Den of the Fox

Where *does* the time go?

And why didn’t I use the blog for my Syria trip last January?

Never mind – I’m back now, and getting ready to blog again. With a week in Wiltshire next week on a PHP course at what I fear may turn out to be the code version of Fawlty Towers, and shortly thereafter a jaunt to my beloved Orlando, there is STUFF to write about again!

In the meantime, here is a picture of a guinea pig.

Since it’s been a while (cough) I may as well portmanteau three posts in one, eh?

Saturday was Marwell Day, with my friend Kanga and her baby Roo, plus Mum for part of the time. Since it’s probably been over twenty years since I was last there, this was an Exciting Expedition. I have to say I was impressed with the place – it’s gone from being a socking great paddock (where you simply walked the perimeter, more or less) to a Proper Zoo. Some of the viewing angles are poor, but the animals all look incredibly healthy and happy, and they’ve had some good ideas (like putting out heat lamps in the enclosures, in this chilly autumn break). Meerkats wearing heat lamps as a hat are amusing. Tragically my pictures didn’t come out well, so I shall have to beg pictorial evidence from Kanga, but suffice to say a nice day was had, I think, by all. Even if we did spend an unreasonable amount of time cooing at baby capybaras.

Dormouse Instinct – well, it’s autumn, suddenly, with turning leaves, conkers, hint of woodsmoke in the air, the whole bit. Plus chilly weather, at last! And therefore, my cooking instinct has kicked in. It’s JAM TIME again! I am determined to manufacture all Christmas presents this year, so people can expect weird experimental jams and essences. Hopefully in a decorative basket. You have been warned!

Lastly – the Great Gas Bill Panic. Sent in my readings a week ago and promptly received a bill for … £2k. Yes, two thousand pounds. Instant aneurysm. Either I was supplying the street, all unwitting, or my eccentric heating was MUCH worse than I thought, or.. what? Broken meter? In any case spent some considerable time ranting and frothing, arranging boiler inspections and preparing to write an Angry Letter ™ to the power co… But, when I phoned them to get their snail mail address (because of course such a thing is not available on their website) I actually spoke to a helpful (!) customer rep. “Oh my goodness yes, that’s rubbish. No, our system’s estimated that completely wrong. You don’t owe us two thousand pounds. In fact, based on these readings WE owe YOU. Shall I send a cheque? And I see it’s automatically revised your monthly direct debit, let’s get that back down to something sensible shall we?” – and she promptly more than halved the monthly amount.

Cosmic rebalancing complete. I am reassured and also relieved. And the cheque they’re sending should cover the work that will inevitably need to be done on the eccentric central heating. So. It’s all good.

Now I just need to sort out someone to help me eat the brownies I am feeling compelled to make, and I’ll be golden.

Wow. So I’ve been delighting in the floweriness of the garden but only just now got around to getting out there and taking some actual photos. Tragically I can’t find the ones I KNOW I took of the prunus in full bloom, but I expect they’ll turn up eventually… In the meantime…

Here’s the view I get out of my kitchen window.

The other border has gone bananas with tiny daffs and narcissi:

Extravagant tulips:

The spirea forgave me :

as did the fluffy grass (vibrant colours on the new growth!):

The sad corner with the berberis is looking quite perky:

and even the sullen purple one is hinting at flowers:

One of the harshly trimmed potentillas is already bouncing back:

but the other one is a little more stunned…

The veronica has gone berserk!

and TWO of the thyme in the wall have made it through the winter…

And finally – the best news of all – I WAS RIGHT! about the old, traumatised forsythia – lo, thus is my patience rewarded:

It’s tired, and slow, and some considerable time behind its enthusiastic little new cousin, but IT’S ALIVE!

I know, I know, I’ve been promising… well here’s a post with pictures!

So, this is the right border – can just see the remains of the snowdrops and irises at bottom right, the fading yellow of the crocuses and the prunus starting to come into bloom. (It’s quite a lot more flowery even now, a couple of days later). The blue haze by the prunus is anemones!

Most of the herbs are absolutely thriving, although the baby bay tree has been horribly zapped in some way – maybe the snow!

