Service Provider issues

 At the end of September, we have been having issues with Virgin Media. I cannot access the My Virgin Media pages for my accounts and many of our E-Mails have failed to reach us.  The VM helpline is AI driven and you can only get access to a help desk operative on the other side of the planet if you mess up the AI responses. Their advice was switch everything off the on again and they will send me a standard help letter by post to help me log on correctly.

We called into EE-BT the other day and they offered us a better internet service that Virgin Media for a quarter of the cost.  We now have the equipment and an engineer is booked for Monday am to make the install.

Since then I have had a call from a VM administration officer who offered me a reduction in price to below what BT was offering.  If they could afford to drop my monthly fee from £85 to £24 now, why did they not do that earlier.  Our issues have not been fixed.

I also had a call from virgin media sales with a special offer which they would ring me details of later, but I had to tell them that I was leaving on Monday.

We have about 20 accounts with various websites that need E-Mails changing, so that is not going to be a big issue.

I just need to E-mail the folks I know and tell them my new E-Mail address (when I know them myself).

Happy Times 

Birds at Porthmadog

 

The day started with a rainbow, seen from our hotel room with a mountain view.  Across the estuary of the Afon Glaslyn.  Later in the evening at low tide, we should be able to see some of the local waders.
  

The first sighting was of the ubiquitous Black Headed Gull in the waterway.

 Next up was a group of Cormorants standing on exposed rocks.  We had seen then drying their wings earlier and as we come closer, they settled down to rest and preen.
 

Several Curlews were observed flying across the estuary and we took a few pictures of individuals feeding. 

Here is a picture of a Curlew and a Redshank feeding together.

Godwits were also there in some numbers.  They are easily confused with Greenshank. 

And of course, there is often a mysterious beast somewhere to be seen.

All of these images were taken in low light evening conditions.

 

Removing some raised beds

 Having already taken out 2 raised beds, I am about to start removing a third one.  This one has been the least productive of all of the beds and it is going to be a challenge.  The first job is to dig out the beds and expose the blocks so that they can be split and removed.  It is my hope to recover at least half of the blocks for re-use.

Digging out the first corner required the removal and re-potting of a gooseberry bush, then the removal of the soil.  This proved to be a hammer and chisel job, as the soil was so hard and compacted.  I have placed 2 marker pegs in the section, the upper one marks the start of a hard-pan layer and the lower one marks the point at which I started to find earth worms and wire-worms in the soil. 

Having dug out one corner, I started on the next corner.  Using a heavy duty screwdriver and a tub was the easiest way of digging out the hard and compacted soil.  The idea was to dig down to the base of the blocks and expose everything that needs removing.

Having weakened the middle soil bridge, that was easy to chop out with a spade from the edges.

A strip has now been exposed along one side of the raised bed and it is ready to start the removal process which will involve a disc cutter, lump hammer and set of cold chisels.  As the vertical joints are staggered, each block will have to be cut out individually.  The solid block to the top left of the image is the corner blocks of the last bed to be removed.  They will also need cutting down to 3 individual blocks.

Time for lunch! ............

 

Once this bed has been removed (The third in a row), the ground can be leveled ready to sow grass and return its use to lawn. 

Solar eclipse

During yesterdays solar eclipse, we had a go at some basic observation techniques.

First up was the colander, as advised on BBC national news.  That was basic, but it worked OK.

Then a basic pinhole camera, using a small hole punched into a cardboard sheet,  That gave a more discrete image.

Then we went for a Nikon D5000 camera with a fold out viewing screen to avoid line of sight eye contact with the suns rays.  The sensors are not designed to handle such intense light, but the optical anomalies within the camera lens elements did give an aberration effect that showed the image displaced more clearly.

Just for fun, I took a direct image of the sun during the eclipse and edited the light levels and contrast to give this distorted image.  The light intensity is still creating a lens aberration reflection which represents the real image more clearly.  This blast is from a 90% moon coverage of the sun, and it shows how even at that level, the light intensity is immense.

It is possible to crank the camera sensor down to get a better image, but this session was done without any serious preparation, so that option, or the filter options were not considered.

On 11 Aug 1999 we experienced a near total eclipse of the sun when we were on the Llynn Peninsular in Wales.  It really did go dark, cold and silent then, and we used a pinhole camera to see the obscured sun and its corona. When the light returned, some minutes later, I was impressed by the intensity of bird song around us.  Happy days!

Mowing the wild meadow

 Due to the drought conditions, all of the plants in them meadow area have set seeds early.  It is now time to start mowing it back.  I always do this job in small sections, as it can be quite difficult. The first job is always to comb over the lawn area to be mown to see if there are any moths or frogs in the grass.

The job is done in segments and this image shows the half way point for today.  It is a case of cutting out any sturdy plants with secateurs and removing any pebbles, bits of debris and conker husks. Then the vegetation is mown over at the highest blade setting to take off the top layer, then work down the settings to reduce the grass to lawn level.

The pale grass shows the area that I have mown back today - the area behind the arch will be done on a couple of other days.  Our brown garden refuse bin is now full and ready to be emptied tomorrow morning.

The foxes are finding refuge in our garden at present.  This one is resting on the dry and dusty infill soil that I have levelled where we removed a large raised bed.

The badgers are unable to find worms in the dry conditions as they are too deep in the soil for the badgers to smell them out.  However, this badger has found something to get excited about as it runs off behind the greenhouse with a mouth full.

Drought is official !

 This week, the UK was officially in Drought, having sustained 4 heatwaves and a number of open forest fires.  We now have water hosepipe bans in our area. For our part, we always collect roof rain water into 3 large water butts, which are now almost dry.

The birds are coming in droves to feed, as there is a shortage of natural food for most species. These Long Tailed Tits are usually insect feeders, but with wetland issues, there are fewer insects around for them to feed on.

Our front lawn is in a bit of a state and half or our plants are partially dying off due to low water content in the soil.  This will all recover with the next heavy rain and a bit of post rain tidying up.

Nearby, at Westport Lakes, the water level is very low.  These posts are normally submerged in the water for most of the year.  Levels are probably 60cm low in the larger lakes.  The water birds that inhabit or visit the lakes are dwindling in numbers. A few weeks ago there were lots of Canada Geese grazing the grass, but now the grass has dried out and died back, most of them have moved on.  The Coots are also absent at present and Cormorants are flying in to see if they can find fish to eat.

The smaller lakes are all but dried out and the birds are standing around on pathways to avoid the thick green algal layers that are covering the remaining water.

Not all gloom and doom.  The local council have managed to replace our broken recycling bin, less than 2 months after the reported split in the main body of the bin.  Life goes on.........

Removing Garden Beds

The last 2 weeks of hot and dry weather have had an impact on the trees.  They are all shedding leaves to conserve water, so autumnal leaf fall is here in summer.

The last 2 years have been problematic for growing things in our raised beds.  The hot weather and the problems with Badgers has made the beds very unproductive or very time consuming.  Some of them are now coming out and being levelled.

The longest bed has almost been removed now, but the end flower bed is staying for the time being.  This bed is in the shade of the Tulip Tree and has seldom produced anything much.  The two beds left by the holly hedge are also coming out, but I need to rescue the Rhubarb and replant it.  That has always been a good cropping bed.

I am currently clearing the south bed and I have re-potted the Gooseberry bushes and removed any surplus weeds.  The next job will be to dig in lots of fresh garden compost and then water the rhubarb really well before moving the plants, a few at a time, to this prepared bed.

That done, we can start extracting more blocks and leveling the ground ready for sowing grass.