14 to 20 August 2024 - A 'Catch-up' Miscellany

I've lived within walking distance of Old Trafford Cricket Ground for over 50 years, including for a while in a shared house that enjoyed a view of the ground. A down jacket is often a useful accessory, as the place can harbour a chilly wind, but on this occasion, after walking down from home on 14 August, it was t-shirt weather all day. A brilliant day to enjoy a 50 over contest between Lancashire and Worcestershire. An exciting and very even match ended when Worcestershire failed to score the three runs they needed to win off the last eight balls. A great result for Lancs, and a lovely day out.

The cricket was a great interlude between many hours spent trying to sort out an email issue whereby I was prevented from sending messages due to Microsoft alleging my mailbox to be full when in fact it had many gigabytes of unused memory.

Many hours were spent, including phone calls with our provider and with Rick, at Grapevine, our local computer shop. Eventually our provider was persuaded to refer the problem to their engineers rather than require me to endure more futile attempts to sort it out with Microsoft.

That resolved the mailbox problem, but Microsoft Outlook needed much attention from Rick in order to get it working as we wanted it to on both our desktop and laptop computers.

With all that going on until finally being resolved (I hope) on Thursday 22 August, I have got behind with my on-line diary, hence this catch-up, which some may find rather tedious, but hey!

Friday 16 August was 'Isabella Day (71)'. She always enjoys a snack when we get home from collecting her. Red jam is a favourite.

She hasn't learnt the alphabet yet, but this jigsaw offers some introductions.

The manufacture of chocolate chip biscuits is a favourite occupation, as is eating said biscuits (strict rationing is applied).

It was a fine day, so we could go camping. Isabella enjoyed the experience and we enjoyed quite a few daily cycles of 'wake/breakfast/play/lunch/play/dinner/bedtime/sleep/wake'.... and so on, each cycle taking about 15 minutes.

Then we found one of her dad's old toys and made a giraffe.

The magic box transforms Thomas (the engine) into a teapot (and similar), which fascinates the three year old.

After dropping Isabella back in Didsbury, we met Andrew, Graeme and Bridget at the Parkgate Inn, in deepest Cheshire, for the last of Andrew's evening walks of this summer, which seems to have flown past.

Andrew's mobility issues have in the recent past meant that stiles are out of bounds on these walks, but tonight was a brave exception.

These fields should perhaps be used for crops other than grass. The area has however recovered from its days as a failed planned golf course.

This is 'polo country', with visitors arriving by private helicopter.

There is a padel court and a tennis court.

The 'poodles' are being prepared for Crufts?

Llama whispering

A Polo horse

An old water tower is being converted.

Our path entered a corridor of Himalayan Balsam. A friend of ours volunteers in a team that removes this invasive species in Trafford. Perhaps we should join them. When the plant dies back it leaves bare earth that encourages erosion, so its removal encourages other more permanent shrubs to bind the ground.

Before finishing the walk at the pub, Sue took this picture for Isabella's benefit.

The following morning, 17 August, found Sue and me at Trentham Gardens, near Stoke-on-Trent, all set for the parkrun held there. But it was cancelled due to another event in the park. With 15 minutes in hand, we hurriedly made our way to Newcastle-under-Lyme and the Wammy parkrun. Setting off three minutes after the start, we soon passed the tail walker, at the back of around 350 participants. I managed to pass about 100 of them, and Sue got past over 200 people, coming first in her age group despite the three minute handicap. (Btw, it's not a race!)

Afterwards, the sports club cafe offered mugs of coffee and home made cakes for the princely sum of £1 each. Brilliant. And as with all parkruns, lots of friendly people enjoying their Saturday morning.

Full results are here.

From Newcastle, we drove to St Nicholas' Park in Warwick, where Sue had organised a family picnic attended by around 25 of her relatives. A good time was had by all.

The park is next to the River Avon, on which a selection of boating opportunities are available.

We spent the night with Sue's parents in Solihull. Her dad is hampered by a dislocated shoulder, but he could enjoy a slideshow from Sue's ipad.

On Monday night (19 August), we enjoyed the dulcit tones of Wyre Levee Stompers, who provided a great night of trad jazz at Eagley Jazz Club. 

The band's lineup is: John Smith: Drums, Bill Barrow: Reeds & band leader, Dave Brown: Banjo/Guitar,  Pete Lindup: Compère and Trumpet, Frank Carter: Bass Guitar, Mike Pearson: Trombone, and newcomer Chris Walton: Piano.  

I'll finish this entry on Tuesday 20 August, when we observed one of our local herons fishing in the canal, with quite an audience, of which several adults were imitating Sue's pose shown below.

