Richard Mascall's Weblog

The Oak Gets a Trim

A couple of years ago, our neighbour's oak tree blew over in some high winds. Although our oak looks the same vintage, its position means it might be less vulnerable.

However it has developed a few dead branches and one of the live ones was growing worryingly close to our roof so we decided to get it trimmed back. One of the tree surgeons we asked to quote thought that it might be safest to have the whole tree cut down but fortunately we found another who felt that a 40% reduction would be enough to save it. The tree man from the District Council, who had a look because there is a Tree Preservation Order on the oak, agreed.

So today the men came along to cut it all back. The first two photos (as always, click on the photo for an enlarged view) show the tree as it was and the other two as it is now.

Deer Having Tea

 

I was manning an election committee room, but Pam was at home late afternoon today and could not believe her eyes when she looked down the garden, There was a roe deer, munching some of the bushes.

We have had a visit before, but only once in almost a quarter of a century. (Postscript : The deer returned on Friday so it must like what's on offer.)

Pecking Away

One of our neighbours pointed out how a green woodpecker had pecked out an almost perfect hole in one of his willow trees, leaving a pile of chippings on the lawn. We always enjoy seeing these birds on our lawn because they seem to have such character, as well as being colourful. Today I managed to take a snap of one on one of our own trees.

Spring Clean for Patio

With last year's bad weather I failed to clean the patio as I did in 2007. But today the sun persuaded us to have another go, with Pam using the power washer and me sweeping the water away as fast as I could.

It was great exercise and it made an impressive difference but we were so slow. After two hours we stopped and we had managed only half the patio.

Another New House

We met our neighbours, David and April, when we moved here a quarter of a century ago. They had built their own house and since then have built another, which they moved into before selling. Now they are building another and yesterday we popped round to see how the construction is coming along.

We had already seen the plans, which were most impressive, but seeing it in the flesh (or wood) began to bring home how attractive – and environmentally friendly - a place it is going to be.

The Ducks Return

For the first time this year, and later than in 2007 or in 2008, the two mallard ducks turned up on our pond today. To be honest, we have no way of knowing whether it is the same pair who come each year but for some reason that is our assumption.

Mystery Spider

A rather pretty spider appeared in our bathroom so I took a snap. Apparently there are 640 species of spider in the UK (compared with 35,000 worldwide) but this one does not appear in the set on the linked web page.

Lights Off for Earth Hour

We marked the 2009 Earth Hour yesterday evening by eating our dinner with a couple of friends by candlelight during the required period. I had thought to use wind-up torches for light so that we would be zero-carbon, but the purpose of Earth Hour was to make a gesture not to cut back on CO₂ production.  And candlelight is a bit more atmospheric.

Amazing Amaryllis

I have mentioned before how fortunate Pam was in terms of the gifts she received when she retired. Another one has really come into its own recently : this amaryllis.

Watch The Birdie

When Pam retired, she was fortunate enough to receive many generous gifts. One of the most intriguing was a birdbox her team gave her. It came with a small video camera so that one can watch the birds close up from the comfort of indoors.

We sought advice on where best to mount the box and were given lots of advice, not all of it conflicting. In the end we just decided to stick it on a convenient tree in the back garden and see if any bird takes a fancy to it. Of course we might be a little late for this year.

The First Cut Is Not The Deepest, or The Earliest

It was not as early as last year and it was the same as in 2007. What was ? The first mow of our lawn. Actually several of my neighbours have beaten me to it but I thought it better to wait for a bright sunny day like today to venture out.

A robin joined in too.

Small Problem with Small MP3 Player

Last month I reported how pleased I was with my new MP3 player, a Cowon iAudio 7. Perhaps that was a mistake because 10 days after it arrived, it stopped working. Specifically, the On switch failed to switch the machine on. The chronology then went as follows :

• Monday 9th - reported problem as instructed, namely by website.

• Tuesday 10th - told to wait

• Wednesday 11th - told to send player off, did so at cost of £4.60.

• Thursday 12th - received acknowledgement of receipt, and told it would be 5 working days

• Thursday 19th - queried why I had not heard anything

• Friday 20th - told that a replacement was being sent

So it is not a great story but let us hope the replacement lasts longer.

