Highland Cattle at Norsey Meadow

 The Meadow is closed.  Despite what it says on the notices, when the Highland cattle are there, the meadow is not open to the public.  This appears to have something to do with idiots and horns. Idiots, because people have tried to feed them things they're not supposed to eat.  Cows eat grass, I thought that was obvious, just leave them to it.  Horns, because the horns are both awesome and terrifying at the same time.  The lady grooming them has received bruises from contact with the horns.  Having said all that, go and see them.  They are due to move to Hannikins soon, and are expected back in the Meadow in September.

 

We're going on a bear hunt

Well, actually a cow hunt, and we've been.  It was significantly less dangerous than a bear hunt.  It has it's own hazards, of course, but no more rambling (pun intended).

Our destination is Mill Meadows, Billericay (just up the road for us).  They have recently introduced Aberdeen Angus cattle.  Here are some of the pictures I took as we wandered around.  The pictures are in reverse order, so the cows are at the bottom of this post, because we found them very quickly. 

The birdsong was amazing, we used 'Merlin' to identify the birds: Wren, Blackbird, Robin, Blackcap, Song Thrush, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Greenfinch, Chiffchaff

The hedge bordering the Southend Road, I think it's mainly Blackthorn, always lovely in early spring.

A dandelion, supporting insect wildlife, and bringing so bright colours to the meadow.

Broom, another plant contributing to the colours in the Meadow.

The Oak Tree is dominant on the left, but has competed with something else on the right.

Picnickers on the other side of the valley, we can hear voices, but not words

Aberdeen Angus, mother cow

Aberdeen Angus youngsters (no horns)

The cows are looked after by 'cow checkers', who visit regularly to ensure they are healthy.  this was true when the Red Poll were in Mill Meadows too.  We met one, he was collecting rubbish in a bag.  As he approached the cows they assumed the bag contained food and gathered round.  Was that a cunning plan, or just good fortune?  There are new water troughs, only the ones where the cows are have water in them, the water doesn't look very pleasant to the human eye, but for cows I expect it is fine.

Allotment 27 March 2025 and 11 April 2025

We visited the allotment on 27 Mar 2025

 

Before

After: The digging is complete and the potatoes have been planted

.

 

 Our next visit was 11 April 2025 (too long!)

Before

We pruned the pear tree (which should have been done last month), dug the vegetable patch and the flower patch at he other end, and did some general weeding.

Whitstable in April - Tuesday 8th

Yesterday we had just missed the sailing of the "The Chieftain", a 1920s lifeboat.  Today the tour around the bay was the first order of the day. 

After another big breakfast, we headed down to the harbour.  We had done a lot of walking yesterday (for me), so decided to take the bus.  There are three buses that cover that route.  My bus pass didn't work on the first one, but after the driver examined it more closely we were allowed to travel.  

Arriving at the harbour, we booked our tour, chatted to the staff and made friends with more Labradors.  Today, the wind has dropped a little, so the trip is more pleasant than it would have been yesterday.  While waiting, we also watch aggregate being unloaded from a ship.  The company at the end of the harbour makes asphalt.  Once on board, almost taking a dog with us (apparently he does go out on tours sometimes), we enjoyed a commentary about the harbour, the boat, and Whitstable in general.

Views of Whitstable from the boat

In the afternoon, we travelled to Broadstairs.  We had been advised that it was better than either Margate or Ramsgate.  It was a lovely afternoon, after a light lunch in the Albion Hotel, we walked along the sand and looked for evidence of the old funicular railway.  We sat on a terrace, drank tea and watched the gulls.  I had done more than enough walking.  Other birds included parakeets, but they went before I could get a photo, of confirm their calls with the 'Merlin' app. We also found out how expensive the beach loungers are, so we moved on.

A turnstone, possibly a young one

A recovered figurehead from "The Scotsman" on the old lifeboat house.

