Lake District

Back after a short break to the Lake District. We drove up to Ambleside on Thursday, aiming to have a quiet relaxing time. After Jane fell down the stairs the other week, damaging her ankle ligaments, and I'm only recently recovered from the ME, we took it easy at first by climbing the 482m peak of Wansfell Pike, which is currently topped with a nice example of rock balancing.



Owing to a slight bit of confusion as to who was taking the food, we only had a packet of raisins and a nutrigrain each. Still - we were up and down within about 4 hours, still not especially hungry but thankful we took plenty of water and warm clothing. In the town it was warm, and at the top (even at such a low level) it was bloody cold.

The following day consisted of an attempt to walk from Ambleside to Windermere. Although it is a relatively short distance (of the order of 6 miles), it proved so unpleasant due to the car fumes, bad state of repair of the pavements, and obnoxious arrogance of pavement-cyclists that we turned back after 3 miles. Much of the lakeside on this route is on private land, and the roadway you pretty much have to follow deviates from the water.

That was the only disappointment though - and hopefully we'll go back sometime soon and climb something a little bigger.

Recycling: Part I - Plastics

Based on this blog, I've decided to put a few bits on our attempts to go "zero(ish) waste", or at least reduce the amount we throw into landfill.

One of the points raised in Chris Jeavans' blog was that it was virtually impossible to get the Sunday papers not wrapped in polythene, and so the polythene has to be chucked. Although most councils will not do it, most of these wrappers can be recycled. There are a couple of companies in Norwich who will take it; the one we use is Polyprint. The plastic code has to be type 2 or 4, and it has to be free from stickers or glue. Once a small box is full, we post it off - admittedly it is not freepost, but several months polythene does not cost a great deal to send.

Brita will take used water filters, either through their in-store scheme, or via the Freepost address which seems to have vanished from their website. If they are still using it, it is: Brita Recycling, Freepost NAT 17876, Bicester, OX26 4BR.

Brother have been recycling their printer cartridges for years, again via a freepost address. Simply go to their green page, and fill in the details of your product, and you get given a prepaid address label to attach to the box. You also need to give your details, though I only did this once, and saved the pdf file for future use.

We stopped using plastic carrier bags some time ago, though that was largely as they aren't strong enough to hold anything heavier than a loaf of bread. A friend in Germany sent us some 50cent cotton bags, which are still going strong, and outliving the dire 'not plastic bags' available from the supermarkets here, which fall apart and cost ten times the amount of the simple cotton bags.

Food packaging has also been drastically reduced; we tend to use the butcher either in the local village or at the supermarket, and by doing so not only can we select the precise amount of meat we need, it only gets wrapped in a layer of plastic film wrap (we're working on that) and then (i) a paper bag in the butchers or (ii) a plastic bag in the supermarket. The only exception is chicken, which (if we want free range) has to come in the reinforced box which prevents the chicken escaping and me getting in.

All this doesn't really take too much extra time, but the difference in the amount thrown away is noticeable. There are still bits to improve on: my main vice is coffee made in one of those pod coffee machines. The pods are made up from: foil, plastic, and coffee. There was a point when I would separate and clean the three: coffee in the worm bin, foil in recycling, plastic in the bin; it is a bit of a faff though, so until Tassimo come up with a solution, I'll have to accept that I'm not 100% green....but then, who is?

Back From Munich

Back from the short summer holiday in Munich, though to be honest it seemed like a fortnight. I can't get away from the fact that the ME has changed my energy levels considerably. We made the most of the days though - breakfasting at 7am, out of the hotel by 8am, and walking solidly until around 4pm. I think we must have clocked up 50 miles of walking, but it was well worth it, and there is plenty to see in the city.

By the end of the week, I could barely walk; travelling light meant I couldn't take the stick I occasionally need to keep me upright. That didn't stop us however, from visiting Dachau on the last day. Forward planning should have warned us that the trip from the station to the camp was a 45 minute walk, including getting lost. By the time we reached the camp Jane had a winging moaning awkward sod carping on about the pain he was in, and how hot it was in the sun. A walk around the camp changed that, and brought to home just how much suffering people have to endure. The picture below was one of the last taken in the holiday. I have plenty of photos of ovens, gas chambers, disinfection rooms, watch towers and opposing national socialist buildings, which all the tourists (me included) took to reflect the oppression of the place. None of the depressive oppression comes across in these photos, and I took the next photo as a reflection of my impression of the camp. I deliberately wanted only a small portion of the photo in focus, and for that to be the barbed wire. Everything else is a blur.



