20 March 2026
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We’ve visited RHS Rosemoor this week, taking advantage of the glorious spring weather being enjoyed by much of the UK at the moment:
I took this panorama shot on my iPad, which seemed to add almost a soft filter effect to some of brighter areas… or that could just be a side effect of lots of detail (9000px wide) shrunk down to fit any screen I’ve been able to view it on.
17 March 2026
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As I’m going through a phase of doing a lot of file editing using a command line terminal (SSH to a different machine), I am building my skills with Vim as opposed to gVim – in other words, no mouse!
One useful trick I’ve discovered in the last week or two is for helping deal with split windows. I knew the commands to introduce horizonal and vertical splits (:sp and :vsp respectively) and I could move between the sections (Ctrl-W and then a direction key) but I wasn’t sure how to resize the partitions. Most of the time I just want them evened up and it turns out Ctrl-W = is the necessary command sequence.
It sounds obvious when you know it, which makes it easy to remember and is proving very helpful indeed.
16 March 2026
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In the last week or so the seeds I’ve been getting going have started to appear, including these chilli peppers ‘De Cayenne’ (Capsicum annuum). This year, I’ve kept them over a water held at about 27°C, making the soil about 24°C and, since the seedlings appeared, I’ve had grow lights on for 12 hours a day (they sit in a fairly shaded bit of the kitchen).
I was wondering how to get them out of the tiny pots I started in but still give them heat and then I remembered that we had a few 2l bottles (from sparkling water) in the recycling. I’ve put the strongest seedlings in individual larger pots and moved the heat pad so it should service this and the original propagator. Next week, there might be more seedlings to pot up but I’ll call time on the ones that haven’t come to anything because it will be time to get the tomatoes going.
15 March 2026
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I watched a couple more episodes of the detective drama Patience today and crossed from season 1 to season 2. I was somewhat surprised to discover that the lead police detective had been replaced by a new character who is decidedly less sympathetic, at least in the first episode. Perhaps it will all settle down but it would have been nice to at least get a goodbye scene with DI Metcalfe. It seemed very out of character for her to disappear to an entirely different part of the country and just send a letter to her protégée to say she wasn’t coming back!
14 March 2026
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I’m now back to black ink in my Lamy cartridge pen. I ended up giving the pen a good wash between changes so I can’t say how long it would have taken to stop issuing a mixture of blue and black but I expect it would have been less time than when changing to the lighter colour. What I can see is that it took about a month (2 Feb – 1 Mar) to run through the cartridge writing between a line or two and several pages each day, so it looks like having an ink pen isn’t too expensive a habit to maintain.
Buying in batches, the ink costs around 85p a cartridge although I might consider experimenting with a converter so that I could refill from an ink bottle rather than generating another piece of waste plastic every month. Working at home, I’m less likely to be caught away from my “filling station”, although there is the potential to get very messy!
13 March 2026
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I’ve done my first direct sowing at the allotment for 2026, with a couple of short rows of beetroot ‘Bolthardy’. I’m not sure they will come to much as it is using an end of line seed tape I bought last year and even last year results were disappointing but I figure it is better to throw seeds in the ground than throw them in the bin!
I also chopped down a couple of kale plants that were showing signs of wanting to flower and where the stalks were falling down and got some bonus harvests from parsley (a weedy little plant I recognised and moved last year, which has bulked up over the winter) and dead nettle (often regarded as a weed but it makes a pleasant brew in hot water).
12 March 2026
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Last Sunday I was speaking at Hathern Baptist Church on The Good Samaritan (Luke 10) and next week our pastor is speaking on the three stories about lost things in Luke 15. You can see that, in order to cover a breadth of ground, we’re stepping over quite large chunks at a time. Therefore, in our home group, we’ve sometimes been filling in the gaps.
Last night, I was leading that section and, as I flicked through chapters 11-14, I was struck by Luke 11:37-54. Up to this point, the interactions with Pharisees and teachers of the Law have often been on the positive side (they formed a significant part of the crowd when the paralysed man was healed in Luke 5 and everyone was amazed and praising God for what they had seen – v. 26) or we’ve been left without specific comment on how they responded to some quite pointed teaching (eg. Simon the Pharisee in Luke 7 or the teacher of the Law who prompted story of The Good Samaritan in chapter 10). There were some strong concerns bubbling away but also moments of hope.
Hold onto your hats though. In chapter 11, Jesus is invited for a meal at the house of a Pharisee. I sense a bit of an ambush going. The passage notes that the Pharisee looked askance at Jesus not washing according their customs and Jesus points out that the Pharisees (plural) like to wash the outside of their cups and plates but don’t give attention to the dirty mess inside. He could be addressing the one Pharisee… but then “one of the teachers of the Law” chimes in. This strongly suggests that, when he went through the doors, he found a large number of these religious experts and they hadn’t just turned up because the food was good. In fact, you could suspect that roasting Jesus was on their minds.
It was very unwise of them to think they could invite a lion round for tea and pull his tail without consequences. They get told, in no uncertain terms, how neglecting justice and the love of God sits with the Son of God. In Luke’s account, I can’t find any passages that show Jesus and Pharisees interacting without antagonism. We are now certainly beginning to tread the road that leads to the cross.
11 March 2026
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Since my eyelid was still puffy this morning and it had given me a broken night’s sleep, we decided it was time to seek help. I called 111 and got referred to the local pharmacy, where I was able to have a quick consultation with a pharmacist and get prescribed a five day course of antibiotics there and then. Not everything about the NHS operates with splendid efficiency but I think this was an example of things done well. Hopefully it won’t be too long now before the medicine takes effect although I’m very aware of the need to finish the full course.
Since I had compared my eyelid to the effect of Botox fillers, I wondered what would happen if you took antibiotics while on Botox. Would they counteract the effects? Most sources seem to suggest that it isn’t a good combination but not for the reasons I thought; apparently there is a possibility of the effect being magnified rather than reduced. Reading a bit more, it looks like I’d misunderstood Botox as being a deliberate injection of infection. Instead, it is a “purified toxin” based on what is produced by the bacteria Clostridium botulinum. If you get infected with that, it releases a toxin that can easily kill you. Apparently “wound botulism” can be treated with antibiotics but other methods are needed for a food-acquired infection as antibiotics will stimulate the release of more toxin!
10 March 2026
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I’m not sure I see the attraction of cosmetic botox. I’ve picked up some kind of insect bite just beside my left eye and the eyelid swelled up in a way that reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of people with botox fillers injected. Is it nice having fewer wrinkles on that side? I think I’ll be happier when the swelling goes down fully and I’m just back to being wrinkly old me!
9 March 2026
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On Friday we went out for lunch and I had what was billed a fish burger… mainly because I was intrigued to see what it was. It turned out it was a smallish piece of fried, battered fish in a burger bun served with chips, coleslaw and tartare sauce. Written up like that, it sounds rather disappointing but that doesn’t do it justice. The fish was a well cooked piece of hake, the bun was a large brioche one with a good selection of extra accompaniments inside (sliced pickles, onion, lettuce, etc), the chips were nicely crisp and the condiments were a good pairing.
I’d definitely try something similar again and I might even see what spin I can put on it at home.