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Punctured night.

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5°C, light NE, no rain but damp roads.
I rode mustang with MapMyRide+! Distance: 26.82km, time: 01:38:33, pace: 3:40min/km, speed: 16.33km/h.

http://mapmyride.com/workout/1891190354

It’s not always obvious what to do when you notice the first signs of a puncture. If it’s dark and there are no light-up places to fix the tyre, what do you do? This night, I decided to inflate with the pump because the deflation was slow to start with. Then ride on as far as I could before it deflated too much. Unfortunately, next time with the little pump, deflation got faster.
Stopping to re-inflate 3 times isn’t so bad, but the time between each re-inflation was getting noticably shorter. The last interval was less than a 1km. I walked the last 4km home in all (in quite a bad mood, and hungry).

Next day, I did the repairs. The thorn that was guilty, was surprisingly long and difficult to remove. These puncture-proof tyres make pulling thorns out very tricky. If you don’t get it all out, the new inner-tube goes flat immediately. Retrospectively, the choice to walk was probably about right.

Wasps’ nest

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23°C, clearing to blue sky. No real wind.
I have a wasps’ nest in my house. It’s actually in an air-brick to the front room. Last year, I blocked the air-brick because ivy was growing through into the room right behind my stereo.
I discovered the nest yesterday when trimming a sapling Ash tree which is trying to establish itself next to the house.
Early in the morning, strange scratching sounds house can be heard from behind the stereo. Moving closer, you could clearly hear buzzing.
I presume they were warming themselves up for the day, or even cooling the nest because the sun shone on the vent.

This presents a problem- what to do, if anything, about it. Continue reading →

The Ship

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Brian Eno: The Ship, double LP.

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The record player is working again. No fix from me, it’s an intermittent fault. I suspect a poor connection to the motor. It uses a 2 phase regulated supply from a built in circuit board (Valhalla). The fault must lie there.
First play sounds good for late evening listening.

Clearing John’s effects.

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5°C clear light N, chilly.
I missed the funeral but went along to help clear John’s things. Today, all we needed to do was identify what could be kept, sold or disposed of. Stuff will go to jeweller’s, eBay and into our houses.
John was an engineer by trade. He started his career in maintaining Sunderland flying boats. There are dozens of pictures, models and books about that aircraft. Similarly the other passion of his, two Velocette motorbikes. Again, models in display cabinets, magazines and books in every room.
The motorbikes are in beautiful condition and only need a bit of pressure in the tyres. I couldn’t find the pump amongst all the tools however.
Those tools were amazing by themselves, Tig welder, lathes, drill stands and intricate pieces like tap and die sets. That workshop was very cramped. No doubt, John was expert in their use. He wired his own house, a natural thing to do if that’s how your mind works.

In a drawer was this object. It’s probably his apprentice piece. If would have made this when about 19 or 20 years old. That puts it shortly after WWII.

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Apprentice piece.


It probably used a compressed air feed to drive it like one of those working model steam engines.
I had one when I was a lad. It vanished when we moved house and still, to this day, I don’t know what happened to it.

The pleasure of muck.

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Storm Imogen; 7°C, very strong SW , frequent heavy showers, drying later.
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Meanwhile, on the domestic front, my laundry didn’t come not very fresh tonight. The powder drawer looked rather grubby so I took it out. It’s not too difficult to clean with lots of water and a few different sized brushes.
The drawer hole was a more grim affair. Inside was a pink gum of old washing liquid that the lodgers use. Perhaps they have tipped it into the wrong compartment. Whatever, it was a yucky job to clean. You have to be so careful when you do this. My forearms are slightly itchy now. Laundry products are very corrosive when concentrated.
Nevertheless, there is a strange and disgusting pleasure in getting such a filthy object clean.
At the time of writing. The machine is on a cold cycle with nothing inside but froth. That’s to give it a full rinse out.
I ought to do that every month.

Exhausted iPod

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I have used this iPod every day since 2009. Back then, I bought it as an upgrade on the iPod Mini when it ran out of space.
It’s the penultimate version with 120Gb of storage. I like it so much that I will take it to an Apple shop for a service.
The battery only holds charge for a few minutes. Otherwise, the device seems good. It’s only a hard-drive, a small display and a battery. I wonder how long the disc will last. Apple stopped making these a year or two ago. They still service the Classic however.

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On the dock.