Stuff Archives

As many of you know, I had two cats: Zaphod and Trillion, named after characters from The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. The names are pretty apt as Zaphod is a brash, outgoing cat that doesn't care about anything whereas Trillion was the quintessential scaredy cat. Sadly Trillion has been missing for two weeks now and I have to assume that she's no longer alive. I'll be honest, I'm really surprised given her shy nature and I've not known her to go outside of my garden. I've honestly looked everywhere, but alas, she is nowhere to be found (along with posting on local sites and filling in a missing pet form, going to all the neighbors, driving round the area etc. etc.)

I will always remember how shy she was. It took 10 days before she let me touch her. I had to slide her food down the corridor so she would get it, otherwise Zaphod would have two helpings. Slowly, she allowed me to feed her and I would steal a quick stroke every now and then. Not enough to scare her, but to slowly get her used to me. Zaphod, on the other hand needed attention and lots of it. Everyone at work knew I had Zaphod as he frequented my webcam from an early age. He jumped on my bed and slept next to me from day 2 (something he doesn't do now). Trillion used to jump in my washing basket wanting to be near Zaphod, but not wanting to be close enough to me that I could grab her. I do wonder if she noticed that she was sleeping higher and higher towards the end of the week as my clothes started to pile up. I also would have thought sleeping on my underpants before I wore them would be preferable to after, but there's no accounting for taste.

I will never forget the first time she came to me to be stroked. She had been watching Zaphod for several days jump on my lap and start to purr. She seemed intrigued by how happy he seemed to be. She would sit there, just out of arms length watching and I would call to her gently. Eventually she gave in and came to me for fusses. After that, she couldn't get enough:


Frequently she would sit on my lap as I watched TV. The roles now having reversed. Zaphod after being let out was nowhere to be found - he spent all day and night investigating the neighborhood.

The cutest thing though were the cuddles I used to get in in bed. Trillion had started to be a real snuggler. It's crazy hot here, so most of the time she only came to me in the mornings. I was really looking forward to next winter as I was sure she'd come for cuddles all night.


I would hear the little pitter patter of her feet as she ran down the corridor to my room. I would call her and she would jump on my bed. I'd then pat down a little area in front of my neck (didn't matter which side I was on) and she would come and curl up, have some fusses and then fall asleep with me while my arm was around her. An example is in this short video:

The last thing I'll mention is that she loved playing with her toys. Interestingly, Zaphod isn't interested in them, but Trillion used to chase them round, throw them up in the air and chase them again. If she was feeling generous, she'd bring them to me to play with. She would do these cute little meows with the toy in her mouth, then bring it to me and drop it. This next clip is a week before she disappeared.

RIP Trillion. You will always be loved and you are missed. Zaphod misses you a lot too.

Another image to highlight the quality, or lack thereof, in modern times. Honestly though, you'd have thought AI would do better than make a silly mistake like this. Surely everyone knows it's Martin and not Michael.

The picture is a screenshot from a local CBS news program. (His real name is Michael Penix for those that don't know).

So William came home last night and found my cat playing with his new friend. His new friend that had a built in rattle. The picture's pretty crappy, but it was completely dark and the phone's done what it can. It seems to be a young rattlesnake. I did get it to rattle when I put the end of my crutch in front of its face to see if it would strike it. Yup, I still can't stop poking things I shouldn't.

The interesting thing is that this is the bottom step of the path to my house. William had parked next to the path so he could open his door and walk up. He'd stepped right over it without seeing it. He only saw it when he saw what the cat was looking at.

The recipe sites all take an hour to load because they are just full of adverts. I’ve decided to keep a running log of ice cream recipes that work. I’ll keep editing this page to add or update. One thing I did run into is rock hard ice cream and that seems to be because of a lack of sugar in the mix.

Lemon
Zest of 4 lemons
8oz (1 cup) sugar

Mix, then add

6oz (¾ cup) lemon juice
12oz (1½ cups) whole milk
2 table spoons vanilla extract
16oz (2 cups) heavy whipping cream

Ribena
8oz (1 cup) sugar
8oz (1 cup) whole milk
8oz (1 cup) Ribena
Juice of 1 lemon

Mix, then add

16oz (2 cups) heavy whipping cream

Espresso
8oz (1 cup) sugar
12oz (1½ cup) whole milk
3 shots espresso (double and reuse single)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Mix, then add

16oz (2 cups) heavy whipping cream

Congratulations to The England Women's Football Team for their victory in the Euro's. I'll be honest, I'm still not a fan of women's football, but I'm more than happy to give the national team support when they reach a final. I'm now two for two on games watched and European trophies won. I'll be honest, it did seem like Spain were the better team over the 90 and 120 minutes, but we won the penalty shoot out after an interesting slip on the first one that I'm still not sure why she was allowed to take again, but it was saved anyway. And the only thing that matters is the final result, so job done for the team!

I haven't posted any videos of bike rides lately as I've been doing the same one again and again which is pretty boring, but good for exercise. I had been getting faster and faster on this route, but suddenly it's taken a turn and I'm now going slower again. I'm guessing just a general energy level thing and it'll turn around again some time. I'm trying to spread out the rides so I don't give myself an RSI injury. Been doing twice a week, although I won't be doing a mid week this week as my retirement party is later and I don't want to risk an injury before that.

Anyway, the other issue is that of the crutches remaining attached to the back of the bike which again has become hit and miss. The first thing was that there's a remote control on the selfie stick so you can click that button to take a photo of yourself. Not anymore. That flew off when I was going down a hill. By the time I returned to collect it, it had been driven over at least once. Then there's the crutches themselves that, although being bound and clipped in position, seemed to manage to snap the clip and work themself loose. It was still attached the the bike at the end of the ride, but only just. It does make me wonder how much force is being generated as I bounce around on all the pot holes and cobbles. My bum must be taking a right hammering. Perhaps that's why I enjoy going out on my bike so much.

A few folks have said they were shocked to hear that Ozzy had died. Honestly, I am amazed he lived as long as he did. He's had so many brushes with death from rabies to ATV accidents on top of all the drink and drugs and being too drunk to get on the plane that took the life of Randy Rhodes, he's had more lives than a cat. And I'd say he's lived each and every one of them to the fullest.

I've been fortunate enough to see Ozzy live several times including in his home town of Birmingham, although not the final farewell gig a couple of weeks back. I saw him there back in 1999. I have to say that Ozzy's been central to the music I like all my life. Not just the music he's played, but the influence he's had on so many other bands. I'm remembering back to my school days and learning the lyrics to Black Sabbath's early hits of Paranoid, War Pigs and Iron Man (all while doing homework of course).


RIP Ozzy. You will forever be remembered! As someone once said …. “Crazy, but that’s how it goes”. Enjoy the ride. All aboard!

Wake up with something bugging you. Open your phone to search for the answer. Get distracted with an alert. Spend the rest of the day trying to remember what was bugging you and what you were going to search.

Not a car blog even though I did get a new car this week. This is about my phone. I was outside, watching TV in my garden the other night and I noticed that there appeared to be a full moon. It wasn't, it was 99%, but the full moon was the following night. I messed about with the zoom on my camera as it goes to 100x and was quite impressed with the results. The two pictures below are from the subsequent night and it is a full moon. The phone was hand held, so no tripod/stand to stabilize it. The images you see below are the web display images, but I've made it so that if you click on each photo, you'll get the actual full resolution image.

The image above is at 1x zoom. I think it looks pretty cool, although it's nothing like what you saw with your eyes. It makes it look quite bright which it wasn't. It also blows out the moon whereas you could see it in quite a lot of detail with the naked eye. Again, I still think it looks pretty cool.

This is zooming into the white dot of the moon in the first picture. I haven't done any editing to either picture.

Yes! To coincide with my retirement, my fruit trees decided to bear ... well, fruit. What else would a fruit tree bear? I have quite a few fruit bearing plants/trees. They are all fairly young and some are doing better than others. I have figs, lemons (x2), apricots, kumquats and another tree that I'm not sure what it is, but probably another apricot tree. The kumquat hasn't produced anything. Last year it had one tiny fruit on it. It's in a pot though and I've seen the cat in there quite a lot, so I think it's been subject to cat pee and I don't think it's going to last much longer. My apricot tree only had one apricot last year too, but this year it seems to have flourished. There's still quite a bit of fruit still on the tree after picking this lot:

One of the lemon tree/bush thing is producing lemons constantly. The other has only produced 4, but that's a start. The mystery tree has three fruit on it that look like they're ripe. I've just not picked them yet to see what they are. As I said, likely another apricot, but could be a peach. The fig tree is also very young and I think this is its first crop. There were about a dozen figs on it. I have read that they bear fruit twice a year, so I may get some more later.

Right, so what to do with the fruit? Make jam and ice cream.

Jam seems pretty easy - you take some fruit, add some lemon juice and sugar. Bring to a boil on a medium heat and then let kind of simmer on a low heat. The ratio seems to be 2lb of fruit with 1 cup of sugar and 2 tablespoons of lemon. The fig recipe had slightly more sugar 1½ cups, more lemon juice ¼ of cup and 2 tablespoons (weird way to write it) along with ¼ cup of water. Honestly think you need to try it and tweak it.

One thing I did find is the finer you chop the fruit, the smoother the jam. Depends if you want bits in your jam or not. I used a blender to chop it up. I didn't go as fine on the apricots as I did with the figs. I'll go finer with the apricots next time.

Mix in the bowl and as mentioned, bring to a boil then simmer for 20 - 25 minutes stirring every now and then. Then spoon into jars. As you can see the apricot yield was much better than the fig yield.