Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in rowanlangley's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
6:26 pm	Holiday memories Let's head to Devon, and courtesy of the You Tube time machine, a chance to share the last sections of my outward rail journey, and also take a trip to Illracombe. Barnstaple line Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bho3N0ykddU Barnstaple line Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBfyeMdhp-E Barnstaple line Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNcqCbAsORI Illfracombe Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW-Nkjrjo_c Illfracombe part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V_FMj66b1k The China Clay trains from Torrington are gone, replaced by cycle traffic on the Sustrans path. Cycles now use much of the line to Illfracombe. Also gone is the air of neglect and decay. The lesson has been learned that shabbiness cost custom. The slow train still runs to Barnstaple, the driver still takes the tokens from the signalman at Crediton. The token is the key to the line, no token, no access, and until the signalman removes the token from the machine, the signal is locked at Danger. Eggsford station has a new owner, no more tickets from this desirable country house. The new signal box, pride of place in the film, is now long gone. The drivers now do part of the signaller’s work - Pull the string at the stop board, wait for the crossing to come down and the white light to show, then proceed at caution to the stop board, walk to the little cabin to ring the signaller at Crediton. "Thank you Driver of 2B25 you may replace the Crediton token. Wait for 2A12 and take the token when I give release." The iron bridge to the town still stands at Barnstaple. The yard now gone, DIY sheds pay, not the railway. All freight now comes self loading on two legs. Not so many empty trains these days. Four coaches on one afternoon train, all rammed with passengers. Too late this revival for onward travel. The new trunk road bars the way west. On two wheels now the onward connection must proceed, weaving under the roads and on to Bideford. The wind is not kind on the estuary. A shelter, shaped like the hull of the boat gives rest to the unfit. The lycra cyclist hammer on regardless, spurning the tea stop by the factory and finding the shelter in the cuttings, the short tunnel and to Instow. The home signal still stands, now permanently On, bringing the cycles to a halt for the level crossing. A plaque records the restoration of the signal box. Rusty track runs by the cycleway. back to sea level, swinging round, the Appledore shipyard on the far bank. The last Shipyard in Britain ? Perhaps. The MV Clansman may ply to the Western Isles, But Appledore not the Clyde was the place of her building. The builders plates tell the story "Fergusson " "Ailsa" "Ailsa-Fergusson" "Fergusson Appledore" consolidation and contraction. The concrete shows the new priorities, The trunk road runs above the estuary, the holiday traffic on the Atlantic Highway has no need now to visit Bideford; those with business in the town please turn off at the roundabout. Not so the two wheeled successors to the railway - tea and scones at the station, a redundant carriage forms the cafe and museum. A short stretch of track bears witness to desire, to restore at least a part of the line. Eternal vigilance pays off, an invading developer kept at bay. Eventually steam may puff along here, keeping the cyclists company. The goods sheds have become the new depots - Hire bikes, bikes of all shapes and sizes, bicycles, Tricycles, tandems, trailers, cycle at the rear, wheelchair at the front, These machines do not fear the end of oil, not for them the doom of global warming. Like a guerrilla army the cycles wait patiently, the exiled king prepares to reclaim the kingdom of the road. One last viaduct and it is time to bid the Torridge farewell for a few now. No more a flat run by the sea, one in a hundred now to Torrington, winding up the valley, cuttings, embankments. the sodium lights now grace the tunnel. China clay, the last lingering customer of the line now moves by road, if any is still quarried hereabouts. Thoughts go beyond the end of the line, a few miles west of here. If we can reach Meldon, then we are on the Plymouth road, slowly creeping to Tavistock, cruelly robbed of its train service in the sixties. Two sizable towns had rails going into Plymouth. What a joke, stop the stub of the line half way between them at a small town on a hill. Why drive six miles and wait for a train in a bus shelter. just as easy to drive all the way. What a waste. But my line goes a different route, onto the minor roads. No A or B classification here for the cycle. The long climb up the slope of the north Devon cliffs takes nine miles. All steady, not much worse than one in fifteen. That would defeat the train, but even with a heavy load the cycle keeps a good pace (with the aid of the wind, it must be said), The last leap up the hills bring speed down, and the clib seems to go on for ever, another mile and still climbing. Still a great corner has been cut, and the Atlantic Highway is welcome to the cars. The Summit at last, the left turn and a mile to the crossroads. Now it is time to wind down, enjoy the speed but remember a few brake tests, the last mile is a steep drop, break a brake cable and you won't need to buy another one. Once again a safe arrival at a much loved location. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 19th, 2009
