New toy

The purchase of a Panasonic Lumix G3 came about after an increasingly unhappy relationship with a Fuji FinePix S1500 camera which frequently crashed, losing photographs. This is a shame because other than that it’s not a bad camera for the price. Replacement memory cards, new batteries, changing the settings etc didn’t help – the damned thing just wasn’t reliable.

Anyway, the G3 came on offer so I took the plunge and bought one, it’s virtually an SLR without actually being one. So far I’m very pleased with the results – although it’s very early days. First results can be viewed here. Many of the photos on this link are very severely cropped and most are taken without a flash, which is why some will appear grainy.

I’m going to Spain soon to walk a section of the Via de la Plata and I wanted a camera that I could rely on. I rather feel this is the one.

A few features that persuaded me that this was the camera for me: A decent sized image sensor, accepts filters, viewfinder, reasonable battery life, much smaller and lighter than an SLR, very little time-lag taking photos, very fast auto-focus, idiot mode (fully automatic if needed, ie: point and shoot)….and lastly: Ian Cotterill reckons they’re a good buy.

‘Nuff said.

Wednesday 12th September, Getting the aerial up higher

Winter is approaching fast so I’ve been messing about with my aerial system at home.
The aerial is a half-wave dipole for 80m fed with twin feeder. My garden isn’t long enough to squeeze 132’ of wire in a straight line so the ends are folded down. The centre of the dipole was only at about 22’ agl, nowhere near high enough for the system to be an effective radiator. It performed adequately but that’s all.
Time for a re-think. I’ve managed to get the dipole centre up to around 30’, still not high enough but certainly better. This afternoon’s little job is to make a coax balun although the poor weather means it probably won’t get installed today.
The aerial is now certainly a better radiator on 80m & 40m, but receive noise is still a problem. Next door have a noisy TV, it may be plasma…the work of the devil!  Unfortunately my neighbours are unapproachable so I need to deal with the problem on my side of the fence. The RF noise next door’s TV generates makes 80m difficult to use in the evenings. I’ve treated myself to a noise canceller (MFJ1026)but I’ve not tried it out yet, I just hope it works!

MFJ1026 Noise Canceller

This little box works by mixing signals from the main station aerial with signals from a ‘noise’ aerial – an aerial that is aligned to pick up the interfering noise. The phase and level of the interference is then altered by the box in a manner that allows it to cancel out the noise received by the main aerial = much reduced noise. That’s the theory, we’ll see.

My main interest is using low power (2-3 watts) CW (morse) on the 40 and 80m bands. Winter is a good time to play radio, hopefully my tweaked aerial system will pay dividends.
Apart from the noise canceller, my main station will remain unchanged: Yaesu FT817 transceiver fitted with a narrow CW filter, and a Bencher squeeze key. A ‘T’ Match ATU is used to optimise the match between transceiver and aerial system.
        
                        Bencher Key                                                   FT817

My FT817 has a microphone but it’s rarely connected – it just gets in the way!

Bromyard Day 2, Sunday 9th September

 

The previous night’s entertainment had been spectacular – Scottish supergroup Session A9 were tremendous in spite of one of their fiddlers, Adam Sutherland (ANOTHER Sutherland, they seem to do a lot of this musical stuff), being down with a bad cold. TGO Challengers who pass through Ault-na-Goire may well be familiar with the Sutherlands.

Session A9

 

The Copper Family from Rottingdean in Sussex have been singing their songs for generations. They had three generations on stage at one point – their songs are some of the most well-known in the English tradition. Listening to their singing brings me out in goose-bumps! 

The Copper Family

Keith Donnelly’s late night (early morning!) spot meant it was 2am by the time I got to bed. Keith is a favourite of mine – and of the Mrs JJ, she’s normally early to bed, but not when Keith Donnelly’s about. His absolutely insane humour had his audience in stitches, I went to bed with aching sides.

Keith Donnelly

After such a late night I felt justified in having a lie-in on Sunday morning….but even I was surprised to sleep until 9.30am.

The previous day had been extremely hot, with clear blue skies and a strong sun. The clear skies made for a cold night and I was glad to be in my caravan.

I had a hurried breakfast and headed off into town to meet up for another lunchtime music session in the Falcon. The usual suspects had gathered in the bar and the session was in full swing when I arrived:

The Falcon does an excellent Sunday dinner, it’s one of our Bromyard Festival treats. The rest of the time we self-cater so we feel justified in pushing the boat out just this once over the weekend. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I have to leave the session early because the chef goes home at 2pm. Still, it’s a nice treat.

