The butterflies are fighting

This week: Repairing the Arbour; Just a five minute job…; Internet Radio;

For the next two months mornings are without doubt, the best time of day. The northern sky begins to glow red and orange not long after 4am.

By 04:45 it is fully daylight and sunrise is 05:20. There is now only a small variation in sunrise times until the Summer Solstice on the 21st June.

When there is cloud it means that those who are early risers get to enjoy fantastic sunrise colours. We had one of those this week.

It did remind me of the old English ‘weather lore’, “Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight, red sky in morn, farmers be warned”. This is because a clear western sky at sunet means that there is no approaching cloud from the west, where most UK weather comes from.

I have not done an analysis of the prevailing winds here in Dol and suspect that they vary by the time of year. Northerly winds are always cool or cold and southerly winds are usually wet.

We did have a lovely sunset on Friday.

Insects continue to enjoy feeding on the various plants I have which provide nectar. As the year advances, so different butterflies and moths pupate and appear around the gardens and orchards.

This week it has been the turn of the Old World Swallowtail, Papilo machaon, to put in an appearance.

While I was trying to get a nice photograph of one feeding on my Lantana, another male arrived and I managed to get a short video of two swallowtail’s fighting, beating their wings together. There is no wonder when I see them, they often look a little battle scarred!

This week I have been delving into history again. This time it was researching the circumstances around the death of a 20 year old Lincolnshire Constabulary Constable on the 29th May, 1941. He died from injuries received when a WWII bomb exploded.

There are vast quantities of information now available on the internet, however not everything is online. Quite often there are conflicting accounts, especially from the War when censorship prevented full disclosure of events.

This was an unusual incident though because the officer was on bicycle patrol and was making a “point” at a police box. He found that some person who was never identified, had left an unexploded bomb, leaning up against the door of the box.

Telephoning the station, he was told by the Sergeant to “bring the bomb into the station.” The officer was seen with the bomb balanced on the bicycle crossbar when it exploded. He received catastrophic injuries and died shortly after arriving at hospital. A group of soldiers who had been “drilling” on the road were also injured, as was a boy delivering milk.

Sometimes finding previously unknown information about historic incidents feels like completing the last chapter in a book and closing the cover. There are always more questions than answers in history.

Repairing the Arbour

I have spent quite a bit of the week preparing for and making repairs to my Arbour.

The wooden structure runs from my kitchen, dividing the citrus and drupe orchards, up to the boundary of my land.

At this time of year, it is almost covered with grape vines. However since I built it in 2015, it has had had no weather protection treatment.

Primarily this is because of the difficulty of painting the timber because of the vines which cloak it.

What I have discovered is that the timber I used, the only timber posts I could get, have failed where they are laid horizontally. Uprights are relatively unaffected.

At the start of the week when I was removing a dead vine, I found yet another rotten piece of wood.

Quite clearly because of the low quality timber, mositure is getting in to the lonitudinal pieces and then it rots.

After removing the piece, it is soft and spongy for almost the whole of its length. However from ground level you cannot see the top of the poles, more than 2.5 metres above.

I have some short lengths which were left over from my first build, however although they have been stored under cover, the wood has split.

For the replacements, I have carefully chosen pieces with few splits and then made sure that the side with the least or no splits is facing up.

Each piece has been treated with Sadolin, especially where I have made cuts,so the new posts meet and sit flush with the old.

When the timber was ready, it was not a long job to mount and bolt it in place. I am using threaded mild steel bar rather than ENOX, so coated everything in grease.

Apart from the rain, and the bolts are totally exposed to the elements, with our wind blowing off the Adriatic Sea, it is salt laden. So all ferrous metal corrodes unless it is well protected.

With everything back in place, I am happy with the result. However these are still some more poles which will need to be replaced.

Just a five minute job…

It will only be a “five minute job” – famous last words!

With a lot of cuts to make on the the replacement arbour poles, I decided that some simple 90° cuts could be quickly done using my band saw.

I marked the poles to be cut, turned on the machine in the workshop and the saw blade immediately come off the running wheels.

After releasing the tension, I threaded the blade back onto the three wheels, put the safety cover back on and immediately the saw blade came off again.

This is one of those useful machines which I have had for about 40 years. In that time I have used probably two or three blades, but that apart, it has had no servicing beyond removing sawdust from inside the casing.

When I tried to spin one of the wheels by hand, it was making squeaking noises. The same noises before the saw blade came off, so I decided that perhaps I should investigate further.

The nylon running wheels are held in place by circlips. These retaining fasteners are in common use in many machinery, including my motorcycles, so I have several sizes of circlip plyers.

Even with the right size pliars, it took several attempts to get the circlip off. Once I removed the wheel, I could see the problem.

The mild steel shaft which the running wheel fits on, had what I thought was corrosion on it.

I use Solvol Autosol, my go-to metal polish paste to remove the cause of the wheel slipping. It wasn’t corrosion, probably hard baked grease.

The other two wheels received similar treatment and then everything was lubricated using one of the new silicone lubricants, rather than traditional grease.

By late morning, I had everything back together and had very quickly cut the wooden poles.

My five minute job had taken the best part of four hours…. But times flies when you are enjoying yourself!

Internet Radio

I listen to the radio when I am working on my computer. I am not ashamed to admit it is usually the BBC.

The difference between the likes of Youtube, TikTok etc., and radio is that you need to watch the screen to see a video.

Whereas, just as I am doing at the moment, I can listen to the radio and still type more or less coherently. I suppose it is just multitasking.

So when on Friday afternoon I received an email from the BBC, asking me if I would be able to do a piece on railway history, “down the line”, or more accurately on “Teams” I said yes.

In the dim and distant past, well OK then, the early 1990’s, I was a regular broadcaster on BBC local radio, doing a weekly “Crimewatch” type prgramme. I even attended a BBC course on broadcasting for local radio.

The best piece of advice I received was from a veteran BBC radio journalist, who said, “Don’t think about the people who may be listening. Just imagine you are describing something to your neighbour over the garden fence.”

So I have some familiarity with radio journalism. My piece is for a Sunday morning programme called “Broadcasting House”, a news and current affairs programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 09:00 and 10:00 UK time.

The producer wanted a piece of about two minutes on the historic Settle & Carlisle railway, which runs between Leeds and Carlisle through the scenic Yorkshire Dales National Park.

This is the iconic location used for filming things like Harry Potter, Jericho and Lad, a Yorkshire Story.

Seeing one of the UK heritage steam locomotive fleet powering across the 24 spans of the viaduct is awe inspiring. This was the last railway in Britain to be built without machinery. More than 6,000 navies worked on its construction with 2,500 men employed just on bridges and viaducts.

I spent time on Friday afternoon cobbling together a script and sent it off to the producer. He came back with some suggestions and we arranged a time for Saturday morning.

I fine-tuned the script early on Saturday and then sent it off again. The producer replied and said it was just what they wanted. So I recorded it as a “monologue” and sent it down the line.

Whether it is actually used will depend on what happens overnight. It only needs another bombshell tweet from Trump or a significant incident in Gaza or Ukraine for the running order to change. It is a news programme after all.

They want to celebrate 200 years of railways in Britain and if so, it will probably be on around 09:50.

You know what I will be doing after breakfast tomorrow morning…. NCG