Monday 11 March 2024 - The Original Panama Jazz Band

We were treated to a great night of Trad Jazz by the Original Panama Jazz Band,

Jon Critchley (band leader) on trumpet, Brian Singleton on drums, Andrew McKenzie on trombone/vocals, Howard Worthington on bass & vocals, Mike Hayler on Reeds, and Mark Challinor on guitar/banjo. This was tonight’s band, of which only two of the above, Jon and Andrew, are actually members of the OPJB! A very good performance, plus a couple of vocal contributions from another guest, Carol Oldham.

Meanwhile, our eleven year old computer has been deemed uneconomic to repair, hence this mobile posting and no attempt (yet) to tidy up the Kandersteg postings. [Done on 7 May 2024!]

Some garden flowers, and good service from Virgin Media

 

Dot will be delighted to see that the Snakeshead Fritillary flowers transplanted from her garden are flowering nicely.

 

Here they are again, together with Tulips and Hyacinths.

 

 

Note: we've had a few problems with our wifi recently, culminating with very intermittent 'reception' on Wednesday. Two engineers in separate vans duly arrived from Virgin Media soon after 8 am this morning (Friday), by which time the wifi had started to work again. This didn't stop them carrying out a full inspection and finding, next to the skirting board in the front bedroom, a section of wire where the core had been slightly crushed. This section of wire was duly replaced and the re-booted system worked fine.

Throughout the visit, social distancing was maintained, surfaces were wiped, and every possible step was taken to try to avoid 'the virus'.

Thanks go to Dominic, and his colleague, at Virgin Media. We were assured that if the fix doesn't work, another visit to re-wire our connection will be arranged.

So I was quite wrong when I thought (judging by all its flashing lights) that it was a router issue.

Testing ‘Open Live Writer’

A statue of Timperley comedian, Chris Sievey, in his Frank Sidebottom guise was unveiled in Timperley town centre on 20 October 2013. It remains free of graffiti, if not of a Father Christmas impersonation. It’s pictured above in view of a Timperley sunset on 17 December 2015, shortly after we returned from Chile.

This seems very similar to WLW, but there is no list of ‘labels’ so I’ll have to label the posting later.

Sunday 31 May 2015 – Resurfaced Towpaths on the Bridgewater Canal

First, I’m pleased to discover that Windows Live Writer is now working again.

Having received some positive information from Jan Williams at Saturday’s parkrun (congratulations to Sue on breaking her PB, by the way), I decided to cycle towards Manchester beyond Waters Meet, from where I know the Bridgewater Canal towpath has been resurfaced as far as the swing bridge over the Manchester Ship Canal.

I had thought the resurfacing on the Rochdale Canal link via Castlefield ended shortly after Waters Meet, so I expected to encounter mud fairly quickly. It was therefore a surprise to discover that the towpath has been resurfaced all the way to Castlefield. Great. If I was still working in town I could now cycle mainly off road on a firm surface and be at my desk within an hour, which is the time it used to take me by car.

No wonder I seem to be encountering more and more commuting cyclists when I go out at certain times. I just hope they remember that they are not the only users of the towpath and they respect others, especially dog walkers, who shouldn’t be expected to keep their charges on leads.

The top picture shows the new surface heading towards Castlefield from Throstle Nest Bridge, where the towpath crosses the bridge.

As I passed through Sale I noticed these ‘hooligans of tomorrow’ being herded in large numbers by their obnoxious parents.

If only we were allowed to trap them, I’m sure they would provide some tasty snacks!

Shortly before reaching Castlefield I decided to try to find an off-road route along the northern side of the Ship Canal, to get to the swing bridge and return home alongside the Bridgewater Canal. Taking a convenient bridge, this worked fine for a while, but beyond the BBC studios a short section of road was needed before the pavement incorporated a cycle track. The final section into Eccles was also along a road.

This ride does provide a good route from Timperley that doesn’t involve any mud. The path I took is shown below – it was over 32 km, but if the exploratory diversions are ironed out it would be about 30 km from Timperley Bridge.

Thanks to Jan for alerting me to this, and to Mike’s excellent ‘Mad Cycle Lanes of Manchester’ blog that Jan also put me on to. Anyone keen on cycling off-road in Greater Manchester could do worse than take a good look at some of Mike’s postings.

The Trent and Mersey Canal

The missing image at the top of the last post is intrinsic to that post, but I don't like to see that at the head of my blog.

Some of the images in the 'Cruising' trip that I've adjusted here by clicking on 'HTML' and changing the pixel size are now showing at a horribly low resolution, so I've tried to provide an improved version of one of them above.

The lower image has been added at the pixel size of 550 width and 410 height that I use when composing in WLW - I had to adjust it in HTML in Blogger to get this, and it's after 'Save for Web' using Photoshop.