Back on the Festival site the festival was winding down towards the final concert. I have to confess that the line up didn’t float my boat – perhaps I was folked-out. I popped into the concert for a short time then headed over to the beer tent to meet up with some old friends and to listen to the impromptu music session that had sprung into life.

By 11pm I was in bed.

I seem to recall that Bromyard is a sunny festival, hot during the day but cold at night. My journey home on the Monday morning always seems to be in gloomy weather, leaving Bromyard and the summer behind. This year was no exception.

Once at home it was back to parent-caring and trip planning: the Backpackers Club Treasure Hunt (a laid-back orienteering event with an overnight wild-camp) is next weekend, in the Lake District. Then I need to plan my trip to Spain to walk a section of the Via de la Plata.

I really must get my finger out.

More photographs are here.

Bromyard Folk Festival 2012

 

The Falcon, Bromyard

 

Flos’s English Music Session in the Falcon

 

? on fiddle, with Sandy on box – two very competent musicians

Eh?

A Cotswold Morris side on the festival site

Although I dipped into Whitby Folk Festival for three days in August, this year has been very quiet, festival-wise. I normally go to Sidmouth, Dartmoor and Shrewsbury festivals, but other stuff has meant that I've not really been in festival mode this year.

Bromyard Folk Festival is always a 'must' for me and I wasn't going to let other stuff get in the way of this weekend of excellent music, singing, dancing and, er, beer. Bromyard (= Ambridge?) is a lovely village in the heart of the Herefordshire countryside.

I have wonderful warm memories of this delightful village, it has become a special, almost secret, place for me. Being here is wonderful although visits will always be tinged with some sadness.

The weather yesterday was cookingly hot, sadly the beer at Bromyard's Hop Pole was well below par: 3 different brews that were decidedly sub-standard. The beer on the festival site, Wye Valley, more than made up for this short-coming.

Last night's excellent concert, compered by the hilarious Keith Donnelly, consisted of sets by The Askew Sisters, The James Findlay Trio, and the very excellent John Spiers and Jon Boden - front men of folk supergroup Bellowhead.

Much of today, Saturday, has been spent in the bar of the Falcon, playing in the English music sessions run by renowned fiddler, Flos Headford.

I always learn new tunes from Flos, his encyclopedic knowledge of English traditional music is legendary.

The Wye Valley Bitter was as good as ever, and the comfort and warm welcome offered by the Falcon equalled that of my visit earlier this year and previous festivals.

Tonight's plan has yet to be finalised, but will include a shanty session, a ceilidh, a concert and an entertaining hour with Keith Donnelly....although Keith's performance isn't due to kick off until well past midnight.

It will be a good evening

More tomorrow.

Two different ceilidhs

Friday 17th August

The Marmaladies have done this ceilidh before and reported back that it was fun. Held in the Friend’s Meeting House in Manchester city centre and run by the Quakers. The building is adjacent to Petersfield, site of the Peterloo massacre of 1819.
The event promised to cheerful and gay. I’m not a religious type at all, but I’ve got a lot of time for the Quakers. The event was certainly gay.
The Marmaladies were operating with extras at this event. In addition to Clur on whistles and flute, and Marian on fiddle, we had Kathy on flute – she’s a long-time member of the band but has been in Glasgow for the last 4 years, John on guitar, Mike on Cajon (and a very excellent sound man), Brian as caller, and me on melodeon.  It was a lively musical mix, with and excellent caller and a tremendously enthusiastic, and sometimes colourful audience:
An early finish (10pm) left us enough time to pile all the gear into Mike’s Tardis of a Landrover, squeeze the band in too, and then head to the Beech in Chorlton for rehydration.

 L-R: A Beech Boozer, Mike, Clur, Marian, John. Centre: beer.

It was a brilliant evening, enjoyed by everyone. I really hope we get the chance to play this one next year.

Saturday 18th August

A different band for this one – Midgebites. We were one down for this one – Bill, our very excellent percussionist, has moved up to Morecambe to look after his poorly lady. The band insisted he stay with Gina, whilst she’s under the weather. Fingers crossed for her full recovery!
We were down to John W on guitar, Emma on fiddle, me on melodeon, and Brian as caller….. but no drum. This could be a problem.
We decided some time ago that if Bill couldn’t play with us for some reason, we would turn the booking down. What to do?
A couple of hours of messing about with bits of wood came up with a stompbox. It’s simply a box that has a microphone inside. I tend to stamp my feet in time with the music – so why not capitalise on my footwork. The box worked a treat. Okay, it didn’t have the fiddly, frilly drum sound that Bill produces so well, but we had a beat for the band to ‘lock’ on to – and it seemed to help the audience too.

