separating the wanted from the unwanted
Pointless. Useless. Bound to sell shedloads.
In other wireless news, my high gain antenna has boosted the signal in my office from around 48% to about 65% and resulted in only one dropped connection since installation. So I think we can consider it a qualified success.
We’ve just had our first harvest from our runner beans in the garden. However, one bean does not a meal make.
Still, it was very fresh and tasty. And there are more coming.
Thanks to some evil keel slugs, I’ve discovered that cardoons have scented flowers.
We have a huge and handsome cardoon that somewhat dominates one corner of the garden. Early in the year it gives us impressive silvery leaves. Now it has huge stems, around 7 feet tall, bearing enormous fist-sized spiky thistle flowers. Unfortunately, I hadn’t noticed that a small group of Milax budapestensis and Milax sowerbyi had set up home in the bottom of my Cynara cardunculus, and the former chewed through the stem of the latter and felled our beauty as a hairy checked-shirt-wearing Canadian might fell a spruce. Woe indeed.
Determined not to have all our gardening fun destroyed, I immediately set about a scorched-earth treatment of the garden with small blue metaldehyde-laced bran pellets, with the result that there are now corpses everywhere. I also cut the fallen stem and put the thistley heads into a vase on the dining table.
This morning, as I came into the conservatory (where our dining table resides), there was a distinct scent of honey coming from the cardoon flowers. This explains why bees are so attracted to them and is a discovery I’ve made thanks to the intervention of the evil keel slugs.
I’ve recently purchased a new wireless router here – a LinkSys WAG354G – and I’ve been thinking about fitting a high gain antenna (probably the LinkSys HGA7S) as the signal drops about two or three times an hour when I am in my office. The router sits on a shelf in the kitchen and my office is in the summer house, so the signal passes through about ten feet of clear conservatory; then through the window; across around twenty-five feet of garden; through a thin wooden wall and some rockwool insulation; and then a further three feet to my laptop. I currently get between 49% and 61% signal here and transmission speeds between 2.0Mbit/s and 11.0Mbit/s.
I have no experience of using a high gain antenna and all I can find online are endless repetitions of the LinkSys blurb, which naturally espouses the virtues of the device. Have any of you had any experience of using antennas? Would I be better advised to upgrade my 3Com 3CRWE154A72 WiFi card?
UPDATE: I’ve ordered a cheap DabsValue 5dBi antenna to see if it makes a difference. I did get tempted by some very expensive kit that would have permitted me to wander off across four or five fields, park myself and my laptop under a tree and still listen to the live stream of Arrow Jazz FM; but that would have been, well, unnecessary.
For once, this isn’t a post making lame excuses for the lack of new content on this site. Instead, I’m remarking on the fact that it’s a bit quiet at home today, even though Tom is here, my mum is here and the two cats are around somewhere (although trying desperately to find somewhere shady and cool, much like the rest of us).
The reason it is quiet is that Hels has gone back to work today for the first time in seven months. To say that she was not looking forward to it is an understatement – the thought of having to deal with daily stresses, irritating people and a stifling office environment are not the things that encourage someone to be enthusiastic. Added to that, H feels guilty at leaving Tom. Tom, of course, is going to be ably cared for by a combination of grandparents, childminder and me, so he’ll be fine. Furthermore, H is caring for him in a way by going out and earning the money we need to keep home and family together. So I’ve suggested that she shouldn’t feel guilty or even worried, but I guess it’s a natural reaction.
Meanwhile, I’ve had my mum for company today and she and Tom have taken a nap this afternoon on the lawn in some shade. She’s ably dealt with trying to get Tom to eat food he doesn’t really like, drink water that he doesn’t really want (I’m concerned about fluid intake in this heat) and is currently poaching some chicken for his tea this evening.
But it’s not the same as having Hels here every day. Anyone want to make a cash donation so we don’t have to work and can just enjoy Tom together?
Want to break the ice with your neighbours? Found that they don’t generally say hello or give you the time of day? Don’t want to have a reputation as the secretive soul in your street? Then dig a hole!
Yes, my amazing discovery of the week is that digging a hole in your front garden is the perfect way to get to know your neighbours and far easier to organise than some sort of party or barbeque. I’m currently working on the front garden, swapping the turfed area with the parking area so that the cars are not parked right by the front door (sounds easy, doesn’t it? – I estimate a completion date some time in September, particularly as rain is precluding any digging activity today), and as I’m working various neighbours have stopped by our gate and called out such pearls as:
The usual suspects have been more-than-usually friendly, but I’ve also had brief, hole-oriented conversations with neighbours who have been strangers for the first eighteen months that we’ve lived here.
So, why not give it a try? Report back in the comments on the conversations that you have as a result of wielding a spade.
You need to go to the Garden and Art Event at West Dean this weekend. You do, really.
I’ll try and update at the weekend, possibly including exciting pictures of The Front Garden Project, which is now well and truly underway.
Hmmm. The banned cartoon post was the 6000th post here, and I only just noticed.
I’ve really been neglecting you readers lately, haven’t I? Umm, well, sorry. But hey, I’ve been somewhat busy lately:
There are many, many things that I really should find time to write about, but I’m not sure when that will happen. If you’re very lucky, I’ll provide you with some photos, as a picture is worth a thousand words (or several thousand, if your usualy verbage is as poor as that which generally graces these pages).
Quick post: