Yesterday and today I’ve been out in the garden, filling in a hole I dug a whiles back. I had hare-brained plans to dig an underground drum bunker music studio. Actually I still do. But I was eventually persuaded that, for now, such schemes weren’t really on.
More Hollyhocks.
I took these photos whilst working in the garden. What an absolutely gorgeous day it’s been! Our long thin garden is looking lovely. To my eyes at any rate. It’s cluttered and messy, just like ever single room in our home! And that’s actually something I’m determined to start dealing with better.
Look at the roses. Lovely!
I haven’t bothered to document the re-filling of the concrete slab ‘ole. Tho’ I may take some pics tomorrow. As there’s (literally) tons more earth to shift. Pretty flowers and grasses seem more uplifting!
Our ‘cottage garden’ long grasses are out of control.
Fortunately the large tree at the end of the garden meant I was mostly in the shade when doing the earth-moving. We wound up inviting some new-ish neighbours over to have a look around our garden, which was very nice. But it did stop me from doing as much spade work as I’d hoped.
‘Strategic neglect’ creates meadow!
Yesterday I picked up two spades and two forks, all nice old fashioned stuff, from a local Facebook seller, for £5 each. I thought these would be useful for this job, and just to have generally.
Returning to the theme of clutter. I’m determined that 2022 will be the year I turn that side of our home life around. In every area: every room, every outbuilding, the garden. The whole damn lot!
‘Egbert the Egret’, by his ‘nest’.
And to finish, a pic of a bird sculpture. We got two of these, one for us, and one for my mum. It’s not the sort of thing I’d normally go for. But Teresa wanted it, and I’m mellowing and allowing her to change me, in many ways. For the better, I hope!?
Yesterday we visited my sister, Hannah, in her new home in Northstowe. I cooked a baked cabbage recipe I found (above) via YouTube, for us. Einfache Rezepte, the name of the channel posting the video, is German for Simple Recipes.
Hannah’s serving.
It was Wimbledon Ladies’ Singles Final day as well. I was rooting for Rybakina, of Kazakhstan. And she won, beating Ons Jabeur of Tunisia. Yay!
Mine, looking quite pristine!
Hannah is working full time at a local garden centre shop. So cooking a meal for her seemed like a nice little gesture! Hopefully giving her a little time out.
Teresa tucks into hers.
We prepped all the ingredients at home the evening before, and took all the necessary stuff, including three nice new small Pyrex dishes to cook individual servings in. Ali and Sofi had their preferred and usual pizzas!
Teresa also took a few bits and bobs garden wise: some pots, and some seeds to plant. It was nice seeing her and Sofi plant a few seeds.
Lobster, he’s a big lad!
Their cats are very sweet. Lobster’s a bug and very hairy boy! And loves cuddling up, and rolling onto his back to have his belly stroked. And what a belly it is! Sushi, white and short haired, is blind, and tiptoes about cautiously, his head cocked a bit, occasionally bumping into things. The poor little sweetheart!
Not a great pic. But at least we’re all in it!
I realise many folks, myself included, aren’t too keen on photos of ourselves splashed on’ the web. But I hope Teresa and Hannah and the girls won’t mind my sharing this? It’s nice to have a record of our getting together!
Two bits of intriguing Steely Dan/Donald Fagen related news: 1) I Mean To Shine, by Linda Hoover, has been released, after over 50 years in the vaults, and 2) Peter Jones’ Nightfly, a biography of Donald Fagen, is due out in September.
I’ll be reading this when it ‘drops’, as the kids these days say!
Will either be any good? I don’t know. But I’m willing to give both a try, and to find out. Will Amazon offer free Vine copies to everyone but me, as they do with my other main interests (from Napoleon and Hitler to Tintin and Haddock!)? Who knows!
Hoover’s album, recorded in 1970, and featuring Becker, Fagen, ‘Skunk’ Baxter, and five numbers written by the ‘indomitable duo’, pre-Dan, was masterminded by Dan man, Gary Katz.
Tragically for Hoover, Roulette Records label owner ‘Mo’ Levy – not known for treating his acts right – angrily pulled the plug on the whole thing when he discovered publishing rights for almost all of the tunes resided elsewhere. And, ironically, whatever nascent flames I Mean To Shine might’ve promised Hoover, were snuffed out.