There is relatively little post processing on this photo. It's cropped to remove some tourists, blurred around the edges and converted to black and white. There was a temptation to darken the photo, but that gave it a 'black' mood, when I was looking more for something more sombre.

Munich is certainly somewhere we'd visit again. A long weekend is not enough to see everything on the list, and although much of what is there to be seen is in a relatively small area, a lot of travelling is needed. I have an aversion to using public transport when we visit a city, preferring to walk and not risk missing anything, but having said that, we spent a could of days on Munich's MVV system.



The above picture was a test of Jane's camera. A 1 second handheld exposure. I'm not sure how I managed to keep so steady over a second, but I did it three times. I was probably too tired to shake. The other remarkable thing about this photo is that it was taken at one of the busiest times in one of the busiest stations (the city centre tourist mecca). No-one walked in front of any of the shots - this was the only train I could shoot as ours was next.

And finally, a museum which reflects that Munich looks to the future as well as remembering the past. The BMW museum is worth a visit if you have a couple of hours to kill and can do with some air conditioning. Much as I hate car shots, it was fun to wander round, look at some very historic pieces of engineering, and take some clichéd photographs.

Courgette Soup

I had a few courgettes in the garden which needed picking before they grew too large, and to allow the smaller ones to develop a bit quicker. I decided to try out a soup from scratch with no recipe and see how it turned out. It actually tastes pretty good, considering how simple it is.



The recipe:

1 Medium Onion (about 200g) thinly sliced
300g Courgette roughly chopped
10g butter.
1tsp dried oregano

1) Brown the onion in the butter (about 10 - 15 mins)
2) Add the courgette - keep on a low heat for about 10mins.
3) Add the oregano - low heat for another 10 mins until the courgette is tender.
4) Add enough stock to cover the contents of the pan and simmer for 30-40 mins.
5) Blend into a smooth soup. Add salt/pepper/Tabasco etc to taste and serve.

This does about 2 small servings, so ideal as a starter. It works out at about 100kcal per serving, due largely to the butter, but on the plus side contains almost 20% of the daily fibre, and around half the daily recommended Vitamin C.

Slides

Healthwise I'm suffering again, which is not much fun. This time it's largely my legs which hurt, which keeps me awake at night, which in turn makes me groggy (and in pain) the following day. Luckily I have some slides which need scanning to keep me busy, and away from the TV. The set I'm working on came from eBay - described as a journey from Austria to Yugoslavia in 1961.



The slides are variously labelled AUG61, OCT62 and OCT64, but they do appear to be from the same set and the same holiday. Most feature people, but quite a few have some interesting scenes, such as the one above: a petrol station somewhere in Austria with an Austrian Opel Rekord PII and an Auto Union 1000 from Ljubljana both filling up.

Many of the slides need a lot of work doing to them. Apart from the usual dust marks which the scanner copes fairly well with, some are (very) badly taken - the exposures are too short or long, and there are blue hues. The editing is slow, but I am getting there...and since it all involves just sitting on the sofa, it means I'm not sitting around doing nothing.

Once the set is finished I'll upload them to Flickr, probably on an account separate from my own photos; partially because these shots are not mine, and I want to reserve my account for my own work, and also because I'm unclear on the copyright situation. I own the slides, but didn't take the photographs; I think that owning slides or negatives gives me the 'right' to use them, but I'm not willing to bet my account on this!

Courgette Crop

The courgettes are growing fairly rapidly, and are now at the point where they are ready to be picked.




Picking them was a bit of a pain - armed with a very sharp knife, I easily went through the stalk of the courgette - and some of the leaves. The courgettes picked were about 4 inches long, and the flowers just fell off, so I assume I've picked them at the same time. I think it would have been better had I planted them out into larger pots earlier as they're still a bit wobbly - but it looks like there are still plenty of courgettes developing, so with luck the roots will establish and it will last through the summer.

