This is Levity III. It's big, inflatable and very colourful - but otherwise fairly hard to describe (at least, probably not without getting all pretentious and arty).

It's been at Taurus Crafts in Lydney this week, and I popped along after work on Tuesday.   Abstract bright colours = photo opportunity!

It was good.  Sort of surreal and hypnotic, mostly quite calming and relaxing, and generally a bit odd.  I think there was some music being piped in as well.  An experience mostly unhindered by random children trying to bounce off the walls (despite having been told repeatedly that it is not a... continue reading »

Last weekend's walking takes the dubious honour of being the most boring bit of Wye Valley Walk so far...

It started with a short bus journey into Hereford, where I got my passport stamped, had lunch, and wandered around the market for a bit.  So far, so good..

The path closely follows the river bank for about 4km out of Hereford.  Not that I could see the river, because of loads of hedge/bushes in the way (and butterflies, ick).  And on the other side of the narrow footpath?  A barbed wire fence, and some very boring fields.

After 45 mins of boredom, the... continue reading »

That lovely new computer I bought a year ago...? Its hard drive died a slow and painful death after just 11 months (grrr)   Errors apparently undetectable by Dell diagnostic software that might have got it changed for free under warranty...

First signs of impending badness: odd segfaults, mostly with apt.  Then my filesystem started randomly going read only, with system logs showing a lot of I/O errors and problems with the journalling.  hmm.  To start with, nothing a reboot and quick forced fsck wouldn't fix.

But then it obviously got worse, and any 'repairs' lasted all of 2 minutes before yet... continue reading »

Part two of "making the most of days off work" - a weekend walking in Rhayader.  (by 'weekend' here I mean Sunday and Monday, but that's a minor technicality).

This plan wasn't decided until Sunday lunchtime, and since it's a 2 hour drive away I think I did quite well to start walking at half 3!

I'd paddled a small section of the Upper Wye in February, so decided to spend a couple of days completing this stretch.  Started from the layby at Pont Marteg, I walked up through Gilfach nature reserve (next to the Afon Marteg) then over a hill and... continue reading »