A herring gull

 

Part of the beach at Viking Bay, Broadstairs, with Bleak House in the background.

To round out the day, and because we hadn't yet had fish and chips, we ate here:

We had decided a while ago that we would not try oysters.  There is too much going on to suffer an upset stomach.

Whitstable in April - Monday, 7th

After a nice breakfast, we headed into town once again.  This time we kept going, because on the other side of town is 'Whitstable Castle'. Our host called it a folly.  It is really only a large house, built in the late 1700s and the garden was originally an industrial site.  The garden was very nice, the roses looked particularly healthy, but are, of course, not in bloom yet.

Whitstable Castle Gate house.

Whitstable Castle Welcome Board

The Castle and Tearooms

The Castle Garden, looking to the bowling green

We sat outside, even though it was quite chilly in the shade, watched the children play, and made a fuss of a Labrador. 

Then it was back to town, we had lunch in "The Tudor Tearooms".  I went in for the crab cakes.  While the meal was good, and the service excellent, the crab cakes themselves were lacking the essential crab flavour.  It meant that we had had two large meals in succession.  

Another of the oddities on the way back to the B&B is this creature (?).  I couldn't get a picture yesterday because the light was all wrong, but today in the early afternoon with a carefully chosen angle, here it is.

We bought some light food for dinner and drove to Herne Bay, where we had a drink in "The Ship", then sat in the car and watched the sun go down. Several people got in the way of this shot, so it is my first attempt that survived. The road we are parked on is next to the sea wall. There is a prohibition against parking on the sea wall (you'd need wheels the size of tractor wheels to get up there!). The road is narrow and has a 20MPH speed limit. Cars were passing us at probably double that, our car moved as they passed. It was lovely watching the sun go down, but I didn't feel that safe. We drove back home in the dark. There is nothing else to do in the evenings on Monday's and Tuesday's.

 

Whitstable in April - Sunday, 6th

Our only chance of a break comes at the beginning of the Easter Holidays. So we have booked ourselves into a B&B. After church on Sunday, we make our escape. The weather forecast is good, dry and sunny for the whole week. It's only about an hour to Whitstable, and travelling after 3pm on a Sunday afternoon is a good time - the traffic is light. When we arrive at the B&B we have to find our nominated parking space. We have been warned that they are small, so driving down Norfolk Street, (a very narrow road with cars parked down the left-hand side) we get to the parking space and turning into it is not possible. From our space onwards, the cars are parked on the right. I drove down to the end of the road, turn around, and return. Now there is room to turn in. Each time we do this, we will have to use the same procedure. The room is lovely, just what I was expecting. We are given the guided tour by our host, and then left tour own devices. 

At this time of year, there's still plenty of light left, so we stroll into town. There are a few interesting things to see on the way into town.  The first is this diver on the railway bridge, and soon after a tribute to Somerset Maugham.

Further on there is the "Peter Cushing", a Weatherspoons Pub.  After a walk around the harbour, we had dinner in the Duke of Cumberland.  A nice well cooked meal, with good service.  Then back to the B&B to try to get some sleep.  We are not used to sleeping next to a main road, so our night was a little disturbed.

Woodbridge and Sutton Hoo

The half-term holiday provided an opportunity for a long weekend.  On Friday morning we booked a hotel - The Grove House for three nights.  On Friday afternoon, we arrived there after a little over an hour's drive and settled in.  That evening, we ate dinner at The Fox, down some very narrow, dark roads in a village just outside Woodbridge.

Saturday

We visited Sutton Hoo, where in 1939 they discovered an Anglo-Saxon boat burial.  For once, the National Trust has done a great job on the site.  We looked around the ground floor of the house, displaying the story of the dig, a dramatic story of warring archaeologists, if you believe the film "The Dig".  But the real drama was the time pressure cause by the impending war with Germany.  These were politer times, with more reasonable attitudes and a spirit of cooperation.