9:54 pm	Visit from meter fitter first thing, as I have put the grid supply onto economy seven. The times the batteries expire tends to be around 0500 when the heating comes on to warm the house for when i get up for work. There is not a huge amount of sunlight this time of year, so days when the energy collected is very low and outages occur are on the increase. Rather than buy the energy at full punter price, a battery charger and a timeswitch, plus a relay driven from the charge controler so that it only comes on if needed means I purchase the top up energy at a discount. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 17th, 2009
11:06 pm	The Bills ! The Bills ! ... Of the electricity variety. It has been another good generating season, as the bill for the period from 30th March to 1st October shows a total of only 8 units drawn from the public supply. Now the founder of the company from which I purchase electrical energy was doing with wind generators what I am doing with solar, and over the years has built up a reasonable portfolio of wind installations, generally avoiding the sensitive views and environmental area and going for places where there is a degree of public acceptance for wind turbines or where the site is an industrial area such as the Ford factory at Dagenham, Michelin's factory in Dundee, the Avonmouth port complex and other such places. Now while there is strong common interest between us in terms of renewable generation, I am aware that I not the best customer in terms of sales of energy outside the winter period. I have a lot of time for my supplier and have no hesitation is recommending them to potential customers. These are some of the reasons why : 1. profits go back into new generating plant, 2 when one telephones with an enquiry the telephone is answered in the company's headquarters in Stroud, not a call centre, possibly run by a third party which might be anywhere in the world, 3. When one telephones during office hours, I have found the telephone is picked up by a human being, not a menu based answering system. www.ecotricity.co.uk Current Music: Renaissance - From the land of the Rising Sun (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, October 16th, 2009
8:21 am	Damp morning Smells of winter's fertility Decomposition (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
10:09 am	Journey to work Morning mist on the canal. Cycle commute (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 9th, 2009
10:58 pm	when observations all come together... Sitting on the tube going into work, towards the end of the night shift week. Remembering that I now have a few silver hairs. reading through a paper left of the the tube, all about people spending pots of money on a face lift. And realising that there is probably a story behind each wrinkle and line. Noticing the old man on the seat oiposite, and the writinkles on the face And realising how much beauty and dignity was there. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
11:55 pm	Linux Rocks (again) Something in my computer's power supply department had a "Little moment" yesterday. Tonight, while I never managed to get the laptop apart to check around the power connector and sundry other areas, I appear to have re-seated things, chased away the fault for now and it started working again. At first "Open Office" refused to start, saying"Read Only File System". Restarting brought a message during the boot sequence saying "Unclean shutdown detected. Checking file system" It spent a long time at the 70% stage and then exited with some error messages telling of an inconsistency in the file system, FSCK needed to be run manually. It then started a maintenance shell, giving me a command line. Typing fsck sent it on its way checking it came back having nailed three blocks claimed by more than one object. Various errors were then reported with the prompt "fix ? " to which I gave the reply "y" After a few such passes everything seemed to exit reporting all was well. running fsck again brought up a report of no errors, so a control D was typed to restart the system, and everything is back in order again. A backup to a usb key is running in the background, another copy of all my business files and a second one backing up some favourite music. If I decide to buy a new laptop, I think if it has rubbish like vista on it the hard drive will come out (as it will have been selected on price rather than quality by the computer maker / assembler) and a new drive from a source such as RS goes in along with the Ubuntu Live DVD and a proper operating system gets installed. The original disk gets kept for the purpose of playing the signal simulation game Simsig, and nothing else. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
12:59 am	Ending the day with a brew and a quick look around the net. The solar generator here in the Harrow eco-hermitage seems back in kilter after having a big session on the batteries last week, with tea being brewed without any complaint tonight, and the washing machine being run through a rinse and spin cycle sunday night without any undue hassle. (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
8:55 pm	Some musical treats (Comment on this)
Sunday, August 9th, 2009
9:46 pm	Beware the new Pizza firm Not for any sinister reason, but having ordered one of their offerings this evening I end the day close to a very agreeable food induced nap and a certain "Barrel shape". (Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
