Last Year's Loose Ends

So the world has moved on into 2014, and yet since August I've managed just a single post on this blog. It isn't that I haven't done anything interesting since August, but for some reason I've just never got around to blogging about what I have done. I suppose at least part of the problem is having multiple blogs, and now a twitter account as well, which means that when I do have something to share this blog isn't always the most appropriate place. So to make up for the lack of posts I'm going to do one long(ish) post that will hopefully bring me up to date.

After my trip to Gent in August the rest of the summer was fairly quiet; no work or personal trips and nothing particularly interesting to report from the garden either. Things started to pick up in mid-September when we had visitors to stay for the weekend of the Penistone agricultural show, for which the weather behaved. If the summer had been quite though, I made up for that in October.

First up was a trip to Thessaloniki in Greece for a ForgetIT project meeting. This was my first trip to Greece and it was definitely an interesting place to visit even if I did keep getting mixed up with the different alphabets (note to self: write things down for taxi drivers in the local alphabet). Half the fun of these work trips is the socializing with other participants and this time was no different; the photo shows some of us watching the fish in an unbelievably clear ocean on the first evening before dinner (thanks to Søren Schaffstein for the photo, especially as I didn't take any of any interest). As usual I didn't have that much time in which to explore, but I did experience a magnitude 4.5 earthquake on the final morning; I was in a rather decrepit lift at the time which certainly added to the experience!

Given my schedlue for October it was unfortunate that I managed to pick up some form of throat infection while in Greece that left me barely able to talk. I was fine when I boarded the place home in Thessaloniki but by the time I arrived in Munich I could hardly talk at all, even copious volumes of weissbier while waiting for the plane to Manchester failed to improve things.

Five days after getting back from Greece, and with a throat that still didn't want me to speak, I headed to London to take part in the BBC #newsHACK event at Shoreditch Town Hall. I've already blogged about this event over on one of my other blogs, so I won't bore you with the technical details, but I will point you at our hack/demo and possibly more interestingly show you the video of the pitch session: If you don't want to watch all 27 demos, you can skip to around 55 minutes to see our presentation; including hearing how bad my voice was when I tried to answer a question.

I ended October with a visit to the National Railway Museum in York for a one in a lifetime chance to see the six remaining A4 steam locomotives together (two of them are usually to be found in North America). As with the #newsHACK event I blogged about this trip elsewhere, so I'll just include the obligatory photo at this point.

October also saw me being paid for the very first time for the 3D models I have on sale via Shapeways; my first sale was back in January 2013, but they only pay out when you've made at least $30. I won't claim this as profit, as I spent more than I've made on test prints, but it's a very good start! In fact someone ordered another model this morning so hopefully 2014 will be profitable.

November was again mostly taken up with work, but we did take a few days off to have a long weekend in Warwickshire so we could attend both days of the National Poultry Show at Stoneleigh Park. I always thought that it was interesting looking at marque worth of chickens at the Penistone show, but I think I was all poultried out by around lunchtime on the first day. I'm not entirely sure how many chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys we looked at but according to the programme there were nearly 7000 entires plus 500 sale pens, and as some of those will have contained more than one bird you can begin to imagine just how much there was to see. The hope was that by the end of the weekend we would have a much better idea of which breed(s) of chickens we would like to keep once we have sorted out the garden, but if anything I think it just gave us more options! Still it was a fun weekend.

December mostly saw us getting ready for Christmas and visiting relatives, and strangely I haven't taken many (if any) photos so there isn't really much to show for our travels. Anyway that brings the blog nicely up to date ready for whatever 2014 may throw at me. I hope you've all had a great holiday and wish you all the best for the new year!

Am I Just Unlucky?

I don't think I'm particularly prone to bad luck more than the next guy, which makes me think that amazon.co.uk is having a very bad week.

Over the last two days we should have received three parcels from Amazon. We have Amazon Prime (we order a lot of stuff over the year) which means we have guaranteed next day delivery and the ability to track our parcels. This usually really helpful, but this week it's just been frustrating.

Yesterday I was expecting two parcels, both of which were supposed to be delivered by City Link. When neither parcel had arrived by about 4:30pm I decided to check the tracking website only to find that there were no details after the initial "we have details of your parcel message". I rang City Link only to be told they weren't sure where my parcel was. I decided to give them all the benefit of the doubt and so waited until this morning and then rang again. This time I was told that Amazon had never passed the parcels on to City Link! I contacted Amazon who were very polite and helpful and have replaced the missing orders while apologizing profusely.

I should also have had a parcel today, this time via DPD but yet again by 4:30pm no sign of useful tracking info. Rang DPD and got the same story; they never received the parcel from Amazon. Amazon slightly less helpful this time as they want me to wait until the 6th to see if it turns up -- unlikely if they haven't given it to a courier.

Up North

I was outside doing some gardening this afternoon when I came across this moth, which I'm fairly certain I haven't seen in the garden before. I also had no idea what the moth was so I had to look it up.

Given the number of books in our house you shouldn't be surprised to find that I actually have two moth books; a photographic guide by Chris Manley and an illustrated one by Waring, Townsend and Lewington. While the illustrated one contains more textual information I find the photographic one easier to hunt through, so that was where I started.

It didn't take me too long to identify the moth as a Sallow (or in Latin Xanthia icteritia) the only problem is that the photographic guide suggests that common throughout Britain during September and October. Now I know the weather has been confusing the wildlife this year but we aren't even half way through August yet.

Fortunately the more detailed, illustrated guide came to the rescue. It says that there is one generation a year which flies September and October in the south and August and September in the north. So I'm guessing Penistone is in the north; thank goodness for that!

Gent

I realised yesterday that I never showed you anything of my trip to Belgium apart from a beer glass, so here is a panorama I shot from one of Gent's many bridges in the centre of the old town.

As you can see it wasn't exactly the ideal time of year for really appreciating the architecture as a lot of it was hidden behind the stages set up for the music festival. On the plus side there was plenty for me to do in the evenings, besides drinking Belgium beer.

Air Drums... Way Cooler Than Air Guitar!

And The Missing Letters Were....

So the missing letters from the last post were v and l which should allow you to spell the name of a well known Belgian beer; Duvel. I was assuming that at least one of my readers would drink enough Belgian beer to recognise the distinctive font used on Duvel bottels and glasses but I was guessing I was a little over optimistic.

I was trying to spell Duvel as I'm currently in Gent, Belgium (I've been giving a GATE training course to a great bunch of people at CrossLang) and happened to arrive in the middle of their yearly arts/music festival. The hotel I'm staying at has a Duvel sponsored bar, and for each Duvel you buy you get two tokens which represent bottle tops with a letter on them. If you manage to spell out Duvel then you get a free commemorative Duvel beer glass.

It took me two nights and some trading of tokens but I now have my glass and lasting proof that I was here. Of course now I have to hope that I can take the glass on the plane home within my hand luggage, a) so that it will survive and b) as I don't have any checked luggage with me (after my trip to Marrakech I try and avoid checking luggage unless I really need to).

Give Me A 'P' Please Bob

Yet again a work trip turns interesting; although technically I'm not missing a 'P', but I am short too letters.