Merry Seasons Happy New Year Thingy
Hi everybody, has been a while since we updated here, so I’ll do a Christmas Special post with a bit of what we’ve been up to.
- I (gra) am slowly working my way to 100 pushups, I’m in week three now, so maybe half way there.
- We spent a fairly quiet Christmas at home this year, with one friend staying over, briskly walking at Stanmer Park and then spending the day with friends for Xmas Dinner then coming back to ours for Desert and Monopoly. Brighton and Hove Monopoly, nonetheless. But why is Preston Park where Whitechapel Road used to be, £60. What?
- Our big Christmas present that came early, is Olive Tapenade Gravy Sutherland the puppy. Or Olive for short. She’s a dream most of the time and occasionally a woof-woof-land-shark-pooping-machine. Just like a baby. We are back to broken night’s sleep on and off. She’s a total darling. Puppy photo below. She needs a fair bit of exercise, so this gets us out into the winter sunshine a bit, down at the Withdean Puppy Park.
- little olive in basket (she’s a lot bigger than this already)
- Nodestone (our business) goes from strength… I’m more and more involved with web development CO2-reduction measurement, calculation and reporting, especially when it is online and social. I need to write more about this and will do over at nodestone over the next few weeks. The times are changing. CO2 measurement is becoming important, as are the need for all of us to start changing our behaviour to live in a new, low carbon kind of way.
- Bea is having a well-earned holiday for a couple of weeks after breaking up from school the week before Christmas. Poor kids, they really end up dragging their heels around towards the end of term as the days get shorter and they get more and more tired. She’s nearly eight!
- Lib’s just had her birthday. We went to a creative retreat for the weekend with lovely friends. It was an excellent way to celebrate really. We danced and sang and painted and watched the sun come up, welcoming it back after the longest night on Dec 20. We are looking forward to the days getting longer even if it is still cold for a couple of months.
Lots more to say, but that’ll do for now. Bea and I are off to the Booth museum to sketch skulls and bones.
Goal: one hundred pushups
Seems like a reasonable goal. I’m going to have a go over six weeks or so.
I did the initial test and managed to do 12 pushups, which is ok for a beginning I guess. And boy can I feel it in my upper arms. That pleasant warmness that comes after exertion.
Summer holidays
Here we are back from some summer holidays. We did a lot.
Here’s the quick summary to keep you all up to date:
- A week in Devon at the family friendly Buddhafields retreat that we go to every year. Camping. Rain, floods and mud.
- A week working with at the Green Man Festival being roadies for the DNA puppet folk and their cabaret tent. Rain, mud, lifting heavy things. Folk music. Excellent. Another week in wellies, so wearing them now feels normal.
- A couple of days with family in Somerset.
- A couple of days back in Brighton doing the washing and trying to get it dry.
- Ten days in France (ah, the weather) in Giverny and canal boating in the Loire.
And after doing all that, it is really nice to be back to normal life. Bea has just started at Junior School, something she’s been excited about all summer.
Nodestone!
We’ve just launched our new business, Nodestone. We’re bringing Lib’s and my businesses together to cover Social Web Education, Integration and Development under one roof. Exciting.
Please come over and have a look at nodestone.com.
Swim after work
We headed down to the beach in Hove after work today and had a swim and bbq with Simon from the works with his kids and Jay popped down as well. It was a still, warm, beautiful evening,
Isle of Wight
We’ve headed west, and over the water to the Isle of Wight for a week of seaside fresh air and blustery winter walks and no doubt too many cream teas :-)
We’re staying around the St Helens Duver in a little NT cottage. Been hacking around on foot and by bike this morning and it really is quite remote and beachy. Brilliant.
potatos planted
We’ve cleared the bit above the rabbit-proof fence and have made room for ten rows of potatos there, and after a lot of digging, mostly not by me, planting starts. That leaves the really steep bit far up the back of the allotment for grass and maybe a cubby-house for the kids one day?
I planted two rows of spuds today, 1 ft deep, 18 inches or so apart, can’t remember the variety though. Alister or Colin must have planted the first three rows. It is getting steeper up there, each row is a little harder to get in place and there are a lot of upside-down turfy bits that make it a bit tricky.
The garlic is looking ok. Bottom of stems are going purple-ish.
To Do up there:
- Tie up the rasberry canes again. The last lot fell down an became ankle traps for those going past.
- Plant some herbs and beans and stuff.
Christmas wrap up
Was Christmas really a month ago today? Yup.
