Parasol repair
Dec. 10th, 2025 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlode
(click to view entire image)I managed to repair an old lace parasol (not 'vintage', I think, as the inside had plastic parts) by cutting down and lashing on a cut-down rawlplug to replace the missing wooden tip, so that the canopy extended under the appropriate tension when unfolded.
Ideally it would have been a wooden rawlplug for a better match, but I couldn't find one in my collection of scraps and wasn't about to go out on a hunt for an entire new packet of rawlplugs :-p
I lashed and whipped the edge of the lace canopy fairly securely through the split in the 'tip' (held together chiefly by the whipping!)
Now I just need to find an appropriate recipient, i.e. a lady who thinks a lace parasol is pretty and doesn't object to the fact that it has been 'rescued'...
Unpacking trunks
Dec. 10th, 2025 05:05 amigenlodeI finally completed (well, mostly; a sizeable amount of it is still strewn over the foot of my bed to be burrowed under in search of sleep) the Great Changeover, possibly at the latest ever date; I generally seem to be pushed into it by mid-November, but it just hasn't been all that cold this autumn, and I have been successfully existing in multiple layers of midweight clothing [edit: and hot water bottles!]
I only really did it tonight as a means of procrastination of my music practice -- which then duly didn't happen at all, since I spent the next three or four hours playing around with a video of Veniamin Smekhov talking about Vladimir Vysotsky...
I only really did it tonight as a means of procrastination of my music practice -- which then duly didn't happen at all, since I spent the next three or four hours playing around with a video of Veniamin Smekhov talking about Vladimir Vysotsky...
More light tests, and salad
Dec. 9th, 2025 06:39 pmigenlodeI left my front light on low beam for over 24 hours, and it was still on when I got back, albeit showing the low battery warning -- and despite that warning, I was still able to switch it off and then switch it back on again. So leaving the light switched on inside my bag when I'm not on the bicycle is probably a safe solution, albeit a slightly bizarre one!
My final batch of windowsill spring onion stubs are all dying off after being planted out despite having initially sent up new shoots; it is presumably either too cold or too wet for them to establish outdoors. The two survivors from the original set are fine, albeit slightly nibbled by snails...
The winter purslane is living up to its name and continuing to produce new salad leaves that I can harvest, although I think the sorrel and rocket have slowed down a lot, if not stopped regrowth altogether. The mint has died down to dry sticks, which I need to remember to trim when I get the opportunity, or they will get in the way of picking the new shoots next year :-p
The garlic that I planted is thriving, and the second clove that I put in nearby, which initially had its shoot emerging almost horizontally in response to conditions in the vegetable rack, has now miraculously straightened itself out and is heading for the sky.
And I did eventually get round to rigging up a new washing-line, having had the inspiration of taking *three* turns around the railing before making the half-hitches instead of the standard two, thus making it much easier to keep it taut while completing the knot!
My final batch of windowsill spring onion stubs are all dying off after being planted out despite having initially sent up new shoots; it is presumably either too cold or too wet for them to establish outdoors. The two survivors from the original set are fine, albeit slightly nibbled by snails...
The winter purslane is living up to its name and continuing to produce new salad leaves that I can harvest, although I think the sorrel and rocket have slowed down a lot, if not stopped regrowth altogether. The mint has died down to dry sticks, which I need to remember to trim when I get the opportunity, or they will get in the way of picking the new shoots next year :-p
The garlic that I planted is thriving, and the second clove that I put in nearby, which initially had its shoot emerging almost horizontally in response to conditions in the vegetable rack, has now miraculously straightened itself out and is heading for the sky.
And I did eventually get round to rigging up a new washing-line, having had the inspiration of taking *three* turns around the railing before making the half-hitches instead of the standard two, thus making it much easier to keep it taut while completing the knot!
Flash tests
Dec. 8th, 2025 10:27 amigenlodeI have spent the last couple of days running tests on my USB bike lights to try to work out what they will and will not safely do ( Read more... )
So my provisional conclusions, from what I can remember of my test data, are that it should be perfectly safe to cycle for, say, an hour and a half, spend a few hours on various other activities and then cycle home again, provided you don't attempt to switch the lights *off* in the interim :-O Which means having them flashing away in the bottom of your bag in the cinema, say, and hoping it is sufficiently lightproof -- obviously you can't leave the bike parked and drawing attention to itself outside with the lights left on. It is the trauma of starting up on high-beam that seems to flatten a battery that should in theory have hours of continuing power left in it.