Sutton Hoo - burial boat outline model

The national trust site has more detail of the burials, found https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/suffolk/sutton-hoo.  We, however, got our information from one of the guides, who was very knowledgeable, and spoke very well. 

Sutton Hoo - House

 

The house is impressive, standing on a promontory on the Deben Estuary.  The guides in here were also friendly and knowledgeable.  The presentations were videos, audios, and lots of printed material.

The burial ground has one mound that is noticeably larger than the others, this is because it has been reconstructed and is being used to estimate the decay rates for the mounds:

In the background there is a viewing tower, which gives an excellent view of the whole burial ground.  Most of the burials have been robbed, it is thought that this happened in the time of Elizabeth I, who was desperately short of money and may have encouraged the search for buried treasure.  The main ship burial was not undisturbed, but the robbers failed to find the treasures because they entered in the wrong place.

There are some lovely walks around the estate, and a short diversion from one takes you along the Deben, with some great views of the river.  

Dinner was at The Bull, in the town.

An excellent day out.

Sunday

We attended St John's, which is a New Wine Church.  It had a great feel and made us both nostalgic for the New Wine days at Christ Church.  We also met a couple who used to live in Billericay and worship at Emmanuel.  It's a small world.  In the afternoon we took a short walk along the Deben, then a late lunch at the Coach and Horses.  I had walked enough, beyond the tolerance of my left knee.  So we returned to the hotel early.

Monday

After a brief visit to Woodbridge, we returned home, arriving about lunch time.

Brooklands Museum

1991 McLaren MP4-6 show car

On Thursday, 20 February 2025, we got up early for us (me), and made our way to the bus stop.  The coach arrived on time, and we made our way around Billericay, then off to Brooklands Museum. The journey was about 2 hours, and comfortable enough despite us sitting further back than usual.

On arrival, we were greeted by the guides, who split us into smaller groups.  The weather was threatening rain, but the stopping points are mainly inside.  We saw a few old F1 cars — a replica of James Hunt's championship car included, and Ayrton Senna's McLaren. A lot of aeroplane engines and aeroplanes.  The highlight being the Hawker Hurricane, and the Rolls-Royce Merlin.  There were more Hurricanes in WWII and at the Battle of Britain, than there were spitfires.  That was because the company took a risk and prepared for the big order they were hoping for before it was signed.  It meant there were enough planes in the sky to win the fight.

We also saw the test chamber where planes and other vehicles could be tested at very low temperatures and very low air pressures. We learnt that Barnes-Wallace was a dedicated family man and saw his office — from the outside.  

The tour ended outside on the pit straight, in clear view of the awesome and terrifying banking; it's there because they couldn't test the speed without it, being unable to corner well on the narrow, primitive tyres of the day.

We ate our lunch undercover because the drizzle had started, then queued for way too long for a cup of tea.  We now had not-long-enough before the Concorde experience.  We visited the bus museum and paid homage to the Routemaster, among others. Waiting for the Concorde, the heavens opened, so we 'hid' under the plane.

Concorde 003

The experience felt hurried; it was well put together and good to see how Concorde looked to its passengers. There was much to look at and read, but the narrow gangway and the number of people meant I did not get to see most of it.  The 'flight experience' was underwhelming in today's simulator world.

On the return journey, there were RTCs on both the southern and northern routes on the M25, so we took a route inside the motorway.  The journey time approached 4 hours, I'm so glad I wasn't driving.

 

Top 'n' Tail

I went for a Gastroscopy & Colonoscopy.  

The preparation was, as expected, a slow process.  Others report that it starts within the hour of taking the first dose.  Mine took 4 hours.  After the second dose, which I took 30 minutes early, the process was still going until 20 minutes before we left.  All a bit too close for comfort!

The guy who was doing the pre-event interview asked, "you're here for the top 'n' tail?" 

I was. He asked a lot of other questions too, and was yawning quite a bit, so it was no wonder that some of the answers he recorded incorrectly.  No big deal though, they were re-checked in the theatre.  