Elsewhere in the garden, the runner beans are really taking hold now, and are about a third of the way up the poles. The two Brussels sprouts have established and the slug pellets have worked to stop them being eaten, and the chicken wire has stopped the cats crapping on them. I've pruned the tomatoes of the extra leaves in the hope that more nutrients go into the tomatoes themselves - there's about half a dozen on there at the moment. It looks like it will rain for most of this weekend, which means I'll not be spending much time in the garden, but on the plus side everything is getting a good watering.

Almost ready

Things are coming along in the garden; the broad beans are almost ready to start picking (well, a few of them are) - with luck I should have a nice supply of beans ready to freeze. The courgette plants given to me by a friend, and planted out in large pots, have started to flower and some fruit are currently a couple of inches long. I've heard that courgettes grow quickly so with luck I should have a few ready to eat very soon. There's a few tomatoes in the hanging basket - still green, but cherry sized at the moment. The runner beans are growing slowly, as is the beetroot, and the sprouts. I appear to be holding the slugs off for now, so with a bit of luck (and more slug pellets) they will remain uneaten for the near future.

de Havilland Vampire

At about 9:30 this morning, what I believe to be the last de Havilland jet operated by the Vampire Preservation Group flew over the house. Very loud, very low (low cloud this morning and it was flying below the cloud cover), very fast and incredibly impressive to see. The Vampire Preservation group are based in Essex, and today is the RAF Cosford Airshow; RAF Cosford is near Wolverhampton, and the direct line of flight goes over my house. Sadly I didn't have the camera (and even if I had I wouldn't have had time to take a picture), but I'm pleased that I've seen this late WW2 jet fighter actually flying, rather than just seeing it in a museum.

Seedling

Seedling
Originally uploaded by schwana

The first of the chillies (five out the ten) have now started to sprout, as has one of the broad beans. Its still a bit too damp to work in the back garden - since the sun doesn't get there till the summer, the first mow doesn't happen till later in the spring when it's dried out enough.

Broad Beans

Started the broad beans off today. I've started them off indoors rather than sowing them directly outdoors, and just three for now. I only want to put two out and should two fail, I've got plenty of time to try again. The main reason for starting them off indoors is that I've not got round to preparing the area they are going in, which needs breaking up and weeding, as well as removing a lavender that is already there. The bottom tray of the can-of-worms is now ready to empty too, so I'll be able to dig in some nice vermi-compost, which will hopefully help enrich the soil. That will take care of the top left corner, and will leave me the rest of the spring/summer to put a vegetable patch in the top right corner. With luck, of the weather holds I can get the garden work done on Wednesday, and start off the hanging basket tomato seeds.

Sheldon Brown 1944-2008

It's not often that I get saddened by the deaths of people I've never met, but I am very sorry for the loss of Sheldon Brown. I came across his website while looking for solutions to various problems with my bike, and the vast amount of cycling experience on his website not only solved problems but made me aware of ones starting to develop.

I enjoyed, too, reading his journal (started before the word blog appeared). In his latter years he was affected by MS, and his journal showed that in spite of it seriously affecting his love for cycling, he still coped. Having been very ill over the last year, and housebound for much of it, reading how he dealt with his illness, and maintained a good outlook on life, made me play to my own strengths and not feel down about life. Finally after a long struggle I returned to work today; sadly he passed away yesterday, taking with him a vast cycling knowledge, a great personality, and leaving the family he clearly cared about. I will miss reading his journal.

Chilli Time

After leaving it too late last year to sow the few chillies I had, this year I'm following the instructions to sow from February onwards.

Since the Anaheim did nothing last year, and barely stayed alive, I'm concentrating on just the cayenne (the one plant which survived produced two dozen chillies, which when dried out lasted several months) and the jalepeno (didn't produce anything, but didn't die either). Although I used the coconut style planters last year, this year I'll use the little peat pots - I'd prefer not to use the peat, but better to use it than waste it. Soon I should have enough vermicompost to make up a nice potting compound.

So, put one seed into each, which given last year's success rate should give around 6 plants. I'll know within a couple of weeks hopefully. Still time to start some off then if they all fail... The other bits I need to sow don't need starting till March, so lots of time before I need to do that.