Here’s a glorious blue scilla from the other border, along with the other prunus. You can see how the flowers work – like a cherry tree! Hanging groups of pretty white flowers.

Tiny daffs! So cute.

The pittisporum is looking bushy and magnificent, and the sambucus is starting to produce sprouts of glossy purple leafage. Two of the grasses got mowed, but the other .. well I wasn’t confident about scalping it so it gets a year off…

The back border… as you see the small forsythia is blooming hopefully, while its elder brother at the back remains stubbornly budless. Lots of tulips coming up though, and the cornus is making acid-green leaves to contrast against its red stems. Even the berberis is getting in on the act, although I’m still a bit worried about the one in the far corner, that got savagely grazed by something not long after it went in. I hope it survives. It’s been sitting around doing nothing much since then.

Of the tiny seedlings in the propagator, one of the cats got at them and decapitated all she could find. (Cats are now banned outright from the spare bedroom). It seems like a few survived from each type though so hopefully I’ll be able to save enough to put into grobags in summer! Plus, I guess in some ways it’s done me a favour… I really don’t know what I would have done with 30 tomatillo plants!

So in other news… most of the family is off to Australia over the next few days, to celebrate my nephew’s wedding! First of the generation to take the plunge so it’s even more exciting (although another nephew announced his engagement a couple of weeks ago, so I guess the ball is now rolling!). Sadly I won’t be there, but I still have hopes that the more technically inclined will set up a live webcam Failing all else, there are cameras (both still and vid) aplenty so there should be lots to look at when they all get back!

Feeling very springlike with all the lovely weather, so decided to have a bit of a go at my habitual laziness and try to get some more regular exercise in. (Also inspired by the example of some of our leadership, who are terrifyingly dedicated to cycling.) Started this morning with a cautious 30-min workout and some isometrics, didn’t want to overdo after FAR too long of nothing at all. If I’ve done enough, I should feel it tomorrow. (If not, then I’ll have to be a bit more agressive next time!) That plus a nice walk in Richmond tomorrow (if it doesn’t pour down!) should leave me feeling virtuous! Now I just need to keep it up!

Need to get outside and take some pictures, but – the garden’s looking great! Even a bit tatty after a fairly brutal winter, there are hopeful green shoots and buds on most everything. Most of the bulbs I flung in last October are coming up well, although a bit uncertainly in the face of snow/sun/sleet/sun/hail, frost, wind/sun… Daffs and tulips may take a few more weeks before they really get going. Crocuses, snowdrops, anemones and irises are all welcome splashes of colour, bit of a change from the stark winter dressing which mostly leant on the astonishing reds of the cornus. (Still amazing!)

The little prunus bushes are looking especially promising at the moment, covered with tiny, fat buds. I have a suspicion that one will flower white, and the other a faint blush pink, but it may just be that one is further along than the other (one gets more sunshine). I went round last week with a bag and secateurs and tidied up considerably; the grasses got a haircut, as did the potentillas, and the spirea got about a foot cut off all its branches, trimming it down to beachball size. It remains to be seen if this will prove a cut too many; I wait anxiously for signs of green forgiveness.

The large forsythia, I think, is not going to make it; having left it, hopefully, I’m still not convinced that it’s really dead, but the young usurper at its feet is getting ready to explode with yellow, while the oldtimer is bare and dry. Some of the twigs break green though so… I will continue to leave it.. and if no leaves appear, then it’ll get trimmed back a bit and possibly planted with a clematis So it’ll live on as an architectural support, if nothing else.

I was a bit surprised to see tulips coming up around the baby maple, but then remembered that the pot had been planted with them. Clearly the whole pot got transplanted! Not a bad thing.

Indoors, the tomatillo seeds I planted 10 days ago are already up and straining towards the sun – they’ve gone a bit leggy to be honest, and I’m hoping they fatten up a bit as they’re looking decidedly spindly. No signs of life from the other things, but I remain hopeful.. clearly I can’t have done it TOO wrong if all the tomatillos have survived! (Now I just need to figure out a way to distribute 30 tomatillo plants!)

