David Morris – brassedoff.net

I know I’m notthe most frequent blogger in the world. These days, you’re probably just as likely to find me microblogging via my twitter account as anywhere, but there are some times when I feel the need to write an essay!

I’m in sunny Dusseldorf at the moment. The rest of the office have gone out for lunch so it’s nice and quiet and I have a few minutes to myself. When I left Sheffield yesterday, the new red wine kit was bubbling away to itself in a pleasingly regular fashion. The relocated Killamarsh Forum was working fine on its new hosting service. People have been updating it as well, so I know it’s capable of being found. I did take the liberty of putting a customised 404 error page on my home server to point people at the new location before I renamed the directory containing the forum.

I’ve had the nod to move the Seth Ellis site as well, and I’ll shift that over to wiserhosting.com as soon as I’m happy that the KF site is robust.

The Scimitars are away in Bracknell on Saturday, but I’ll be watching Daniel scuba diving. That’s after I’ve played in the 3rd Section Regional Finals (aka The Area) at Bradford on Saturday morning. We’re rehearsing at something like 8:30 in Bradford, so an early start is in order.

It looks like someone has found a way around the captcha on phpBB3, the forum software I’m using for the Killamarsh Forum. I’m seeing a lot of bogus account applications. I inadvertently approved one the other day only to be on the receiving end of about 5 spam postings. All the applications so far have come from the following email addresses:

*@mail.ru
*@gmail.com
*@tmail.com
*@convertor-3gp.com

Needless to say I’ve banned anyone from these email addresses. It’s a nuisance because there may be legitimate applications from gmail. I use gmail. I’m not prepared to have the forum spammed though. I wonder how these spammers do it though? Is it automated? If so, it must have been done through some reverse engineering and cookie tracking, or so I thought. Wrong. A quick Google turned this one up:

http://www.darkseoprogramming.com/2008/05/12/phpbb3-captcha-is-super-easy/

…and this one…

http://www.apathysketchpad.com/blog/2007/06/05/how-to-crack-captchas/

So, time to look for a new captcha me thinks. Both of the articles above highlight the fact that the captcha is made easier because of the uniform background colour. I wonder if  superimposing the captcha on a suitable photographic image would be any better?

I made a conscious decision this morning. If it was going to snow heavily, I’d be better off on the bike than warm and comfortable in the car. Score one to David! It took me just over 40 minutes from work to my Mums house where I left the car this morning. I had an hour there for the traffic to subside a bit and get warmed up, then it took me 90_ minutes from Handsworth to Killamarsh… solid traffic jams from the Asda at Handsworth to the bottom of Coisley Hill near Woodhouse. From Coisley Hill, around Crystal Peaks and out past Direct Cars to Killamarsh, there was practically no traffic.

I knew the conditions were bad on our estate, but keeping the Mini in 3rd at around 1500rpm, I got up the hill with no trouble at all.

This was the first time I’d had the Mini in snow and I’ve been pleased with the way it handled. The bicycle is definitely the way to go though. If I’d cycled all the way home, I would have been back home for around 7:30pm I reckon rather than 8:30pm, but at least I got home safely.

The burning question now is what’s the situation going to be like in the morning.

One more little thing to look out for. I’ve started using twitter. If you want to see what I’m up to, you can follow my twittering here.

Last night was the Cubs night hike around Rother Valley. Four or so miles, setting off at 7pm in the dark (well, it would be wouldn’t it, it being a night hike) from the Scout HQ in Killamarsh, down to the park, back to the south end of the park, up on to the TPT and back in to the village, most of it off road or on the closed park access roads.

It was a bit cloudy so the planned star gazing was out of the window, and it was cold. So cold in fact that it was starting to freeze as we were walking. The mud was getting crunchy under foot and the puddles were starting to solidify. The freezing was more advanced in some areas than others. It was particularly advanced in the area on the Park access road when I put my foot down on the far side of a speed bump. My foot shot from underneath me and I was rather unceremoniously dumped on the floor. This morning, I’ve got a bump the size of a mango on my rear end and the makings of a marvellous bruise. Funnily enough, I think I was the only casualty. It’s probably a good job I was at the back of the procession so the witnesses were fewer.

Despite that, it was a pleasant enough walk.

Daniel now has his night hike badge to go with his Scientist badge (they did things with cress seeds) and his water awareness badge. That in itself was fun because the Christmas treat for the cubs was scuba diving at Eckington pool. They did the water awareness as part of that, but the scuba diving seemed to be enjoyed by all, and as a consequence, all the kids got their PADI Bubbleblowers badge and certificate.

Tonight’s job is transferring the third lot of home brew to the keg in preparation for Christmas supping. It will keep nicely cold in the garage.  It also looks like this brew, a Canadian style lager is going to better than the last  Mexican style one. It seems to have more body and a fuller taste. Hmmm.