As I said earlier, we had a nice one. Full of friends and family. We had ten adults and five kids staying over from Christmas eve to the day after boxing day, as well. That includes us. We fully filled up the house and then some.
It was great. Everybody took a turn in the kitchen cooking, and everybody jumped in to help clean up and somehow it all fell together beautifully.
Christmas day worked really well. After a fantastic pancake brekky, we assaulted the tree and opened presents. That went on for hours. Then after a long morning at it and a lot of milling around, we finally sat down the Christmas dinner about 4pm I think it was. And you know, all the toddlers and babies chose that time to be asleep, so it was a lovely sit down meal around the big table in the conservatory.
There are some photos about somewhere. We keep trying to get them up on flickr. One day soon.
It stopped raining on Boxing day and the clouds cleared, so we all set out for Cuckmere Haven for a walk. The sun shined a lot and we all got a lot of sky and air, which was a good thing after the insideness of Christmas day.
What else to say? It was a lot of fun, and pretty exhausting all around. Whose house are we going to next year? :-)
My birthday… riding on the sea bed
Excellent timing. This year the spring Low Tide Sunrise Bike Ride is going to be on my birthday, April 8. What better way to start a birthday than rising at dawn and riding along the sea bed. Perfect.
[Update: 7 April: not doing it this year now. Been a bit crook for a few days, and think it is pretty mad to do it and make myself sicker. Sigh. The last one was such fun.
But, rising at dawn is still possible. What shall I do with myself?]
Xmas 2007
Here we are, 2:29pm on Christmas day 2007. We have a house full of wonderful friends and family and after a mad present-unwrapping frenzy we are having a quiet interlude with appetizers before the Queen’s speech coming at 3pm.
It is raining outside. I’ve got a sniffly nose. But that doesn’t matter. This is huge fun.
We got a Nabaztag for Christmas. I’ll pop a widget in so you can send us a message. Fun!.
Allotment — Perennials Planted
I planted this collection of perennials today in the third wide bed going up — the bed above the garlic.. November is probably a bit late for planting, but we’ll see I guess.
This bunch is called 3 seasons collection from Spalding Bulbs.
Alistair came down as well and we dug in another bed .. so they are pretty much all done now. We just need to work out what to plant. The garlic planted at the end of September has come up — about 3 inch green shoots now. Most of the 40 have come up.
Quick update:
A quick update:
- The my-poor-old-laptop saga resulted in Apple sending me a new MacBook Pro. I’ll post something about that whole process soon. In short, it was long and painful, with a (so far..) happy ending.
- Lib’s Authentic Blogging courses are off and running. She’s running three courses at the moment and the students are just making their first blogs and blog entries. Pretty exciting stuff. I’m supporting with a few questions and answers on the Authentic Blogging blog and here as well.
- We are just back from a half-term break in Brittany. Gorgeous.
- Halloween approaches. And October is at an end. The months fly by, don’t they?
Down on the allotment
We’re sharing an alottment with a couple of mates. Three families in all. Seems about the right amount of people to keep it going. So far I’m loving getting out there and gardening together.
I want to keep a bit of a diary here so we get a sense of what we’ve achieved and what worked and didn’t. So here’s the first bit of that. NB.. this is what we all achieve together, not just our bit.
Last weekend
- Weeding beds and around beds, removing long grass and big, weird weeds. Great big fleshing flowery things. What were they?
- Picked a few runner beans, but they were a bit woody. Inside, some beautiful coloured beans — purples and pinks and spots. They turned into an art project.
This weekend
- Dug out some not-too-bad compost and built up a bed with some top soil to plan garlic in.
- Planted about 40 garlic bulbs.
- Put topsoil around the raspberries.
- Put topsoil in other beds, more weeding of beds.
- Pulled out bean plants that are past it.
- Built a trellis for one row of raspberries. Need to build one for the other row.
- Bea found a couple of raspberrys to eat. Yum.
We moved
We just moved house, and that means lots of things changed. And it means that I hand carried, with help from Lib and friends, almost everything we own from one home to anther via a van.
A lot of stuff. I’ve been really wondering why we have it all. But, you know, I like a lot of this stuff.
In the middle of all this I was taking out the trash as well.. I took a couple of lulu-van-loads of stuff to Hove recycling centre:
“Do you want this old tumble dryer?”
“Nope.”
