A Manic Weekend Of Gardening! So Good!

After finishing up the DIY in the babies room, the results of which you can see below, I finally managed to get to spend some time in the garden! And what a weekend it was as well. Although a heavy frost greeted Saturday morning, it was clearing going to be a corker of a day. It didn't let us down. Bright sun and blue skies all day. In fact in the backyard, out of the very mild breeze, it actually felt warm! Warm enough to have lunch outside. Tidy!

The Frost, in the morning, see below, quickly gave way to warmth, so after a trip to the garden centre for 100 liters of organic compost, it was time to get busy in the garden. The first task was re-potting all of the hedge cuttings I took last year. Most had survived the winter so transferring them to some bigger pots was required. They are not quite ready to go out into the hedge row yet, although there are a couple of gaps screaming out for their need.

After a required break for a little flat pack manufacture, thank god for IKEA - or not ;-), it was back outside and into the garden to enjoy the sun. The lawn has been slowly growing since the end of winter and in the past couple of weeks it seems to have decided to burst back into life. Happily I am glad to say Toby Buckland from Gardeners' World does know what he is doing! The lawn looks great after scarifying last Autumn following Toby's guidance. In that blog entry I did say " don't find out until Spring so by then they will probably be long gone anyway so I won't be able to chase them down ". After scarifying the lawn looked so bad I was worried it wouldn't come back. It has, and seems to be better than before. Unfortunately despite the lawn surviving Toby Buckland, from Gardeners' World hasn't. He is no longer on the show which is a real shame, but I think that's a story for another blog.

After mowing the lawn for the first time this year, for some reason this is a great thing ;-), that was that for Saturday. More flat pack manufacture called which alas forced me back inside! Oh there was a bit of weeding thrown in for good measure as well. Although the lawn does look as though iut has struggled through the winter well there is a little bit of moss that needs sorting, as well as a few small bare, shady patches that will need reseeding. All in all pretty good though.

Sunday was not as bright as Saturday but still such a beautiful day. This meant spreading the rest of the compost around the hedge boarders. I got through about 8 meters before what was left over of the 100 liters of compost was gone. 100 liters doesn't get you too far. It'll be back to the garden centre next week to get probably 150 more liters for the rest of the garden and hedges.

Glad to see the Peonies are coming back as well. The first shoots, see below, are poking through. Hopefully, in a few months, they will look like what you can see below!

Below are the peonies in bloom last summer.

Anyways to top the garden work off for Sunday, in between helping Mon make curtains, I had to sort out the cleaning of the BBQ! It was so warm and nice this weekend I was almost tempted to have a BBQ this evening. Although the nights are still far too cold, as Saturday's early morning frost clearly highlights! Still it cannot be too far off for BBQ season to officially start! Fingers crossed ;-)

Oh that being said, as I have now cleaned the BBQ, in preparation for a summer in the garden, that probably spells the end of summer! It'll probably rain for the next 4 months ;-)

Have fun

cheers

m

A Translation App and Something to Save Your Petrol Bill!

I really love the Google Translate iPhone app. I also like the Android version but for me the iPhone one tops it due to the spoken translation results. So far there is support for 23 languages including Hungarian, as can be seen above. Please excuse the Monty Python reference ;-) This can get you into no end of trouble! The App is great for me as the spoken translations, to the best of my limited knowledge are incredibly accurate. Helps me when trying to decipher Danish words and how they are spoken. Rest assured, very oddly! Ooops now I am in trouble ;-)

Actually it probably doesn't help but it gives the perception of helping. I know if I was a Google engineer I would be trying to build all sorts of Easter eggs into the product to drop the unwary into :-). OK not professional, but a little bit of fun. Perhaps the Easter Eggs should be widely publicised to avoid embarrassment.

This app has always been a dream of mine since starting to work in mobile. Having been an avid back packer in my day (not that I am over the hill yet, although in a month or two I should be ;-)) and not being tremendous with spoken languages I have always been in need of a translation service. Being a fan of Hitch-hikers guide to the Galaxy, with its translating Babel Fish, I always thought that something like this should actually be achievable. A mobile device, initially is such an obvious candidate to target a translation service at. Always within reach with the available hardware - speaker, microphone and processor, to provide a needed phrase in case of emergency. Although not giving my age away, when I was backpacking mobiles weren't really around, so this wouldn't have helped me then ;-). Perhaps in the latter days of my travels and my current non backpacker travel.

Team this up with an AR concept like Word Lens, which translates text, and you have all you need right? Well almost. It certainly makes travel for the language-ly impaired a whole lot easier! OK the technologies are not 100% accurate but they are certainly a step in the right direction, and at the same time mighty fun to play with. An inner ear Babel Fish translation service though? Well maybe this is 10 years off :-). By then we will have in ear mobiles right? Well we are not too far off with Bluetooth headsets! Add AR glasses into the mix and you become a walking, listen and reading multi linguist. Talking .... well if the folks that you talk to share the same technology as you, then you're fine. Not sure how we get over everybody sounding the same though. As yet the Google Translate app only gives you a single voice for each language.

Another app that I am playing with at the moment is A Glass Of Water built by Toyota. See screenshot below.

This one claims that it can lower your fuel consumption by 10%. Given the price of diesel at the moment, hovering at £1.40 a litre, this is most welcome! Basically the smoother you drive, by managing your acceleration and deceleration, the more fuel efficient you will be! This app imaginatively measures this by spilling water out of the pictured glass if you drive erratically! The less water you spill the more fuel efficient you will be! As you can see by the picture below, the roundabouts near work have proven to be a challenge for keeping the inside of my car virtually dry, with a total of 15 cls spilt!

Have not been able to test the accuracy of the fuel consumption saving yet, but one thing is certain, having this app running in the car while driving does make you think about what you are doing. I feel the need to drive far less aggressively, not that I am an overly aggressive driver anyway. Although admittedly I did fire off a volley of abuse at a driver who nearly ran me off the road while I was testing this the first time! you know what though, I think I was far angrier at the amount of virtual water spilt because of the incident, than my actual safety! Odd! "You B"%#*%#! Do you know how much water you just made me spill!"

A word of warning though. You must ignore the app while driving! Looking at it constantly might make you save a little bit of fuel but it also dramatically increases the risk of accident if you take your eyes off the road! Yeah it's obvious, but I am surprised there is not a disclaimer in the app! To be fair there might be but I didn't see it as I was driving along ;-)

Have fun

cheers

m