One the nice features of living where we do is the maze of gennels that provide easy pedestrian access through large parts of the estate. We’re also on the edge of the estate as well, and no more than 10 minutes walk from open countryside with lots of fields and trails to explore. This is even more fun now we’ve got a dog. He might be short in the leg department (he does have the correct number, it’s just that they’re not very long), but he seems to enjoy a good walk. So, pooch (Pebble) made some noises about wanting to go out for a walk yesterday evening around 6pm, and I was happy to oblige.

We ended up coming up a back lane on the edge of estate with houses on one side and hedgerow and fields on the other. The only problem is that at the top of this lane there are some stables and people regularly walk and ride their mighty steeds up here. Consequently, the path gets more than its fair share of horse poo. Pebble seems to find this fasciniating. He seems to have a fascination for anything that’s come out of the back end of an animal; cat, dog, horse…

So, I had him on a short lead and we ended up slaloming our way up the path, avoiding the scattered piles of assorted sh*t. Horses are a bigger problem ‘cos they, err, produce bigger piles and easily take up half the width of the path, but they seem to coordinate their droppings so they drop on alternate sides of the path.

I’ve realigned our webcam to point a bit further over to the right. Why? Caroline’s moved the feeder with the niger seeds in it on to the patio. It’s stuck in the planter with the ornamental grass in it. If you’re lucky, you might just see a goldfinch on it.

Click on the thumbnail image of the webcam on the  right of this page. You can also get to it by going direct to www.gardencam.co.uk. It’s a live image, so every time you view or refresh the pag, you should get a new image. Check the date / time stamp on the top to make sure.

Sorry, but there’s no zoom capability.

It snowed last night on the southern outskirts of Sheffield. If you had a lie in bed this morning, you may have missed it. If, on the other hand, you were up stupidly early, whilst still dark, you would have seen a light covering of snow on the ground. Gardencam viewers wouldn’t have been able to see anything because it was dark (I wonder how much infra-red cameras are?). I was up stupidly early to answer a call of nature, so grabbed the camera. With a one-second exposure, ISO 1600 and hoping the camera didn’t move whilst I was taking the shot, this was the sodium light-lit view from the bedroom window. As I write this (noon), the snow has all but gone now.

A bit of a catch up post, this one. On Sunday, Dan and I went out for a walk around Rother Valley. We took Dan’s scooter. To be honest, I forgot just how un-scooter friendly the far side of the lake is (stones not suitable for small wheels… I wish he’d get his bike riding off!). Anyway, there was an ice-cream promised at the end of it, so he had to scoot or walk all the way round to the cafe. Who says the art of bribery is dead?!

I always like to watch the dinghy sailors at the park. Sometimes it can be a bit of a laugh and Sunday was no disappointment. I should come clean at this point and admit that I’ve got RYA levels 1 through 4 for dinghy sailing. Mrs Woolforbrains has levels 1 and 2; we both did one and two at Rother Valley a few years BD (Before Daniel) and I did three and four when we were on holiday in Turkey and Greece some years ago (again, BD). Hence, I think I’m qualified to criticise ;)

Well, I don’t think this couple had realised for one that the boat actually had a jib. The park boats usually have spring-furled jibs… release the tie, pull the sheet and out comes the job. It also means they reef easily. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the camera out a few seconds earlier as they nearly ran the thing aground on the rather muddy edge near where were where, and a couple of times they nearly accidentally jibed it. Unfortunately for us onlookers, they then seemed to get the hang of things. Maybe next time?!

When I got back to my Mum’s house on Monday evening, feathers were spit and rude words said. I’d got a flat tyre. It was easy to spot. A screw had gone up the tread wall. True to form, I had to getthe AA out again. Not this time because I couldn’t get teh wheel off, but because the cheap ‘orrible Peugeot wheel brace was in danger of shearing. That ‘nice man’ ™ came out and did the job. I slipped him a fiver for his troubles.

I was faced with getting a new tyre fairly quickly though because I was due to be in Birmingham today. I remembered that one of the guys that works for me recommended eTyres, so I decided to give them a try. I reckoned that with no notice, my regular tyre dealer would have to be charging me around £110 supplied and fitted, so I was delighted with eTyre’s quote of £85 all in. The other good thing is they’re mobile. I decided to work from home and arranged for the fitting.

The guy that came to do the fitting was from a company in Rotherham who amongst other things have the local eTyres franchise. It took him no more than 20 minutes to take the old tyre off (including, I noticed, the use of a clip-on rim protector to save damage to my alloy rims), fit the new tyre, balance and fit back on the car. Top service, at home, great price. Give them a try (Anna, they’re probably a bit too far away for you!).

