Monthly Archives: February 2024

Early celandines

Mid-February feels very early for celandines to be flowering here, but they’re definitely giving it some serious thought. Even the daffodils aren’t out yet, though by the look of the buds they won’t be too long now.

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No dig diary, 16th Feb 2024

We’ve had a lot of rain this week 🙁 Not long ago it felt as though the ground was finally drying out sufficiently that “stuff might usefully be achieved”, but now it’s like the Somme again. Possibly wetter. I need … Continue reading

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Rockin’ All Over The South-West

I’ve just found out that Status Quo are performing in Taunton later this year. I think I last saw them in Reading in the early 90s. 1990s, that is. Not 1890’s. I’m not that old, even if they are 😀 … Continue reading

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By-election commentary

I love the way that the odious little man Rees-Mogg has claimed in interviews about the Kingswood and Wellingborough by-elections that the Labour party didn’t achieve 50% of the vote, as if that’s some sort of damning indictment of their … Continue reading

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Memory Lane, 12th June 2022: First Swarm

The first swarm to arrive in one of my home bait hives this year. Not from my colonies, I hasten to add 🙂 I feel quite chuffed to have seen them actually turn up at the hive and then dissappear … Continue reading

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A rare apple treat

My son and daughter gave me this today. I’ve not had calvados for the better part of forty years, when my parents hosted a French family as part of our village’s twinning. The father of our visiting family was major … Continue reading

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Next piece of Linux DSS done…

I’d pretty much gone as far as I thought I could with my Linux Deep Sky Stacker port for the moment, but then realised that some bits that still didn’t compile were actually simper to fix than I thought, and … Continue reading

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Memory Lane, 12th June 2022: New apiary site

I’ve been looking for a new apiary site somewhere nearby and the owners of local property have offered me space in an area they can’t really use alongside this south-facing pasture. Access isn’t perfect, but not bad — the actual … Continue reading

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Design by committee

Back when I used to work with COBOL, there were jokes about “design by committee”. These days I’m not always sure that C++ isn’t going the same way. So many little bits and pieces have been stuffed into the language … Continue reading

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Fun with Qt Help and CMake

As a Windows application, Deep Sky Stacker stores all its help text in .chm files, but I need to get rid of the Windows dependencies. Fortunately I have the HTML and images that make up those files, and there’s the … Continue reading

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