5:01 pm	Sent to sleep by the sound of the stream next to the tent. Woke to indifferent weather and was on the road by mine. Made an early stop for a fry up before following the road above Loch Tay to a point a few miles west of Kenmore, where a minor road climbs away and runs through the deep valley tro Fortinghall, a well kept village where the kirk yard contains a yew tree reckoned to be the oldest tree in the UK. From Fortinghall the climbing began over the moors to Tummel bridge. One passes another of the Hydro Electric power stations, again one which appears to generate for base load with the river water being diverted by a weir some miles up the valley to follow an aqueduct and then fall through the turbines and back to the main course of the river. A much steeper climb crosses to the next valley, home of a smaller hydro station, which just looks alike a substation building which would be found in a suburban street and a winding road down the valley to glen Garry, at the foot of the 14 mile climb of the Pass of Drumochter and the Highlands. For many years this was a much dreaded part of the ride from Lands End to John of Groats. For fourteen miles one climbs, usually into a headwind, and with no alternative to the trunk road which carries heavy traffic. The sting has now been removed by the creation of a cycle route through the pass as part of the National Cycle Network. For the early parts of the climb the old course of the main road is followed, the road having seen extensive re-alignment and other improvement works in the 1970s, and for the upper reaches a separate path built adjacenet to the road. I enjoyed a late lunch from the stove on the way up, and managed to avoid most of the rain. The summit is marked by a road sign, and a large sign by the adjacent railway lines notes the summit at 1500 feet as the highest point on a mainline railway in the UK. Tea taken in the Dalwhinnie hotel. Correction, Chips taken in the Dalwhinnie hotel. Chips are a healthy part of the cyclists’ diet, where energy content is measured in Kilowatt hours, as expression in calories results in excessive use of printing ink for all the noughts. The descent into the upper spey valley joins the original course of the trunk road, and in one section runs between rows of broad trees, where I met the puncture fairy. There are some patches around these days which are self adhesive, saving the requirement for puncture glue at roadside repairs. Sadly they do not work. Initially adhesion is good, but after an hour the air has forced its way under the patch to the edge and the flat tyre returns, as I discovered the following morning riding in the sun on the backroad to Aviemore. Eventually all six patches in the wee box had been used by teh time I reached Aviemore, where kind cyclist I had met earlier lay in wait with a conventional puncture repair kit. My pack now has two kits, one for me and one to pass on forwards should I meet someone in the same predicament. As a big centre of outdoor pursuits, Aviemore was able to provide a bike shop open on Sundays, and a change of inner tube later the tour continued, first to a light lunch in Aviemore, then a proper lunch stop ten miles down the valley in Carrbridge where the cafes are more sensibly priced, ready for a late afternoon run into Grantown on Spey. The site I visited last time has grown in the intervening fiev years, with many more holiday chalets and mobile homes rather than pitches for touring caravans, and I suspect I had one of the last lightweight pitches on offer. There is definitely money continually put back into the business, as judging from the very well appointed washrooms and showers available. (Comment on this)
Monday, July 20th, 2009
5:13 pm	17th of 7th month (continued) Paused in Braco after the undulating backroad from Dumblane and bought some food in the village shop to couter the hunger knock which had set in. Fell into converstaion with two young people from teh village, both keen photographers, who asked if they cou d retrieve their cameras an do a shoot. I didn't know the sight of a cyclist heavily laoded for camping was a newsworthy event, but good fun none the less and it passed a while while the supplies dealt with the knock and we yarned away for a while. Great craic. Young people I want to see succeed in life as they have what it takes. Took the road over the hills into Comrie for the night. the climb is gentle, it statrs in the lowlands and ends in the highlands as it drops down to the small town of Comrie. I rode around the backroad for a we while and then made for the campsite. 18th of 7th month,. Was woken with a bang at around 0100, a loud clap of thunder. remembering that my pitch was under a tall tree, I adjourned to the shower block for a while. There was no further lightenning or thunder, but I overheard talk in the cafe during teh morning of storms and heavy rains elswhere in the areaovernight. I took the day as a rest day, and road up the alley and around och Earn to Glen ogle, and ground upwadrs on the main road. The otehr side of the valley carried the Callander and Oban Railway line, many parts of which are still visible and now form part of the national Cycle Network. There are frusttrating gaps, as in the years between closure in the 1960s and the growth in converting old railway lines to cycl;eways there were parts of teh trackbed which were sold and wehre it has not proved possible to secure access. The line was born in optimism in the 1860s and construction sped through the southern stretches and then hit the highlands and kept grinding to a halt as the company ran out of capital and had to return to the shareholders to ask for more. For many years the service was by train and then stage coach for the rest of the journey to Oban. Enjoyed a cafe stop in Killin, then re-stocked on food and made camp early at a site on the north side of Loch Tay, a little way north and above the main road. The lightwieght field was quiet, and incldued a stream at the one end. Perfect. (Comment on this)
Friday, July 17th, 2009
10:20 pm	15th 7th Month Left the monastery at around 1900, and rode through the evening to Tushielaw, some 20 miles north to camp. Greeted by barking dogs from the next tent, who brought their owners. Dogs offered lots of affection once scents had been exchanged, and a welcome mug of tea offered by the owners. A civilised night in all. 16th of 7th Month Left fairly smartly and rode over to Montbeneger and then on to the Tweed valley at traquair, and then onto Peebles for coffee and lunch. Peebles has grown a bit over the five years since I was here last; a new industrial and commercial estate has beeen built on the south bank and some estates of new houses. Plodded onwards through the hills, in the sunshine this time. The last trip this way, in March 1993 was in persistent drizzle turning to rain, and a hotel stop in Newbigging, near Carnwarth. This time it was on to afternoon tea in the garden behind the hotel in Carwarth itself, the home of the sculptor of the statue of Bonnie Prince Charlie at the head of Glenfinnan. The campsite near Carstairs was full, so descended to Lanark and the SYHA hostel in New Lanark, a town which was one of the birthplaces of the co-operative movement, the other more famous birthplace being Rochdale and the "Pioneers" with their store taking on the overpriced and poor quality "Tommy Shops" run by the factory owners and selling plain but good quality at fair prices. Lanark is the home of two of Scotland's oldest power stations, built in 1926 with a combined power output if 17 MW. At each station a tilting wear diverts the waters of the Clyde down the pipeline to the tubrine hall. 17th of 7th month The climbing begins outside the hostel front door. There is a pause an hour and a half later at Forth for a fried breakfast in the pub, before resuming the climb past Black Law Wind Farm to Shotts, then the high poits of the Central region around Harthill and Blackridge before the long drop to Falkirk for lunch. The land here has been worked over many times for coal and other minerals, through mining and through open cast methods. Much of the land is used for grazing, there are also many spruce plantations The shape of the hills allow steady winds, making the region a good place for commercial wind installation, while the history of the mining and opencast woking means the land is less sensitive than, for example fells in a National park. The first trip to these parts was in early April 1987 on the way to start a period of work in Glasgow. On that trip the weather was not kind to the towns of Forth and Shotts, with drizzle and mist, strong wind, and grey skies, under which the grey render on the houses does not look inviting. In the July sun things look happier. There is also a sense that the towns have had some tlc over the intervening years. On many houses the render has been replaced or deep cleaned, to a much lighter shade and with contrasts made in the borders around doorways and window openings. The courses of the former railway lines crossing the region can still be made out. On the run into Blackridge the embankment which used to carry the North British route from Glasgow to Edinburgh via Airdrie is still standing, as is the steel girder bridge over the back road, even though the line beyond Airdrie last saw passenger trains at the end of the 1950s. The eastern end was re-openned as far as Bathgate some 20 years ago, and there are proposals to re-open the entire length of the line. From Falkirk the Stirling the route is fairly flat, allowing an increase in speed and a race with the rain clouds, managing to find a congenial tea shop before the worst of the heavy rain. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
7:25 pm	linux still rocks Because i dropped my computer and the hard drive, but thanks to the magic of "Live" DVDs we are still going with the DVD and a USB stick backup. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
5:33 pm	Linux Kicks Ass Bill's especially. Picked up new hard disk this morning. Fitted to machine at lunch time. Booted from the live CD. Set the language to English,(menu comes up automatically) then keyboard to UK (simple selections with the F3 key), then the option titled "Install Linux" Followed the defaults. The installer went to work. Supplied some user data such as time zone, created my account and watched the progress bar. Linux installed by the time I had eaten, with another 13 minutes to copy all my data back from the USB stick. THis is a seriously good piece of software. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
9:35 pm	LINUX ROCKS The knocking noises from the hard disk were indeed its death throes, and eventually response became treacle. A reboot came back with a message that there was no filesystem to boot from Then a reboot came back with no hard disk found - check cable. Then the disk made a few knocking noises and went quiet. Panic ye not. Chat with Bob, who looked up how to spring the discs from these machines, success, so an item for the shopping list tomorrow Dig out a live DVD of Ubuntu 8.10 Post into the drive post USB stick in the back plug into the router Here we are back in business. The nice to have stuff, (some photos and music) are no more, but everything which is important, my notes for a course I give in three weeks time, my records etc are all there on the stick, we can carry on as if nothing happened. Also I hear that one of the Linux mags has a more recent UBUNTU release on the cover disk. No I wont be going to Windows 7. Too many business continuity and disaster recovery issues. Current Mood: smug git (Comment on this)
