Alan Williams's Blog, page 36

Quick Links 15th October 2017

Life In General – Had some DIY jobs to do at my Mum’s house this week. Her curtain pole had become detached, so after the application of some glue and new screws I managed to get that fixed back up again. There were a couple of other things to do while I was there too.

I had to replace a headlight bulb on the car this week, after recovering from the shock of how much a new bulb is (£35), it took me the best part of an hour to make the change. It’s interesting that the autopart store offered t...

Quick Links 8th October 2017

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Life In General – I had to spend an afternoon fixing the garage door again this week. I think I might have said that I wasn’t certain that I had put enough tension in the spring at the last repair, well I was right. It didn’t take me all that long to put right, and I was a lot quicker second time around!

We had a nice afternoon walk alongside a local river. I’m not sure what it’s actually called, and it doesn’t appear to be named on any of my maps. It was a nice sunny autumn afternoon, and m...

Runnin’ Down A Dream

It would have been the summer of about 1990 or 1991 and I was mowing lawns to earn a little money, and listening to “Full Moon Fever” on my cassette walkman [turned up loud so I could hear it over the mower engine].

Quick Links 1st October 2017

Life In General – I get a bit of a sense of deja vu for what I’ve been up to this week, being very much like last week. A few family things with my Mum, including getting her back to driving again following her knee replacement – a milestone achieved. Otherwise I’ve been at home working (see below), and nothing really exciting to report.

[image error]I did get to try the gherkins that I pickled a month ago. There are mixed views on how long you should leave them before trying, but I went for a straight mo...

Third Quarter Review 2017

Each year for the past few years I’ve been doing a year end review; last year I split that across the year, doing one at the end of each quarter. This year I’m going to try and do the same as last and do a quarterly review – books I’ve read, films/TV programmes I’ve watched and other things related to life, work and the allotment. The 2017 Quarter One Review is here and Quarter Two is here if you’re interested.

Work – The third quarter has continued in the way quarter two went – a lot of eff...

Quick Links 24th September 2017

Life In General.

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I’ve spent some time making chutney and jam this week. As you’ll know we’ve had a bumper crop of apples, and also have a few large pumpkins, so I’ve been focusing on what I can do with one or both of those. So I’ve made pumpkin and apple chutney and pumpkin and ginger jam. We’ve also had some roast pumpkin to go with various meals – still plenty of pumpkin left!

I’ve also been looking at an old (c.1974) map of my area, and comparing it to a more recent – but still 12 years o...

Quick Links 17th September 2017

Life In General. – A busy week this week, several appointments with my Mum, including a follow up with the physiotherapists at the hospital, all is going well with her knee.

The parts for the garage door arrived, and I managed to get it repaired – I may need to add a little more tension into the spring – and it was quite straight forward. I’ve also got a new handle for my broken hammer, but haven’t had a chance to fit that.

[image error]The mornings have been cold and misty, and I’ve even starting wearing...

Quick Links 10th September 2017

Life In General. – I’ve had a touch of man-flu the second-half of the week, so haven’t been feeling like doing much at all, although life hasn’t given me an opportunity to slow down that much. When I get sick I always seem to have quite vivid dreams, and that has certainly been true this time – some really odd dreams – a part mixture of reality and complete oddness.

We’ve also managed to break a few things this week – they say these things come in threes, and I hope these are my three – the t...

Quick Links 3rd September 2017

Life In General. – A Bank Holiday week, and the end of another month! I’ve been doing quite a bit more baking this week with an aim to trying to use up some our apple crop. Both Dorset Apple Cake and Apple & Walnut muffins have been made and consumed, and barely has the Apple crop been reduced.

Click to view slideshow.

In other news there has been a lot of family stuff going on, that I’m not going to be talking about here. In fact I may well take a break from writing on the blog completely fo...

Quick Links 27th August 2017

Life In General. – It’s been a relatively quiet week for me, I’ve had a few things to do for my Mum, including taking her shopping – it’ll be at least another 3 weeks until she can drive again – but she is up to going around the supermarket under her own steam which is a good thing. I’ve also been trying to make a dent on some of the jobs that need doing in her garden. The lawns are a regular task, but there are other things that need doing at this time of the year.

We did manage to sneak an...