Whilst I was working from home, someone local must have been naughty because we had a visit from the local police helicopter (that big lens again…!)Normally, we get South Yorkshire’s chopper, but I don’t think this is theirs. They used to have McDonnell Douglas NOTAR job which is quite quiet when it’s parked over your house (especially at 3am!). This isn’t a NOTAR and was noticeably noisy for the 15 minutes or so it was parked above our house. A quick search reveals this one to be a Eurocopter belonging to Derbyshire Constabulary (sorry – I couldn’t find an adult page!). According to SY Police’s Air Support page, they are in a mutual aid consortium’ with West Yorkshire and Humberside forces. Why couldn’t they go with Derbyshire as well and convince them to get a quieter helicopter?

Well, last week, they weren’t for working!

Yes, I know it’s been a while since my last post. Post flood, we’ve had a long weekend up at Center Parcs Whinfell Forest (the resort formerly known as Oasis) which took up last Friday and Monday. Unlike the Sherwood resort which is only forty minutes from our front door, Whinfell is a good three hour drive via the A1 and A66. Different scenery, (alleged) red squirrels rather than grey ones, badgers, more hills… different but nice. The pool complex is certainly fun. The last time we went to Center Parcs, Daniel still needed armbands, but not this time, and didn’t we have fun in the pool?

The lodge we had was bigger than the equivalent in Sherwood with a very nice picture window that lent itself to this shot, metering for the outside light.

That was last weekend.

As I write now, this weekend is drawing to a close, and it’s been another busy one.

On Friday, I booked another day off work to indulge in a bit of boating. It was Rotherham Walking Festival. In conjunction with Rotherham Council who were organising the event, we (the Canal Trust) brought the Seth Ellis up from Retford to Kiveton to partake in the festival, giving one-way trips to walkers. The trip from Retford takes two days and something like 50 locks and the same back. I had the easy job on the Friday, crewing for the walkers. No locks!

The top ‘pound’ (bit between locks) stretches from the disused Norwood tunnel eastern entrance to the top of Thorpe Lock (pictured). You start locking with a vengeance then. The first lock is a treble staircase (four gates where the lower gate of the first lock forms the top gate of the second and so on). It must be a nightmare for inexperiences boaters. So much so that British Waterways feel it necessary to put instructions at the top for how to navigate the staircase. Get the wrong locks full of water and you get to see a waterfall. There’s the opposite plate at the bottom of the flight telling you how to get up. Most boaters will do the ‘up’ bit first because there’s nowhere to start from at the top.

Think it’s all easy going after this? Think again. This flight of locks consists of two treble like this and two doubles as well as a handful of single locks. No wonder the old boatmen knew this as the ‘Giants Staircase’. Something else to bear in mind. At a maximum speed on inland waterways of 4 mph, a lock typically takes 15 minutes, so you do 4 miles in an hour, four locks in an hour or a combination of the two. Not exactly fast moving, is it? It is however, a beautiful stretch of the canal, a view endorsed by the Tuesday Night Club when Earnest ventured up here in 2003.

This is the end of the line for most boaters, and the winding hole at Kiveton where the feeder from Harthill reservoir keeps the canal supplied with water is the last point you could turn. The tunnel mouth is probably another mile west of here and that means a long reverse to get back. BW feel it appropriate to warn boaters.

Apparently, the feeder is normally just a trickle this time of year, but the recent heavy rains have necessitated the raising of the sluices at Harthill to let some of the excess water out. The guy fishing opposite the feeder didn’t seem to be worried though and had, by my reckoning, a pretty successful day, apart from those inconsiderate boaters who kept turning a blue boat around and stirring up the silt!

The last ‘run’ of the day was probably the nicest. The low setting sun reflecting on the canal with the midges rising above the water made for an absolutely lovely shot which I don’t think I managed to capture fully with this shot, despite several tries.

We wrapped up a long day around 9pm with this group of walkers. One of the council walk leaders took this picture with my camera of the final party of walkers and crew (myself, Pete Ramsell and Steve Thompson) and walk organiser and trust member, David Blackburn.

Before anyone asks, yes, we did position ourselves to make sure the crest was visible on the side of the Seth Ellis.

A final postscript: I’ve added a ’subscribe via bloglines’ on the right because Mrs Woolforbrains reckoned it was difficult to find the RSS feeds. Although I don’t use bloglines, she swears by it.

Somewhere in the Bible, there’s something about the flood waters subsiding on the 40th day. I don’t think our flood is of Biblical proportions, but it’s caused quite a bit of local disruption. I had a little trip out earlier today to see what the damage looked like. (I should also say at this point that I’m experimenting with a new photo gallery plugin). Some of the images are from around Killamarsh. Some are when I went out for a trip around the local area so feature Beighton and Woodhouse.

Click on the image (left) to open up the photo gallery.