Obviously Don, Walt, Skunk, Katz and co. were more persistent and, ultimately, successful, as we all know. Hoover, now 71, has had a long wait for another chance to reach folk with her music and, perhaps, shine.
The only time I’ve encountered genuine 24 carat Steely Dan gold in an unexpected place is when I learned that ‘Canadian Star’ – a beautiful instrumental track by Dr Strut on their self-titled 1979 album (on Motown, no less!) – was in fact a Becker/Fagen composition.
Once you know Canadian Star is The Dan, it’s sooo obvious. The lush chords, the serpentine melodies, the fantastic arrangement. It’s a tribute to the artistry of Dr Strut that they had both the chops and the soul to lay down such a great rendition.
I have this on vinyl. Can’t recall when I last actually listened to it!
Other forays into the ‘early’ musical adventures of the cats who would become The Dan have been less rewarding. For example, an album called The Roots of Steely Dan, and another, You Gotta Walk It Like You Talk It, are both distinctively underwhelming.
I haven’t heard I Mean To Shine yet… not sure whether to buy the CD (£14), the MP3 album (£8), or just stream online? Hmmm…
Many, many moons ago, our pal Patrick gave us an old pine chest o’drawers he wanted rid of. It was in a fairly poor state. But I thought I could salvage it.
I gave it a good clean, sanded it, and fixed one or two bits. But I left the bottom drawer as it was; it had a ruddy great ‘ole in it! Over three-quarters of the base of the drawer was missing.
And we’ve used the chest for years, the middle and top two drawers working fine, the bottom as a kind of semi-operative stash for random crap. Not any more though!
Today I watched a YouTube self-help video about clutter. And although, in all honesty, it didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, it did serve as a tonic reminder of some home truths. And it galvanised me into action. So, although I normally avoid such content like the plague, I’d like to thank Nena Levone for her video. And I include the link to it (above).
My resolve to tackle our clutter (Teresa is bad that way as well!) began with simply trying to tidy our bedroom a bit.
TEAC Tascam 244 packed, ready for storage.
The first thing I did was box up an old Tascam 244 Portastudio. I got this from my dad, Simon, and hope to restore it to full working order one day. But for years it’s just sat around gathering dust and getting in our way.
So it’s getting boxed up and stored in our attic. I had to slightly customise a cardboard box to make it fit. I’ve added bubble-wrap to protect it. And, naturally, only when I’d fully boxed it up, did I find the manual!
Next I started moving stuff around. I do absolutely loads of this. it should probably be top of my resumé! And really I’m wasting time. Anyway, today I’ve been trying to move stuff to more appropriate locations. And once that was done, the chest of drawers – now with no mounds of stuff all over it – kind of hove into view, as an obvious next job.
Removing what’s left of the old base…
I took it – it in this instance being the bottom drawer, not the entire unit – out into the garden, and removed what was left of the former solid pine base. I’d have liked to have kept everything as solid pine, but that would be too labour intensive and expensive. So I got a piece of 9mm ply cut to exactly the size I needed, by Simon at West End DIY.
Lunch break: brie’n’bacon roll, with Guinness!
I needed to slightly bevel three of the surfaces, so they would slide into the friction fit grooves in the drawer. Only the rear face of the drawer is actually attached to the base. This allows the wood to breathe and move a bit.
I did this with one of my Stanley planes, plus a little additional sanding. With a bit of finessing it finally fitted in nicely. I then banged in some very small lost-head nails or tacks, and the drawer was looking great again.
Pinning the new drawer base in position.
Last but not least, I fitted the rather lovely old wooden handles. One still has an original screw. The other I had to bodge a bit, with some dowel filling the vacant ol’ hole, and a new screw. With that done, I could pop the drawer back in and load her up.
Before this repair these drawers were filled with a real mish mash of my clothing, bedding, and random rubbish. Now they’re chock-full o’ naught but my vestments. Very satisfying!
Et voilà, back in use!
There are one or two other little jobs I’d love to get done today, one of which is to put up a mini shelf for our bedroom DVD player, either above or below our bedroomTV.
Not sure that I’ll get around to this today though? Very tired! Plus I might cook our dinner tonight as well. Saw an interesting cooked cabbage recipe on YouTube that I’d like to try!
