axis too. My moment of glory you must admit.

Hard underfoot at Hulme End

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-5 to –3°C with snow

Hard ground, hard mud and hard cowpats is what we found in the White Peak area. The grass crunches and rock sold mud ridges jarr underfoot. The temperature has barely been over 0°C all week. I’ve been up there for a Duke Of Edinburgh Award related course which went well. We did a short walk which had a route that would prove tricky for the kids doing their expedition. At the half-way point, we stopped for sandwiches. This is when the snow started. Firstly light, but it fell on hard frozen ground and stuck immediately. Some of the flakes were visibly perfect little hexagonal starfish. We were all well wrapped, so no discomfort.
It’s like this kids; all the paths are marked white on the ground, so they’re dead easy to follow.

The drive home was a different matter. I had to drive at about 25mph after sliding about behind a lorry that was floundering sideways up the hill at Draycot. I’m not so worried about crashing and getting hurt, not at that speed anyway. I really don’t want to wreck my car, that’s all.

Anyway that’s enough for tonight- a lot more of the white stuff to come, we’re told.

Sunrise, 07.49

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-3.5 to 0°C, light ENE, thin cloud, very low humidity

I had to pull over on the drive to work today. The sun was poking its orange bald head through a forest on the horizon and more remarkably, beaming an orange shaft of light upwards to the clouds. It looked so striking that I found a layby and jumped out with my camera. The light was still low so the picture is blurred by camera-shake. Even on the drive to work, you have to make time for something like this. There are islands poking out in the ocean of mundanity.

If you’re ill below the neck- don’t ride!

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-4 to +1°C
Every year I am troubled by the same decision- when should I start riding again after a cold. Every year I am hit by a two week common cold and left resenting the lost time.

There are a few sites that discuss this dilemma:
.livestrong.com/article/552640

Sportsmedecine

So the conclusion- If you’re ill below the neck- don’t ride!
Does that sound like a good slogan for a tee-shirt?

As ever, that’s not the only criterion, look at the outside temperature; last night -4°C. The air has been extremely dry, so dry that there was barely any frost this morning. There is a 200 yard sheet of black ice on the way to work though. It’s remarkable that no-one has crunched their car on that slope.