The upper image has not been 'saved for web', simply saved into the folder I use for posting to the web, at a size of 1.3Mb. When inserted into this posting using Blogger's 'X-large' setting, it was too big for this page, so I found the size by clicking on 'HTML' and I reduced the width from 1600 to 1400 and the height from 640 to 560. This seems to have worked well.

At least viewers now see images rather than a black cross, and I hope my efforts may be useful to someone - probably you are already loading images in the manner I have just discovered! I suppose I ought to go back to the 'Cruising' images and reload them by the method that has produced the upper image, but I have other priorities just now...

Windows Live Writer (WLW) – A Test Post

Following comments and emails after the previous posting, JJ spotted this web page, which includes the following text:

“Small Workaround to Post using Windows Live Writer

Well frankly its not a straight way to hack into and make once again live writer compatible with blogger but you can write down your posts using it and post it using blogger by copying its HTML content, check how.

1. Write down your full post in Windows Live Writer.
2. Now shift to the Source TAB below.
3. Copy the whole thing and use Blogger > Posts > New Post.
4. Click on the HTML Tab and paste, this way all your formatting with remain the same.
5. Now for the images it can be uploaded directly on blogger, or if you want to format it live in live writer then you can upload it to some outer hosting (which I don't recommend) like Imgur and many other.

You can preview your posts, then add all those search description and custom permalink, then post your content.”

I actually tried this on Tuesday (26 May) when I first encountered the WLW problem. It didn’t work for me then, I think because of problems with the images, but I’m ready to give it a go again. The picture, if it transmits, is of the 241 runners assembling outside Wythenshawe Hall for this morning’s parkrun (the results of which are not shown here at the time of posting, but they are on the ‘latest results’ page.

Conclusion (added later):

This seems to work for the text but not for the image, for which the correct amount of space is given, as well as the Alt tag, but the image isn't shown. Playing with the HTML for that seems unsatisfactory, so it looks as if the images need to be added separately, which for me is a real pain. So whilst this approach does seem to be a solution for text only postings, inclusion of images at the correct size remains a difficulty.

Here's another go at inserting the image, and I've tried to adjust the size by using the HTML code screen. It looks hopeful, but you need a calculator to work out the height adjustment once you've adjusted the HTML code to the desired width (550 pixels in this case).

I've now (July 2019) also added the image to the top of the screen, where originally intended, this time adjusting to X-Large before reducing to 550 width; this gives better resolution as you can see.

Windows Live Writer and Blogger

 

I've been using Microsoft's 'Windows Live Writer' (WLW) as my desktop blog editor for years. I find the Blogger interface, being used for this entry, tedious and unsatisfactory, especially where copying and pasting from other documents, and image sizing are concerned. WLW is, by comparison, a delight to use.

 

I've encountered problems in the past. Uninstalling and re-installing the software has usually solved the problem.

 

On Tuesday 26 May I drafted a long post about our 'Cruising Trip' on Sunday. When I tried to post it I received a series of error messages, the first being the one being shown at the bottom of the image above.

 

I then spent several hours trying and failing to fix the problem, by way of a series of quite complicated (for me) procedures. 

 

I found a website that held reviews of Desktop Blogging Software (here). It rates WLW as head and shoulders above other software for a Windows computer.

 

I had another go at solving the problem yesterday. Failed.

 

This morning I discovered this website, from which I've reproduced the latest entry in the image above.

 

It appears that "Google have removed the ClientLogin endpoint which is what Windows Live Writer depended on to auth with", thus disabling what may be the best desktop editor for those of us who have 'Blogspot' blogs.

 

I'm not a techie, but I'm willing to have a go at solving easy problems. It seems now that Google have robbed me of several hours of my life.

 

I hope others have fared better, but I'm still in a quandary as to what to do next. Is any of this software worth installing?

 

I also wonder whether my sudden need to repeatedly refresh Blogspot blog pages to view images is something caused by Google.

 



Summer in Timperley (2)

Back home in Timperley, our swans have produced two youngsters.

The towpath is fairly dry, apart from at a spot where a water main appears to have burst, but this recently surfaced section of the Bridgewater Way, between Sale and Brooklands, is particularly benign, without so much as a pedestrian in sight on a sunny Monday morning.

Anyone for a bike ride?  Tomorrow (Wednesday 22 June) morning at 9.45 am from Baslow Church (SK 251 723) – about 20 miles, of which half will be off road but not technical – at a gentle pace about 3-4 hours.

PS You may have noticed a duplication of this posting and a test posting.  This is because Windows Live Writer failed to transmit the posting and gave me the following error message:

“The server reported an error with the following URL:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/NameofBlog
405 HTTP method POST is not supported by this URL”

I managed to resolve the issue by uninstalling Windows Live Essentials and reinstalling the software, following this guidance.

(Just in case anyone has a similar problem.)