Bring on the wind

It was one of those days today where I spend much of it wandering backwards and forwards to the beach waiting for the wind to pick up. It was forecast to swing to the SW and maybe pick up a little later in the day, but then that forecast changed and it didn’t look so good.

By 4pm there still wasn’t any sign of wind – well, not enough for windsurfing anyway – so I decided to jump on the Turbo Trainer and do an hours ‘recovery’ session to burn off some calories and make me feel as though I’d done something.

The turbo trainer session went well but as I got off I realised that the wind had finally picked up. I checked the weather station and sure enough it was now 20-25 knots with the odd 30 knot gust and looking good.

It didn’t take me long to decide that it was time to go windsurfing so I loaded up my wheel-barrow and headed across to the beach. I rigged my 5.6m sail and Naish Hybrid Freewave 86 board and got out there. My ribs  were still hurting from my crash a couple of weeks ago so I took it easy, but still managed quite a few nice jumps and some decent wave rides.

After blasting around in the normal spot and playing in the waves for about an hour I decided to finish the session off with a nice blast out to the buoy on the Dovey Bar and back.

It may have been a long wait for the wind today but it was worth it when it came!

Tags: Windsurfing

Just some flowers from the garden. The Agapanthus have started flowering, and a stand of sunflowers have appeared from nowhere. We didn’t plant them so we can only assume that the seeds came either from the compost bin or the bird feeders. They seem to be doing well though and are now in flower.

Sunflower

Tags: Flower, Garden, Gardening, Photography

I’ve Just finished a fairly enjoyable interval session on my turbo trainer – Well, as enjoyable as such torture can be.

I’m still doing the same interval sessions as I’ve been doing fairly regularly, this time it was the 3:2 minute interval workout. As I’ve said before these are supposed to be really hard and the idea is that you do them at an intensity that means that you can’t do 7 repetitions. You should work at an intensity that means you can just do 5-6 of them and when you do manage to complete 7 reps you immediately increase the wattage.

Now this is fine except that I have it in my mind that I want to do 7 reps, so anything less than that feels to a certain extent like a failure. I know that isn’t the point as it is the intensity that counts, but for my psychological well-being it helps if I can complete a session. I’ve therefore been doing them at an intensity that means I can complete 7 reps, but I’m continually increasing the wattage.

A few weeks ago I was doing 7 reps at 340 Watts. My Tacx Flow Turbo Trainer only allows me to increase the wattage in 10 watt increments (it does measure to a resolution of 1 watt however). Jumping from 340 Watts to 350 Watts for 7 reps would be difficult, so last time I did the session I did 5 reps at 340 Watts and 2 at 350 Watts.

Today I increased that further with 3 reps at 340 Watts and 4 at 350 Watts. I may try all 7 at 350 next time.

I know I’m not doing them at a high enough intensity as I was not only able to complete all 7 reps but I was also able to do some 1 minute intervals afterwards. I’m sure increasing the wattage will provide better results but I also like to feel good about my sessions and completing them is the first step. At least that way I’m more likely to come back for more.

Here’s the pretty graph from todays workout.

Todays Turbo Trainer Workout

Tags: Interval Session, Interval workout, Turbo Trainer, Turbo Trainer Workout

Lesser Yellow Underwing

Nothing too exciting in the moth trap last night. A reappearance of the Dark-barred and Red Twin-spot Carpets, both of which have two flight periods. An early one in mid April-June and a later in late July-August. I haven’t seen these for a while but we had both again last night.

Otherwise it was pretty much business as usual with a similar catch to the past few attempts. There was one new species though, a Lesser Yellow Underwing.

Here’s the full list:

• 2 x Flame Shoulder
• 4 x Scarce Footman
• 3 x Yellow-tail
• 5 x Shuttle-shaped Dart
• 12 x Dark Arches
• 4 x White-line Dart
• 1 x Lackey
• 16 x Large Yellow Underwing
• 13 x Common Rustic / Lesser Common Rustic agg.
• 1 x Bright-line Brown-eye
• 3 x Rosy Minor
• 8 x Smoky Wainscot
• 1 x Drinker
• 5 x Scalloped Oak
• 4 x Garden Tiger
• 2 x Cloaked Minor
• 1 x Silver Y
• 2 x Lesser yellow Underwing
• 1 x Garden Carpet
• 1 x Dark-barred Twin-spot Carpet
• 1 x Red Twin-spot Carpet
• 1 x Clay
• 1 x Elephant Hawkmoth

Tags: Moth Trapping, Moths

Hot on the heels of our success with the Courgette Cake recipe, but still with a glut of courgettes, last night we baked some chocolate courgette cakes. They were once a gain a success, although not much good for aiding my weight loss!

