Helen painted four “thank you” cards after Christmas this year; a variety of watercolour interpretations of the view of the Brecon Beacons from our house. These photos don’t do them justice, but were snapped just before they went into envelopes. I have a favourite, but I like them all. Shall we just say they were received and acknowledged with an... read more

I have just discovered a tape recording of me (aged 15, December 1983 I think) singing carols with the Finn twins (creators of Sibelius software) and Jimmy Gumpert (former St Paul’s chorister), recorded on my tape recorder at school. One of the Finns (I cannot remember which, but probably “J” as he was more silly) is hooting out the alto part, I’m ... read more

When Lois gets back from her first term at Durham Uni she will probably sleep for two days, but then she wants to start offering tutoring for GSCE and A level students at schools in Brecon and the surrounding area (Crickhowell, Builth Wells etc). She designed a great poster which has gone up in the schools, but I reckon it's normally the parent... read more

Microsoft Word has also been able to function as a blogging tool for some time, so this is a test from Word 2016 with a picture of a Herdwick sheep. Figure 1: a sheep It's good, but not as good as OpenLiveWriter. For example, image handling isn't as easy (e.g. we cannot add alt text or title on the img element) and I've not found a way... read more

I saw with dismay that Windows Live Essentials is reaching end of support in Jan 2017 – dismay because it contains the fantastic Windows Live Writer. Also, on a PC I’m setting up for middle child, I cannot get the old installer to work. But now I’ve found that OpenLiveWriter is available for download. I’d heard that Microsoft were making it open... read more

From Gatesgarth we first climbed Fleetwith Pike. The memorial to “Fanny Mercer, accidentally killed 1887” Looking back over Buttermere Up onto the ridge Looking back to Buttermere The summit of Fleetwith Pike Innominate Tarn in threatening weather Descending Haystacks to Scarth Gap in a howling gale Descending Scarth Gap Pass A Herdwick... read more

We just got a Devolo Powerline dLAN 1200+ Starter Kit, with the intention of replacing the rather unreliable ethernet connection to our study. We had ethernet installed when we had the whole house re-wired, but JBW didn’t know what he was doing and this particular room has always suffered from dropouts and slower speeds. (Aside - this is actually... read more

A few pictures from a brief camping trip to Llanthony Priory. read more

Do dead composers need websites? Of course they do! Perhaps they also need Facebook pages and twitter accounts, I wouldn't know about that. Well Peter Tranchell has had one for ages, running on free web hosting with up to four free pages, set up by John Gwinnell at www.patranchell.info. Or rather, he did have one, until... I was contacted a... read more