Fixing the Code

Friday has been a good day, by the Gorse Fox's standards. The Silver Vixen has been in her study working on her preparation and practise for a workshop she will be attending tomorrow. The Gorse Fox has been in his study working on the Raspberry Pi.

With the camera module fitted, the pictures being captured are much better than the old ones. However, these pictures do not include any sort of timestamp on the image. What's more it doesn't appear to be an option. A little investigation revealed that a caption could be overlaid on the image using another program.

It took a fair bit of fiddling about, but now GF has the automatic image capture working.

This particular image was taken at four o'clock as the sun was going down. There was still a bug in the code at this point. The timestamp was repeating the hour - so instead of saying 160002 (2 seconds past 16:00) it repeated the hour and said 16160002. That was soon corrected.

There were many other tasks the Gorse Fox had to do: the early photos, taken when we first moved in, were mirror images of what was actually there - so he also wrote some code to go through and flip all the pictures that were affected.

Some tasks are still outstanding - dates/times were wrong for the first few weeks we were here - so they need to be sorted out if GF can work out what they should have been. Also, he would like to create a video by combining all the early photos (prior to the installation of the new camera) into a sequence.

Visiting the NT at Uppark

In August 1989 the Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox had decided to go and visit one of the National Trust properties that wasn't too far from our home at the time. The choice was Petworh House or Uppark House. (Both about 90 minutes drive). We chose Petworth and that very weekend Uppark was consumed by fire.

Several years of restoration followed at the cost of £23M, and the building was finally reopened to the public a few years ago.

We had visited since the reopening, but as it is on 17 miles from home and it looked like a very mild day, we though we would return.

Being a National Trust property, no photography is allowed inside the building - but the restoration is a triumph of care, attention to detail, and workmanship.

 It was a bit overcast when we first arrived, but slowly the clouds broke up and it brightened up by early afternoon.

There was meant to be a trail explaining the life and times of the house - created by artists in the "Arts and Crafts" style. The Gorse Fox is evidently a philistine, as he was spectacularly unimpressed by all but a few of these exhibits. It seemed, as it so often appears, to be an exercise in supporting people of little talent but who thing of themselves as creative.

After touring the dairy, the stables, and the main house, we made our way to the restaurant. Scones, jam, clotted cream, flapjacks, and cake all washed down with strong tea seemed like the perfect interlude in the trip.

Feeling very satisfied we moved on and took a stroll in the grounds. It was half-term and there were lots of yummy-mummies and their kids, but to be fair they were having fun without causing any kind of nuisance.

It was a nice trip, and the Gorse Fox expects that we will return as it is so close to home.

Go ahead

The chap from the scaffolding company turned up. If the Gorse Fox and the Silver Vixen go ahead with the installation of the gas fire, we will need to get the chimney lined... and the nature of the gap between us and the house next door precludes use of a ladder. We debated with the scaffolder and a deal was done.

The Gorse Fox has now contacted the fire supplier and told them to go ahead. It will probably be several weeks before anything happens - but at least the decision is made.

Pi Cam

The Gorse Fox has had a quiet day. There was no football - which given the heavy rain, was lucky.

He made the most of the time by installing the Camera Module on his raspberry Pi. This will take over form the old webcam he had providing the timelapse view of life - as it goes by - out of the front of the house.

To give an idea of scale, just behind the camera module, on the right, is a normal SDCard. The whole unit (camera and Raspberry Pi) is mounted (i.e. sellotaped) to the top of box in which the iPhone 5 was delivered.

The Gorse Fox will have to come up with a better way of mounting this for the future, but this will do for the moment.

Discovery

After ten years, the Gorse Fox has just discovered something. If he sends a blog post by email, and that post contains a photo - then the text gets dropped. If there is no photo, the text is posted correctly. GF had never noticed this behaviour before.

Ten Years After

Today the Gorse Fox celebrates 10 years of blogging. It was ten years ago today he thought he'd give it a try - not quite sure why, nor whether there was a point. He had been inspired by several earlier bloggers and thought that, at least, it was an outlet for some of life's moments of irony, of humour, and the occasional moments of frustration. 7384 blog posts later we find ourself here.

Not yet crispy

It seemed too nice to stay in. The morning had seen a trip across to Rustington for some bits and pieces for the spare bedroom. The afternoon seemed like time to explore.

The Gorse Fox set off with the intention of walking through Bersted to Shripney. It seemed straightforward enough. The Gorse Fox, however, had not taken into account the road construction that was going on nearby. This bisected the route, and whist it was clear the footpath and the bridge over the new road were complete, they were still blocked off.

He diverted and came back via another route. This ran behind the new school (which opens next week) and down through the neighbouring development, past the attenuation ponds and back. It was clear this had become a favourite feed ground for some local ducks. Whilst they flew off as the Gorse Fox arrived, he only had to wait a couple of minute before they all returned to their feeding frenzy.

Football

Lovely morning of walking football. Only four aside this week but that meant lots of space to pass the ball and lots of movement.

As you can see, the AstroTurf pitch is really quite swish. It has a slight spring under foot and is very forgiving on old joints.

