Poetry in the Japanese Garden in Mawgan, Cornwall

Moss covered Buddha.I think we met your cousin in Portland, Oregon;

he didn’t have much to say either.

_________________________________________________________

people walk on past

as if they cannot hear you

shout coin coat buddha!

or winter will have arrived

before your new jacket

The Japanese Garden, Mawgan, Cornwall, UK

Technorati Tags: Japanese Garden,statue,Buddha,poem,2018,tanka

Morning Pages - stream of consciousness

Well here I am again, sitting at my laptop again, trying to think of something to say. All of the advice that I have read says just write something and keep writing other things, until inspiration strikes. (Not all but I put it that way for dramatic effect.) I admit I hadn't thought about Morning Pages in relation to dictation software yet it makes perfect sense. I should be able to get up in the morning and the first thing that I do - dictate to the computer in a flow of consciousness. I think I need to reread the morning pages book by Julia , her surname escapes me. [Cameron].

I also need to look up to other things to help me with my workflow. I need to check on how to easily move files from my phone to my laptop, that is Android to Windows 10, to enable the transcription process. Damn, the other what the other thing is has slipped out of my head but I'm sure there were two things I wanted to check on, I think it has something to do with software operation but I will have to check.

I'm writing this in the draft mode of my Blogger application, Open Life Writer, and it wouldn't normally be something I would post on a blog but writing is writing and if I post things I do like this it helps to keep me honest. My blog isn't a specialist blog, my posts jump about and the only common linking factor is me, so I will post this as a way of tracking development. If I progress this will be just a step in that process and I feel more likely to progress if the things that I dictate/write actually go somewhere. I need to get used to writing for an audience, so the actual act of posting what I write may well help me to tighten up my language.

It is hard thinking about posting this when there are so many heartfelt blogs out there, actually posting it is as easy as two clicks, I think I'll need to post this pronto and add to it or write another post if I want to continue with more to say. This text already forms part of my Morning Pages for today and I'm pleased about that. While I can type at dictation speed I have produced this piece of text in much less time than I would have done if I thought about it and typed it and it somehow feels more authentically me (as opposed to typing which is also me but half edited by my internal critic as it happens.)  [I have had to edit it to make a little more sense, it seems dictation is no cure for editing.]

Royal Cornwall Show 2018

This week we went to the Royal Cornwall Show held at Wadebridge. The Show is an agricultural show that has been running for over 225 years. At one stage the show moved around the county, pitching up each year at a different location, it even came to Antron near Helston once.

Once the show settled down at a custom built showground, (by that I mean a group of fields along which they laid concrete tracks and built some permanent sheds), the show has remained pretty much the same. Centred around displays of agricultural equipment and animals, the show also attracts retailers such as garages, clothes and food retailers. Dotted in amongst all of the regular firms that attend are tents full of crafts, by banding together the craftsman can afford the cost of renting space at the show, and some individuals with a particular product to sell. I have to say I did feel a little sadness when I came across a stall being manned by the actor John Challis, where he was selling his autobiography but whenever I passedI didn't see any customers (that's not to say he didn't have loads). I'm not convinced that an agricultural show is the sort of place to attract a lot of readers particularly, a bookshop being a more focused selling opportunity, yet it does afford a very large footfall within a very limited period of time. It may be unfair of me to think of it is sad, I think I am seeing him as an actor selling a book when he is an author promoting his wares.

At the show there are displays of crafts and country skills, such as fly-fishing, sheep shearing, gundog displays, and even horse riding competitions.The show hasn't changed much in that a lot of the displays remain in the same spots, every time we go the Flower Tent, the Churches tent, the vintage vehicle section, the Dog Show to name a few, they are in the same locations.

Here are a couple of photographs from this year's show:




The first couple of photos are from the Flower Tent, a combination of commercial nurseries displaying their wares and selling various items, while also competing against each other for certificates for first, second, third et cetera. (They actually refer to the certificates as medals as they do at the Chelsea Flower Show). The tent also has amateur flower arrangers ranging from flower arranging clubs to schoolchildren. There is always a large central themed display by Lifton Farm Shop. This year's theme involved scenes from Peter Rabbit, where fruit and vegetables were arranged in interesting ways.Lifton also sell baked goods as they have their own cafe so have a food focus too.

The photo top right is of a group of bonsai trees, cultivated from azaleas, all in flower at the same time- something I've not seen before.

The largest of the photos above is from a pitch just along from the Flower Tent where forestry and chainsaw art is created. To the left in the picture is a bench featuring ends with an eagle and, we think, a vulture. On the right in the picture is a hat and coat carved out of wood, varnished by the looks of the sheen, designed to look like they are hanging from a coat hook. The Eagle and bench were made using a chainsaw but I'm unsure as to how they created the hat and coat.

Bottom left in the set of photographs is one I took of Prince Charles, although I was not very close when I used my phone camera he can be seen in the middle. Prince Charles and Camilla were attending the show as Prince Charles is the patron.

The final photograph is of a handmade chicken coop to illustrate a combination of the agricultural nature and the use of crafts.

I hadn't planned to take photographs in order to blog about the show, if I blog about it again I have to remember next year to take some dedicated photos.

We caught up with some of our oldest friends, which was something we wanted to do for a long time, had some nice food, saw some interesting things and generally enjoyed the show, though there's always more to see than we manage to get to in a day.

The thing I most enjoyed from the show was a demonstration of duck herding of all things. Steve Barnes is an Australian chap who talks to the audience while either sheep shearing or running his Dog and Duck Show:  http://www.dogandduckshow.co.uk/

Here is a video intro to Steve although you have to see him to really delete appreciate the humour: https://youtu.be/hwcB8ojcEuk

The Cornish Cream Tea

If I was asked to name four traditional Cornish foods I would choose the Cornish Pasty, Saffron Cake, Hevva Cake and the Cornish Cream Tea. Today I want to talk about the cream tea.

There has been debate as to where the cream tea originated, some say Devon and those who know the truth say Cornwall.
(A similar debate ranges around the audience of the Cornish pasty but that's for another day. )
The difference between the two is quite straightforward but first of all let me list the ingredients in a cream tea:

• a scone  - small item of a bread-alike consistency (a sweetened version of the American "biscuit") See this BBC recipe.
• a portion of jam - often strawberry jam (American "jelly")
• a portion of Cornish Clotted Cream. Wikipedia’s definition.

The type of cream is crucial. I have been to places, sad places where clotted cream is unavailable, that offer a form of whipped cream. (Pause, while I shudder in horror.)

A Devon or Devonshire cream tea consists of a scone with cream placed upon it and on top of that is jam. In Cornwall we always choose to place jam upon the scone, followed by the clotted cream. In my opinion the only time you would want to put your cream on first is if you are ashamed of it!
Here is a link to a long term maker of clotted cream, since 1890, with scientific research carried out to identify the best way to serve a cream tea: Rodda.

The photo at the top of this page is somewhat fancier than a standard cream tea, in fact the picture shows a Chocolate Cream Tea (pause, while  purists engage in a sharp intake of breath). The cream tea is accompanied by chocolate chip scones and a Canton tea that has chocolate undertones; the plate, in this case slate, was also decorated with a cut strawberry, raspberry, physilis and kiwifruit, along with a fruit like a large blueberry that I couldn't identify. This cream tea is served at the Waymarker, a Cornish food establishment situated between Falmouth, Constantine and Halvasso: set your satnav to find the postcode - TR11 5PW.

I have no connection to the Waymarker. I'm just a very happy customer who has been there on quite a few occasions and always enjoyed the food and the very friendly service. I receive no benefit from mentioning the Waymarker.

Dragon Professional Individual 14 - what I have found so far

Since installing Dragon Professional individual 14 I've noticed a few things.

1. When I try to dictate into Chrome using the standard entry or the Dictation Box my whole laptop freezes. I don't know whether this is since the Windows 10 1803 update as my laptop had already updated before I installed Dragon Professional. This is not a documented issue at the moment, that I could see from searching on Google.
2. I also had some problems dictating into a Blogger blog page using Microsoft Edge, whereby my laptop also froze. Using the Dictation Box delete didn't solve this until I changed it via the Dictation Box settings, to emulate typing text rather than a paste option; the only problem with the Dictation Box was that it did miss the first four or five words that have been dictated into the box but didn't make it onto the page when I instructed the program to transfer the text.
3. The programme Open Live Write enables me to dictate  straight into a Blogger template without the laptop freezing in Windows 10.
4. I started to use an old microphone headset from 2011, seven years ago, that worked well when I first tried it but then refused to work in any of the USB sockets on my laptop. I bought Jabra wired headset that is fairly new and I haven't had any problems since, in fact the boom microphone works a lot better than the shortened one on the old headset. I believe it is false economy to use an old headset with such a modern programme, having to correct things because of the microphone erodes the efficiency of the more modern dictation program.
5. I'm amazed at the accuracy of this dictation program given that I only practised on two paragraphs to set up the microphone and, as long as my diction is clear, I have had virtually no need to correct anything. The majority of things I have altered have been the result of either not thinking about capitalisation before I say a word or the desire to change what I have said once the words have left my mouth.
6. I did install the Dragon extension into Chrome, version 66 point zero point 5 something, but it does not seem to be functioning as I have not been able to carry out verbal commands in Chrome, even though the extension is turned on.