So it gets recycled into metal and probably the plastic bits get chucked into landfill. So chucking stuff out seems bad and weird and wasteful. But I’m happy to have the experience. Next time I’ll put more effort into giving stuff away to people who really want it.
There are still a few boxes to empty and a bunch of sutff sitting in the backyard. The lovely new place is still a mess. It is a bit like living in a jigsaw, and there’s always another piece that needs to be moved to the right place.
But we’ll get over that. The new place is great. We are down towards the bottom of Havelock Road in Fiveways, closer to urban Brighton town. More street life, more walking, more kids around.
When we tidy up, I’ll pop some photos on flickr.
We applied and Bea has been offered a place at Downs Infants School, which is a short walk away. Lots of kids walk past our front door on the way to school. She starts at the new school on Monday in year 2. And she’s really excited about it, as we all are.
Glastonbury 2007 photos
I’ve put a few of our Glastonbury photos (many taken by Bea) up on Flickr. There are a few more mud wrestling shots than are really representative, but that’s just how the photos worked out :-)
A quick update
Wow, there goes a couple of months. Here’s a quick ‘what has been going on’post:
- We are just back from Glastonbury festival, where Lib and I were working in the Buddhafields Cafe, cooking and serving and washing dishes. Lots of fun, mud and music.
- We’ve been out and about camping on weekends a lot, with the Woodcraft folk (a cooperative/peace oriented guides equivalent) which Bea loves.
- We’ve got a few plans for summer, which include a campervan trip to Spain.
- Lib is building up her new blogging courses. Have a look at authenticblogging.com.
- I’m looking for the perfect project or short-term management role based in Brighton or close by. More about that at Presence Labs.
- Scouta is growing nicely and getting some good press.
England, Part 2
I’ve just finished up my job with UBS in the city (of London), so now it feels like it is time for England, Part 2, or the next phase of our lives here.
I had the pleasure of cashing in my annual rail card yesterday, indicating the end of my daily commuting to London and a nine-to-five life, for a little while anyway.
Work-wise, I’m starting to look at new opportunities here in Brighton, put some effort into Scouta to bring it to a sustainable place, and seriously think about entering the web applications business proper with our own Presence Labs.
And there is the summer to look forward to as well.
A time for growth and change for all of us. Today is the first of May. There are Beltane celebrations planned for tonight and the moon is full. Who know what magic may be out there tonight.
up on the downs
I spend a blissful hour or so up on the downs. Turns out that while I’m working from home, it is really easy to head out in the middle of the day, drive the 5 minutes up to Ditchling Beacon, then walk/run either way, east or west from Ditchling Beacon.
West is about 3.5km along the ridge of South Downs to the Clayton Windmills called Jack and Jill.
East would be heading towards Lewes and the back of Stanmer Park.
So, today I went West, and half-walked half-ran to Jack and Jill and back. The weather was threatening and on the way back I did get rained on a little, but wow, so much sky, so much air.
Van repairs: Coolant level warning light
I’m going to occasionally drop a note in here about mechanical stuff to do with our Lulu. Make sense to share these sort of tips and diagnosis. This is for our 1984 VW T25 Transporter.
So, on the last trip to France, we started to get these weird symptoms: The red coolant-level light would start flashing and the temperature gauge would go unnaturally quickly to maximum and stay there. Stopping the engine and re-starting would often seem to cure the problem.. the temperature gague would return to normal and the flashing light would not show apart from a few seconds at startup.
Firstly, I verified the coolant level was ok. I was worried for a bit that there might be air caught in the radiator system. There are lots of long pipes making it nice and complex, with the radiator in the front and the engine and water pump in the back. That was all fine, however, I topped off the coolant tank and the expansion/inspection tank as well. Nothing wrong there.
Then, it was time to look at the wiring diagram and do some experimentation, which revealed:
- The flashing light is latching, in that it will stay on until the ignition is turned off. So that’s why stopping and restarting the engine sometimes cured the problem.
- In my case, the temperature gauge going to maximum is something to do with the red light, not the temperature itself. The wiring diagram sort of suggested this, but I proved it by disconnecting the cable from the sensor. Once open circuit, the flashing light goes on and the temperature gauge goes to maximum. Ok, we are getting somewhere here.
- So, given there is not evidence of missing coolant or overheating, I suspect either the sensor, the connection or the wiring to the sensor.
Cleaning the contacts on the connections to the sensor seems to have solved the problem. The flashing light comes on for 5 seconds after the ignition is turned on, then goes off and stay off. Excellent.