Better Packaging

A previous purchase on eBay had been a little disappointing because of the poor packaging. So we were relieved when our latest supplement of plates arrived very well muffled against rough handling.

Dustbin Service Too Good

  This was the first week of our new dustbin collection service with weekly recycling. Since the ordinary dustbin collection was not changing I assumed its timing was not changing either. So it was a bit of a shock when I went out the back door to collect the plastic sack at 07:15 to discover an empty dustbin !

Although you do not have to take your bin to the kerbside, I always do because it is such a long walk for the men otherwise (down the drive, down some steps, round the back of the house, back up another lots of steps before having to retrace their route). Great dedication to duty by the Biffa chaps.

Not Back at the North Pole

We assumed the talk at the Purley Literary Society last night was called off. Ironically it was by someone who had made an exhibition to the North Pole which of course we were interested in because of our trip.

Today we went to see all the people enjoying their tobogganing down in Whyteleafe Recreation Ground. The photo looks a bit like a Lowry.

The snag with being out and about is that one feels duty bound to help push people's cars. The first two or three are OK but after that I get a bit tired.

Snow Later Than I Thought

It might not have been as late as it was last year when it arrived in April, but Sunday night's snow was a bit of a surprise all the same.

However it is not the fact that it fell in February that will be memorable as the thickness. Our road, a bus route, is blocked to all but 4x4s.

Pam and I walked to the top yesterday to see snowmen on the Green. Our milkman had understandably failed to make his delivery but we were able to buy some milk in the petrol station. The woman serving had managed to get there from Coulsdon, quite a tribute to her dedication I felt.

Mmmmm - My MP3 Player

Sunday was a bad day for technical devices because in addition to my broadband service (see here), my MP3 player stopped working. It was a 20Gb Creative Zen Sleek and I must have had it for four to six years, so I cannot complain.

The question was what might the replacement be ? My use never includes music playing, but instead consists of listening to Radio 4 programmes I have downloaded onto the computer and thence onto the player. The Creative machine, while good in many respects, had two big failings here : (a) the downloading process, involving as it did the use of the "sync" function of Windows Media Player, was convoluted and error-prone, often requiring a tedious and time-consuming hard reset and restart of the player, and (b) if I interrupted one programme to listen to another, the machine could not remember where it had reached, and so I had to search through manually (it was OK just to stop using the player during a programme and to restart later, but only as long as I did not want to play another programme in-between - but often I did.)

So I was very pleased to find a player which coped with both these problems. The Cowan iAudio 7 can bookmark items and also one loads programmes using drag and drop from within Windows Explorer, which could not be simpler. Like the Creative Zen, it supports voice recording and FM radio receiving. Add in its lightness, smallness, and its good looks and I reckon it should be a worthy successor.

I ordered the 16GB black and silver version via Amazon yesterday with standard delivery and it arrived this morning. Shopping could not be easier.

A More Modern Modem

On Sunday, halfway through the day my cable broadband service stopped working. After an hour or two I rang the Virgin Media helpline. The call was free and it was answered immediately, which was a good start. Unfortunately carrying out the standard procedures (which amount to a version of power off then power on, albeit a little more complicated) did not fix the problem so he decided to send me a new modem.

I was a little sceptical, and sure enough on Monday the service was back to normal so it looks to me as if it was something wrong with the local service, something one would have hoped would have been known to the call centre support team. Anyway, yesterday the replacement modem arrived, as promised. It's the black one in the photo but my belief in the phrase "If it's not broke, don't fix it." means that I shall keep it in reserve for the moment.

Still, mostly it was pretty good service (7 out of 10 ?) and backs up my previous experience.

Frost Snapped

According to my thermometer, overnight temperatures have been down to at least -4 recently but last night a new low was reached : -8 !

It makes for beautiful trees which my photographic skills are not up to capturing.

Snow Time Before Pam's Retirement

It is only eight weeks now until Pam retires and one of the things about her working that I shall not miss is having to clear the drive for her on snowy mornings. Today I was out in the cold before 06:30 shovelling away so that she could get her car up onto the road.

Twelfth Night Becomes Tenth Night

It seems to take almost as much effort to take the Christmas tree down (see last year) as to put it up so today we spent much of our time on this task, as well as putting away all the decorations round the house. We used a new technique to make things easier with the tree istelf : sawing the top off while it was still standing.

