Coffee now

On our particular Mastodon instance, Electromagnetic Field (EMF; #EMFCamp on the socials), a festival held every even-numbered year, is not something you could miss becoming aware of.

Back last year, I attended my first Fleadh, Irish music festivals with a focus on competitions, as very much an intermediate tin whistle player.

The Radxa ROCK 3a Since we got a new thermostat, along with a new heat pump last year, we’ve been connecting that to the Open Source home automation software Home Assistant.

Happy World Backup Day.

The gas boiler in our house has definitely been on its way out over the past few years; not only that, so have several of the radiators, and having lived all spring with them off to prevent leaking, the looming onset of summer’s end, meant it was time for…

In a new departure for me, I recently ventured into the world of competitive tin whistle playing; last weekend was my first experience of attending a Fleadh, at the Comhaltas Midlands regional event in Birmingham, UK.

I don’t really like blog post titles that just promise tips, but this post is truly a mishmash of other stuff I’ve learnt, so I couldn’t think of anything better.

In this second part of my ‘Building an IndieWeb house’ series, on the whys and hows of this blog, I’m going to go over the very basics of using the static site generator (SSG) Hugo to make a website, how to get that on the internet and the ‘syndicate else…

It’s been a very long time since I’ve given a formal talk on one of my hobbies; in fact, I haven’t done one since an exceptionally distant high-school English class.

Here, I’m bringing together all 19 book reviews I’ve written for fantasy books read in 2024, as originally published on my Bookwyrm account.

Our damson tree had an unusually large crop of fruit this year (kilos and kilos!)

Having reached Fort William in 5 days, I was definitely hoping to climb Ben Nevis but was a bit unsure whether it would be a good idea after the days spent hiking [see the previous posts: West Highland Way (III) and West Highland Way (II)].

As we left the story of my adventure on the West Highland Way (WHW), it was 10 pm and I had just set up for the night in the wild camping zone at the Bridge of Orchy having covered 104.3 km (64.8 miles) of the 154 km trail from Milngavie to Fort William in

The West Highland Way (WHW), which runs for 96 miles (154 km) from Milngavie to Fort William, is the UK’s most popular long-distance path.

I decided to walk the West Highland Way (WHW; running some 96 miles, or 154 km, from Milngavie, just north of Glasgow, to Fort William) after some other holiday plans fell through with a couple of months to go.

I did it!

I’m finally there… that is past the longest run of training, past the last long run of tapering even, and it’s looking more likely than not that 2024 will be the year I really make it to the start line of the London marathon.

With a lot of hobbies, there’s always the bit that’s the chore.

It was ~2 years ago that we started this blog as a way to share long-form musings or the simple stuff going on in our lives with, well, with anyone who wanted to read it.

Ok, so for those who don’t know, the London marathon didn’t happen for me this year.

I decided to enter the Sandy 10 this year after learning that it was the 40th anniversary of this race and realising that I had run the 30th anniversary race, which I think was my very first race as a member of North Herts Road Runners (NHRR).

It’s January.

When there’s a big banner for a 10 km race staring at you if you glance out of your office window, it does seem rude not to enter.

Amongst the hasty planning of our wedding, it occurred to us (well to Clare) that I could provide a musical interlude on the tin whistle that I’ve been learning to play over the last 18 months or so.

Where were we; oh yes, we were eloping to Scotland.

Well, the secret is out now, after being together 20 years, James and I eloped for a late-summer wedding overlooking the gorgeous Loch Lomond, not too far north of Glasgow.

I’m writing this on Friday 24th June, what is apparently ‘National Cream Tea Day’, and while the cynic in me suggests that this is just another marketing opportunity, I also seem to have succumbed to scone fever with two recent events requiring the baking…

This blog uses a fair few icons, mostly for decorative reasons, such as the icons in the menu.

For understandable reasons, the usual cross country league I take part in, via North Herts Road Runners (NHRR), wasn’t on this year, but it was great news when I heard that the club had arranged for us to take part in the Herts Sunday cross country league,

For the past year, I’ve been learning to play the tin whistle from a starting point of very little musical experience.

It’s long past stir-up Sunday, the traditional day on which you should make your pudding, but not long past when a blog post on the family Christmas pudding recipe seems a good idea, so here it is.

It’s that time of year again; the time of year that any excess produce from the garden has to be preserved as chutneys, sauces, and, in a new attempt this year… pickles.

Although I love creative hobbies, time is always a factor that means I don’t do them as much as I like.

Update for 2024 Today (September 1st 2024) was the 13th iteration of the Duck n Dash aquathlon, and I’m still at a 100% attendance record, so just adding a quick report to update the report below from 2021!

Getting a ballot place in the London marathon is a lucky thing.

I’ve found myself doing a more than average amount of baking over the last year or so, including bread and in particular sourdough.

Subscriptions are everywhere… music, tv, software… you even are, in a way, a subscriber to social media content, notwithstanding that you aren’t very in control of what you see there.

I think it’s a given that whenever there’s some form of software update, I’m going to initially dislike it.

In my previous post about setting up the blog, we were at the stage of having decided on, and got at least somewhere, with getting Hugo working to generate a website, but with much design still to do.

Text or other blocky elements entwined with background images is a look that’s often used in stickers and planners, and although it looks doable - it’s only combining a few elements together - I hadn’t even worked out how to use custom fonts on Procreate,…

It’s blowing a hooley out there again, pun intended.

When you make the decision to start a blog, one of the first things you need to consider is what sort of system you’re going to use to organise your content.

Hello world.