June’s garden is looking even fuller than May’s version… but look back another month to April to see just how much these two months mean for plant growth.
18 June 2026
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Back Garden From Above – June 2026
17 June 2026
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Spring Blossom in the drinking
I’ve had a couple of bottles of my Spring Blossom brew now (one two or three weeks ago and another tonight) and it is definitely into the “good drinking” window. It has a good clarity and tastes like good beer. What I need to figure out now is whether it is worth getting another batch on the go or if, with the prospect of some more warm weather, I need to wait until the autumn. Using my brewing heat mat to support seedling germination was a good strategy for that but did knock several key months out of my normal brewing window.
16 June 2026
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Like a Fast Car
This week I’ve been ticking things off my To-Do list quicker because I’ve been continuing to make use of AI (via the Cursor app). That has included several things for work which would have involved hours of code unpicking by hand and a fix for the site I’m playing with for my church music group, which had a problem transposing songs in minor keys and I was able to fix in about twenty minutes or less. It is rather magical and reminds me of some of the science fiction books I used to read and games I used to play.
However, it struck me that these tools are a bit like having a fast car. I could drive to the outskirts of Nottingham or Leicester in the time it would take me to walk to the middle of Loughborough and I could drive to the outskirts of London in less than the time it would take me to walk to those nearer cities. However, if I walked into a tree, I and the tree would probably survive relatively unharmed. If I drove into a tree at the same speeds I’d need to drive to make good those claims the picture would be less good!
Perhaps that would also be fair of how AI code development works – you can go at speeds that would be superpowered for a regular human but you need extra precautions to avoid ending up with a codebase that is a confused mess that even more AI can’t penetrate. Things like using Git for version control (exposing what has been changed and allowing dead ends to be rolled back) and understanding what the system is proposing before unleashing it help add the level of safety you need for travelling at that speed.
While on the car metaphor, it is probably also worth observing that we still haven’t got to the point where computer controlled vehicles look like becoming a significant presence on our roads despite massive investment and many very smart people working on it. That suggests some problems still to be solved and that we haven’t reached the point where AI tools are entirely magical!
15 June 2026
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Strap Locks
Beyond keeping an eye on the setup, I don’t tend to do a lot of after-market modification to my basses. One exception to that rule is that I like my instruments fitted with strap locks. There are various strap lock systems available but the one I’ve standardised are Schallers. By using an additional mechanical component, you make it much less likely the strap will depart from the strap button on the instrument. I have had that happen before which is probably why I treat this action as a fairly essential step.
The modern Schaller ones can be quite expensive so I ordered a pair of the older model off eBay, which were much cheaper (less than £5 with free delivery). It took a little while to fit them because I tried to reuse the screws from the bass but hadn’t realised that they protruded too much from the top. The screws which came with the locks were silver rather than black but that won’t be seen when a strap is on the bass, so that was an easy fix when I realised.
Without that slight detour, the fitting would have been less than five minutes from unpacking to another bass that isn’t going to suddenly dive floorwards. I can also pick which strap I want to use on this instrument (the Ibanez SR305EB) as the new models are backwardly compatible with the strap buttons although the bass is so comfortably light I’ll probably just stick with the purple nylon strap I had on it already for now.
14 June 2026
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FxSound
Jane and I were watching something this afternoon using the set up in our front room – laptop to HDMI monitor and audio from the monitor to the Aux in on my Blackstar ID Core BEAM amp – and it was sounding too bass heavy. I looked but I couldn’t find any way to control that. Win11 just had a volume setting, the monitor didn’t help and the amp just made the input louder, with the settings just for an instrument input rather than the aux feed.
A bit of searching recommended a program available via the Windows Store called FxSound and it provided all the EQ control I needed to get a better sound output. In this case, it was mainly rolling down the bass that did the trick. In fact, I was so impressed that I’ve also installed it on my own Windows box and it gives me extra control over the sound that I’ve been missing. I need to test it some more but thumbs up for now.
13 June 2026
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Singaround Songs – June 2026
Three songs at today’s singaround (on double bass). I started with Wayfaring Stranger, which is part of a medley the Charnwood Training Band has recently started playing. On my next go, I went for I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free, a jazzy piece that I’ll be playing with The Panamas on Sunday week. I also got to close out the afternoon and picked Proud Mary. It would have been a good choice for next Saturday’s boat gig but I didn’t get round to working out an arrangement. All in all, a good afternoon.