Bye Bye Prius

Having recently said goodbye to our Golf, today is Pam's last day of driving her Prius. It was a company car and its four years contract is up.

While I prefer smaller cars, there is no doubt it has been a quiet, high mpg, low emission car with a large capacity and good performance.

Bye Bye Golf

A couple of months ago I bought a new car but since then holidays have got in the way of selling my old one. On Thursday this week I put on advert on the Autotrader website and within an hour had an enquiry. The chap came round this morning, we agreed a price, and off he drove in it. I had had about five or six other callers so Autotrader must have quite a few users.

Twas on a Tuesday Morning the Water Man Came to Call

The water people are replacing the main in my road at the moment, an activity which they say will take "approximately 37 weeks". My first question is "How can you have approximately 37 weeks" ? Approximately 9 months or approximately 40 weeks, fine, but 37 weeks is such a precise estimate.

Anyway, more troublesome has been their digging the road up outside our house. True, they fill it in at the end of the day and put a makeshift bridge over the trench, but take a look at the photos (click for an enlarged version) and judge whether you think a Chieftain might be a more suitable vehicle for crossing their excavations.

It might be a tenuous link but I was reminded of the old Flanders and Swann song, not the first time they have been mentioned in this blog.

My Grandfather is Older Than Yours

My sister continues to discover more detail about our forebears. She now has traced our paternal line back to our great-great-great-great-great grandfather, another Richard, who was born in 1670.

But I find an aspect of a more recent relative rather difficult to comprehend : our grandfather Henry was born in 1849, before the Crimea, before the American Civil War, and before the publication of The Origin of the Species.

The Car With No Number

One problem somewhat lessened my enjoyment on Saturday : at some unknown point my rear number plate fell off my car. So yesterday morning we set off in Pam's car to Halfords, on the Purley Way, to buy a new one. It was surprisingly (to me) simple : we were there at 10:00 and by 10:10 I had my new plate. True, I still had to stick it on and after every journey subsequently I had a nervous check to make sure it had not fallen off, but so far so good.

PS Later the police rang to say they had found my old one on the Godstone Road, so I now have two rear number plates.

Snow Believable

Having missed the weather forecast on Saturday, I had a real shock yesterday morning on drawing open the curtains. Doesn't the weather know it's April ?

Non-Smelling Ponga

I met my friend Terry today for the first time since his most recent trip to New Zealand. He brought me back a rather attractive small pot made of "ponga", a New Zealand tree fern. As the label says,

"The spectacular pattern is completely natural. Each circular pattern shows where a fern fond grew on the tree. Ponga was once a valuable source of building materials and weapons, and an inspiration for Maori who also used the patterns for their tattoos."

The Ducks are Multiplying

Last year around this time we had two ducks turn up on our pond - this year, three have arrived - and a little earlier (6 days).

Bluebells at -2

I was wondering last week if I had ever mowed the lawn as early as this year - then the other day Pam and I found a bluebell in flower when we went for a walk in New Hill just off where I used to live in Coulsdon. But quite how it coped with last night's freezing temperatures is another matter. It was -2 just outside our house and apparently -8 elsewhere in Surrey.

{Postscript in response to question : New Hill is the 34ha piece of land between Mead Way and Chaldon Way. Before the Second World War it was due to have been built on but the war prevented the development, and the introduction of the Green Belt after the war saved the area from being covered in houses. In 2002 the Corporation of London, the owners of Farthing Downs, bought the area - see the Press Release.}

Earliest Mow of Lawn ?

Yesterday afternoon I mowed our lawn for the first time this year. Last year's first cut seemed pretty early but that was March 2nd so perhaps this is my earliest yet

Gas-Powered Radio

Last Spring, I thanked British Gas for sending me some free low-energy light-bulbs. Now they have sent me another free gift : a wind-up portable radio. It even has photo-voltaic cells on it so if it is sunny you do not even have to go to the effort of winding it up.

Not only do British Gas send out these free gifts, but I read that they are now paying up to £600 to provide roof and cavity wall insulation. You do not even have to be a customer, you just have to be over 70.