The Silver Vixen decided she would come along to watch. The Gorse Fox supposes that even on a Sunday morning it's good to have a laugh. When we stopped for a break at half-time she took a group shot.

The natural competitiveness couldn't be suppressed and the team for which the Gorse Fox was playing won comfortable (in fact we stopped counting when we got to double figures).

There's no mid-week game this week - which is probably as well as it gives us a chance to heal a few tweaked muscles and rest some aching joints.

Explanation

The Gorse Fox had taken time to explain about the clocks changing. The cat seemed to listen but obviously forgot everything we had discussed at 0600 this morning.

Expectation

Have heard from the local dealer. The Silver Vixen's car should arrive on site this coming week so with luck we will have it within the next 10 days or so.

Talking of expectation, the Gorse Fox received a text from BT. He  can expect his kit to be delivered on 3rd November. With P&P it will cost £41-ish, oh yes and his Broadband should be switched on on 3rd November. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

The Gorse Fox has not ordered anything from BT.

He does not need any kit.

He does not want any kit.

He is not going to pay £41 pounds for something he neither needs nor wants.

He already has Broadband (although painfully slow).

His heart sinks. Is this whole nightmare about to replay itself?

Cool and Dry

It's cool and dry (much like the Gorse Fox). Seemed like an ideal opportunity to take some sheets of MDF out into the garden and get them primed so that the Gorse Fox can start his little project next week. (Though he does need one additional sheet of MDF to complete it).

Fortunately it is touch dry in a very short time so he has had time to flip the boards and do both sides and the edges.

Little Victories

The agent from BT called. Our correct phone number has finally been restored... and our charges - going forward - have been significantly reduced.

Broadband is stil very slow - so the Gorse Fox complained about this and she took it in hand. let's see what happens over the next few days as there has been no real increase in speed over the last week and by now it should be approaching its optimum.

Queues

The Gorse Fox got an alert. Tickets for Eric Clapton's 2015 Royal Albert Hall concerts were going on sale at 0900 this morning. He loogged on an found himself in a queue with 3349 people in front of him, just to gain access to the website. By the time he reached the head of the queue all of the prime tickets had gone. He did, however, manage to grab a few for next May.

Transactions

Now that the Gorse Fox has, what BT laughingly refer to as, Broadband, he has been able to log in and download all of the various bank transactions that have accumulated since we moved. It has taken all morning to go through them and record them all.

The Gorse Fox use MoneyDashboard which is a very useful aggregator for all of the various accounts. The problem is that they seem to have change the interface somewhat and it looks like they have hidden or lost the facility that allow you to download all of the transactions to a spreadsheet. The GF is not sure how this constitutes progress.

Complications

We heard last week that the Coventry Hobbit had been involved in a motorcycle  crash. Yesterday it became clear that, one week on, bruising was still developing. It was decided he should head back to the hospital.

We await news... and hope that all is ok.

We Wuz Robbed

So the local derby game was played. It  was great fun, ending up 0-0. This, however, meant a penalty shoot-out. We were slightly hampered by a ref who couldn't count. The iidea was 5 penalties each team, and if still a draw, then sudden death.

The Gorse Fox went in goal for his team - and saved 3 of the 5 penalties. Our team scored 3 penalties - so had logically won. Trouble was the ref had lost count and went to sudden death where the Gorse Fox not only let the next ball through, but being his turn to take a penalty, he hit it straight at the goal keeper.

Pah!

One of the organisers from Brighton & Hove Albion was there taking photos which are, apparently, destined for twitter. The Gorse Fox will keep an eye out. 

Local Derby

Today the Gorse Fox has another football match. This is a local derby against Littlehampton - at their ground. At least it isn't quite as blustery as yesterday - though there is a nip in the air. Not sure how many of our lads will turn up - but we'll see.

Online

The Silver Vixen was out playing with her coven. This left the Gorse Fox at home alone. Alone, and online (finally).

It wasn't plain sailing. It was so long since some of the systems had been connected that they all wanted to back-up or update. The iPhone took 4 hours to update, the iPad threatened to take 7 - but only took 4 hours. Let's hope things speed up.

We met with the chap who will be developing our Orangery to tie down some basic logistcs and answer some final questions. Looks like they can't start until the New Year, now. That's not too much of a problem and not too much of a delay.

Relief

The Gorse Fox heaves a sigh of relief. Broadband service has been switched on. 

At the moment he feels like he has been under a Stone Age seige and the digital relief column has been seen coming over the hill, but hasn't quite arrived. The speed of the link is dreadfully slow at present, but should pick up as the line settles and the modem tunes itself. It's still too soon to do a great deal, but at least the infrastructure is now in place. 

Another working week

And so begins another working week. 

Ooops, oh no it doesn't. It's another non-working week. No commuting, no irritating conference calls, no stupid targets, no annual assessments, no clients, and no management by running around shouting. Just the Silver Vixen, other nice people, and nice tasks that the Gorse Fox wants to perform, rather than has to perform... and the odd game of football.