In other news, the vanilla essence is humming away quietly in the cupboard and getting darker and stronger. I give it a shake and sniff every couple of days, and it just gets better. Other experiments include some coffee and a cinnamon stick in a small bottle (smells sort of strange – the coffee’s not as strong as you’d imagine) and a jar of rum with clementine zest and a couple of cloves, which smells absolutely heavenly. The rum/orange combination screams Christmas, puddings, ice cream, hot toddies… yum! I’ve changed out the zest once already (strained through a coffee paper filter, discarded zest/cloves, put in new zest – about one small clementine’s worth per cup), hoping that it will intensify the orange even more. Also purchased more vanilla pods (since I used them all in the first batch of essence) and considering what to try next!

So since I’ve got this perfectly good blog just lying around, I thought I’d start making use of it again. The bug definitely bit me while I was in the US, and it’s been a sort of itch since that Twitter can’t quite scratch.

Obviously we’re talking random babble here and nothing of note, but what the heck. Why not! Now that the travel excitement is done, I guess I’ll mostly be rambling about things like techno gadgetry, cooking and cats…

So in today’s news… the snow has finally started melting in earnest, just a few diehard lumps and bumps and mini-drifts left… I made the world’s sourest plum jam… ordered vanilla bottles.. and decided to call it a day with the endless lamb stews (I’ve discovered my limits – around five goes and I’m DONE).

The reason for the bottles? Home made vanilla essence. Still stewing away but already smelling heavenly, and planned for presents later in the year.

The mind boggling thing is how incredibly easy it is to make.. and how incredibly CHEAP compared to the stuff in the supermarkets (that’s the GOOD stuff, not “vanilla flavouring”).

3 oz vanilla beans (Ebay – cost about £6)
1 bottle cheapest possible vodka (about £6)

Split the beans and stuff ‘em in the vodka. Put the cap back on. Put in cupboard. Forget. Easy eh! Many people use less vanilla, and many people start using the essence after about 8 weeks – I guess I’ll see but my plan is to leave it much longer, and possibly do another go-round of beans after 6 months or so. Proper STRONG essence… and then bottle it up and give as gifts.

Also in the plan, spiced vanilla extract, spiced rum and maybe some citrus extract. I’m thrilled and enthused about how easy it is, so lots of experimentation to be done!

And so, home! Finally.

Pod was on the upper deck on the way back – never been up there before! The flat bed, I can report, is just marginally better than sleeping on the floor. Having said that, there are times on planes that I would have killed for the chance to stretch out on the floor! So all in all, a win. Had a go at watching The Spiderwick Chronicles, and then at watching Speed Racer, but both lost me within 10 mins so gave up and slept instead Well, I say slept… sort of semi-dozed, which was still much better than nothing.

Limo service isn’t quite so smooth when you get back to the UK, but at least it was there and I was home by midday; at which point I was immediately plunged into assisting with a house move, so lugged and lifted for most of the day! Now *seriously* knackered and have no doubt I will sleep well tonight!

I am constantly astonished and challenged by my own idiocy.

Went to check Amazon online (not so much “Where’s my stuff” as “Where the £$%! is my damn stuff!”) and oh look – it’s FedEx! Here’s a tracking link…. Delivered? What? On the 23rd?? Back down to the lobby – “FedEx say they delivered a package for me on the 23rd?” – “Oh yes, from Amazon? Here it is. Would you like it brought up to your room?”

<language redacted for the sensitive – imagine pictures of frolicking lambs, bunnies, gentle fawns in woodland glade>

Anyway. Purchases now jamstuffed into bag (which has put on considerable weight since I arrived – I did find one or two little things to buy ), aside from the nice new pair of black jeans I’m wearing – much smarter for the flight Now just thumbtwiddling til the car arrives!

Up at my Facebook album. Many of the interior shots came out very poorly, so I haven’t posted them, but there’s enough to get the idea

Wow.

Today was indeed a tech heavy day and my head is bulging with ideas. Less emphasis on 11g, and more on general principles, which was quite a relief after the unrelenting evangelism of the last few days. I also sorted out the OnDemand which turns out to have silently failed at payment stage (thxinfo, stupid thing); having handed over the actual card to an actual person it all went through fine and is now sitting there tantalising me – looks amazing from the little I glanced at on one of the Big Info Screens.