Here’s the recipe.

250g plain flour
375g caster sugar
65g cocoa powder
2 teaspoons bicarb of soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
4 eggs
350ml vegetable oil
340g grated courgette
90g walnuts (optional)

We just mixed it altogether in a bowl and then divided it between 3 loaf tins before whacking it in an oven at 180ºC for 40-45 minutes and the result was delicious! OK, it’s more of a chocolate cake with courgette in it than a courgette cake with chocolate in it but no-one will complain about that!

Incidently, the Courgette Cake recipe post has become one of the most popular posts on this site this week – we can’t be the only people with a glut of courgettes!

Tags: Courgette Cake, Garden, Recipe

I gave myself most of the day off yesterday as Steve was heading to Wales and wanted to go for a longish bike ride.

We did the Artists Valley and beyond loop that I did a few weeks ago. Now, I’ve lost a bit of weight since then and have probably improved my fitness a bit, Steve on the other hand hasn’t been out that much on a bike and said he’d put on some weight. As we all know, it is your power to weight ratio that really counts on a bike, especially when it comes to going up hill and on the first hill it showed.

The first hill is a killer, the climb behind Tre Ddol and it beat Steve! I’m not surprised really as it was his first attempt at that hill as it is really steep. I think Steve had vowed to lose some weight and get stronger by the time he’d got to the top.

We managed the whole 35 mile round trip in good shape. The forecast was for sunny spells but they didn’t materialise. In fact, we got soaked in some torrential downpours and it got pretty cold at one point and started sleeting. Again, not unexpected up at Angler’s Retreat as that place is cold and bleak at the best of times.

There were no major mishaps or mechanicals and even the cows, bulls and mad dogs didn’t deter us from our route.

I felt OK for the ride and if I can keep up some training will hopefully be OK to at least complete the Isle of Man E2E in September which is about 11 miles longer than the ride we did yesterday but only has a few hundred more metres of climbing.

Tags: MTB, Trail Guide, Wales

Nothing too exciting in the moth trap last night, the only new moth was an Oak Eggar.

Oak Eggar

Here’s the full list from last night:

• 1 x Cloaked Minor
• 11 x Scarce Footman
• 2 x Yellow-tail
• 4 x Shuttle-shaped Dart
• 3 x Dark Arches
• 4 x White-line Dart
• 1 x Lackey
• 16 x Large Yellow Underwing
• 5 x Common Rustic / Lesser Common Rustic agg.
• 1 x Bright-line Brown-eye
• 6 x Rosy Minor
• 2 x Dingy Footman
• 4 x Smoky Wainscot
• 2 x Drinker
• 1 x Scalloped Oak
• 2 x Riband Wave
• 1 x Ruby Tiger
• 1 x Oak Eggar*
• 2 x Garden Tiger
• 1 x Buff Ermine
• 1 x Single-dotted Wave
• 1 x Tawny Shears

Tags: Ceredigion, Moth Trapping, Moths, Wales

The garden looks nice at the moment. Here are a couple of photos I took whilst installing the new water feature at the weekend.

Marguerites

Lupins

As you may remember, on our Anniversary day out in Welshpool, Anna and I spent more money than we had planned and came back with a water feature for the garden. We bought it from Derwen Garden Centre which was where we spent most of our day. They were all very helpful and we’re planning a trip there again sometime soon.

Water Feature

The water feature itself is a ‘twisted column’ of rock and it was supposed to stand on top of a grill covering a sump. The sump contains a reservoir of water and a pump which pumps water up through a hole in the middle of the column where it bubbles out of the top and flows down all fours sides of the column back into the sump. We complicated things a little as we wanted a standing pool of water as well as the water running down the column. The idea was to make sure that there was water available for the bird, bees and other garden wildlife at all times and so that we had a pool of water in the garden even if the pump was switched off.

The plan therefore was to also buy a large shallow pot in which we could stand the column of rock. The water then flows down the column of rock, into the bowl and then over the sides of the bowl into the sump. Perfect.

Hole for Sump

As soon as we got back with all of the bits and pieces I set to work setting it up. The first job was to dig a hole for the sump to sit in. Our garden soil is sand, not sandy soil, just sand like on the beach so this was easy and within 5 minutes I had the hole ready for the sump.

I also had to dig a trench to lay the cable for the pump. This had to go inside some armoured piping and we just happened to have something suitable on the other side of the garden that wasn’t being used so I had to dig that up first.

The first problem we encountered was that the 10m cable on the pump  was a couple of metres too short, so I headed of to the shop and bought an extension and a water proof junction box. Threading the cable through the armoured piping took a little longer than expected, but we soon had the pump plugged in and the cable buried out of sight under the garden.

