iSpot
I think this one will have to go on my outdoor and general cool stuff list: iSpot. A simple place to list interesting birds, animals, plants, fungi, and whatnot that you’ve spied but can’t positively identify. Somewhat similar to Nature’s Calendar, except that Nature’s calendar is done for research (National Trust) and the iSpot is just for you, if you’re curious. I often notice a critter or plant that I can’t quite name easily – hence why I have a huge set of animal and plant books given to me by D.
No Comments urgh
I barely slept all night due to hayfever. Sneezes and tissues plugging nostrils even though i’d taken my antihistamine caused me much great fun and enjoyment. And now the train’s late. Good morning world.
My legs ache badly from my walk yesterday too. At least that one’s my fault. I’ll probably upload pics this evening after work, providing I’m not napping….
Edit: Apparently cable theft is the culprit. First train that’s running will be at 13:15… lucky I managed to book the day off work at short notice.
The day just got suckier, too. Our helpful neighbour (the one that has smoke the cat likes…) has mown his lawn, and our front lawn too. Bye, radishes. Bye, dwarf green beans. Dammit!!!!!
I’m in a sulk right now. At least tomorrow I have nothing to do but read and eventually wind up in Bantry.
4 Comments Where to tomorrow?
I need to go a-walkin’ tomorrow, since it’ll probably be shiny! Where to?
And on friday we go to ireland! Woot woot woot. Ulrica, what bus do we need to get?
No Comments brainfuckery
Shamelessly stole that phrase from Chains in The Lies of Locke Lamora
I was quite disappointed with how the exam went. I’ve done a trillionquadrupillion practice questions from previous exams, and sat a mock exam locked up in a room by myself, and was confident I’d have enough time. I finished the mock exam 40 minutes early and got almost nothing wrong whatsoever. Yet when the real one came apparently real life stress got to me. I spent far to long, for example, debating what 9/4 was. the 2 bit was easy, but for some reason the .25 simply eluded me. The last question was horribly rushed, and the second to last question I had to leave and go back to just in time to write some quick nonsense like “//need to change this from .values() to .keySet() and re-write, but NO TIME” . Literally as I wrote that last E and underlined NO TIME, the invigilators told us to put our pens down :( I really really really really really really wanted to get a distinction on this course, but that question may have bollocksed it up. There was never any question of passing or nat, but merely passing just isn’t what I want. I’m a good programmer, dammit – you don’t skive for a month, study for a week here and there, and still get a combined average of 97.5 on all the assignments without having at least a slightly decent amount of understanding of the subject matter. It’s frustrating that a big part of my mark is based on the hugely unrealistic scenario of having to produce perfect code hand written on paper with nary a syntax highlighter or chance to compile and test for only-takes-seconds-to-fix bugs. But it is so.
Amusingly, Dad was telling me about a programming course he did in Uni (I’m the only person I can think of offhand who has a dad who probably knows more about computers than me…). Dad had to hand write code, hand it in to someone who would key it in and pass back reports of what had happened (I don’t recall if it was printed out or on screen results) and then of course debug by hand and hand it in once more to be keyed into the computer. The process seems utterly hilarious looking at it from where I stand, and yet it must have actually been plain old painful. Certainly as dad said, it was slow.
So, what to do now? Oh yes, let’s go to Tesco to redeem clubcard vouchers into clubcard vouchers value * 4 for the OU. In Java terms that might be
double currentVouchers = 22.5;
int OUMultiplier = 4;
Tesco.sendOutVouchers(currentVouchers * OUMultiplier);
ok that’s enough, thanks. My next class will be the October presentationM257, possibly taking M256 semi-concurrently when it starts in January. They each end at different times, so I reckon I won’t have too much study conflict for the exams (never mind the TMAs, which may conflict). I’ve never done two OU courses at once, but M255 had such low demands compared to the webapps course that hopefully M256 and M257 will be similarly simple and undemanding. And thanks to Tesco clubcard I’m saving £90 on one of those courses. I’m strangely conflicted in the way I feel about Tesco clubcard vouchers. “Every Little Helps” and highest ever record profits for any UK retailer (including noticably upped shopping bills) don’t seem to run together quite right. I try to shop at Tesco regularly because of the clubcard, and because they’re local and open at convenient times I prettymuch have to shop there – no one else is open after martial arts class at night, which is a regular shopping time for D and I on Tues & Thurs. But sometimes I wonder if shopping at Aldi and putting a bit more savings away for the OU would simply be more sensible.
No Comments So, that walk…
I haven’t been walking enough lately. I’m really looking forward to having my exam over and done with on the 15th (along with the bit of me that’s dreading it coming up as well). So I managed a shortish walk on Wednesday – I basically looked for some paths I’d not been on before, fully knowing that I’ll have to go over well known areas as well. I know the area near to all the train stops too well – I’ll have to start taking buses or find a new area to go to if I want to keep on walking in new and exciting places.
The route I took from Edale train station took me over some farmers’ fields along the bottom of the valley (this is the short route to the place Shaun and Ulrica and D and I stayed many longtimes ago, which we didn’t take, favouring the orc house route instead). There were many moo-moos, maa-maas, neigh-neighs, and poing-poings. The moo-moos had calves, that I’d have liked to photograph a bit closer, but since I was in the same field with them I figured it’d not be a good idea to go between the mamas and the calves…
Later on, I passed through another field in which the cows decided randomly to go for a few short sprints. Being in a field with large running bovids is rather intimidating, to say the least. It was quite amusing to see a black horse gather itself and chase one of the cows, too. They were roughly the same height and length, but the heavyset cow was galloping along, udder swinging, as though something big and scary was coming for it, rather than a very slim horse.
I left the path rather abruptly towards the north up Jagger’s Clough. I’d misremembered a previous route incorrectly and thought I’d been up this clough before, but I certainly would have remembered it if I had! (Clough: steep valley/gorge in the side of the mountain, carved out by water. Note this is my definition rather than tinterwebs/dictionary in general.) Up until the clough I’d been on easy, well trekked pathways. The clough was far less walked and the path wasn’t always clear or evident – but this didn’t matter too much, since the relentless upwards climb of the clough walls showed you the right way clearly enough.
The clough was far more beautiful than I could have ever imagined, and extremely tranquil. I didn’t see a single person on it, despite stopping and relaxing on some bilberry bushes and reading for half an hour. There was so much unexpected beauty along the way that I could barely walk for stopping and taking photos. I crossed the stream to photograph a small wasp nest, but was forced to retreat when they decided to come out and approach my hand (eek!!).
Paper wasp nest
The only large life forms I did see were a couple of sheep who were somewhat offended that I intruded upon their haven. The mama crossed over the river as soon as I came near her, but her silly lamb stood looking helplessly for a few minutes on my side of the stream. As with the cows I really would rather have not gone between the mama and the little one, so I stood far away and ridiculed it until it finally did cross over and out of my way. They photograph well together, don’t they?
At times there was nothing to do but walk directly up the streambed, so I’m glad I wasn’t doing this on a rainy or icy day. The top afforded vistas of a heather covered plateau and surprisingly dry peat. I’d worn my gaiters thinking I was going to get soggy boggy black peat stains all over my legs, which are hard to clean off once they’re dried. Instead, I found myself sweating extra around my lower legs for no reason. Fire warnings! I was horrified to see this!!
The top of Kinder plateau and the descent went all to fast, and soon enough I was back down to Edale and waiting for the next train back to Sheffield. Bah.
No Comments 