It seems to me that the medical profession are getting less and less willing to recommend a course of action.  Am I going to have the throat spray to numb the throat?   Well, I don't know, is it worth it, I haven't had this procedure before?  Not much of an answer was given, then the same question for the muscle relaxant and anaesthetic.  The only answer was that if I do, I have to be watched for 24 hours.  So, I opted to take anything that would reduce the discomfort.  After all, the preparation process that flushed out my tubes, like a dodgy radiator, had been pretty sore.

First the top, then the ...

A guide is strapped in the mouth and the tube passed through a hole in it and down your throat.  There is a need to swallow, but it is difficult and ineffective - because the doctor has control. Then you watch the big screen as the camera moves back and forth.  There was no running commentary, so I didn't know what I was looking at.  Feeling the camera come back up is very odd, I could only work out what was happening by watching the screen.

Then the other end, and here the medication is working well, I hardly feel a thing.

At the end, I am taken to recovery and watched by three nurses, regularly checking on me every few minutes. I'm given some results and some documentation - a report of what they did, and where biopsies were taken.

Then they call Jo, who has been waiting patiently in the pub over the road.  They are very intent on making sure they hand me over to a responsible adult, and watch me get into the car.

Then it's home to eat - I can have anything as I have been told that all diets are suspended.  We go out for fish and chips; I really enjoyed it.  The following day I have to be with Jo until 4pm (the end of the 24 hours).  I have an uncomfortable throat, not sore exactly, perhaps a bit bruised.  

Two days later, the digestive system seems to have returned to normal, though not quite, it will be another two days before that happens.

It was nice to be in an NHS facility that felt adequately staffed, where things ran smoothly and largely to the appointment time.

Amaryllis, 8 days on

You can almost see them grow. It is worth noting that the ones with little growth are also the ones with the most root disturbance in the re-potting process.  I'm very surprised that the one on the right is performing so well.

Amaryllis

After a terrible year for the amaryllises last year, I have today repotted them, and added a new one that we received for Christmas.  They were kept in the dark when they failed to die back at the end of last season, but the room they were kept in is too warm.  I'm reluctant to put them in the garage, in case they get eaten - we sometimes have a mouse in our garage.  Some are ready to go, others seem dormant still. 

I am very surprised, but it looks like we will get some blooms.  The pot on the far right contains the oldest bulb, now with two 'children', it is shrinking, so is unlikely to flower in its own right. 

The new one is in the pot in the middle, as you can see it is almost grown.  

they are now in their 'wet' phase, and must be kept flooded for a couple of days.

Changing Internet Service Provider (2: on the day and afterwards)

My chosen provider is Zen Internet.  I chose them because I have good experiences of using them in a business environment (they are also "Which?" recommended).  The account has been set up for a while, I have spoken to them a couple of times and was not that impressed.  I couldn't find a way to subscribe to their email service, so phoned them, they were not helpful, so I went elsewhere.  

Protonmail was my chosen supplier - because of the unique service they provide - all encrypted email.  They are not a registrar, though.

For that, I chose Namecheap, no recommendations here, it simply looked easiest to use.  Then I found out that transferring-in was free.

On the day, we had cleared out the huge bookcase that covers up the connection point, and moved it out of the way when the Openreach guy arrived.  After some discussion, the cable route was agreed, and he set about drilling holes and connecting the cables.  Fortunately the grey junction box is now a lot smaller, so quite unobtrusive, and fairly well out of the way.  The service was connected in about 2 hours.  He complained about the Fritz!Box router, but it was pre-configured and just started working.

