Open Gardens

St Michael's Macclesfield is running an Open Garden event on 5/6 July this year in aid of the `Raising the Roof' fund. As part of that our (well Beth's) garden will be open - you can find the full list of gardens (as a pdf) here. Tickets are available on the day or you can get one from me. The photo is of our garden at the moment, no doubt things will be different in July! Hoping for good weather....

View Open Gardens in a full screen map

Updating Ubuntu

Earlier in the week I got around to updating the desktop to the new release of (K)Ubuntu 14.04 - I run the version using the KDE desktop - though I have lots of the ordinary Ubuntu packages installed too. Around 50 mins from the projected end of update the machine locked up - I was doing various other things at the time on it which may have contributed to this. No response to anything from mouse/keyboard - the sysrq magic keys had no effect either, but I was running an ssh server on the dekstop so I logged in remotely and rebooted.
When it came up again the boot screen appeared to think it was running 14.04 (rather than the previous 13.10) however at the login screen neither keyboard nor mouse got any reaction (and the ssh server wasn't running the machine hadn't registered with the router). I tried re-booting a couple of times with no effect.
I then broke into GRUB (at boot - press down the shift key) and booted the minimal 13.10 install (still there!) and ran the dkpg fix option (I previously tried minimal with 14.04 which again failed) which ran to completion. A reboot then gave me a working system!
Looking at the upgrade log file the last lines of /var/log/dist-upgrade/term.log read as follows:

Setting up openssh-server (1:6.6p1-2ubuntu2) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/init/ssh.conf ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/pam.d/sshd ...
ssh stop/waiting
ssh start/running, proce

Yes it stops there! I had it down as a problem with the NVIDIA graphics driver, this might suggest something else - I wasn't connected via ssh when I was running the upgrade so it wasn't a a case of the connection dying. Still puzzled but putting this here in case it helps anyone else.
The other problem I found (so far!) is that Ctrl-Space doesn't appear to do anything - I use this key combo a lot - in Emacs. So it was a bit painful, a websearch reveled that ibus was the problem so I ran ibus-setup and stopped that grabbing Ctrl-Space for 'next input method' and assigned it to a different key.
So far everything else appears to work...

Mutterings - May 25

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Apple :: Tart
2. Queasy :: Nausea
3. Cheeks :: Blow
4. Nostril :: Snort
5. Tee shirt :: Slogan
6. Enough :: is Enough (a book about over exploitation of the Earth from the 1970s)
7. Maybe :: Perhaps
8. How? :: Paleface
9. Palace :: Garden
10. Satellite :: Telstar (shows my age!)

Teaser Tuesday - May 20

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

'I wanted to let you in on something very serious. The pope just phoned me from the Vatican, really pissed off at you.'

from Andrea Camilleri's The Shape of Water - our book group book of the month. An Inspector Montalbano mystery - here's a review. Needless to say that wasn't the Pope....

Mutterings - May 19

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Submit :: Concede
2. Evidence :: Partial
3. Investing :: Time
4. Awkward :: Posture
5. Body :: Count
6. Extension :: Plug
7. Period :: Free (that goes back a long way to school!)
8. Support :: Bridge
9. Carried :: St Christopher (that's probably a combination of this and the previous one!)
10. Anxious :: Nerves

Teaser Tuesday - May 13

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Oh, Anders! To have been sent off on a mission you were never right for. To be regarded after your death as an error of judgement

I'm in the midst of a re-read of Ann Patchett's State of Wonder. I'm not sure if I hoped that this would be our book group's book of the month - it's on the list we draw randomly from.. but I picked this book up in a charity shop last week and thought I'd enjoy owning/re-reading it. Here's my original teaser, comments and a link to the author talking about it.

Mutterings - May 11

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Warning :: Gale
2. Resume :: Restart
3. Meeting :: Business
4. Squares :: Diamonds
5. Alternate :: Current
6. Prison :: Iron Bars (... nor iron bars a cage)
7. Swamp :: Monster
8. Games :: Leisure
9. Months :: Years
10. Share :: Generosity

First walk of the summer season

We were the only walkers this evening so cut the walk short but not before a good view across the fields.

Teaser Tuesday- May 6

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

And a day late...

In the middle of the trip
he picked some ripe lemons
and was throwing them at the water
until the water seemed golden.
And in the middle of the trip,
under the branches of an oak treee
the police came along and took him away.

Another from The Journals of Thomas Merton 'Run to the Mountain' - a bit of a cheat as here Merton is quoting from Lorca's poem The Arrest - Prendimiento de Antoñito el Camborio - here's the whole poem. Difficult in view of the circumstances of Lorca's own death.

