rowanlangley

Holiday memories

2009-11-04T19:08:21Z

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.

rowanlangley @ 2009-10-19T21:54:00

2009-10-19T20:57:36Z

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.

The Bills ! The Bills !

2009-10-17T22:32:08Z

... 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

rowanlangley @ 2009-10-16T08:21:00

2009-10-16T07:23:17Z

Damp morning
Smells of winter's fertility
Decomposition

rowanlangley @ 2009-10-13T10:09:00

2009-10-13T09:17:12Z

Journey to work
Morning mist on the canal.
Cycle commute

when observations all come together...

2009-10-09T22:01:00Z

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.

Linux Rocks (again)

2009-09-16T23:05:55Z

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.

rowanlangley @ 2009-09-02T00:59:00

2009-09-02T00:01:05Z

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.

Some musical treats

2009-08-13T19:57:08Z

Beware the new Pizza firm

2009-08-09T20:48:25Z

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".

linux still rocks

2009-07-08T18:26:24Z

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.

Linux Kicks Ass

2009-06-30T16:39:27Z

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.

LINUX ROCKS

2009-06-24T21:44:45Z

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.

rowanlangley @ 2009-06-24T20:50:00

2009-06-24T20:04:31Z

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

Back of the net

2009-06-22T21:23:41Z

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"

rowanlangley @ 2009-06-08T15:36:00

2009-06-08T14:45:09Z

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.

Democracy : The Grunt work

2009-06-02T08:12:22Z

Election Agents' meeting last night with Harrow Electoral Service Manager.

preparation for the count for the European Elections. A very thorough plan in place, firstly for verification, and ensuring the number of papers in the count matches the number of ballot papers issued in the polling stations, then the mechanics of sorting by candidate, of which there are 19 on the ballot papers.

Electronics can count without error, but it cannot be watched while to counting, which is the greates argument against voting by machine, whiloe humns make mistakes, drop papers and so forth, but a team of humans sorting and bundling ballot papers can be watched sorting and bundling ballot papers. The process can be verified to be a true count.

An Engineer in Hell

2009-05-30T04:48:09Z

An engineer died and reported to the pearly gates. An intern angel, filling in for St. Peter, checked his dossier and grimly said, "Ah, you're an engineer; you're in the wrong place."

So the engineer was cast down to the gates of hell and was let in. Pretty soon, the engineer became gravely dissatisfied with the level of comfort in hell, and began designing and building improvements. After a while, the underworld had air conditioning, flush toilets, and escalators, and the engineer was becoming a pretty popular guy among the demons.

One day, God called Satan up on the telephone and asked with a sneer, "So, how's it going down there in hell?"

Satan laughed and replied, "Hey, things are going great. We've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and there's no telling what this engineer is going to come up with next."

God's face clouded over and he exploded, "What? You've got an engineer? That's a mistake; he should never have gotten down there; send him up here."

Satan shook his head, "No way. I like having an engineer on the staff, and I'm keeping him."

God was as mad as he had ever been, "This is not the way things are supposed to work and you know it. Send him back up here or I'll sue."

Satan laughed uproariously, "Yeah, right. And just where are YOU going to get a lawyer?"

Source : http://www.basicjokes.com/djoke.php?id=526

Grattitude

2009-05-24T19:02:56Z

I have just put out a plate of steamed vegetables which smell fantastic
I have enjoyed a day cycling in the countryside with my local cycling club.
I have been able to draft a comprehensive report for the board of trustees on which a serve covering progress to date with revising our trust deed, the advice just received from the Charity Commission and a way I believe will square up what we need to do with the deed and the advice received on how best to go about it.

Plus the sun has been out all day.
I used a lot of electricity yesterday with a machine wash, two meals cooked, several brew ups and four hours or more on the computer and todays sun has put it all back into the energy store free of charge.

Chillout day

2009-05-23T18:59:30Z

Woke with the alarm and realised that today was a day I needed to settle various invoices presented by mind and body. Tell tale sign is being able to lie in bed, putting attention on the outbreath and feelon descend comfortably and away off for s short sleep, often with dreaming.

Showed off the solar electric system to on of my neihbours and a friend visiting him from Jamaica. Visitors well impressed when told the house runs without the grid between March and October and only takes top up energy off the grid over winter. We started doing back of the envelope stuff for a system for our visitors house which he had built back home in Jamaica. I confess a little envy over the site - steady sea winds and sunshine nearly every day apart from the hurricane season where there are spells of a couple of days wind and rain followed by power outages until all the overhead lines are put back together.

Spent a dozy afternoon as well, which has done me much good, and I anticipate being on good form for going out with the cycling club tomorrow.

Home again

2009-05-21T11:00:06Z

The week in Scotland was busy, being a working holiday doing consulting engineer type work on a Pro Bono basis followed by plumbing and electrical works to put right some of the many faults and design defects in a five year old solar hot water system which hadn't worked since installation.

It was an interesting example of how a big construction firm and firm of consulting engineers can score fine in the big overal scheme of getting the buildings up, but fall down badly if taking on unfamiliar technology, where things would have been better subbed out entirely to a smaller specialist operation. There is a write up over on http://community.livejournal.com/green_power_gen/

Cute photos

2009-05-10T21:41:05Z

Here is the cat who sometimes come to visit
(Usually when her staff are out)

Somedays I think I am losing the plot

2009-05-10T12:34:20Z

Went to work on wednesday, tube plus bike for speed and was bang on time.

Rummage in pocket for ID card which will open the gate. No ID card.

Lock bike to railings, go to main reception, sign in there and get temporary pass.

Unlock bike. go to another entrance wher security can let me in the first gate, so i at least don't have to leave teh bike on the street.

Lock bike up, look down and see my ID card has been clipped safely on a belt loop, where it tends to live all the time on my work trousers.

Curse then laugh, but at least can now bring bike through all the levels of gates and lock up in the bike shed inside the site.

Bank holiday

2009-05-04T09:40:22Z

No work today.
Lay in bed till nine, then up and the daily meditation period.
Daily update to the online journal,while Ubuntu Update manager is updating bits of the computer.

Hazy sunshine outside, being enjoyed by my next door neihbour while on the phone.
Tea to start the day, brewed as usual on solar electricity.

Music
"Carpet of the Sune " by Renaissance (appropriate to play in a house taking its electricity from the sun rather than the grid) and
"Openning Out" also by Renaissance"

Various songs by Stan Rogers

It must be a very quiet news day today

2009-05-03T21:22:55Z

The "News of the World" chose to run what they thought was an expose on a person who is a personal friend, a person for whom I have a great deal of respect.

In many ways the news of the world article has been a failure. My friends tread the wise middle way between hiding away and in ones face disclosure, so their choices are open but never forced on anyone or made public where such disclosure in inappropriate or gratuitous. As a result there is nothing out of which the paper can build a scandal.

The majority of the comments posted by readers of the online version of the article appeared supportive while others poked fun at politicians and the shallower world of television.

For one I am proud to have the lady and gentleman who were subjected to the unnecessary attentions of the newspaper as my friends.

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/287046/Location-star-Kirstie-Allsopp-rents-out-cottage-near-SampM-dungeon-owned-by-Ms-Demmimdashreal-name-Nicola-Brown-in-Welcombe-Mouth.html