Next come the home re-configuration:

NAS	This has a fixed IP address and had to be re-connected to the old router, the fixed IP address removed, connected to the new router and the fixed IP address re-instated.
Printer	Connected OK using WPS.  Printing works from the Laptop, and the Ubuntu computer, but not my phone.  This is still being investigated.
Mobile Phone: Pete	Choose the Wi-Fi and connect - no problem
Mobile Phone: Jo	Choose the Wi-Fi and connect - no problem
Tablet: Old	Choose the Wi-Fi and connect - no problem
Tablet: New(er)	Choose the Wi-Fi and connect - no problem
Laptop	Choose the Wi-Fi and connect - no problem
Dell	Choose the Wi-Fi and connect - no problem
Linux	Choose the Wi-Fi and connect - no problem
Powerline	Plug cable into new router and powercycle - all OK.
euFy Doorbell	There is no way in the app to change the Wi-Fi, so the only option is to reset the device and start the installation process from scratch.  This means that the masks have to be set up again as well. 27 Feb: While a shared doorbell appeared to work it was unreliable, we have now removed and re-added the shared account, hopefully it will be stable.
Heating	The heating controller was plugged in to the new router and power cycled.  It got the necessary addresses from DHCP, and eventually connected to the wireless devices it supports.  It disconnected a few times in the following days, but seems stable now.
Car Charger	The car charger did not reconnect after a power failure, a long time ago.  Maybe I will try again.
Battery Inverter	I have received instructions on how to do this.  The data collector has to be reset and provides a weak Wi-Fi, that I cannot connect to because the setup password is rejected.  This is still unresolved. 25 Feb: Two Wi-Fi networks were available, but in most of my resets only one appeared. Eventually the correct network became available (beginning SOLIS_5A), and the instructions pretty much worked. I am getting data on the app, despite the green indicator light not going solid, as it should.
Guest Devices	A guest SSID was created; various visitor devices connect to it when they arrive.  It is on a separate subnet, so there is no access to the NAS, for example.

There may still be more to do, so I will update this post if I need to.

Weald Park

On a bright winter's day, when the sun had raised the temperature a few degrees above freezing after a good lunch, we decided to go for a walk. 

We would have liked to visit a site famous for its snowdrops, but that doesn't open until next week.

Instead, we drove to Weald Park and paid the extortionate £4 for 2 hours.  The cricket pitch car park closes at 16:30, so there were only 2 hours left.  

We followed one of the bridle paths up to the Iron Age Settlement at Langton's Wood. 

On the way, we checked the bird song, the app told us:

Blackbird, Jackdaw, Mistle Thrush, Robin, Great Spotted Woodpecker

Just before we got there, we were passed by a maintenance mini truck, churning up the mud and just about making it out of the hollow we were about to enter. Then on and up the hill.  I spotted movement ahead; so I took a picture, I think it's a row deer.  You can just see it behind the brambles.  It was nonchalantly strolling along and hardly ever looked back, each time it stopped, so did we.  We walked until we were approaching a bridge; as it was nearly at the one-hour mark, instead of going through the mud to the bridge, we turned and re-traced our steps.

On the way back I suffered a slow slide, I ended up on my knees, with my hands in the brambles: such are the dangers of mud.  No serious harm!  

It was good to get out and now seems like the long winter might be coming to an end.

More Memories of Mum

A few more memories came to mind, after the publication of my last blog entry, so when I visited my sister we had a discussion.  Some of these are from me, but most are from my sister.

More accurately than in my last post, mum was born in Westcliff, in either Beedell Avenue or Shakespeare Drive, or around there. She would have like to be a teacher, but would have needed to go to Grammar School to achieve that. She could not, so she was forced to leave at 14 and then trained as a hairdresser.  She worked in a hairdressers at Cuckoo Corner roundabout.  She used to eat her lunch in Priory Park — at the same time that dad was working there. Believed in fate - that they were meant to be together.

One of mum's favourite singers was Val Doonican https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val_Doonican.  We watched his show on TV.  I don't know her favourite songs.