Down With The Tree

Being Twelfth Night, we had to take our Christmas Tree down yesterday. As previously reported, it was probably the bulkiest one we have ever had but I was not so sure about how tall it was. So once we had manouevred it outside onto the patio I took the opportunity to measure its height in two different ways : once by pacing it out toe-to-heel and once using a measured piece of string. Both approaches are rather error-prone, of course, but since one gave 4010 mm and the other 4020 mm, I think we can say it was four metres fairly confidently

Firing The Pudding

Yesterday it was back to Christmas as we celebrated it for 15 plus years yesterday : just the two of us.

The photo shows me setting fire to the pudding - a bought one, alas, but I did make the Cake.

Our Christmas Tree Puts On Weight

Yesterday Pam and I struggled to put up this year's tree. Because of the room in which we install the tree, it has to be quite tall (say 3.5 to 3.8m) in order to avoid looking silly. And this year's tree is no different, perhaps on the upper side of the range but not much taller than usual.

However, it is much fatter than we have ever had before> Perhaps this is because we ordered one over the web for the first time rather than using our local garden centre (simply for the much greater convenience). It took a lot of decorating !

Post Mangling Once is Bad Luck, Twice ...

About seven weeks ago I had a most unusual experience : an envelope arrived that had been rather bashed about in the post - see here.

Today, another such item arrived. And what makes me just a little suspicious is that both envelopes contained chequebooks from one of the banks I use. As far as I can see, on neither occasion was anything extracted from the holes in the envelopes. But it is surely too much of a coincidence to be true.

Smashing Time Not So Smashing

We still use the style of crockery we started using when we were married, all those years ago. But unfortunately Wedgwood no longer make it so it is difficult to get hold of items. In recent years we subscribed to a service which would get in touch when they identified a piece that had come on to the market but it was rather expensive (eg. £25 for one plate.)

So we thought we'd look on eBay and, success, we won a bid for a whole collection including,

5 Large dinner plates
2 Medium dinner plates
14 Tea plates
23 Saucers
9 Mugs
17 Cups
4 Milk jugs
2 Casserole dishes
1 Oval serving dish
5 Tea/coffee jugs (2 without lids)
4 Breakfast bowls
1 Sugar bowl
1 Sauce pot
1 Salt pot
1 Pepper pot

All we need do now is to open a café. Our pleasure at winning the bid was a little reduced when it arrived since a number of the items had been broken. Still, what was left made it quite a bargain.

Wrinkled Post

The postal delivery service we have here in my road is very good. The recent withdrawal of the Sunday collection is regrettable but as far as receiving post is concerned, it's normally most reliable.

But today there was an exception : my cheque book arrived in a sorry state - click on the photo to see the extent of the damage. It apparently had been dunked in a puddle somewhere along its route from the bank to me, perhaps caused by something to do with the postal strike.

Still, I hardly ever use cheques nowadays.

Annual Trim for the Hedge

Our house is built on part of the site of a larger property, demolished back in the Seventies. This property was bounded by what must have been quite a long beech hedge. Much of this remains, in front of the replacement houses including ours. It's a welcome shield, but it does need to be cut back once a year and today was the day.

Video Evidence of Rain

I have uploaded a video to Photobucket showing the rain yesterday.

The technique to view it involves a bit of patience. First, you need to click at the bottom left-hand corner of the video display, then wait a little. After a while, you can click on the word "Play" in the middle. Again, you will need to wait a few seconds but then it should display.

It's pretty low resolution, but I am amazed it is possible at all.

Here it is.

It's Raining Again

"It's Raining Again" is not just the title of a Supertramp track, but also a common statement at the moment about the weather. Just a few minutes ago we had a short but torrential downburst. Our average July rainfall here is just under 60mm but if you click on the photo of the rain gauge
to enlarge it you might just see that the reading is 20mm, the amount that fell in only half an hour.

Ballooning Over Kenley

En route from the shower to the kitchen for breakfast this morning, just after seven o'clock, I glanced out of the window across the valley to see a hot-air balloon floating over Kenley airfield. I don't know whether this was a one-off or whether there are due to be trips available from there.

