Author Archives: essiep

3 punctures!

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It’s hawthorn trimming season. Farmers drive up local lanes with hedge-mowers cutting back rapidly growing hedgerows. It scatters shredded plant debris over the road-surface, some of which poke tiny little holes in bicycle tyres. Us cyclists can only carry so many spare innertubes and patches, so that after a point we have to put back in a tube that is known to be deflating the slowest, then ride the shortest route home blowing up the tyre each time it gets too soft.
fortunatley, it’s a nice day, warm, no wind and so on…
Results
Thursday is A-level results day. Time for an annual arguement that they are getting easier, or is it the teaching is getting better. I will keep an eye open for anyone saying that it’s both- easier+ better teaching. Here is a pre-amble BBC.

Sparrowchick

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72.4 miles in wind, sun & cloud. Only 20°C.
 
Coming home, passed a sparrow standing in the middle of the road. A car passed over it without causing injury but I couldn’t leave it there waiting to get crushed. Quickly turned round just as a car was approaching and another turning in a side road. I pointed to the lilttle bird and the driver stopped as she seemed to understand. The bird ran under the car when I reached out to pick it up, then it ran out the other side onto the grass verge twittering as it went. What was it thinking , perhaps it was injured & couldn’t take off.
 

Grain harvesting

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Dry (apart from few heavy showers) 21°C, light

 
The Grain harvests are well underway which can be a problem when cycling because the dust makes you cough badly for the rest of the day. It makes it sore to open your lungs fully so the last few years I have taken wide detours to avoid combine harvesters if they cause dust to drift across my path. Oh yeah, nearly forgot- it was 33.4 miles.
 
New monitor arrives tomorrow.
Family came back from Canada today, they are thoroughly disorientated by the time zones thing. the plane was four hours late so I hung around Manchester airport with little to do apart from sketch. Don’t think I was spotted though, sometimes it appears to make folks feel uncomfortable. Discretion my lad…
 
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F’nurps!

Eno

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Listening to the new Brian Eno album- another Day on Earth. It’s started with lots of 1980s synths, and has melodies; well,  at it’s made up of songs. We haven’t had that since "here come the warm jets". What’s the change Brian? are you getting old? I used ot hate songs so much- maybe I’m getting old now too.
 
Rykodisc have a useful website- other record companies take note. Have a look here at more info on Eno.
No weather today- it’s been sold off for a good cause.

Bjork

Interesting new album- a film sound-track, heavily influenced by Japan & some traditional styles. Wow- I just noticed that Zeena Parkins is performaing on it too ( a long-time favourite of mine).

Hendon

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24°C, nice very->

Visit to RAF hendon

The lighting is quite low in there, which a friend warned me about before I went. His photos were quite dark, so I used my Tripod which made all the difference. Got pictures of some very rare old birds. Some sections are closed off because they are moving planes around, sadly you could only see the Wimpy from a distance, and only small parts of the halifax. There were some real gems there though.
Upstairs was a small exhibition if paintings with battle of britain theme, many were in oil, but the lighting was so low that it was not possible to see then really. See their website-> RAF Hendon
 
On the way back I called in on the de Havilland Mosquito museum near Junct 22 on the M25. What a different atmosphere there- the whole place is much more "hands-on" & there are curious bits from planes lying all around the exhibits. A good place to drop in – if you are into that kind of thing.
 
On the return drive, a lorry blew out a tyre on the M1. It went off with quite a bang and the whole motorway was filled with a cloud of brown dust. I changed into the outside lane and slowed down. Amazing how loud it was over the sound of my up-turned car-sterio.
Finally- on the drive down- average 44.8 mpg! How good is that ( for a Passat)?? Oddly a bit less coming back- 41mpg & it wasn’t windy.

Ashbourne

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68 miles, N tailwind to return.

What a difference a tailwind makes, more appreciated when returning- a little tired  but feeling fresh still. Ashbourne is full of very noisy motor-bikes, how do they get away with that?

The new belt for the record player is a bit tight. It’s supposed to be 21½” long, this one is nearly 1¾” shorter.  The guy who sold it seems to think it’s OK like that- but it pulls the suspension over to one side. I can’t imagine how they think different tension, different thickness and springiness is acceptable. I’m going to order a genuine Linn belt as soon as possible. Besides, since the motor has less torque than it used to I will go for a service at a dealer- there is one in Aldridge. The worry is that they may suggest a new motor which is over £80 + labour.

Afterburn

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Bit like yesterday

 
Painting: it’s a re-work of the pencil sharpener, and is looking good so far.
Afterburn is getting easier- still times when changes are made to parameters and it results in a totally different effect. I’m trying to get a good contrial from an aircraft mesh, sometimes it looks OK, then after what seems like a subtle change- something completely different result renders. Clearly some parameters are more sensitive than others. I guess in a studio, there will be specialists who work this plugin.
 

Formatting?

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What’s happened ? The line spacing is all different here today, some lines are clipped on the right  margin so you can’t read the end of each line. Have msn mucked about with the css for this page? I can’t see anything different in  html view.

Foxy-poop

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Cycle 37¾ miles.

Don’t get a puppy! Just because it’s a poodle doesn’t mean none of that mucky-dog behaviour. They do disgusting stuff- like yesterday I had to wash off Fox-poop from all round her neck, it was in the buckle of her collar and in one ear! She looked quite resentful with her lead tied to the garden gate when I got home.  Even more so when I plugged in the garden hose to blast it all off, I could feel the saliva building up in my mouth like it does when you are about chuck-up. It was her great idea to roll over in the stuff!
Fox-poop seems more smelly & obnoxious than dog-poop though she has never rolled in dog-poop.
A look of resignation descended over the poodle’s face when I shut her in the shower-cubicle next and reached in with one gloved hand holding dog-shampoo.
She’s all clean and smells of tea-tree now – so a happy ending to my little poopy-dog story

Hiroshima day-3

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21°C, winds with showers

Just watched an outstanding documentary on BBC4. It was about the bombing of Hiroshima on teh 6th Aug. 1945. The way it was filmed, directed and edited was masterful. Stunning.
 
the sharpener picture just won’t lie! I finished it this morning the decision to start another similar one was looming. I may make a real effort for that one- base the picture on the drawing much more closely, get a good quality canvas, and put more gesso on this time. It ought to be a bit larger too. It’s going to be good tohave two majour picture on the go again concurrently.
 
Ready to go cycling now, no longer feeling mildly ill ( as I have since Monday)
 
Further reading: On this day in history ( from the History Channel)