Installing the sump

The sump was lowered into its hole and levelled up, the pumped was installed and the grill put on top of sump.

Next I had to prepare the bowl. We needed to drill a hole in the bottom of it for the pipe to go through and then seal the pipe into it so that it was water tight. This was all fairly straight forward and after leaving it to dry overnight we tested the water tightness of the bowl and started planning the installation of the column of rock.

Preparing the bowl

We placed some sand in the bottom of the bowl to stand the rock on and then with some help (as the rock is surprisingly heavy) man-handled the rock into position whilst feeding the pipe up through the hole in the middle. We placed a number of rubber bands around the top of the pipe which helped to seal it into the central hole in the rock.

Once it was all in place, we switched on the pump to test it, and it soon became apparent that the rock wasn’t exactly stable. I guess that is kind of obvious really, a metre tall column of rock that is only 8 inches square is never going to be that secure just stood up on its own. We didn’t want it to blow over or worse still get knocked over by a child so a new plan was hatched – We would concrete it into the bowl. The concrete would fix it to the bowl and provide a large, heavy stable base.

It took us a while to find a break in the weather and suitable man-power to help lift the stone but we finally got around to it this weekend.

Getting it level

The main worry was that everything had to be completely level. In order for the water to flow out of the bowl all the way around it, the top of the bowl had to be totally level when sat on the grill. In addition the column of rock had to also be completely level so that the water would flow out across the flat top and down all four sides equally. Trouble is, once you’ve set it in concrete it is pretty much ‘set in stone’ and there can be no final tweaks and adjustments once the water is switched on. We couldn’t turn the water on though until the concrete had set so we had to make sure it was all level and hope for the best.

We got the bowl completely level, man-handled the column into place whilst threading the tube into its hole once again and then fiddled around getting the column completely level. After a final check on the levels of both the bowl and the column we mixed up some concrete and half filled the bowl with it. Another quick check on the levels as it set and that was that.

We left it to dry overnight and then came the moment of truth, turning on the pump. Was it level, had we crushed the pipe, would it all work properly?

The answer was, yes, yes and yes, everything was just perfect. The water bubbled out the top at just the right power, flowed across the top of the column and down all four sides perfectly. The bowl filled with water and didn’t leak and then the water flowed out all the way around the bowl and into the sump. The column felt secure and stable and all looked good.

We then placed a few plants around the base of the bowl along with some bits of slate to tie in with the rock of the columns, sat back and enjoyed the sight and sound of running water in the garden.

Water Feature

Tags: Garden, Gardening, Water feature

Our plans for keeping bees are progressing well.

Regular readers of this blog will know that we’ve been attending meetings of the Aberystwyth Beekeepers Association. Despite our concerns that the windy, slightly barren nature of the local surroundings may not be ideal for bees, we’ve been encouraged by members of the association and are going to give bee-keeping a go.

We were going to buy a beehive over the winter and start with a nucleus of bees early in spring 2011. After much deliberation and research we decided that a National Standard hive was the best option as far as the beehive was concerned. But, to make it look a little prettier we wanted one with a gabled roof and stand – it is going to be a fairly prominent garden feature afterall.

They aren’t cheap, but after my Dad attended a beekeeping meeting with us, he’s been fairly keen to put his carpentry skills into action and build a beehive for us. Normally a National Standard hive with:

• a mesh floor
• a stand with alighting board
• a brood box containing 11 deep section frames
• a queen excluder
• 2 supers, each containing 10 shallow section frames
• a crown board
• a gabled roof

costs anything from £250 – £450 depending on where you get it. These are usually made of cedar and can come ready assembled or flat packed.

My Dad has priced it all up and for around £130 can make 2 hives from plywood based on these plans for beehives (with a few modifications of his own here and there no doubt). These don’t include the frames though which are actually more expensive than I thought.

The frames come in packs of ten and to fill 2 hives we will need 22 deep section (DN1) frames and 40 shallow section (SN1) frames. Ready assembled with foundation these will cost around £170, or we could buy the frames and foundation separately and assemble them ourselves for around £100 (we’d have some spares leftover too).

So, for somewhere around £350 – £400 we should be able to get two complete, fully functional and hopefully nice looking hives up and running.

Of course, on top of this we’ll also have the expense of bee suits for all three of us, including veils and gloves (although I’m hoping to manage without gloves so may even start gloveless!), along with other tools such as a smoker and a couple of hive tools (we’re bound to lose one of them so may as well get two straight away!)

The plans are all in place now we just have to find the money and make them a reality.

Tags: Beehives, Beekeeping