Month: May 2012

May 29, 2012
As I mentioned earlier, I have been very impressed with my broad beans, and although they are a long way off being fully developed pods, I wanted to give some a try. So I picked some, and podded them. As they were so young, I didn’t bother skinning the individual beans, I just did them in a saucepan for 4 minutes.

Garden to table in about 20 minutes, and quite delicious.

May 26, 2012
Actually, just my peas. It’s a lovely day outside, so I have been spending some time in the garden.

During the “wettest drought in UK history”, I must admit I’ve not been doing anything out there, or even thinking about it much. During my negligent period, there have developed a scattering of weeds in the gravel, but these pulled easily, as the membrane stops them taking hold.

May 26, 2012
May 24, 2012
I cooked some ribs yesterday, and they were awful – nice flavour, but just too tough. I tried a couple and gave up on them.

This may sound heretical for someone who plays with BBQ, but I am actually not a fan of ribs – or anything that you nibble from a bone, for that matter; such as wings or drumsticks. If I can’t put it in a bun, or stick a fork in it, I’m not really interested.

May 23, 2012
May 22, 2012
I have been playing with ifttt, which is a site that allows you to set up automated tasks across multiple resources and feeds. ifttt stands for “if this then that”. It is very easy to use.

What I am using it for is to import selected twitter posts into Wordpress (from which they eventually reach LJ). I say selected, but in fact, I only use Twitter for one thing – my Kindle. The Kindle allows you to rate books and share comments via Twitter, and although I am not interested in Twitter at all, I thought it would be a way to direct content here.

May 22, 2012
On my Kindle today, I finished Blood Music (Gollancz S.F.) by Greg Bear and gave it 5 stars http://t.co/WUDc5Qu

Having finished BZRK yesterday (which I thorougly enjoyed), I was reminded of Blood Music somewhat, even though the books are vastly different. I had an immediate desire to read it again, and didn’t have a clue what box my ragged copy was stored in. So I threw caution to the wind and Kindled it.

May 21, 2012
May 19, 2012
May 18, 2012
I’ve been playing with Dropbox recently, which is a cloud service that allows you to easily share files between multiple computers and mobile phones.

I know that some people have the opinion that Dropbox is not as secure as it claims, but I’ve read up on the issues, and am really not that concerned, for the uses I am going to put it to. Being mainly a quick and easy way to dump photos/videos off of my smartphone and netbook when I am travelling, so I don’t have to worry about memory.

May 16, 2012
South Kestevan, my district council, has a fairly good record for recycling; both of plastics/paper, and of garden waste and green kitchen waste.

Up until this year, you could leave garden/kitchen waste for collection either by purchasing authorised bags (which cost 50p per bag), or by having a big green bin.

May 10, 2012