Despite regular culls, the salad is approaching triffid proportions. So far I’ve given away three carrier bags and have had six fairly large bags shared between the wife and I for lunches.

Well it’s probably paid for the seeds used to plant it already. Plus the salad is much tastier than the stuff in the shop and infinitely fresher. Each day I’m picking it fresh from the rain, then washing it (which seems bizarre). Today I’m taking a large bag to work to share around. My favourite is the mortons secret mix from the real seed co. I shall definitely be planting much more of it!

Discovered something had been digging up my giant mangetout. I’m not sure how big it’s going to get so I’ve put up substantial been poles in the hope it’ll shoot up 6ft tall. Doesn’t help if the fox is digging it up though…

And finally cats camouflaged in their unnatural environment.

Can you spot them both?

After another 3hrs of my wife drilling and me shoving fibre optic leads and gluing, we’re done! Looks pretty sweet now

We invited the neighbours round. The guy next door did wonder why I kept saying “I’m shoving it down now” and she was saying “to the window two inches” and “do you want me to pull on it” etc. Soundproofing isn’t quite as good through the tiles it seems!

I finally finished the day with the installation of a shiny new alarm and popping out for dinner with the wife and an evening in the amusements at the seaside where she (not me, I’m useless) won a cuddly toy.

The last few evenings have been long arduous rediculously itchy nights in the loft.  No, the wife hasn’t kicked me out… I’ve been looking at telephone wiring.

I originally trained in IT.  IT is a wide subject and having built my first computer from scratch at 15 (only one minor fire).  I then spent some time at college and university studying computer science and by the time I left I had a good solid understanding of the subject.  So much so, I’d realised I didn’t really enjoy computing anymore.

What it did give me is a really good understanding of networking systems, so I’m not afraid to play with data cables.

My internet has been rediciously slow – it’s pretty difficult to get much further from the exchange where I am and generally the internet speeds round my area are about 1.5-2mbits so I understandably didn’t mind mine was at the top end of the 2mbits.  However having had some problems on the line (telephone interference), I decided to have a look at the cabling to see what was at fault.  BT wanted £130 to confirm it was either at my end or theirs as their records seemed to suggest my end was at fault.  About 20 minutes in, I’d found the fault, but more shockingly found that my wiring was really, really bad.

Where the cable comes in from outside and into the house all the way down to the master socket, it’s BTs domain.  It’s illegal to touch it and if you want it moved, BT charges for the privilage (not much, about £30) but it’s not free.  It also takes a few days to get it moved.  The houses previous owner (an electrician) had obviously ignored this and moved it himself.  He used all sorts of scrap wire.  For some reason one of the bits of wire actually adds current to the circuit – this is pretty bad and the reason for my phone fault.

I can’t legally touch this wire (after all I didn’t install it) but I did connect up my own box and my broadband speed jumped from 2mb to 4mb.  The wiring is really, really bad.

The BT engineer comes on Tuesday.  Chances are he’ll be unable to get the other box to work properly to install fibre, though I’ll have my new line and spare box ready for when he arrives.  Depending on how officious he is, I might be able to convince him the previous line was installed by an imbeicille and the new line would be much more advantageous to all!

I’ve used Cat 6 cabling – it can really help your broadband speeds – you can find information on it here:

http://www.rob-r.co.uk/other/UKphonecatwiring.htm

Just for fun (and the education) of the one-yet-to-be-born, I’m putting in a fibre optic ceiling with the constellations.

To do this, I’ve engaged the help of my friend Ben. He angled my projector at a mirror so we could get the constellations on the roof

And the marked up with pencil.

One marked, each one has to be drilled, the cross rubbed out and a fibre optic pushed UP so I can locate it. Next upstairs I push a thread DOWN and glue it into place. Then to finish each one is snipped to 1″ from the ceiling so it doesn’t Halo.

From on top of the roof

Underneath:

Due to erratic watering, my cherry plums have split. Some of the harvest seems ok. When it finally stops raining I’ll remove the split fruit as the splits can let disease in.

As you can see, my garden is continuing to suffer from the drought and is quaking at its boots regarding a hosepipe ban.

The water companies are starting to wake up to the fact the water is not just running off the “parched land” and isn’t just being absorbed by plants.

My IBCs are full and the path is now 6″ under water.

All I need is a couple of fountains for a nice water feature.

Ok, you’ve dug your path, you’ve piled up the soil, how do you remove it?

Most people would get a skip I guess. I on the other hand needed the soil down the scout hall to fill an old ditch so that our camp fire area is less dangerous.

The scouts hired a tipper lorry for £95 – which is the same cost as a ton of soil.

7 loads later with help from six adults and about 9 scouts (and one cub) all 10 tonnes were moved.

I can start to reclaim the front garden!

I’ve been worried about my greenhouse temps, but someone on one of my forums I frequent gave me the advice of propping it open with a bit of wood. The openers work fine, but I’m worried of them slipping and the resulting hard crash smashing glass, so this seems a top idea. The louvre on the opposite side is open and the roof panel on the opposite side ought to give a good stirring draught to clear the heat!