The ceilidh was an Anglo-Chinese wedding…well he was British, she was Chinese. The reception was at a small church hall in Hale, not far from JJ Towers. As is often the case with weddings, it was a late start. We were booked from 8pm until 11.30pm, but the speeches etc delayed kick-off until 9.30pm. It was curious to see one half of our audience dressed in sober, western attire, whilst t’other half were dressed very brightly indeed.

Not all western attire is sober!

The Bride’s brother…I think

The bride and a very proud mother 

Brian, our caller, doing his very best to explain a dance in English to our audience, many of whom only understood Chinese. It worked!

The evening went well. It was extremely hot and our little band were rather pooped by the time we left for home.

No more ceilidhs for a week or two now, there are backpacking trips on the horizon.

Tuesday, 14th August, A hot day from Walton

An email from Rick asking if I fancied a walk on Tuesday was met with the usual reponse…..’Yes’!

At 9.30am I piled into Rick’s car and we disappeared off to the very photogenic village of Higher Walton, SW of Warrington. The sun was blazing down and I was thankful to be carrying a litre of water in my Platy.

Leaving the car on a quiet lane we made our way through the village towards the Bridgewater Canal. Judging by the inscribed stones on some of the houses, the Greenhall family were once quite influential in the area. Their Wilderspool Brewery supplied most of the local pubs for many decades.

We were soon on a familiar section of canal towpath, part of the route on my recent bike-packing trip, albeit in the other direction. Walking East (East is good) along the towpath we came across runners, cyclists, dog-walkers, and of course canal boats – although not all were pleasure craft.Walking through Stockton Heath, under the A49, and on to Grappenhall by the canal, it was very easy to forget that we were very close to  ‘civilisation’, such was the tranquillity of our route.

Leaving the canal to walk through Grappenhall Wood our route took us west-ish

Very pleasant woodland paths of the Mersey Valley Timberland Trail took us around the edge of a modern housing estate and continued through the wooded sandstone edges of The Dingle and Lumb Brook Valley. Although it was a pretty little valley, the brook was a bit whiffy – perhaps it was the hot weather and proximity to housing. Looking at the map, the brook may be called Dipping Brook. Perhaps it was something ‘they’ had dipped into it.

Dingle Lane Bridge over Dipping Brook

(which wasn’t at all whiffy at this point)

Then it was time to get lost. A walk wouldn’t be a proper walk if it all went to plan now, would it?

It was probably because we were gassing too much. Or the bright sun that was shining in our eyes. In our defence we only went a bit wrong and it didn’t take more than a minute or so to locate our position on the map. 

Back on track, we crossed the A49 Roman Road and climbed up to Hill Cliffe for our lunch stop. Munching our butties, we had a good view of Winter Hill, Warrington, and, er, the cemetery. The sun was burningly hot, too hot for me to keep my Tilley on – I think I need to get a lighter-weight one.

Trying (unsuccessfully) to be artistic

Appleton Reservoir, popular with anglers (WAA Members only, No Day Tickets. Have a nice day), birdwatchers, nettle-lovers and biting bugs, was our next target.

  The heat got hotter, I got sweatier, Rick looked cool. It’s his glasses you know.

Then there was (were?) Creamfields. Being a boring old fart who doesn’t get out much, I hadn’t heard of Creamfields. At first I thought it might be a dairy farmers convention. Or a peculiar coloured landscape. But no, it’s some sort of music festival that costs lots of money to get in to…just so you can have your ear-drums blasted with megawatts of sound. I shan’t be going. It’s being held over the August Bank Holiday anyway. And I’ll be washing my hair that weekend.

Emerging from Row’s Wood we spotted little coloured flags stuck into the ground. Then there were the enormous pallets of what we were to later learn were sections of barrier, designed to keep folks out of the Creamfields site. Or maybe to keep them in? The site area was huge. It’s a sell-out event, 55,000 tickets sold….which is the REAL reason for me not going. Perhaps.

 

 Keeping folk in…or out?

 Temporary mobile phone mast, needed if 55,000 fans all phone home at the same time

Leaving the festival site behind, we crossed the A56 to get back to the peace and quiet of the well-manicured canal towpath once again.

Marching Eastwards (East is good) once again, we soon came to Moore village which has a shop selling ice creams. Well it would be rude not to….wouldn’t it? And it WAS very hot. So we did.

Our ice creams were demolished quickly and it wasn’t long at all before more towpath tramping had us back at the car.