8:50 pm	The computer has been making the most interesting noises this evening, sounding a bit like the old fashioned floppy drive going thunk thunk thunk thunk. Made a backup of critical data onto a stick. However it seems to have quietened down now and the response has improved. Of note is that Linux's native file system EXT/3 fettles itself on the fly and keeps a journal of everything it does rather than waiting for the user to get hacked of with slow response and launch a defrag programme so what may actually be happening is that the noises are from the EXT/3 file system giving the disc a good fettling (Comment on this)
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
10:18 pm	Back of the net Complete loss of touchscreen control to rather a lot of equipment : Down to a switch which had hung. one power cycle and one 15 minute session with open office to knock together a drawing for the information site should the fault happen again. One dead monitor, must be around 20 years old. "Throw it in the bin, they are very cheap these days ! " No chance. Test through the power supply department, mains switch (double pole) open circuit on the line side. Remove, dismantle, clean, re-assemble, switch now a nice closed circuit on both line and neutral. monitor safety tested and back into service. waste : nil Cost : nil My time is paid for whether I fixed it or condemned it and bought a £100 cheapy so the firm is £100 better off "We fix to sub component level" (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
9:36 am	Tuesday Up early, last bit of packing and to Kings Cross Station and the train to Berwick on Tweed. It is a bit of a shock to the system, but worth it to be leaving London at 0800 as most people are travelling in grudgingly to work. Bless the reservation computer,a table seat and power socket, and as England sped by I was able to do more work on the renewable energy cabin, this time laying out the panel of meters to keep track of the renewable energy systems in the cabin. Mid day, and leave the train at Berwick on Tweed. A quick trundle down the main street to sniff out a café for lunch, but first to St Aidan's Peace Church. The church was founded by retired Church of Scotland minister George Mitchell and his wife Joy in 1987, bringing a disused and derelict church back into use. As its title would suggest its focus is on peace witness and environmental witness, Cafe lunch then onto the road at last, finding a cycle route threading its way round the bypass road and into the B roads westwards, following the North bank of the River Tweed to Coldstream. New housing has sprung up in recent years, but Coldstream retains its basic shape of buildings along one high street. Setting out after tea and cakes to the south of the river one crosses back into England. The trackbed of the railway along the south of the tween can still be seen; two lines converged just to the south of Coldstream , one along the course of the river to Newown st Boswells and the other swinging south towards Wooler and Alnwick. Never generating muh in the way of revenue, the line rose briefly to importance in 1950 when severe floods closed the main east cost route and by 1955 was looking a closure. The terrain is mixed farming in the valley botoms with hills rising aound given to sheep farming ans as one goes south into the Cheviots moorland. Kirk Yetholm and Town Yetholm are some 8 miles beyond Coldstream. Town Yetholm still retains some shops; a general store and a butchers, and both hamlets have a bus every two – three hours to and from Kelso, the nearest town of any appreciable size. Kirk Yetholm has a degree of fame as the north end of the Pennine Way footpath, and the small youth hostel sees a good percentage of its patronage from walkers of this demanding footpath. Certainly there were no civilians and plenty of cycling and walking shoes in evidence. (Comment on this)
Monday, June 8th, 2009
3:36 pm	Some cycling done this weekend, setting out Thursday afternoon after a big job list - voting, paying bills and sorting out overdue repairs to the bicycle. Nothing major, but over the years nuts and bolts rust, bolt holes wear and enlarge and other such deterioration. Some very pleasant sunset clouds to be seen clearing the ridges at the end of the Chiltern hills ready to drop down onto the plains south of Bedford, where i looked up old frinds and spent the night. The Friday was a little disappointing, with cloud and a cold wind for much of the day for the route northwards from Bedford, tanking a cafe fried breakfast, coffee and cakes six miles later, light lunch in the small cafe which is part of a riding school near Sywell and into the hidden parts of Northamptonshire. The railway line which once ran between Northampton and Market Harborough looks as if it has been claimed for a Sustrans route, and it may be sampled on future rides. This trip, however, stuck to the gated narrow lanes through woodland which eventually reach Naseby and the long drop down to Market Harborough for coffee and the train to Chesterfield. (1 Comment |Comment on this)