Drinking
Cruising to the Canaries – Part One
Day One – Saturday As I have made the Baltic level of the P&O Peninsula Club, I have a few perks on this holiday, one of which is an early boarding time. Today I am [more…]
Hobbies
19th Century
Sir Joseph Whitworth and the Confederate Sniper
Introduction In March 2024 I purchased a first generation, Birmingham-made Parker-Hale replica of a Whitworth military pattern muzzle-loading rifle of the late 1850s. These iconic rifles gained legendary status following their use in the American [more…]
Cycling
West Country Rides, Four
It takes a week to cycle from Penzance to Berwick. It took me 40 years. Because on the way, I wanted to include every town in England, in what amounted to some two years of [more…]
Hobbies
Playing With Electricity – Part 3
“Your nose will grow…” I’m sure that we can all recall some of these admonitions from our youth: “Keep looking like that and your face will stick!” – Why? To what? Surely that isn’t in [more…]
Diary
A (Burts’ Eye) View From The Greenhouse; Feminism Or Infanticide
A busy long weekend just completed with a trip to the railway station. Mrs C’s birthday was graced by the presence of our friends from Essex who haven’t graced us with their presence (it’s a [more…]
Computing
Digitising Old Audio Tapes
There were three tasks involved in modernising and preserving the family archive, the second of which was to digitise the audio recordings. Digitising the old photographs was covered in a previous article, while digitising the [more…]
Animals
Larry’s Diary, Week Two Hundred And Eighty-Six
Monday Good morning my happy readers, it is dry and a bit warmer this morning. The Donald isn’t messing about with the illegals in California. He hasn’t hesitated to send in the National Guard to [more…]
Cycling
West Country Rides, Three
It takes a week to cycle from Penzance to Berwick. It took me 40 years. Because on the way, I wanted to include every town in England, in what amounted to some two years of [more…]
Animals
Larry’s Diary, Week Two Hundred And Eighty-Five
Monday Good morning, my happy readers. I hope you had a lovely weekend. I did; it was another couple of nice sunny days and quiet in No. 10. However, it wasn’t quiet down on the [more…]