Early Blossom

Blossom on the pear tree was over last week and that on the apple tree has nearly all fallen now. Things were much the same last year, but a decade or so ago the apple blossom would have still been in bud at this time of year. I leave my readers to draw their own conlusions.

Climate Change

There are eleven radiators in my house. During last Winter four of them were not used at all, two were used only occasionally and one was on a low setting. That is yet another sign of a warmer climate.

Ill Timed Sleepiness

In recent months I've tended to be sleepy in the afternoons, often nodding off even while reading. I then resolve to go to bed a little earlier. However as bedtime approaches and I potter about on the computer I become wide awake and don't feel at all ready for bed. I wonder if this perverse misplacing of sleepiness and wakefulness is common.

A Worthy Plant

The Winter Jasmine started to flower in November and there are still some flowers on it, so it has been in flower for nearly five months. I recommend it to anyone desiring a floriferous garden!

Shopping in the Sunshine

Yesterday, for the first time this year, I shopped without an overcoat. I set out wearing a light overcoat and a scarf, but very soon consigned the scarf to my shopping trolley. After a minute or two I shed the overcoat too. One of the delights of having a shopping trolley is that I can remove surplus slothing without having to carry it.

Speeding up the Computer

My desktop computer has been running very slowly when accessing the Internet. Today I replaced the very well known browser I'd been using with Seamonkey, an open source package that combines browser, email, newsgroup access and htmel editor. For web searches it defaults to using Duck Duck Go. Web access is now much faster.

Does my Internal Clock Need Adisting?

For a while now I've tended to be sleepy in the afternoons, nodding off every so often. I then resolve to go to bed earlier, but in the late evening I feel wide awake, and not at all disposed to slumber. Perhaps my internal clock needs adjusting!

More signs of early Spring

In the garden the camellia has come into flower. There's only one flower so far, but it is very early. The daphne we bought a few years ago has flowered for the first time. That too seems rather early though as it's the first time for that plant there's no basis for comparison.

On my last two shopping expeditions I forsook my Winter overcoat for the light raincoat I use in Spring and Summer

Climate change has definitely arrived!!

March Weather in February

Windy changeable weather has come a month early, and not for the first time. I haven't checked but am sure I posted a similar message either last year or the year before. Spring flowers have also come early, and all together instead of in their traditional sequence. Apart from a precocious crocus that half opened last month and was then torn to shreds by the birds, snowdrops, crocusees, early miniature irises and dafoddils are all in bloom at the same time. There won't be much left to flower in April!

Return to Respectability

Today I had my hair cut for the first time since the Summer of 2020. Since then I'd just snipped off a little hair here or there when it seemed to be in the way, but now I've been beautified by the barber's art.

More confusion with units.

This evening's BBC news included a reference to an alleged power consumption of several 'megawatts per hour'. A megawatt is a unit of power and equals a million joules per second. A megawatt per hour would therefore be one million joules per second per hour and would measure a rate of increase in power. If sustained for a week such a rate of increase would produce a final power output of 168 megawatts.

Keeping My Messages out of the Gmail Spamtrap

This is intemnded primarily for readers who have gmail addresses, or who have friends with such addresses

Sometime last year there was a change to gmail's rules for spam, and since then many of the messages I have sent to gmail accounts have been classed as spam. Some alert corresponents have still detected them, but others have not. Once messages have lain in the spam folder for a month gmail deletes them.

I have investigated and have found how to prevent this happening

Open gmail. There are four buttons in the top right corner of the screen. The button that looks like a cogwheel leads to the settings menu.

Press it, then press the button to show all settings.

At the top of the settings menu are a string of options. select "Filters and blocked addresses"

click on 'create a new filter'

Enter the email address you wish to protect

Tick the box to exclude messages from the spam folder, click 'create filter'

All should be well thereafter.

Putting an email address in your contacts list may also work, though I haven't tried that. For extra security you could do that as well.