12 June 2026
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Nobody Fell In
Yesterday’s WiFi weirdness was definitely weirdness – everything was back to working this morning but I did establish that a wired connection is a little faster (although not by much) so I’ll stick with that for now.
Meanwhile, the title refers to tonight’s rehearsal with AVAST, the Astonishingly Versatile Assortment of Sailing Troubadours, a subset of players from the various Charnwood Concert Bands, who will be raising money for charity on Saturday week by sailing down the River Soar / Grand Union Canal and busking at various riverside pubs. We have been preparing for some time but this was our first rehearsal on the boats we will be using. I get to sit inside the covered area which not only gives me extra shelter but also provides a nice sounding board so I was getting very pleasing tones out of my tuba.
On Saturday 20th June we are due at The Waterside Inn (Mountsorrel) at 12:15pm, The Navigation Inn (Barrow Upon Soar) at 2pm and The Moorings (also Barrow) at 3:30pm. We’re collecting money for the Midnight Music Library (disclosure: for which I am a trustee), a community interest project that is setting up an affordable library where people can hire instruments, accessories and sheet music. Relatively early days yet but Dee, the chair and driving force, already has quite a substantial number of instruments so the next steps (which need some funding) are to find somewhere suitable for them to live so the lending can begin.
11 June 2026
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WiFi Weirdness
I took a break from my paid work for a chunk of today in order to finish off the first draft of my sermon for Sunday. I wanted to keep working on MS Word while I relocated to the kitchen so I could keep on going while finishing off cooking some bread rolls so, for the first time in a long while, I booted my laptop into Windows rather than Linux. Later on, I sat down to get on with some work and discovered that, back in Linux, the WiFi wasn’t working. Normally I sit at my (Windows) desktop machine and connect across to the Linux-running laptop which acts as my dev server so not having WiFi was a bit of a pain (and time waster).
In the end, I managed to dig out an old network switch and convert my set up to wired networking. That works fine but it did mean I didn’t get the little dev tasks I had planned knocked off the list. Ah well… I’ll get onto that tomorrow and did manage to get Cursor installed on the Linux box so I can run it directly on my dev repositories.
Weirder still, I’ve rebooted back into Windows as I’ll be using the laptop to take minutes at a meeting tonight and I don’t want the Linux hard drive hanging off the back… and WiFi is working there. Hmmnn…
Something to puzzle on tomorrow but at least I’ve got the wired option and it also be interesting to know if wired networking through old gear is faster than WiFi or if the wireless option has caught it up.
10 June 2026
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The Rugby Prophet?
I was leading the Bible study at home group tonight and hadn’t forewarned people about the exact topic. That allowed me to start with cryptic question: which biblical prophet is often sung about at England rugby games, what is the song and how is it connected to them?
Here is a copyright free picture from Flickr that may give you a clue … and also give you a chance to answer the question before scrolling down to find the answer:
The answer is Elijah who features regularly from 1 Kings 17 until 2 Kings 2. The song is Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and the connection is found in 2 Kings 2. Yes, that is when the story of his life ends because God sends a “chariot of fire” (cue another well-known song) to sweep him up to heaven. Along with Enoch (who, as mentioned in Hebrews 11, was the focus of last Sunday’s sermon at Hathern Baptist Church), he is one of two people in the Bible who doesn’t experience death.
What about Jesus? He is alive (hallelujah!) but it would be heresy to suggest he didn’t die. To quote the Nicene Creed:
For our sake he [Jesus] was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
So that’s the answer to my cryptic question, a snippet about Elijah and a bit of Christology thrown in for good measure.
9 June 2026
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Into the Reading Pit
I decided to throw caution to the wind tonight and take along the new bass to tonight’s concert band rehearsal. I did make a couple of fumbles because of the extra string but by and large it went pretty smoothly including the new piece we had to sight read. I’ll probably go back to my regular four string next week but that’s because I don’t need the notes below E for anything notated and I don’t need all the tonal options I get from two pickups and five control knobs (one pickup, volume and tone is enough for that context).
What I did observe was how light and comfortable the Ibanez bass was – that’s definitely a win for new one.