The bad news is my package from Amazon STILL has not arrived – ffs, are they sending it by pack mule?? It shipped on Tuesday! Last chance for tomorrow, check out’s at 12, if it hasn’t arrived by then I guess it goes back to Amazon with a rude note attached.

So, on to the day’s information overload..

9am: Advanced Oracle Troubleshooting – No Magic Is Needed, A Systematic Approach Will Do. Tanel Poder, who was a very jolly (Danish?) fellow with a scary mind. One of the first Oracle Certified Masters, and when you see him dancing merrily through core calls and obscure functions you can see why. However – he speaks very well and did a bunch of demos, very clear and common sense stuff backed up with some heavy duty number crunching and rummaging in Oracle’s drawers. The blissful news is that all his magic scripts are available from his website. The revelation point of the post’s title came half way through his blithe chatter on reading pstacks and I suddenly realised it all made perfect sense.

10:30: Upgrading Your Databases To 11g: Avoiding Pitfalls And Ensuring Success. Sounds like a winner, eh? Very nice lady from Petro-Canada, with a very nice presentation, containing almost nothing of particular import (to me – although shockingly it seemed quite a funky new idea for some in the audience). Basically – plan the hell out of it; test the hell out of it; have a really detailed technical implementation plan (we’d call it a proc); involve all necessary teams including change management; have a fallback plan. So, yeah. Her TIP was extremely nice and if I can find her site, I’ll get a copy, and she had some screenshots and code samples from upgrades so that was interesting, but nothing new to see here. Move along…

12:00: Real World Database Performance Techniques and Methods. Andrew Holdsworth again, from Oracle’s Real World Performance Group (where they send all the really gnarly customer puzzles). Again, screamed through a 2.5hr presentation in 1hr, very heavy on the Optimizer and management of statistics. This is one set of slides I’m going to have to get from OnDemand because my notes got less and less coherent as he sprinted through

13:30: Improve Your Organization’s Efficiency With A Dynamic Shared-Infrastructure Grid. A fellow from the Oracle ‘RAC Pack’ and the Database Manager from AAA presenting… Major technical glitch and no slides at all, so it was a little tricky to relate to what the guy was saying; basically I got “we consolidated like mad, virtualized everything in sight and it was great”. I really wasn’t entirely clear on what constituted their grid as he kept talking about separate nodes in one sentence, then the enterprise grid in the next; without pictures I couldn’t really figure out what he meant. Hopefully the slide deck will be available and will make more sense in retrospect. What did pique my interest was the fact they can now provision new apps in hours rather than days, and slide extra CPU etc to where it’s required for occasional use (instead of having a system scaled to peak usage that’s mostly idle most of the time).

15:00: Oracle Performance Management – Real World Case Studies. Gaja Krishna Vaidyanatha of DBPerfMan.com. Also an OakTable group member like Tanel this morning. Also a relatively scary chap, who has written books, although MUCH more commercial in presentation. His main message: Set a tuning goal. Reach it. STOP TUNING! No slides download for this one (“contractual obligations – I’m so sorry”) so I just hope I can make sense of my notes.. fortunately his creed is simple (although the tools are not). It all dovetails quite nicely with the first presentation though.

And so – done! All over, and I feel it was well worth the time and effort and money. I’m knackered but  educated. The OnDemand stuff should prove an ongoing pot of gold as well (although I’ve discovered quite a few frustrating 404′s in my rummage of the last few minutes).

High points:

• Some truly gifted speakers and fascinating subjects, and the time flew by.
• Glorious weather – haven’t needed sweater or jacket once!
• Great location, and excellent hotel (dodgy outlet and coffee habits notwithstanding)
• Super-efficiency of the Oracle Machine; everything mostly clockwork moving tens of thousands of people around the city, feeding them (snacks morning and afternoon as well as lunch), organizing 1700+ sessions, timetabling.. great job.
• Firehose of information

Low points:

• First day terror & bewilderment
• Scary area (for a country mouse like me) extinguishing all desire to go rambling, especially alone
• Zero shopping for my demographic
• OnDemand snafu and Amazon tardiness

Yet to see what tomorrow will bring in the way of airport and flight glitches but hopefully will be as smooth as the trip out…!