She would also listen to "Mrs Dale's Diary" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs_Dale%27s_Diary, on the radio in the mornings.  The other show she talked about occasionally was ITMA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_That_Man_Again

 I remember her telling me how frightening the doodlebugs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb) were, when their engines ran out of fuel they descended silently, and you couldn't really tell where they would impact.

Some of the politicians we talked about were:

Harold Wilson, who she didn't trust at all.

Enoch Powell, who she respected

Gerald Nabarro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Nabarro, who she also respected because of his outspokenness

Mum was a brownie and later ran the brownie pack with her friend Ann. The pack was based at All Saints Church, Southend-on-sea (https://www.allsaintschurchsouthend.org.uk/).  She wanted both of us to join a similar organisation, but neither of us like the youth groups at the church at the top of the road.  We both said they were a waste of time (mine was Sea scouts, I only went to one meeting)

Knitting, crochet and cloths making were her hobbies.  I remember her adjusting the 'dummy' that she bought by mail order (rare in those days), and helping her with the split pins as she adjusted and re-measured to get the size right.

In my last post, I did not know mum's view of her driving lessons, she apparently thought that Dad wasn't patient enough.  She never took formal lessons, though.

Her younger brother, who we knew as Uncle Ron, was ill as a child and effectively isolated. When older, he rode to Wales (a long distance for cycling). She was proud of him.

Mum wanted us to learn to play the piano; she persuaded the piano teacher to take my sister, who was too young.  She did quite well, I didn't.  She also wanted my sister to go dancing, with the girl who lived next door, who was a similar age.  My sister didn't want to.

She was very good at maths, and was taught by her younger brother how to count money, she was quick and accurate.

During WWII, she worked at ECKO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EKCO) making communications equipment.

Mum also wrote poetry, neither of us know what became of her poems.

Changing Internet Service Provider (1: before the day)

I am currently with Plusnet, I have been with them since they took over Force9.  I have a website with them, that the children created - before they grew up and had families of their own.  It was for a while a hobby.  I'm not that concerned about the website, I have the source somewhere, and it's no longer relevant today.  Creating it taught me and, to some extent, my children, about the web. I also have email with Plusnet - that is important.  Although I have migrated most things away from that service, there are a number of things that are very difficult to change - and many that we have probably forgotten about.  As part of that, I have my own domain name - fisher-folk.co.uk.  It is used for the website and in lots of email addresses.

My current service is FTTC, with the analogue phone system also run by Plusnet. I would like to upgrade to "Full Fibre" (FTTP) to get better speeds, as we are now regularly streaming TV and would like to do it in more rooms.  We also have to retain the phone number as it is the only way that several of Jo's mum's friends can contact us.  Staying in touch is hard enough, without deliberately breaking the easiest form of communication.

Plusnet can offer FTTP, but not with a phone line, so a change will be required.

After a little research, I settled on Zen Internet.  They (OpenReach) will be coming tomorrow to install the new service.  

There have been several 'disconnects' along the way.  First, the installation date that I requested via Zen's website was effectively ignored. Zen told Plusnet it would be 8 Jan 2025, so Plusnet told me my service would end on 8 Jan.  OpenReach could not do the installation until 28th, so the date was changed and Zen told me of the new date.  Plusnet did not, but when I called them, after calling Zen, they were aware of the new date.  The lack of communication causes extra work for them and for me.  There is also reputational damage for Plusnet - I'm unlikely to change back to them in the future, after the phone service digital migration.

Getting my domain from Plusnet is also a struggle.  They do not seem to know what they are doing, and I certainly don't, it's my first try at changing the registrar of my domain.  The first request I made by phone was ignored, either by Plusnet or their service provider.  When I updated the ticket, a 'bot' closed it because customer input is no longer allowed.  How about taking the update link away? Surely that would make more sense?  I now have to wait 5 days and will lose 5 days or more of email as a result.

Since BT bought Plusnet, years ago, the service has degraded slowly; it seems that continues.

We'll see how tomorrow goes.