Mutterings - May 4

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Death :: Skeleton
2. Skirt :: Avoid
3. Lust :: Pant
4. You :: Me
5. Repeat :: Ad Infinitum
6. Exhaustion :: Mental
7. Obstruction :: Road Block
8. Secret :: Squirrel
9. Shiny :: New
10. Tell :: William

Beeston View

This afternoon I reconnoitered a walk I'm hoping to lead later this month up to Nab Head. We climbed out of Bollington and came to this view over the Harrop valley. Pretty close to the view from my room when I was a teenager - though with not so many houses in the foreground!

I used to often walk up Nab Head in the 60's until the foot and mouth epidemic and the path was closed. It was only opened again after a long struggle so seeing the route again was good! It's a steep climb but not as hard as White Nancy!

Hmm that doesn't look a very good link anyone running other browser's or OS's like to comment? Try here to take you to the photo.

I voted for Chirac!!

A horrifying confession - but it was the story of the left in 2002 in France when Chirac and Le Pen were the 2 candidates left in the second round.

We went to an OU French association film day on Saturday where we saw 'Le Nom des Gens' - a querying of identity in modern France. It puts various modern French taboos in conjunction - the Holocaust, the Algerian war, race and asks what they mean for modern society, have they assimilated them or just glossed them over. Here's a trailer (no subtitles)and here's a shorter version - with subtitles and more inhibited! We had a few talks which explained some of the complicated cultural references... (just one) Arthur Martin (the name of the male protagonist) would be like being called John Lewis in the UK! The film is neatly set between the 2002 and 2007 French elections.

Teaser Tuesday - 27 April

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

"Hey, family? I just want to thank you for not teasing me when I change into shorts the second we get there."

again a teaser from Margot Page's Paradise Imperfect: An American family moves to Costa Rican mountains our book group book of the month!

Mutterings - April 20

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Steady :: as she goes
2. Sleep :: Deep
3. Thumb :: Sketch
4. Straighten :: Bend
5. Wake up! :: Alarm! (and the TV cabaret show with Billy Cotton back in the 50's..)
6. Diminish :: Shrink
7. Scarred :: Wounds
8. Horn :: Cape
9. Pace :: Steady
10. Correspondence :: Letter

As Night Falls

The news came though yesterday of the death of the writer Jim Cotter - the composer of numerous liturgies, prayer and a thoughtful speaker. His webite is here. Having just returned from a Maundy Thursday service ending in darkness may this prayer be a memorial.

Through the dark despairing depths and the drought of the desert, through the abyss opened up by our failings and folly, we dare to risk our cry to the living God. For you will not let us escape from our greatest good. In our struggle with you, fierce, fiery Lover, let some new glory be wrought and new and unexpected life come to birth.

From Jim's service for Maundy Thursday from 'Darkness Yielding'

Teaser Tuesday - April 15

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Was this how it was supposed to be? I had no idea and nothing to compare it to.

from Margot Page's Paradise Imperfect: An American family moves to Costa Rican mountains - our BATS (book group) book of the month. Margot Page is a friend of Dave Mock the vicar of All Saints Macclesfield - but I'm quite enjoying the story of the trip - a family with young children throwing everything up for a year in Central America.

Mutterings - Apr 13

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Shame :: Disgrace
2. Business :: Monkey
3. Cats :: Youtube
4. Green :: Politics (I'm sure I didn't see the line below.. my mind just works the same as the compiler's!)
5. Politics :: Influence
6. Boston :: Tea Party
7. Healthy :: Fit
8. Pint :: Pot
9. Owner :: Occupier
10. Sorrow :: Child ( I see that See Him a lying on a bed of straw is behind this - though I had to web search for the link!)

Teaser Tuesday - April 8

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Then we cross the river, and up the hill between high banks, and high over the road a metal suspension footbridge joins the halves of the estate the road, in its deep cut, divides. A the top of the hill Feltonfleet School [flowery font]

well that's what the text says and you have to imagine it! This is The Journals of Thomas Merton 'Run to the Mountain' the diaries of the Trappist monk. I'm currently in 1939 and deep in Merton's reflection on the start of the war.

Mutterings - April 6

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Rabbit :: Hat
2. Judged :: Show
3. Produce :: Stall
4. Bank :: River
5. Standard :: Gold
6. Mister :: Harris (A Tom Robinson Band number i think)
7. Tissue :: Sneeze
8. Summon :: Judge
9. Selfishly :: Blind
10. Chatting :: Light

Mutterings - March 30

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Escape :: Great
2. Deals :: Shady
3. Throat :: Deep
4. Pipe :: Stand
5. Flood :: Raven
6. Nose :: Running
7. Crooked :: Stile
8. Flashes :: Inspiration
9. Noisy :: Neighbours
10. Corrupt :: Power