Posting by voice

It's taken a while to get to the point where I can write blog posts via the Dragon professional program. Setting up the dictation program was the easy part getting to the point where I could dictate a blog post, as I use Google Blogger, was a little more complex.

Initially I thought I could dictate straight into a windowing chrome but the computer kept freezing. I don't believe it's a lack of peril on the part of my laptop as it has a sixth generation i5 processor and runs Windows 10. I did try to open the Blogger site with Microsoft Edge in case it was an issue with the chrome browser but I had the same problem with the computer locking up.

I then remembered that Word has a blog template but unfortunately that no longer works with Google Blogger so I couldn't attach the blog template to my blog. It took some searching before I found a program that would work, I remembered Windows Live Writer was an option in the past but it had been discontinued in 2016; fortunately, it turned out that Microsoft made an open source version available which was called Open Live Writer.

I've installed Open Live Writer and within a few clicks I had set it up to work with my Google Blogger account. I am dictating this blog post to celebrate the fact that I can dictate into a blog template and, if all goes well in a moment, post it to my blog.

Seated in the garden

Eating our tea sat in the garden has always been a favourite experience, even when in ear shot of a rookery. Behind me as I type this is a majestic Monterey Pine that has stood tall far before my birth and growing up here. Also since before I was born there has been a rookery, commanding views over the village and out to sea, likely making it a very desirable location, if not for the noise. I love the sounds of nature, it is one of the abiding joys of driving a Miata, but the dubious pleasure gained from close proximity to a rook call centre is an acquired taste (there are times I question whether I have made the acquisition.).

My younger brother built two bench tables some years ago but eventually, as will happen to all of us, time and rot overcame them.   My skills have never veered into the path of something as useful as construction, so when it came time for a replacement Cathy and I decided on a very modest purchase.

Here is a photo of the chairs and table that I am sitting at as I write this. When I started the rooks were cascading some important piece of information, going by the intensity of their calls, probably along the lines of

"Oh look who has got pretensions to be a writer! Sat there at his table all writerly like, probably got nothing to say."

 "He's been out there before you know. Fountain pen and paper last time and where did that get him."

 I put it down to their being jealous, Mr Poe immortalised the Raven, they get a Two Ronnies sketch - Rook Restaurant

Anyway here is my new working location, weather permitting, as it does currently.

Phoneless

In a flurry of searching for my keys before coming to work I managed to leave my phone at home.  This is not something I do very often, (leave my phone at home, I often leave other things behind.)



I am surprised that, despite being 50+ years from my infancy, I still have a security blanket; even if, unlike Linus', my blanket is a phone.

I grew up with mobile phones being something I encountered only in science fiction. Telephone boxes flourished, mostly the red variety that sat on street corners like freshly hammered thumbs. No one would get you between places, you set off in the car or on foot in complete ignorance of the need to fetch some extra shopping or of changes to your day. It wasn't a problem back then, everybody understood. Urgency didn't attach itself to as many things as it does today. You had gone shopping and, unless by some fluke you happened to phone home or base if on business, whatever it was would be fetched on the next trip.

I guess the fire and forget nature of a man shopping meant that I was a little more thorough when it came to making a list. Now if I get that niggly feeling that there were more items than I had a note of I can just pick up the phone and check-in, mid-shop often.

At times I hear myself channeling my parents or grandparents when I slip into the "things were so much simpler in my day" mindset. We all do it at some point, I hesitate to say that it is a sign of old age, since I don't feel old.  There I go again, channeling my grandmother then. She always said in her 70s and beyond that she still felt like a young girl and not her three score years and ten. I would look at gran and think, "but you look so old! You must feel it really". Maybe in the aches of a morning, of the things she could no longer do or did much slower but she didn't let on to a young whippersnapper like me.

