Spring has been in the air for the past couple of weeks and now the clocks have changed, it’s official. Which means it’s time to think about growing things again, most restful after the craziness of the past three weekends.

The lawn’s had its first weeding and haircut of the year, I’ve put some seeds in some compost, the veg plots have had their thick mulch of organic matter applied for about a month and have been dug over ready for the soil to warm up enough for some direct sowing and my amaryllis has flowered. I even spent a good 30 minutes with a screwdriver, can of air and vacuum cleaner to spring clean the inside of my computer, the dust filters over its inlet fans were gross.

After last year’s mixed successes in my current garden, I’m changing my planting plan slightly to match. The tomatoes are the same variety (F1 Totem) and I’ll be carrying on with the same spinach, chard and beetrooot varieties (largely because I’ve got loads of seed left over) but gone are the Nasturtiums and Strawberry Spinach, the round cucumbers (waah!) and squashes. In their place, however, will be a japanese variety of parsley, some more second early potatoes, three varieties of shallot and possibly a standard issue Pumpkin vine for my work’s annual competition.

I’m going to be doing three sowings of spinach and chard, 3 to 4 weeks apart, which should give a steady supply through the summer and not leave just the old and tough stalks in the autumn. In effect, I’m growing things that I use a lot of, but can be expensive to buy and I’m leaving alone the things I use but are cheap to buy.

My Amaryllis took a little over two years to flower again from when it flowered the first time and only had two blooms instead of four, possibly because I didn’t keep it sufficiently fed and watered. It was an interesting exercise to see if it works, but I don’t think it’s worth the space the pot and large spread of leaves take up. One of my bulbs was happy enough to split off a child, which is growing on strongly and might flower next year, if I keep it around that long. I may just to find a sheltered and sunny corner somewhere and plant them out so I’ve got space for the next fun things I’ve got in mind.

Amaryllis flower

It’s getting close to Easter, so I’ve had a quick experiment with a coffee chocolate fudge; mix up a quantity of plain fudge, melt 75g of good quality coffee chocolate and swirl one through the other.

Chocolate fudge

This is published a couple of week month’s late, but I just tripped over my notes I made sat on a park and ride bus after this winter’s snow had been with us for a few days.

Ah, snow. Like it or loathe it, it’s impossible to ignore it.
England isn’t used to snow in any real quantity, which is why these past couple of weeks have been so newsworthy.
Apart from my Scandinavian car not coping with ice as well as I’d prefer, I’ve been lucky enough to not be significantly inconvenienced by it all. Things are just different, Being Prepared helps more than ever, driving to work just takes 3 times as long and you can’t always rely on shopping at the last minute.

Parliament Street

But that’s not a bad thing, with roads, rails and runways all suffering from the snow, travel suddenly becomes hugely more valuable. When driving, you have to take your time to be aware of the road and your car’s reactions to it. We’re all used to being able to quickly go wherever we want, whenever we want, so this is an incentive to be aware of, and enjoy our surroundings more.

If I lived nearer the Wolds, I’d be considering getting some skis for a bit of fun, the snow round my home is perfect, just need a slope 🙂

The thick blanket of snow on the fields is refreshingly like a canvas, showing what and who has passed by, the low winter sun picking out in orange contrast all the foot, tyre and hoof prints left on the lane as the day’s business goes past. Only to be filled in after darkness and snow falls anew, ready for the next days activity.

Chilly Busking

Most people round the city centre seemed to be enjoying themselves, from the kids throwing snowballs at each other and the world in general by the fountain in the middle to the slightly bonkers but very good busker by the Minster, effortlessly playing the piano with gloves on in the subzero wind.

As this is the third time I’ve been asked this question in as many weeks, this is my answer to “What should I get to upgrade my old 14″ CRT television set now that Digital exists?”

Unless you’re in the market for a large television, I recommend a reasonably large LCD monitor instead, their LCD panels tend to be much higher quality than an LCD TV and are also generally cheaper because they don’t have unnecessary rubbish inside like TV tuners and remote control receivers. Why these are unnecessary will be introduced in just a moment.

The choice of monitor should be limited to those with a native resolution of 1920×1080, or just “1080p” in current parlance, it allows you to use the same device to watch TV, play XBox and run your computer though and generally saves space, money and the planet. This year has seen the release of a lot of 21.5″ LCD panels that run at this resolution, but I’d pick one with a larger pixel size because you’ll be watching it from a few feet away.

These are a few options in various sizes:

Watching digital TV without the help of a Personal Video Recorder (PVR) is missing out on some major opportunities, such as recording two channels at once whilst watching a third, pausing live TV whilst you answer the [phone/oven/small child], and series link recording. Series Link is one of the most misunderstood techologies out at the moment and people usually expect miracles, even though they didn’t when they used VHS or DVD recorders. The implementation also varies between different Manufacturers, so you must read and understand how it does it.

Anyway, the current PVR I recommend is the Topfield TF5810. As long as the PVR of your choice has an HDMI output and contains a function called an ‘upsizer’ which just takes normal TV and scales it up to fill a HighDef screen, you’re good. Be careful, upsizing is a generally a software function and a lot of them are of an unwatchably low quality.

Unlike the Humax 9200T that I’ve been happy with for years, the Topfield’s menu system is fast to use, its USB download to computer function doesn’t crash it and, most importantly, the software is customisable. Which means that the community supplies user interface improvements way faster than the manufacturer can. http://www.toppy.org.uk/ is the place to start looking, but if you just get the addon (or TAP as they’re called) called MyStuff you won’t go far wrong. Download MyStuff.

Finally, don’t forget a good quality spare HDMI cable to connect things to the monitor with:

This setup isn’t for everybody because monitors generally don’t have as many video inputs as TVs, neither are they as large, but this article is just to point my friends and family towards and they can cope with moving a plug when they want to change inputs over 🙂

Edit:

I’ve been reminded that I forgot sound. In which case, pick one of these monitors with built in A/V switches and tinny little speakers: