Wulf's Webden

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9 April 2026
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iPad Box

On Saturday, I’ve got my next performance with the Loughborough University Choir. This one is a half-hour contribution to the World Parkinson’s Day event being held at Loughborough Town Hall (we’re in the starting slot at 2pm and music continues all afternoon). We’ll be dressed in our regular uniform of black bottoms, white tops and purple scarves / cravats and we’ll have our music neatly held in black folders. Except I have all my music on my iPad rather than on paper…

Previously, I’ve held my iPad either behind a folder (cumbersome) or a sheet of black card (reasonable but it can quickly become dog eared). For this one, I am going to experiment with a 3D printed solution, creating a box in black PLA to hold the tablet, large enough to take the tablet in its regular protective case. However, since the print bed is smaller than the iPad, it becomes a little more complex to get a sufficiently large container.

Version 1 involves printing the box in four segments along with some joining strips that run along channels on the inside and cross the gap. Glued together, it works and feels reasonably secure, although I may end up lining the inside with gaffa tape. Already though, I’m drawing up a list of ideas for version 2. The walls seem sturdy enough at 3mm but the connectors (2mm) feel too flimsy. I could make the base thicker or I could just let the connectors sit a bit proud of the surface. Maybe I should print a grid, based on bars 3mm deep and 6mm wide, which can be glued partially into the base as it doesn’t matter if the iPad sits a bit higher. In fact, a bit of height might be an advantage as I can’t reach the buttons on the side! Cutaways are probably the solution for that, as found on iPad cases. Work in progress but I think I’ll have it together for Saturday.

8 April 2026
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Natural Burial Grounds

I first came across the concept of natural burial grounds when my father passed away several years ago. It seemed like an excellent resting place and is a decision the family remains happy with. We were at another today in Leicestershire where someone we met last summer was laid to rest (his wife is an active member of some of the bands I am in and brought him on the Belgian tour Jane and I went on).

Typically, an “NBG” is in a quiet rural location and the remains are marked not with blocks of masonry but with trees or shrubs. Over time, it creates a mixed woodland – the one my father is laid in has a limited range of native tree species available so it will be a very natural appearing area. In addition it is a good way to ensure that patches of green land remain – a developer won’t be able to put a housing estate on top for a very long time and would probably not care to put one nearby. After all, if they can’t even bring themselves to put the number 13 on front doors any more, they are probably going to baulk at trying to sell plots with very quiet neighbours!

I’m not too precious about what happens to my body after I die. My hope is to be raised again to eternal life where I’ll stand alongside those who have died and been martyred in all sorts of horrendously destructive ways. Therefore, I don’t think it matters too much what kind of earthly remnants are left behind. However, if for a few years anyone does want to visit the site, an NBG would be a pleasant location for them and the thought of safeguarding some space for nature for a century or two appeals as well so, if there is a choice, a plot like that and a suitable native tree on top of me will do the job well.

7 April 2026
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Komatsuna

Komatsuna, also known as ‘mustard spinach’ or (more technically) Brassica rapa var. perviridis, is one of the new seeds I got in my recent order with the Real Seed Company. It should produce edible greens that can be grown across a long season and eaten either when small or left to put on some size. The other seeds I bought either need a few more weeks before sowing or a few more days until I’ve finished using my heated propagation set up to get tomatoes going but I was able to sow a couple of rows of Komatsuna in the polytunnel this lunchtime and I’ll probably try it at the allotment soon as well.

If I like it, I’ll let some go to seed – one of the benefits of the Real Seed Company is that they breed their source plants to produce viable seed and encourage you to save it and use it yourself (nothing like the F1 hybrids that won’t produce reliable offspring or the ones that are even labelled as illegal to propagate). Hurrah!

6 April 2026
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Shifted Butt

After lots of iterations, we still haven’t got supplying water to the butt at the far end of the garden working well. The pipe overflow that ensures any excess rainwater gets to the canal without slowly draining all the way through the garden and my diverter can reduce the rate at which the first water butts get fed but I think the run is too long for a regular hosepipe and the far one wasn’t getting filled even in the wet months earlier this year.

Today we implemented a more radical solution and shifted that large butt up next to the polytunnel near the other ones. We’ve still got figure out how we are going to link the two together but the job should be a lot easier now that there is about a 50cm gap rather than a 15m one between them.

5 April 2026
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Sonrise 2026

Each Easter many groups of churches organise early morning services, frequently making use of the son-rise / sunrise pun. The Soar valley area in which Loughborough sits is one of them with a gathering on top of Beacon Hill which Jane and I try to attend. It always starts at 6:30am which was pretty much perfect timing for the official sunrise time (6:32am when I looked it up last night) and, with clear skies, we got a wonderful view of the burning ball of the sun rising up and giving an increasingly clear light.