Thank You, British Gas

We put an energy saving bulb in one room at home many years ago. It wasn't as bright as we had hoped and it took ages to warm up so we rather lost enthusiasm.

However last week we had a note from British Gas to say we had won a prize in their monthly draw - the lowest-value prize, it's true, but a prize nevertheless : a pair of energy-saving bulbs.

This coincided with a two page article in Natural World, the national magazines of Wildlife Trusts, on the subject. This described how much better the bulbs are nowadays. About the same time, the editor of the Guardian Money section made some dismissive remarks about the bulbs and as a result received numerous letters claiming he was wrong.

So now, thanks to British Gas, we'll be able to have a little trial of our own. Shame it's getting lighter every day.

Bluebells

The fine weather of the last week has encouraged the bluebells out. Here is a photograph of some in our front garden.

The Sun Sets Thrice

One of the delights of where I live in Warlingham is the opportunity to see sunsets. The gardens slope down away from the house towards the south west so if the sky puts on a show, we see it.

Yesterday offered one such display so I tried to capture it with my newest camera, a Canon Ixus 60. Click on the first image and you'll see the result, not bad but nothing like the intensity of reds visible with the naked eye. (The camera is wonderfully small and light, though, which makes it so practical for many shots.)

Next I tried my Panasonic DZ20, a camera recommended by my ex-colleague Harry (see here for another item giving him a mention). This camera has a superb 12x zoom which, together with its image stabilisation system, allows close up shots to be taken from far away (equivalent to a 425mm zoom). Unfortunately, the second image shows that it fared even less well than the Canon in picking up the colour.

Finally, I reverted to the first digital camera we bought : a Canon Powershot S30. This seems so heavy by comparison to the first two, but clicking on the third picture shows how sensitive it is to red. But that's exactly what I needed last night.

To be fair, perhaps if I read the instruction book for the first two cameras I should find how to adjust the settings to capture the colours I am seeing. If I succeed I shall report back.

A Sad Day

Poor old Tiny. Both Pam and I are keen on cats. In fact we were so keen on the two we had from 1976 to the end of the 80s, Gollum and Frodo, that we could not think of replacing them after their deaths.

But that means that when neighbours own cats, we are more than happy to see them when we visit or when they come to see us in our garden. One of our neighbours (the one who lost their oak tree earlier in the year - see here) acquired a couple of delightful cats last year called Tiger and Tiny. Tiger was the bold one but unfortunately he was hit by a car and died when still very young.

Tiny was much more timorous but was so affectionate. He loved a stroke, purring away and rolling over on his back. Anyway I won't go on because as must be obvious from the past tense he too has died, like his brother a victim of the traffic. There don't seem to be that many vehicles where we live but perhaps that's the problem, with cats being lulled into a false sense of security. (Just the other morning there was a dead badger in the road so it's not just cats).

So, goodbye Tiny, we shall miss you a lot

Grey to Orange

What beautiful weather. Even here up in the Surrey Hills the temperature reached 17 degrees and there hasn't been a cloud in the sky.

Last year's hosepipe ban meant the patio didn't get the wash it ought to have each year. (In previous years I have found other excuses, to be honest.) Anyway, I thought I ought to start the job today so that Pam has somewhere clean to sit when the sun is out at the weekends.

So out came the power washer very generously given to me by my friend Terry whom I worked with at IBM. It does a wonderful job, changing the slabs' colour from a dark grey to a light brown, orange, or russet.

If you click on the second photo to enlarge it, you might be able to see part of the patio in its "before" state on the left and on its way to its "after" state on the right.

The Ducks Are Back

Our ducks are back. Over the last few days we have seen a pair of ducks in our pond. We presume it is the same pair each day but cannot be sure. They can swim around for hours, occasionally getting out for a walk or a snooze, but they are always gone by dusk. Some days they come back, some they don't.

First Cut of the Year

For the lawn, that is, not my hair which is well overdue. I had to mow on a very high setting but it still took a lot off.

It's Snow Business As Usual

Two weeks on from last time, here we are with snow again and even thicker. But it didn't stop the post : the parcel man delivered my new bat (more in a subsequent post) at 0800 and the letters came at 0930 as usual. I caught the 1002 train up to London and it left at ... 1002. Even the school which our cleaner's daughter attends stayed open.