Marty

Sleep well, Mr B!

Uhm, we don't have walrus in Denmark, unless you're thinking about Greenland. So seeing one outside zoos, is major news here. But we do occasionally see young males on beaches in North Jutland and yes there was one here in February (only the fifth seen since 1900) https://nyheder.tv2.dk/lokalt/2021-02-17-hvalros-dukket-op-paa-dansk-strand-det-er-noget-af-en-sensation Expand Yes, I'm fairly sure that is the one that the biologist on Irish radio was talking about. I remember him saying that the one spotted in Kerry, Ireland, was definitely not the same one that had been spotted in Denmark a number of weeks earlier, as it had much longer tusks, and was therefore much older than the Denmark one. Seems the walrus that was spotted off the west coast of Ireland has now moved to the Welsh coast... https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0320/1205199-kerry-arctic-walrus-wales/?fbclid=IwAR087fiD8m_zYF0K4-80QqGzAQ1QvPK6rXoRfxP5jNs-ViwwB0UjUAYiutc

Ah, sure, you know yourself! I'm fair, and the best of us are only middling. That really needs to be read as though it is being spoken with a real Irish accent. And it basically means "Good, thanks." ----- We're still celebrating the fact that we gave England a beating in the Rugby Six Nations championship match yesterday. (Points: Ireland 32 ; England 18)

Hi, Gary! All well in Gary-land?

Greetings, young Albert!

Uhm, we don't have walrus in Denmark, unless you're thinking about Greenland. So seeing one outside zoos, is major news here. But we do occasionally see young males on beaches in North Jutland and yes there was one here in February (only the fifth seen since 1900) https://nyheder.tv2.dk/lokalt/2021-02-17-hvalros-dukket-op-paa-dansk-strand-det-er-noget-af-en-sensation Yes, I'm fairly sure that is the one that the biologist on Irish radio was talking about. I remember him saying that the one spotted in Kerry, Ireland, was definitely not the same one that had been spotted in Denmark a number of weeks earlier, as it had much longer tusks, and was therefore much older than the Denmark one.

There's over half an hour of daylight left. I'll rest after a bit of gardening.

Delayed greetings back at you, young Albert! (Sorry - was hosting a Zoom session this past two hours)

Greetings, Page. All good with you and yours?

Indeed! Makes me wonder what else may be buried in the garden. (Just as long as I don't start unearthing human body parts...)

Hey, bro and Mum. Sunny and 3 degrees here. Supposed to get up to 11 C today. Currently 10°C/50°F here at 1:45pm. Sun finally making its appearance, so it may improve by a few degrees. And even if it doesn't, it always feels warmer in the sunshine. Greetings, Gary!

At 09:37 UTC today the sun was perpendicular over the equator. This was the equinox, the moment when day and night will be exactly 12 hours each over the whole world. North of the equator this is the vernal (spring) equinox, and between now and midsummer's day the hours of daylight will be getting longer. In Britain the vernal equinox officially marks the first day of spring (unlike Ireland where St Bridget's day, on February 1st, is considered to be the first day of spring). The equinox, the seasons, and the changing length of daylight hours throughout the year are all due to one fact: the earth spins on a tilted axis. The tilt - possibly caused by a massive object hitting Earth billions of years ago - means that for half the year, the North Pole is pointed toward the sun. For the other half of the year, the South Pole gets more light. It’s what gives us seasons. Happy equinox everybody!

You beat me to it, bro!

It is. It originally led out into the rear yard of the village shop. I couldn't reopen it, even if I wanted to, as there have been stones laid in the rear yard of the shop that now cover the lower couple of feet of the doorway. I could try insisting that these stones be removed, but that might involve a lot of legal hassle, and perhaps a falling out with my neighbour; something I wouldn't really want to happen. Those stones were only laid down in the past 5 years or so, and I actually watched that happen at the time, not realising that the cottage actually belonged to the property that I would eventually purchasing. Just out of interest, here's a screenshot from a Google Street View looking down to the rear of the shop taken in 2009, where you can see that doorway (the nearest one in the photo), before the stones were laid... (I was renting the nearest house with the red door when the stones were being laid) And here's a closer view of the cottage from the back of the shop that I took a few minutes ago. The doorway in question is the right-hand one (behind the bushes). The other doorway led into the smaller of the two ground floor rooms of the old cottage. I may eventually reopen the upper parts of both doorways and put windows in, to let more light into the cottage. If I ever do get round to that, I will probably reinstate the window to the upper floor as well.

I've gotten used to digging up stones, some of them quite large, as I have been tidying the garden this past twelve months. However, I really struggled with one today. I was trying to remove an old tree stump from beside the door leading into the upper floor of the old two story stone cottage. It was a case of using the crow bar to lever the stump from side to side to try and loosen the roots, and digging down to expose side roots so I could saw through them or break them with the hatchet. Every now and then I would find a large stone in the way, and it would occasionally prove quite difficult to remove it. I came across one stone, maybe a foot (30cm) deep that proved exceptionally difficult. It was right up against the main root of the stump, which meant I was finding it hard to drive the crow bar between it and the root in order to try to lever it out of the way. It was also the biggest stone I have come across so far. After a lot of grunting and heaving (and uttering a number of quite rude words), I finally managed to lever it upright... It turned out to be an almost perfectly round and flat stone, about 21 inches (53cm) in diameter, and 3 inches (7.5cm) thick. It has also been dressed (chiselled) and looks almost as though it may have been a millstone, apart from the fact that there is no hole in the centre of it. I'm not sure exactly what it may have been used for, but think it may have been part of some garden ornament. Whatever it is, it's extremely heavy and, even after finally removing the tree stump, proved difficult to actually get out of the hole. When the damp earth on it has dried, I'll clean it off and see if I can work out what it may have been used for.

It might not start until much later this year, though, when hopefully the camera club can meet in their usual meeting room instead of having to meet over Zoom...

Week 51 of 52 monochrome photo (only one more week to go)... It's a view through one of the ground floor doorways of the old stone cottage in my back garden. I tried something technically a wee bit different this week, and used what's known as "bracketing" - where several different shots, each using a different amount of exposure, are taken of the same scene, and then software used to blend the different shots together. The idea behind it is that some of the shots are exposed perfectly for the brighter parts of the shot (the outside wall of the cottage in this example), but underexposed (and therefore much too dark) for the darker parts (the room inside the doorway in this example). Conversely, other shots in the sequence may be exposed long enough to show the detail inside the doorway, but these would completely overexpose the outside wall, leaving it just a white expanse with no detail in it. The software uses AI (Artificial Intelligence) to analyse the different shots in the sequence, and then attempts to create one final image from them that reveals all the details - both in the darker areas and the lighter ones. In this instance I took three shots. One at the exposure that the camera assumed to be the correct one for the overall light hitting the sensor, and then one overexposed by a full stop, followed by one underexposed by a full stop. It might sound really technical, but it's really not too difficult in practice.

Oh, I'm not so sure about that in Val's case... The way she told the story, I got the impression she was secretly (or maybe even openly) chatting the officer up...

In other news (@clochette may have already heard about this)...... French police's MDMA haul was actually strawberry sweets Extract: A MAJOR HAUL of the drug MDMA [Ecstasy] announced by the Paris police this week has turned out to be nothing more sinister than strawberry sweets, sources said Friday. The Paris police headquarters said on Twitter on Wednesday that it had a “fruitful investigation” of “a narcotics packaging workshop (MDMA, ecstasy) which supplied clandestine parties”. The police said their drug haul was worth around a million euros. Source: https://www.thejournal.ie/mdma-strawberry-sweets-5386843-Mar2021/

I'm fortunate in that I have ever suffered any side-effects from metformin. My current doctor took me off it for twelve months around four years or so back. My blood sugar levels rose ever so slightly over the next two blood test he took (six months apart), so he put me back on it as a precaution. Every time he takes blood he says my sugar level is perfect, and that if he didn't know I was diabetic, he wouldn't know looking at the results. I'm thinking that if he says the same thing after the next test, I may suggest to him that I try going drug free again... I should have had bloods taken back in January. The doctor put those off at the time, due to concerns over possible Covid-19 infection risks. He told me on the telephone that, as I have been managing the diabetes so well, he had no concern about delaying the tests in my case. We are hoping to see an easing of restrictions after Easter, so I may give him a ring and see if we can get those tests done.

Scofflaw... Never come across that word before. I'm thinking it probably means she like to scoff at the law...

I think we were both guilty of that.

I decided to check my blood sugar as a result of this chat. It reads 8.8 mmols/l (I think they use a different measurement your side of the Pond). That's just little higher than I would prefer, but I did have a slice of banana cake not too long ago. I like to keep it under 8. Usually, if I test it first thing in the morning, before breakfast it is between 4 and 5. If I test it an hour or two after a meal, it is normally between 6 and 7. My doctor did tell me about 4 months after my diagnosis that I am allowed to treat myself at times. I think she was worried that I was losing weight a little too quickly.

Ah! I assume now that when you said "no blood test so far" you meant no blood sugar test kit. I think I took you up wrong to begin with.