Alternatively, it would probably work if you can remember to switch them off briefly every half-hour or so while riding, which seems to contradict the previous result.
( Difference between tests and reality )
So my provisional conclusions, from what I can remember of my test data, are that it should be perfectly safe to cycle for, say, an hour and a half, spend a few hours on various other activities and then cycle home again, provided you don't attempt to switch the lights *off* in the interim :-O Which means having them flashing away in the bottom of your bag in the cinema, say, and hoping it is sufficiently lightproof -- obviously you can't leave the bike parked and drawing attention to itself outside with the lights left on. It is the trauma of starting up on high-beam that seems to flatten a battery that should in theory have hours of continuing power left in it.
Alternatively, it would probably work if you can remember to switch them off briefly every half-hour or so while riding, which seems to contradict the previous result.
( Difference between tests and reality )
Some comprehension progress -- and a Russian book
Dec. 8th, 2025 12:42 amigenlodeI randomly listened to one of the chunks of the four-part "27 Years After" Soviet Musketeers documentary ( and I can definitely understand a lot more of it than I could what I first encountered it )
† I was extremely excited to discover a couple of weeks ago that "When I Was Athos" was actually about to be republished in print form via a crowdfunding scheme, having, according to the funding blurb, only been available in 'samizdat' form -- I stumbled across it while chasing his Kino-horoscope back in June, via an unlinked reference on an old Livejournal blog entry about the making of the film, and by a massive coincidence had pretty much just finished reading my way with incredible slowness through the online version a couple of days before I heard the news.( Read more... )
† I was extremely excited to discover a couple of weeks ago that "When I Was Athos" was actually about to be republished in print form via a crowdfunding scheme, having, according to the funding blurb, only been available in 'samizdat' form -- I stumbled across it while chasing his Kino-horoscope back in June, via an unlinked reference on an old Livejournal blog entry about the making of the film, and by a massive coincidence had pretty much just finished reading my way with incredible slowness through the online version a couple of days before I heard the news.( Read more... )
Ballad dump
Dec. 5th, 2025 12:39 amigenlodeArchiving in their current form the verses that I've got so far, mainly because I've been carrying them around so much that the pencilled translations are starting to wear off (and for some irrational reason I find myself still reluctant to write over the various versions in ink...)
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
Bike lights
Dec. 4th, 2025 12:19 amigenlodeMy front bike light started reporting low charge and then went out altogether on my way home tonight, although it can't have been on for more than a couple of hours; most USB-charged lights are normally rated for at least three hours on maximum beam, and for what I knew was going to be a long journey I was deliberately using this one on what should have been its lowest power consumption, the slow flash mode :-( ( Read more... )
Fic progress
Dec. 1st, 2025 11:49 pmigenlodeI have now finished rough-typing the first chapter of "Little Gentlemen" and have reached the tweaking stage; it is looking quite good to me at the moment, which is probably due to the fact that it is now about six weeks since I wrote this chapter :-p ( Length and chapter titles )
I thought I had a translation for the next verse of the nautical ballad -- which really ought to be entitled something along the lines of "The Little Cabin-Boy" rather than "The Tale of the Tipsy Gunner"; I can only assume that it's supposed to be a story being told by the narrator in his cups-- but unfortunately I came up with the solution while walking home in the rain, which meant that I couldn't safely get the manuscript out. And when I came to write it down I found I had managed to forget what the word I'd come up with to end the third line was :-p
( Read more... )
I thought I had a translation for the next verse of the nautical ballad -- which really ought to be entitled something along the lines of "The Little Cabin-Boy" rather than "The Tale of the Tipsy Gunner"; I can only assume that it's supposed to be a story being told by the narrator in his cups-- but unfortunately I came up with the solution while walking home in the rain, which meant that I couldn't safely get the manuscript out. And when I came to write it down I found I had managed to forget what the word I'd come up with to end the third line was :-p
( Read more... )