I’m totally on Jack Stratton’s – or Vulfmon’s – wavelength when it comes to digging the guitar artistry of David T Walker. And what a beautifully minimal rendering of a classic song!
Wahoo!!! Today one of my schools surprised me in the nicest way possible. Head of Music & Performing Arts, Jenny W, told me, on my arrival, ‘There are some boxes you might want to see’.
I knew what this meant. We had a Drumathon fundraiser event s while back. Actually it was what feels like ages ago now. So far back I can’t remember exactly when! A big thanks to all the staff, pupils and parents who helped us with that, as that’s what’s lead to this.
The former drum kit.
I’ve included pictures of both the former or ‘before’ kit, as well as the present or ‘after’ state of affairs. If I was a savvy YouTuber I might’ve made an ‘unboxing’ video. I suppose this a ‘slow’ version of that?
The old school drum kit – actually there are several; but this is the one I teach on – has more than done it’s duty. The current incarnation, which was preceded by a slightly better mostly Pearl Export kit, is mainly not so great CB drums, with the old Export snare, a Leedy floor tom, plus an assortment of cymbals and hardware.
Mostly CB, with a a few other odds and ends.
The schools’ several drum kits, all partial and all none too hot, share one thing in common; they sport plain monochrome wraps. The new Tama Imperialstar , by contrast, has a gorgeous and rich Coffee Teak veneer, in a lovely high gloss finish.
The school’s tired old kits all have ancient and very weathered drum heads. Whilst the new Tama kit has shiny new heads, it has to be admitted they aren’t the best feature of the kit. Hopefully we’ll re-skin this kit with coated ambassadors, and maybe get a CS-dot on the snare? (The kick is fine as is.)
Ye olde mixed bag of cymbals (and stands).
The ancient Frankenstein kits that the school’s soldiered on with have certainly served the school well. But now they’re all way too tired, and long past the point of simply being sad and decrepit, belonging, frankly, to ‘useless scrap’ territory! This shiny new Imperialstar should add a bit of bling and zing to proceedings.
This old kit has done its share of duty.
So anyway, I moved the boxes from the office to the current ‘drum room’ (also the school’s music tech suite), and started the unboxing and assembly process. Some of the kids, who were off on a school music trip today, helped me un-box everything before the left. Shame I didn’t get any pics of that. But schools are funny about teachers photographing students nowadays.
What treasures do these boxes contain?
Opening boxes of new stuff is always fun! I can totally see why unboxing videos have become a thing.
Ooh… what fun!
The drum sizes are as follows: 22” x 16” kick; 14” x 5” snare; 10” x 7” and 12” x 8” rack toms, and a 16” x 15” floor tom. The cymbals are HCS Bronze: 14” hi-hats, 16” crash and 20” ride. They’re not top end cymbals. But they both look and sound better than anything we had previously.
Shiny new Meinl cymbals.What a lovely looking kit!
Although the music trip kids left after the unboxing, I still managed to get a decent chunk assembled before my first pupil, Dan, showed up for his lesson. Fortunately he was happy to spend that lesson helping me finish putting the kit together.
Interesting smaller tom sizes!
The snare and rack toms arrived assembled. The kick and floor tom needed putting together. Once everything was assembled – with a pillow in the bass drum giving instant satisfaction – it was time to start tweaking the tuning.
Everything is shiny and new. There’s even a stool and a drum key.
I’m really chuffed the school went with the brand/line and finish I suggested. I’m wondering did I also suggest these specific sizes? The kit consists of rather fusion-esque smaller tom sizes, which, with the supplied heads, give a pretty high pitched sound.
Love this wooden veneer!
Whenever one has a new kit, it takes a while to tweak it, and get it bedded in. Today that took the form of some tom tuning, tightening up the snare, and getting the toms properly aligned relative to each other.
Gorgeous!
I think the aesthetics of this kit, it’s physical allure, are actually very important. A sexy kit makes friends easily. People want to play it, and that makes teaching a little more fun, and quite a bit easier.
An aerial view; the cymbals look lush!Viewed more or less from the cockpit.I just adore the finish!
So, all in all, how totally terrific! Aren’t we lucky to have such a lovely new kit?
In addition to enjoying time out with the family today, there’s been some stellar tennis at Wimbledon.
Alcaraz serves…
The new young lions were brilliantly represented by Sinner (20) vs. Alcaraz (19). The tall skinny orange haired Italian (looks more Dutch than Italian!), Sinner, against the swarthy and stockier Michelangelo-esque Alacaraz, was a great match.
Sinner prepares to return…
Sinner somewhat confounded expectations by beating the emergent darling Alcaraz. The latter did claw his way back a little by winning the third set tie-break. But it was a temporary reprieve. Sinner returned to dominance, and took the match.
Victory for the Italian Sinner.
This meant that Djokovic’s match was delayed. And Djokovic, widely held, especially amongst his fellow professionals, as the current GOAT, was set to play a virtual unknown, Dutchman Van Rijthoven.
Van Rijthofen‘s a cool card!
At the time I’m writing this it’s nearly 10pm, and they’re level on sets, one a piece, but Djokovic is, as McEnroe just said, totally ‘dominating this set.’ After two long sets, the Serbian is making short work of set three!
But Djokovic is like granite.
And Centre Court is 100 years old today. What a great pair of gladiatorial combats for such an anniversary!
Today I met up with my Mum, Malcolm, her husband, and Sofi, my sister’s younger daughter, so my niece. We met for tea, cakes and a walk at Anglesey Abbey. And very nice it was too.
It was, I believe, in celebration of mum’s recent birthday. Teresa couldn’t make it, as she wasn’t feeling well. So I was flying solo.
Mum, avec b’day card and earrings.
It was a little touch and go as to whether I’d make it, as I had more work to do on the MX5. And for a while it looked like I might not have the tools to get it all back together in time!
After a brief walk around the grounds, under sunshine and lots of ‘little fluffy clouds’, it was very pleasant. And then tea and cakes, or rather coffee, cake, ice cream and ale (between us all, not just me!). Lovely!
Sofi helps mum with her big present.
To my great relief mum liked our gifts, which were a bit off our normal beaten track. The card and flowers were quite normal. And earrings aren’t an altogether unusual gift for a lady.
The boid… pretty big!
But the big bird sculpture!? We weren’t sure how that’d go over. Luckily mum loves it. Phew! Nice family times.
Since fixing the cam-belt the car’s been running pretty well. But it’s felt a bit syrupy, or even porridge-y recently. It’s hard to get across exactly how one knows or feels this. Things just feel a bit sluggish. There’s also quite a bit of engine vibration when one starts and moves off.
I’ve heard this can be either timing related or due to misfires. Hopefully if it’s either it’s the latter, as I’ve gone to great pains to get the timing properly aligned!
VVT spark-plugs, wires and spark-plug socket.
Rather disappointingly the VVT spark plug wire set is just two leads. In a normal engine it’s all four. This is because there are two ‘coil-on’ plugs or packs, which are rather complex, and, apparently, not available commercially. At least not easily, commonly or cheaply. Bummer!
Uh-oh! Oil in the second spark plug chamber.
When I did all the cam-belt work I didn’t take the plugs out. I thought about it. But I was busy enough with everything else. I kind of wish I had now! Why? Because I found that there was oil inside the second from front plug well. It would be interesting to know if this problem predated my work, or was a result of it.
The old plugs. Second from left is the oily one!
I had the cam-cover off several times during the cam-belt and cam-cover gasket changes. According to several YT videos I’ve watched on the ‘oil in your spark-plugs’ topic, the most likely cause is a faulty gasket on the plug’ole.
Now mine is a new gasket. But has the on and off business damaged it? I guess I’ll have to check again after this job is done. But in the meantime, once the old plugs were all out (see above pics), I had the cam-cover off yet again, to really clean it.
This is the oily one.
I took numerous pics of all the spark-plug holes, both before and after, for my own reference. But I’m only putting up one or two of those images, not all eight plus of them!
The cleaning of the cam-cover was the most time consuming part of this day’s work. And it’s only really a cosmetic thing, if I’m honest. I should’ve done this the first time I had this part off. And actually I did, just not so thoroughly.
Cleaning the cam-cover.
This time I spent a couple of hours, repeatedly washing the top, with a little washing up liquid in warm water. Then I scrubbed it, again repeatedly, using Swarfega, getting into all the nooks and crannies as best I can. I used wire brushes, wire wool, and plastic toothbrushes, both large and small, going over it all multiple times.
I then rinsed it all off in warm soapy water, and dried it using lint-free cloths. After that I went over the entire thing several times using wire rotary tools in a hand-drill. Then it all had a dry-clean with the lint-free towels. And to finish off, a thorough rub down with isopropyl alcohol, to clean up.
I had to remove or mask certain bits.
This whole cleaning period took ages! And during doing it my iPhone battery died. So I didn’t get any photos of the masking I did, nor the removal of sundry bolt-on bits, nor even much of the cleaning itself. Thanks Teresa for capturing me at work in my home-made denim apron!
Whilst the cam-cover is certainly much improved, it’s nothing like as clean or shiny as I’d really have liked. There’s still a residual ‘rash’ effect. And the embossed lettering was hell to try and clean out.
This and the above are the ‘after’ pics.
With the cam-cover cleaned, mostly top, but also bottom, and the gasket cleaned and re-installed, I put the four new spark-plugs in (see pic immediate below). It was at this point that one of my major frustrations with this day’s work came to a head.
Throughout the work I struggled to find all sorts of things I needed, from my car keys to the socket set I prefer to use (I have several!). And then – and this was the real cherry on top – part way through the work, I appear to have lost or mislaid a crucial socket-set adapter.
New plugs in.
This means I can’t torque the bolts down to specific settings, but have to guess, and do it all by feel. Not very satisfactory for a newbie grease-monkey like me. The room that leaves for anxiety over cock-ups is grand-canyon-esque!
So I had to ‘button everything up’ in an approximate manner. And at this juncture it’s worth noting that, if one’s learns from mistakes, I ought to be learning plenty! Here are a few I made during this particular session of maintenance:
I took all the VVT bolts out before loosening – or make that trying to loosen – the 40NM torqued banjo bolt. This led to the bending of a ‘hard line’ hose. I’ve tried to bend it back, but it’s still misshapen. This makes re-fitting the whole VVT arm harder. Doh!
I couldn’t find the ‘loosening’ sequence – tightening yes, loosening no – for the cam-cover bolts, so had to guess (based on reversing the tightening sequence… ‘ish).
When I did the sequence I got to the ‘end’, only to realise I’d somehow skipped one bolt, leaving that one tighter throughout, with the danger of deformation or even cracking of the cover. A visual inspection seems to indicate I’ve gotten away with it this time.
During cleaning myriad little things occurred: using tissues that leave debris everywhere; getting cleaning stuff meant for top only underneath; snagging the rotary wire brushes on the towel on which the cam-cover was sat, sending it flying (another visual inspection promotes a relieved sense that I probably got away with this).
Constantly mislaying stuff, from car-keys to tools. I need to tidy, streamline and get properly and thoroughly organised… in advance!
I’m sure there was more… but I forget!
I sincerely hope I do actually learn from this litany of errors! Some of these are already repeat mistakes, shoddy organisation being my most repeated ‘sin’!
All back together. Looks nice!
And at day’s end, when I took the car for a test-drive? After all that work it felt exactly the same. Grrr!!! Has oil gotten into that spark plug chamber again? Do I already need another cam-cover gasket, having had this one on and off repeatedly?
Two other new parts – a thermostat gasket and a little plastic doodad that’s supposed to fix floppy roof latches – both failed more or less immediately. So perhaps the new cam-cover gasket has as well?
At least the engine bay looks a bit nicer! But what good is that if she still runs iffily? Guess I need to check to see if oil’s still getting into the second spark-plug well. But without the torque adapter I’m not keen to be taking stuff apart again right away.
Birthday stuff for mum.
Plus we’re due to go out today to meet my mum for slightly belated birthday tea and cakes at Anglesey Abbey. So no further fiddling about under the hood! I just hope we don’t have a repeat of the original ‘on the road to Anglesey’ debacle, which required an expensive AA tow home!
Aaaaarrrgh!!! How, or why, do I nearly always miss this stuff!?
I’ve only recently discovered Paak, and have really been digging some of his music. And his drumming, and whole effervescent vibe, are just so joyful and enjoyable.
Dig the wig! (Photo: mikepalmer.photo, used with permission)
And seeing him in a big curly haired wig, wearing flares? And that huge toothy grin!? There’s a really joyful reverberation of the whole late ‘60s early ‘70s hippy vibe coming through. Which I love.
As annoyed as I am that I missed this gig, at least it’s up on YouTube:
