Pallets of Veg. - Pt 2

The veg patch got more sides, but instead of making each piece fit in place we did some planning! 

The second bed needs completing and it was worth a shot at making up a whole side as a single piece first and then putting it in place. Sort of a good plan, but it was substantially harder to hammer into the ground, purely because it's harder to avoid the random deposits of rocks and stones underneath the grass.

The next bed, down the side of the house framing the path from the gate was made in a few pieces instead and knocked into an existing trench (made by removing the stone edging) and then backfilling slightly.

Far easier, still not as easy as building it in place a piece at a time, but that's much more time consuming, so either way, nothings perfect. Perhaps a bigger hammer...

Our landlord happened to have a greenhouse going spare during some improvements of his own so we carried it (without the glass) over the hedge into our garden. Back (as we've found out since) to within a few feet of where it was removed from this garden to his years back.

The frame is sound, but covered in moss. The glass was partially out and needs a good clean too, not to mention a few panes are broken so need replacing.

After a good cleaning though, the frame came up really well.

The harder part is laying a brick foundation into the grass, which every few inches has what seems like a thousand stones. At times, it'd be less rocky doing this on a beach. Still plenty of pallets left, probably make a floor, rather than making a flag floor and fitting that in nicely.

Pallets of Veg. - Pt. 1

When I lived in Padworth we had a veg patch, and it grew a decent variety of things, but it wasn't all that big, nor was it ideally placed for the sun (shadow of the house from about midday passed right over it). 

The new place has a much bigger garden, and it's mostly laid to lawn, but it gets a HUGE amount of sun. There's a wall to give a bit of shade to some of the plants, but  enough room to move things around. Plus there's the side of the house to the left which is south facing and should provide suppoirt to the taller plants with some trellis.

Theres what used to be a border, but is now something of a desolate wasteland to the side by the house which is going to get pulled up and raised if we get enough pallets.

We got enough pallets.

The first set went in slowly, digging holes for the posts and backfilling where the edging used to be (Yeah, there was edging in the first shot of the other side of the 'path'). And there were stones. So. Many. Stones. In the end a new tactic of chop the uprights into points and hammer them in where they needed it with the siding knocked into the softish earth. Waaaay faster.

The second bed was started in the same manner, begin with the 'path' edge (spot the trench) about a meter long and then work along the longer edges to the wall.

Not bad for a days work collecting, breaking down and shopping. I've sourced a local guy with topsoil as well which is handy. Next jobs are turn over the grassy areas in the beds, and finish the last side of the bed. then do the other side of the path.

The reclaimed edging even has a plan, if the landlord is happy enough to go with it and I cna cheaply find the materials. Pt. 2 to come soon if the weather holds.

Foody things from 2013

Once again, i've got a backlog of posts from the last few years that i've neglected to actual post.

This last year I've found a few things food related which don't really need a whole post to themselves and have kind of ended up straggling as a non-entity. So there are a couple of posts coming about some of the slightly random bit of food stuff I've found in the last year. I might make it a regular thing for those bits that don't fit anywhere else.

As a regular at Costco, I've many times sampled their in store hot dog and soda for lunch. For £1.50 it's a bargain and you can refill the cup after while you wander about, or leave, either way.

Recently (read sometime in autumn '13) the Reading branch started doing a chili-cheese dog. 50p extra per topping, so in essence still a bargain, but with great toppings, come great problems.

Sometimes, they can get a little more generous then usual, not that i'm one to turn down a plentiful meal, but it does sometimes become tricky to hold. Even when cut in half, napkins are required.

In the same vein as before, both of these are from imgur posts and by extension of that, reddit. but imgur is where I found them, so that can have the credit.

The first was pretty simple, why dunk oreo's in milk, when you could just have a bowl of oreo's and milk, like you would cereal. they do soak up pretty fast and in fairness they do also make an oreo's cereal. But as that's hardly widely available in the UK, this is an acceptable, and delicious substitute.

The next is somewhat more radical. Sweet potato fries, and Nutella. Yes, that's right, read it again if you need to, I'll wait.

It works, it sounds a bit mad, but it really does work well, my parents were skeptical too, then we made it, and once the Nutella melted slightly and was more dippable it worked even better.

The potato was sliced fairly thinly into chips, shallow fried in the pan (they probably need more time to crispen next time) and then have a good sized teaspoon of Nutella dropped on top. The picture was taken about half way through the bowl. Like I said, they were good!

I'll probably do a proper write up on these sometime this year, there were a few things I'd change if/when I do it again.

And finally, Showing just how long ago this was (I've moved twice since I had this kitchen). What do you do when you've got a load of odd bits and pieces of lunch and snack food. Have all of it!

Granted this was for 3 of us (I think) and it was good. Plus it's actually pretty healthy, at least in comparison to the last few things i've posted. Probably worth doing again

Smoker advances

Another post from history, last time I used the smoker, while it was cooling down the lower saucer cracked, and then shattered into 3 bits. Somewhat annoying but not 100% unexpected.

The solution fixes two problems with the smoker. The first is that the fire is a bit higher, hence further from the saucer and less likely to be badly affected by the intense heat.

Secondly, the pot feet lifting the saucer create a gap around the whole circumference of the fire tray allowing loads more air into the base of the fire. This should (when properly supervised and fueled) keep the fire burning more evenly and effectively.

The first firing was pretty good and using a bigger joint (2.25kg, instead of about 1-1.5) it took around 6-7 hours to almost completely cook the pork shoulder. It was  still a little pink/juicy in the very middle so we finished it in the oven for half an hour, which was probably a bit too long. The flavour was good too, using mostly applewood, and some oak when we ran out.

Not Quite the Healthy New Year

It's a new year, and I should probably make another effort to keep updates coming more regularly. So what with New Years being all about healthy eating, here's something that's not, on pintrest. 

One sheet of ready made puff pastry, because new years eve is no time for making pastry when you could be doing anything else at all. Roll it out just over a foot square, ish. Or more or less, whatever, i'm not a cop.

The original has a large bar of chocolate, but it seemed like a much better idea to use Cadbury's Caramel, but the bar is a bit smaller than the one in the video, so...

...Improvise! Splitting the bar into three strips filled out the pastry much better, but then what to do about the large gaps? Marshmallows. Always marshmallows.

Cut in at an angle and fold the ends over to hopefully stop the contents leaking everywhere.

Slice the sides in strips and fold over in a lattice, alternate sides, then egg wash the pastry.

Bake it for 10-15 minutes at 180C and then see how it looks, if it's not golden yet, give it a bit longer.

Impressively very little leaked out, although it was fairly fragile, getting it from the tray to the plate was a bit trickier than imagined, but it survived.

It was everything I wanted it to be, and the caramel and marshmallows were the right decision, as expected.

Would I make this again, yes, would I probably die early as a result, yes. Would it be worth it? Yes.

Brb, Germany...

At least, after some 5 years, I'm once again Nurburgring bound. It's been FAR too long frankly since the last trip, the Lolf has had to have some welding for it's MOT (first time it's needed welding) and some other niggles, including a concerned call from the garage asking if there was a knack to get it started as it was getting harder to start as the days went on moving it around. Turns out what it needs is fuel (GG there).

The Z4m in the convoy has had a full work over prior and we're currently on the ferry (this will probably be posted later, yay roaming data :( ). France beacons,  Brussels looms like a threat of torment to get round and then it's onwards to Eifel, ze Fatherland in a pair of Bavarian steeds.

Short and Sweet

Browsing imgur today and saw this:

Specifically this image

Remembered I had both of these:

And then did this:

There were no regrets.

Behold the Smartwatch [Backlog]

A few days ago about a year ago (now, at least) I decdied for my 30th to get a smartwatch. After looking around through a lot of reviews of the existing ones, and the two newest one at the time (the first gen, Galazy Gear and the Sony SM2) seemed like a decent improvement and worthy of some money.

But which one! In the end, it came down to a camera decision (which won't surprise many people, although the actual choice might). Easier in the year I'd bought a Galaxy S4 and as a result pondered Samsung's smart watch as the obvious choice (It was also brand new and marketed basically everywhere anyone with eyes could see).

There was one thing that bugged me more than anything about it. The silicon strap was completely non replaceable due tot he camera mounted into it. On the one hand, great, i've got a camera on my wrist. On the other hand, i've never fond myself in a situation where i've needed a camera that fast and actually been able to load the app. Unless this is running the camera 100% of the time, it never will be either, and that'd make it more annoying to use it as a watch.

On that sole deal breaker, I opted for the Sony as despite also coming with a silicone strap, it has a completely standard fastening to the face and can be easily replaced. Instead of finding it new for ~£150, i found one, opened but basically unused on ebay for about £80, much more palatable. 

A few days later, just before my actual 30th it arrived, looked all fresh and neat. I could have just as easily chosen the SM1 for the same reason and saved more money, but by all accounts, the improvements in battery and usability were pretty vast. The screen was larger and much less garishly silver than the original one as well, with a familiar android layout.

Being incredibly dull, I opted for the analogue display, and the first day I used it was pretty happy with the battery life. I got the best part of 2 days use from it without having to charge it. During this it was tethered to my phone and getting updates from Facebook and twitter half hourly. I reduced the time after this, but it was decent enough for the test.

The apps available at the time were pretty good, there's a decent looking maps-app which piggy backs off the GPS from your phone. It's not perfect but I didn't really expect anything from it, so I was pleasantly surprised it worked as well as it did. Facebook and twitter work in as much as they display messages when they arrive. News posts I found annoying, but the messages were actually fairly useful to be able to glance at and read.

...

[One year on]
It's been just under 12 months since I got the watch and I can't say I wore it every day, nor did I charge it either so that slipped and stopped me wearing it at times. The biggest thing that stopped me wearing it more was the strap. I did get a metal clasp strap for it from ebay and it was cheap. As it happens, it was something I should have looked harder for, but as the straps I found were either the cheapest of cheap (£20) or incredibly expensive (£150+) with nothing in between I was somewhat stuck.

The clasp failed one day and the watch slid gracefully to the floor taking two small marks I'm yet to clean up. The face was fine, the outer case took all the impact and everything still works perfectly. After a good deal of poking and prodding and the clasp gradually getting tot he point where it will pop within about 10 minutes of wearing it, I've had to retire it for the time being until I can fix it properly. This should be easy, it just needs to be done right and not rushed.

The best I had from the battery was about 6 days without it tethered to the phone, so no bluetooth draining the battery, nor messages, just basically being a watch. Which as that's really it's primary function, isn't too bad at all.

I'm still pleased with it, were I to buy another one, i'd probably consider the Moto 360, for no other reason than the Goldeneye theme for it.

More creative kitchen storage [Backdate]

One of the problems with renting is that you can't really do much to the house to make life easier like you would if you owned it and could change things a lot more.

Most modern kitchens come pre-drilled for a lot of different handle positions. if it's done carefully you can sometimes use the holes and it won't leave any lasting marks/damage that weren't already there (to some extent).

The stick blender I got a good while ago came with a mounting bracket, but it's been in a drawer pretty much since then.

The holes already in the door are pretty useless to mount to as they are spaced wrong and too high to allow the door to open. I had a scrap piece of MDF which was about the right size, albeit a bit big, it'd at least stop the head of the blender hitting the door and potentially marking it.

The holes were somewhat roughly aligned and drilled and using some of the smallest screws I had fixed to the inside of the door far enough in to avoid the frame of the cupboard.

The blender mount screwed on again, using some ridiculously tiny screws which really didn't look like they were going to hold

[Update]
With the power of hindsight, I can say that yes the screws held. It's a shame the new place has much older units drilled only for what was needed and despite their apparent, imminent replacement once I move out (there was a massive pile of kitchen units in the garage when I moved in) I'll not be risking it.
[Double Update]
Now with another house move in the way, maybe this can be done again.

It's been a month!

One month into the new place and getting everything back to where it was before had been a mission. With the likely short time here, a lot of projects are a bit lacking in purpose so anything thats being done is limited to things which will move with me to the next house.

While I get round to starting the various ones I can do, I'll post ones from the last place which were at least useful in some way and will probably be repeated when i move somewhere more long term.

The biggest of these will likely be the Camera Jib (from waaaay back), the Golf and some stuff on the desk. There'll probably be more when i remember things I need to do.

But first, flash backs!

Movement Detected

After just over 6 years and many projects in my house, it's time to move on. It's been something of a trial getting everything sorted and hefted over to the new place not to mention getting connected again, but it's finally done, all that remains is to hand in the keys :'(

So long Fallows Road, this is probably the best photo i've ever taken there, and one of the last.

At least this means I've thinned a number of projects which are no longer required (they'll still be posted, for future reference) and don't need or cant be finished, and the new place may not be for long either, so who knows if anything interesting will be done here.

Golf Boot Floor v2

Since the last time I cut up the floor the golf hasn't actually run much at all, but thats not down to the floor being missing, far from it. But with that being said the intention is to take this to an event later this year and that means moving a good amount of gear around with it. So it's back to the flooring over the spare wheel for another go.

First off, a template around the rear wheel arches inside to transfer to some 3mm plywood sheet. With the extra weight, this should hold up better than the hardboard did and the whole unit should come out if I really want to go lightweight.

First edge cut...

...and it fits! almost on the first go anyway.

The second edge is cut and with some fine tuning it fits too.

The back of the board has to be cut to fit around a small brace and also just about allows for fingers to lift it with ease.

After a long time thinking about how to do this I had a kind of eureka moment and disappeared into the house and wandered about muttering to myself for about 20 minutes while my dad and girlfriend didnt really know what I was doing.

Using some old Ikea brackets and a dremel I fitted them over some screws meant for the rear seats and wound a wing nut on to hold it in place.

The next part of the epiphany was using some 100mm box trunking as the front support instead of wood. I was going to use wood but it'd be heavier and I didnt have it on hand. This was lying around and had been for a couple years or more.

Some quick cuts with the Dremel to get over the wing nuts and it's ready to fit.

The box section is held on with two screws and a thin strip of wood behind for them to bite into and hopefully not strip. So far so good, the washers work well to spread the load and nothing broke.

The completed, as yet uncovered floor.

And from the other end behind the passenger seat.

Underneath there are a few pieces of pine to add some front to back and a piece wider than the sunken floor so it stays at the right level behind the rear lights.

Next job for this is to cover it and try it out.