Back to that phone. I can try to describe the feeling that I had, which intensified the more I thought about it through the day, like looking into the abyss just before it looked back into me. If you have done this you will know what I am talking about. It was a clear indicator that I relied on my phone far more than I needed it. 90% of what I do with it is generated by me and not from calls or messages in, so I don't need it by my side.

I need to take some phone breaks, leave the tech at home and try going it alone some days.

I should be writing

I should be writing, I should also be focused. One out of two can't be that bad surely?

I am sat in bed, or semi sat or semi lying in bed with this laptop on my chest. I should be catching up on the sleep my chair bound nights have deprived me of. Not deprived exactly, more the position I could get into the chair moved the prospect of sleep further away. The land of nod was just around the corner I just wasn't getting on the bus. It was bad enough dealing with the debilitating cough I had developed.

Crumbs! I can write some self indulgent rubbish about myself when I am feeling poorly. As soon as I made a post of Facebook in the early ours to say that I was ill I regretted it. Within minutes I was thinking of people I had heard were very poorly with something far, far worse than a two week sore throat and hacking cough.

What a difference a day makes, well two. Two days and a dose of antibiotics to be precise. Further to go, yet I can breathe so much easier and only cough every couple of hours, or if I start laughing hard, (which I am blessed to say is not difficult at work).

I wonder how many new posts i will start before I actually publish one again?

We are watching the 2017 film Dunkirk as I write this. While I realise it is no substitute for the sheer terror of experiencing it, I think it is important to see and try to understand quite what went on.

I find it hard to comprehend but I have a need to understand.

What happened in France and Belgium was a military disaster while still  a salvation of hope.

I wrote this as a recognition of what happened, not to celebrate war.

Oh look, I actually posted this!

Reverend Peytons Big Damn Band INtune

There is just something hypnotic about this band.



I would love to see one of their shows at some point. The one time Reverend Peyton and the band came to the UK we were in the US.

Here is an example of their music:

https://youtu.be/yWCcLW08dsU

I do seem to have a very low wait threshold.  It may take me months or years to decide on something but then I can't wait any longer and "it should be here already!"

Currently I have the need for a new, well replacement laptop.  I discovered that being able to follow instructions on YouTube is no substitute for experience. I had an Asus T100TA tablet and attachable keyboard that I had not used for a month or two. (For some inexplicable reason I have been using my smartphone and Kindle Fire in place of the 10" screen, whether to watch video, email or surf the net). There is a tendency for the Asus to go into a near permanent state of standby if not used for a lengthy period. The battery convinces itself that it is charged or is charging but the computer will not boot.

YouTube, that glorious source of knowledge seems able to furnish video on nearly anything you care to ask it. I found several videos explaining how draining the battery would enable the device to boot once more.  I watched video from multiple people to make sure I learnt the steps and that they were the same.  Videos watched, I went about removing the back cover, the one behind the screen. All went well, I slid a slim object between screen and cover and it began to separate.

Once inside I realised what looked easy on screen was not so easy in real life. No reference was made to using a chip puller and the internal plug for the batteries looked more soldered on than plugged in. What happened next was my fault entirely. I thought I could

• a) prise the chip up with something sufficiently thin 
• b) removing the case would likely only damage the case in a worse case scenario. 

What actually happened was:

• a) the chip block that contains the bare cable split 
• b) on putting the case back while I thought about what I had done, I found that there was a big crescent crack and some smaller related ones on one side of the screen.  

At some point in the past I had dropped the device and thought I had got away with just a chipped in the case. There must have been a hair line crack.

I started writing this blog post one lunchtime a few days ago, since then my anticipation has taken quite a bash.

I was picturing my new (to me) laptop being dropped off at a location where a UPS van simply sat awaiting my shipment, or at the very least the van would pop by at the end of the day. [ Had that happened it would have been proof that the world revolves around me, not that I need proof, it's just something I know. ] Of course this wasn't the case and my package remained at the UPS Access point for 23 hours 45 minutes until the van did come by. ( If I was going to miss the previous day's pickup it would have to be by as little as 15 minutes!) I could accept that the pickup had been missed and it would not have annoyed me half as much if it wasn't for the UPS app misleading me. For the whole of  Thursday the app said that my laptop was In Transit, when it was actually sitting at the Access Point. I had contemplated hovering late at work in case the laptop arrived late at the Argos store nearest to my workplace, I thought it would be the quickest location for me to get it from. At the last minute I saw the UPS info had changed to say it had only just picked up the laptop.