The final stretch of towpath before getting back to the car 

The End 

Well it’s not the end really. I’m still here and there will be more.

We had a good day. Next time, and there WILL be a next time, we’ll extend the route slightly. This will put a couple more miles on. The extra bit is plotted so it’s just a matter of doing it.

Thanks Rick! My turn to drive next time…..you can buy the ice creams,

Vital statistics:

21 of your foreign kilometers, 650 of yer English feet of upness.

If you look carefully you’ll see where we were, er, slightly off-route.

Sunday 12th August, Milly’s Edale Round

OMer Stephen spends much of his time in the States these days, his current visit to Europe was celebrated by a weekend of Peak District walks arranged (she wouldn’t be happy if I said ‘organised’) by Milly, a fellow OMer.

OMer, for those not in the know, is the description for one who frequents Outdoors Magic, a website with excellent forums, dedicated to those who do outdoors stuff. Like me.

Saturday’s walk had been in in the White Peak, whilst today’s walk was in the Dark Peak. I couldn’t get to the Saturday walk so today’s would have to suffice.

Seven walkers met at the Edale’s P&D car park, ready for a 10am start.

Although there was high cloud it was a very warm morning and I was happy to let my knees come out to play. Milly marched us out of the car park in the direction of the Nags Head…perhaps we were going to get all sociable before we hit the hills? Ooh, goody!

Disappointed, I was steered away from the pub in the direction of Grindsbrook Booth and Upper Booth. The Plan had been to go up to the southern edge of Kinder by using the tourist route by Jacob’s Ladder. At Upper Booth, local lad Jim pointed out an alternative way to the top avoiding the boring Jacob’s Ladder bit.  A lovely footpath climbed, gently at first, up Crowden Clough towards Crowden Tower. This was definitely a nicer route than Jacob’s Bloody Ladder. I’ll use it again.

Milly, being a shy and retiring sort, hiding from the paparazzi 

Crowden Brook had to be crossed a couple of times as we climbed, some found it more difficult than others:

The sun was out now and it was bakingly hot as we climbed up towards Crowden Tower, fortunately we all had plenty of water. Once high up on the edges we stopped for our Official Lunch – as opposed to our Unofficial Lunch….which we didn’t seem to get round to. Curious.

Poor Maria seemed to be suffering from an embarrassing ‘problem’:

We didn’t like to mention it, not in front of friends anyway. Don’t worry Maria, help is available these days. She’s such a nice girl. I’ll have a quiet word with her next time.

Our task-master pushed us on, through the weird shaped tors of the edges, in the direction of Edale Cross.

It was a bit clearer up here compared to my last visit with Lynsey and Alan. And it was much warmer.

Rounding Swines Back I spotted the figure of one of the Peak Park Rangers ahead of us. He stopped to chat to us in the way Rangers do. There was something strangely familiar about this man but I couldn’t place him. Then it clicked: ‘Are you a Challenger?’ I asked. His face lit up – it was John Burt who I had met for the first time in the Monadhliath on my 2011 Challenge.

John Burt, veteran of 14 Challenges 

Maria had been thinking of applying for TGOC2013, John’s enthusiasm for the Challenge had all but convinced her to apply. Well done John!

John walked with us as far as the trig-point at Kinder Low, then he had to continue his Rangering duties as we turned East (East is good) to walk back towards Crowden Tower. It was lovely to see John, he’s one the Challenge’s gentlemen.

The good path along the southern edge of Kinder is very popular with those out for a short walk, today was no exception – there were crowds on the path. It was a bit concerning to see that nearly all of them were woefully equipped for even this easy walking. It was rare to see a waterproof – and as the rain had started to do what rain does best, it must have made for uncomfortable walking.

Crag rats on the edges

The Plan was to drop off the edge by Ringing Roger. By the time we arrived there it had stopped raining and our waterproofs were packed away for the rest of the walk.

Stephen (the other one) calling his wife to explain why he was late

The steep drop from the high edges soon had us walking over soft, grassy ground – a welcome change from the hard gritstone of the edge:

Final Approach

We arrived back at the car-park at around 4pm. All good things must come to an end and this had been a good day in great company. Just a pity I couldn’t have done the Saturday walks too.

Thanks to Milly for making it happen, to Stephen (the other one) for being the reason for it happening in the first place, and to everyone else for being such good company.

Stephen and Stephen. No idea which is which though….

The day’s (approx) vitals: 12–ish miles with about 2300’ of up.

Jim plotted the route in a rather more accurate manner using a GPS thingy.

Oh, and there are more pictures of the day here.

Milly’s (rather better) photographs of both days of walking are here.