The only downside is that, with an Easter morning service in the regular slot at church, hosting a friend for dinner and other things, the early morning definitely starts to weigh in on wakefulness later in the day. However, while we can manage to get there, we’ll help keep up the tradition, even when the timing of Easter means it starts in darkness or the weather means that the view is just a sea of fog!

4 April 2026
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Sing Around Songs – 4 April 2026

It was another well-attended session today so just two songs from me, both on ukulele. Firstly, I did a version of the piece I duetted on with my friend, Katie, at last week’s concert: Dance Me to the End of Love. I pushed this one from F minor to G minor both for chords which were more resonant on the ukulele and to get the vocal range where I could project better.

I was in pole position so started both halves of the gathering but, just before the break, Carolyn had read a poem inspired by the space mission Artemis that is currently underway so I decided to go with Rocket Man as my second piece. I’m currently reading Bernie Taupin’s autobiography (he wrote the words and Elton John wrote the music) and it is one of those tomes that makes me glad I never became a rock star… but this is another fantastic song.

3 April 2026
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Hot. Cross. Buns.

Until I got to dinner this evening, the only thing I’d eaten all day was hot cross buns. A bun (rather too hot, straight out of the oven) for breakfast, another for elevenses, a couple for lunch and about a quarter of a commercial bun after this afternoon’s reflective service at church. That isn’t a recommended diet and I did have a proper dinner later but it is the day for hot cross buns.

It did get me musing on those words. I realised that I tend to think of them as “hotcrossbuns”, as if it were a single word. However, the truth is that they are buns, with a cross on them (traditionally only the Good Friday batch) that are often served hot (and ideally slathered with salty butter). The one I had for supper tonight wasn’t hot so I probably should have just called that a “cross bun”. Each of the words should be bringing something to the table, otherwise it just becomes a portmanteaux, empty of meaning.

2 April 2026
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Bun Dough

We’ve had a couple of unadorned practise batches recently but it is time to go and put the dough on. Tomorrow is Good Friday, which means all sorts of things but one of our traditions is that it is the day of the year for baking buns and putting the crosses on them. All those new-fangled flavour combinations need not apply!

1 April 2026
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Good Wednesday?

Most churches follow a liturgical calendar around Easter that has the Last Supper on “Maundy Thursday” (where we get our mandatum to love and serve each other), Jesus being arrested and tried overnight, crucified on “Good Friday”, put in a borrowed grave before the Sabbath and resurrected before dawn on “Easter Sunday”. It is a well worn route but some wonder how the time from before sundown on Friday to before sunrise on Sunday can qualify as three days and three nights in “the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40). Unsurprisingly, these questions rise to the fore online at this time of year – this morning, I’ve read a blog post on the chronology of Holy Week and watched a video arguing for supper on Tuesday, death on Wednesday and a three day gap incorporating both a regular Saturday Sabbath but also a special annual Sabbath on the Thursday:

Note that the video is provided by an organisation linked with a church group somewhat on the fringe of traditional Christianity and it doesn’t reference some of key assertions, such as the existence of a “high day” sabbath as well as a regular one. That makes me a little cautious about accepting it as “gospel”.

Speaking of which, I’ve taken time to re-read the relevant passages from all four canonical gospels: Matthew 27:51-28:8; Mark 15:42-16:8; Luke 23:50-24:12; John 19:38-20:10. That doesn’t magically make things clearer. For example, it is clear that Jesus was laid in a tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea on the evening of the day he was crucified and that the Pharisees go to see Pilate on the next day, “the one after the preparation”. Wouldn’t those both be Sabbath activities under either the traditional or the “two Sabbath” chronology?

I spent a bit of time to track down one further passage, John 9:1-41. In that one Jesus gives sight to man who was born blind. Unlike most of the healing miracles, we see a lot of follow up on this one, including an attempted investigation by the Pharisees. They claim they want to know how it was done but “he put mud on my eyes, I washed and now I can see” doesn’t satisfy them. It is almost comedic how they make a futile effort to discredit what has clearly happened while the healed man is resolute in his gratitude to the one who healed him. It makes me reflect that it doesn’t benefit me in the slightest if I put hours into studying the chronology of Holy Week if I’m not living in the light that Jesus has died for my sins, resurrected and now sits in heaven as King of kings, Lord and Saviour.

31 March 2026
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The Bells

One of my favourite YouTubers was a gentleman called Tom Scott. For a number of years he put out frequent, high-quality videos on all sorts of interesting things – often quite niche topics but ones that often appealed to me. Then he declared that he needed to take a break and so he did. I’ve seen him online once or twice recently as a guest on videos by various friends and collaborators of his but this afternoon was his first proper release in a new series he is embarking on where he visits each county in the UK.

You can imagine my delight when he decided to kick off not just in Leicestershire but in Loughborough. Taylors of Loughborough is the UKs only remaining bell foundry and that was where he decided to begin. Watch the video below for an informative video on the casting of bells: