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FYI! Last read at 08:10 on 2025/04/03.

Gardening

I transplanted the little carrots into a planter where they can grow.
Carrots
A new home for the carrots.

I have also earthed up the final row of potatoes.

Potatoes
Potatoes
I think I counted about forty potato plants. So that's rows 3, 4, and 6 earthed up with rows 1, 2, and 5 left to grow leafy plants.
Additionally, row 3 was earthed up when the plants were about 8-10cm above the ground, with rows 4 and 6 being earthed up just as they started to appear.

The potager needs mowed again. Pffft. I only just did that! With little mower. It took ages.

Potager
This time of year, 'nicely mown' is measured in mere days.
Such lush green...

 

C1 battery problem

I like to turn the old C1 over every so often (about once a month). For various reasons, I missed it in April. So come now to May and... the battery is completely dead.
Now, I know the battery loses charge (even when disconnected) as I usually hook up the charger before starting the car. But I've never had it just fail before.
Putting some charge into it, this lunchtime it read 8.2V.
Battery reading
That should say about 13.2V, not 8.2V.
I have the charger hooked up and on pulse mode to see if that can recover the battery. Which it may or may not do.
I just think it is funny how many moving parts there are in a car, and the part giving problems is the part that nobody remembers.

I should probably get rid of the car, it will need a full service and roadworthiness test and it has 160K on the clock, so if I ever get myself a licence, it may be worth my while to look for a younger second hand car. This C1, when "new" (I think it had about 14K on the clock?) cost only a few Happy Meals more than I paid for Caoimhe!
The reason I don't is that the bother of tidying up the car and getting it ready to go is... likely to be more trouble than the money I'd get for it would be worth.
So, for now, I just like to run the engine for a few minutes every so often. But, if the battery has given up the ghost.....

 

Speakers

Alison is packing up her stuff. She will be moving up north to some place in Normandie. She'll be about 150km away, which is two hours by road in a normal car. It'll be sad to see her go, as she's about the only English person that I interact with these days.
Oh, the wind has really picked up. Might be the thunderstorm coming a few hours late?

Anyway, part of the "joy" of packing is in getting rid of stuff that isn't wanted. I am now the owner of two Sony SS-XB6AV speakers. Heavy things. I guessed about 12kg each. The internet says 13kg, so I was close.
It is a 3-way speaker system with a tweeter that seems to be about 6-7cm, and a bass woofer that looks to be about 16cm, as well as a sub-woofer that is also about 16cm. The sub-woofer is in a separate section with a sort of box arrangement around it, to enhance the bass.

Speaker
A speaker.

I've never had "proper" speakers before. In my room ages ago, I used to have a "mini system" with cassette player, radio, and CD player. It had little speakers, maybe 8-10cm? Because of others and thin walls, I listened to it at a fairly low volume. Here, with my NetRadio, I have it hooked to desktop speakers intended for plugging into a computer. They have optional amplification, but aren't very loud and their small size means no bass.

I remembered that I got a little CD player for €2 in a vide grenier a few years back. I had absolutely awful speakers (about 3cm) that were so bad I don't know if I kept them or binned them the moment I got home.
But what it did have was an ability to drive an 8Ω load. Which these speakers were.

CD player
CD player.

A bit of gaffer tape to hold the wires twisted together, and... it works. Not just that, but the bass response is actually pretty impressive given that I'm driving these speakers from something expecting to drive a speaker a fraction of the size of these. So maybe it is outputting a couple of watts max, but damn, the bass sounds good, although I do have the CD player's volume cranked to the max!
Better yet, the CD player came with a dinky remote control and I've even managed to find that! So I can control it without moving my fat arse. ☺

I'll need to look on Amazon for an amplifier. Something that can accept Bluetooth as well as line in. Preferably with a bass/treble adjustment. I will buy something ready made. There are various fairly inexpensive kits on Amazon, but they have weird power requirements. I'd rather something I can just plug in and use.
I'm looking at something like this:

Potential amplifier?
Potential amplifier?
I don't need the microphone inputs (dear god, you don't want to hear me sing - a muppet giving birth would be more pleasant) but otherwise it supports various sorts of input, adjustable bass and treble, and a standard power cable so no weird power supplies. List price €30,99 with Prime delivery (prefered so I can return it to Amazon if something is wrong).

 

Mick...

The Mick Bush has just flowered. I'll need to get the strimmer and tidy up around it. Maybe towards the end of a week, I don't fancy a face full of bug bits.
The Mick Bush
The "Mick Bush".

Why it is called The Mick Bush is hysterical raisins.

 

No thunderstorm yet, just weather unsuitable for kites and really unsuitable for drones!

 

 

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Rick, 9th May 2021, 17:25
The CD player is a TF-M108. A quick Google will show you the horribleness of the speakers that came with it. 
The rating plate on the back says 1W (RMS) x 2, so these speakers weren't exactly being given anything challenging.
Mick, 10th May 2021, 03:08
The Mick bush - ha! It really ought to be renamed the Rick bush seeing all the work you've done. You've done so much to your outdoors since I was last there it is unrecognisable now. You've reclaimed the land from the weeds nicely.
David Pilling, 10th May 2021, 18:32
I would have guessed carrots did not transplant well. You can now battle carrot root fly which does not fly higher than a foot - tiny barrage balloons.
Rick, 11th May 2021, 20:39
The carrots haven't keeled over yet, so fingers crossed. 
 
On the other hand, the potatoes said "nope, not happening" and have punched through my mounds. I'll have to bury them again in a couple of days. This time I'll use a wheelbarrow. 😪

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