Category Archives: Life

I’ve been joining in with the seasonal Dutch tradition of pollarding. Trees form an important part of Dutch landscape seeing as there are few hills and boggy soil interspersed with water – tall trees with healthy root systems are a necessity for farmers, dyke maintainers and town planners.

My problem is slightly smaller but nonetheless important for us, to whit a lack of light into our garden and house from the neighbours sprawling cherry tree. I spoke with the gentleman who owns it a couple of weeks ago and he was more than happy for me to cut off as much as I liked. And on the weekend I did so, balanced precariously in branches reaching higher with a borrower halberd type thing to cutting off upper branches.
All was going well and I wanted just one more top one when the wife rushes out (backed sheepishly by her husband) to beg me not to take off any more.

A perfect example of the difference between male and female gardeners in my experience.

Still, we now have some sky back and I have a garden full of sticks to clear up. Cherry wood though – must be something I can do with that lot…

While doing a little research on the Elfstedentocht (which requires 15 centimetres of ice to run) I discovered this nice little feature in Google Translate for Dutch -> English.

Hopefully no-one is using it to do any tricky calculations.

I spent a couple of hours on Sunday taking up the edging on the laminate flooring to run a TV cable from our bedroom to the spare bedroom/office. It’s seems all a bit old-hat doesn’t it? Taking up flooring. Running cables. Surely it should be all wireless for this kind of thing? Well I tried those TV senders before and the last time I did they had a nasty habit of stamping all over your wifi signal plus you still need somewhere to store the digibox and inevitably it’ll crash occasionally so you’re switching rooms and debugging another invisible network as well as all the plethora of things that can go wrong in between.

So this time I wanted to do it the old fashioned way and have the STB next to the telly (well monitor innit these days?) and so I duly spend hours on my knees prising and pushing and wedging and even soldering to get it sorted and allow me to watch a bit of snooker by myself sat on a beanbag in the spare room. So yes now it works just fine with my UPC digibox.

But, I hear myself ask, shouldn’t I be taking notice of those extra icons on my PS3 and all these services helpfully pointed out by The Register? Shouldn’t I just rely on my horribly heterogeneous 10n/10g/10b network to carry all my favourite TV programmes about? Well for me it’s almost down to the same argument – that scary invisible network that runs throughout my house which works fine for email, browsing and occasionally downloading stuff but seems to chug to a halt every so often for no reason. Even the plug in network extenders seem to flicker into the red for some reason occasionally – I dunno is it oxidation on the contacts or what I mutter to myself as I unplug/replug/reboot the router and everything works again. Even not taking into account the fact I’d need to pay for a VPN address in the UK to allow me to receive the UK channels it’s just another potential way in which the system could fail. Another flakey link in the chain. There is something to be said for doing it with cables and dedicated hardware when software and invisible networks come into play.

It’s that time of the year when I pull out the novel and dust it off to have a look at it. Nothing changes – only the season through which I view it and it’s limitations. There are times when I’m in love with the novel and writing in general and other times when it appears to be a complete waste of time. This realisation along with the general ennui that usually trundles in half way through a period of creativity is why I am surrounded by half finished works of disputable genius.

Next thought is that I should abandon the novel and make it an autobiography. Would be easier to write it for sure. Still not convinced I’d finish it though. Is it betters to try and fail or never try at all? And is half finished failure or just experimentation on the path to success?

It’s healthy to try, to experiment and to dream. Perhaps to get too hung up on completing things is just our parents talking. Pressure off. Enjoy it for what it is – the process of doing things you enjoy.

I did get a frisson of that feeling last night. I am thinking more deeply about things and code and designs. I can see the projection of my dream and will not compromise on the idea. That in itself brings a pleasurable feeling that no matter how long it takes – even if it never happens – for this activity or period of my life there will be no compromise.