Well, only another day for delivery isn't too bad I thought, then I saw that UPS had updated their site. Delivery was anticipated to occur next week, not Friday but next Tuesday (Monday is a Bank Holiday not a working day in the UK). From next day delivery to six days, the laptop sitting in Bodmin according to the screen, really did tweak my patience.  A weekend when I could explore things on a new computer to a workday with only the evenings. This is definitely a first world problem, but it is my problem and so is a focus for me.

I settled in to seethe the rest of the day about the delays and rain curses on UPS when my phone bleeps.  I had forgotten something in my rush to be annoyed, a day is a long time in politics, an hour is an aeon in the internet age. Within hours my phone bleeps, "your package is available for collection at Argos", talk about pouring cold water on my anger. I went from grump to great! in an instant. When I could take a break in work I popped across to Argos to pickup my laptop. How the universe revolves. While waiting to collect my package I spied a charity box of secondhand paperbacks, not only that but some excellent nearly new Science Fiction books. The books were all ones I haven't got by Ursula Le Guin and Philip K Dick. The bounce in my step on the way back to work might have fooled an observer into thinking that I was experiencing a gravitational anomaly.

I type the rest of this post on my new (to me) laptop and it is a joy to use. Here's hoping I might be able to get more written, more often.

Better Vision

I treated myself to something the other day that did wonders to improve my attention and, in a way, my eyesight.

I had no idea when I made the, somewhat, impulse buy that it would have benefits beyond the obvious. Not glasses, or blinkers, but a pair of gloves.

Not just any gloves, these are Marks and Spencer's finest Italian leather in black, with the all important thermal lining - it's Spring here but the cold rain and wind suggests otherwise.

'Hmm', I thought, 'those will make me look suave and sophisticated' (OK so my internal monologue actually said 'more suave and sophisticated' - what can I say? I am a vain creature). In reality, as was pointed out to me the first time I wore them in public, they actually make me look like I lived at the shadiest of addresses, anywhere that would harbour your run of the mill serial killer. On go the gloves, the world turns black and white and I have the leading role in a B movie and not in a good way. Enough of the detrimental image that is conjured up by the sight of me in extra-large black leather gloves, back to the improvement in vision.

When the air is chilly and I go for a walk I put on my gloves. Everything comes into clearer focus, I see more than when I have walked a particular route in the past. The reason for the change is that I cannot operate my phone with these gloves on. Stab as I might (a loaded phrase given the look I carry off when gloved up) my phone remains unresponsive. I keep my phone in my pocket and just enjoy the walk, noticing so many things that they might even make it into a tanka or haiku at some point.

I have complained about not having much inspiration in the past, this should be less of an issue when I am phone free.

Goodbye Dale

I had been wondering what to write in returning to my blog. I rarely, if ever, have pearls of wisdom to share. After much contemplation I came to the realization that, given the likely size of my audience, I should write about things of interest to said audience and when I say audience I mean me. I had never been a big fan of Dale Winton the celebrity presenter from the 1990s and Noughties. I would watch him on the National Lottery draws and when he made celebrity appearances but I never sought him out. My opinion changed after recently watching a travel show he made of a visit to Florida. The friendly approach and self deprecating humour made the show. Without being obtrusive the show was as much about Dale as it was Florida. As I read about his battle with depression I can see that this show was something of a milestone for him, marking a return to television after a 5 year hiatus due to depression. After watching the show on the UK's Channel 5 I did a scout around to see if he had done any more but not yet. Ahh, I thought, I'll just google occasionally to see if he is making any more. The news today of his passing came as a shock. 62 years old isn't old in the general scale of things these days, especially from my position of a man in his 50s. I actually caught myself usually a phrase of my parent's generation "62, that's no age at all!" Thank you for the entertainment Dale, you were always a professional.

BBC Dale Winton a life in pictures

Podcast interview with Dale Winton

Dale Winton on Wikipedia

A return?

I have been re-reading the blog of a member of, what I refer to as, my chosen family. Aside from enjoying reading the posts this side of actually visiting the places she wrote about, it has kindled a desire in me to write; not for an audience but for me. Somewhere to capture the odd thought and store it other than locked away within my journal. I just need to organise a way to do so that I can sustain. Time to look at phone, Kindle (from where I write this), and PC options.