Well, it’s been an absolutely pitiful year for weather in northern Europe. After kicking off our 2012 travelling with a couple of weeks in Spain in late March/early April, we went for one of our spring migration trips to la belle France for June, plus a week either side. Our first week started well but then the Jetstream famously intervened and upset much of northern Europe’s weather. Apparently, it was “stuck too far south” zooming up the English Channel. We found some respite to the disturbance it caused in the south of France but northern France was terrible – we heard of people packing up and heading for home early from there.

Fortunately we’d chosen to head south earlier than has been our habit so we left much of the worst weather trouble behind us. Wild flowers were a particular interest this year and, given hawk-eyed Carol’s spotting abilities, they form a significant chunk of our photo collection. I even had fun trying a new floral photographic subject myself. There are some traditional tourist scenic views as well together, of course, with wildlife which we really can’t ignore.

If you have time for a little diversion, here’s the link:

France 2012

Yesterday, we were visited by a mechanical brontosaurus which chewed up our old road surface to have it carted off by a stream of lorries. Today, we’d moved on from Jurassic Park into something more akin to Harry Potter when a fire-breathing dragon arrived to lay our new road surface. The lorries were now delivering tar which they fed into the gaping mouth of the dragon. Once sated, the dragon manoeuvred into position to begin spreading its load on our road.

The road laying machine was quite impressive in that it made a creditably smooth surface all by itself. Being as large as it was, though, like yesterday’s piece of kit, it had trouble dealing with the fine detail, getting into the corners and round drains, but the road already looked pretty good. Now the men with rakes and shovels, who seemed to be leaning around discussing life for much of yesterday, came into their own by spreading tar into the small gaps missed by the dragon. Fortunately for the chaps manually hefting heavy loads of tar about, it was not a hot day. They must get very uncomfortable in anything approaching a decent summer. We don’t, of course, get anything approaching a decent summer but I‘ve seen similar gangs slaving away in the heat of France.

In the wake of the dragon, rakers and shovelers, the ironing team leapt into action flattening everything to a silky smooth finish. The ironing team consisted of a couple of heavy duty rollers which, in common with all the other large mechanical kit, needed assistance from a manually controlled smaller compacting machine to tidy up the fine detail.

This has finally answered our “what’s happening?” question, the one that the council failed to answer; clearly our road is being finished in one three day visit.

Incidentally, having rung the helpline number to try to find out what was happening in relation to the original delay, a phone call which nobody answered, our neighbour subsequently tried the email approach. This did succeed in getting a response. The council said they’d get back to him within five days. Brilliant!

Several weeks ago we received a letter from the council saying that our road was going to be resurfaced. The work would entail two closures, the first of which was for two days, 10th & 11th August, to allow the existing surface to be stripped away. The second closure was intended to be for three days from 30th August when our road would get its nice new tarmac. Whilst it might seem somewhat inconvenient to have one’s road closed, we can’t both grumble about the dreadful state of our roads and complain when they try to do something about it. Actually, we’d be away for the second closure so that would be no problem and we could easily work around the first 2-day session. A sign went proclaiming the road closure of 10th & 11th August. The sign included a helpline phone number (0300). Very considerate.

Unlike any road working equipment, 10th Aug arrived and went. Likewise, 11th Aug passed with a distinct lack of activity. Where was our road-stripping team, we wondered. My neighbour rang the helpline phone number which, predictably, nobody answered. Wunderbar!

On 14th Aug, after the fact that work had been delayed had become glaringly obvious, a small white van arrived and changed the dates on our “road closed” sign to 20th Aug – for three days, this time. Too late! We don’t mind road closures for a new surface. Given our generally crappy weather this year, we can also understand that works may be delayed. What is less than acceptable is the lack of communication when such a thing happens. Folks might have arranged to be away to avoid the disruption; we were certainly considering it.

Anyway, after one false start, not only did 20th Aug arrive but so did a large, scary piece of equipment resembling a mechanized brontosaurus [left]. After a short pause, the driver of the mechanized brontosaurus fired it up and advanced a little scraping off a depth of about 5cms/2ins of our road’s surface. After a promising start, the brontosaurus stopped. Following a slightly longer pause, a lorry/truck arrived and the purpose of the brontosaurus’s neck and head became clear; once again fired up and in motion, the debris from our road’s surface shot up the brontosaurus’s neck, actually a conveyer belt, to be spewed through its head into the advancing lorry. Clever. So, the vast majority of the road surface was now being stripped pretty efficiently by two men, one driving bronto and one driving the lorry. Well, OK, three men; as you can see from the second picture there was the inevitable supervisor/foreman coordinating operations. Most of the time, he seemed to act as a director for the lorry driver, rather like the guys on airport aprons guiding aircraft onto their stands with a pair of table tennis bats.

While all this admirably efficient road stripping was afoot, other chaps seemed to be engaged in the critical work of leaning on brooms and shovels. We started with three but soon the three were joined by a fourth. Four then became five.

As clever as bronto may be, suited for fine, precise work it isn’t; bronto is not delicate enough to strip the road surface into 90° corners or around drain covers. For this, a more conventional piece of equipment was called upon together, of course, with sufficient men to fill the leaning-on-brooms-and-shovels quota – six now, it seemed. One of the chaps here [left] was clearly finding leaning on a broom or shovel quite taxing because he appears to be mopping his fevered brow. Nonetheless, progress was made apace thanks to bronto and a constant stream of debris lorries.

Our original road closures having been timetabled for two and three days respectively, with our new first closure now supposedly being for three days, we don’t really know what’s going on. Is it all now to be completed in a single three day visit or has the original two day estimate been increased to three? Maybe they couldn’t hire enough guys to lean on the brooms and shovels necessary to get it done in two days.

Time will tell, watch this space.

[A nostalgic nod to all those cars, usually Citroën 2CVs, which we used to see in the 70s being driven around with “Nuclear Power: Nein Danke” window stickers.]

Upgrading hardware can be contagious, can’t it? Before our spring migration to France this year, my ol’ mum fancied throwing out her massive cathode ray tube television in favour of a larger modern technology beast. She had her fading sight (she’s 94) set on the Olympics and thought, quite correctly, that a modern TV set would give a clearer picture. The old set weighed a ton and filled the corner of her room, so it was a good idea all round. You’d need an Olympic weightlifter just to move it, never mind throw it out. Anyway, we dragged her over to John Lewis to see a few potential replacements and, since modern tellies waste less real estate around the edge of the screen, she settled on a Panasonic Viera 37” Smart TV. She didn’t need the smart bit but it was a good picture so what the hell?

Our existing TV was already modern-ish technology but quite small – we don’t want a telly to dominate our room. However, the picture on the Panasonic Viera 37” Smart TV certainly was very good so we thought we’d go up a size; we managed to talk ourselves into one, too. Since we also now had a decent fibre-optic broadband connection, the BBC iPlayer application built in to the telly meant that we probably would use the smart bit and it would save us hooking up a laptop, on the rare occasions when there was a programme worth watching that we missed first time around.

Both sets arrived and I set about installing them, practicing on ours first. Once unpacked, it seemed huge. It turns out that we had thought our older set was a 32” but it was actually only a 28” – we’d jumped up two sizes. Oops! Never mind, after the initial shock we got used to the slightly-more-dominating-than-intended effect of a 37” rectangle and it certainly is a good picture. On the bigger screen, I could begin to see some benefit to HD transmissions.

The set is also 3D. Double yikes! I put the four pairs of included 3D eyewear (not glasses?) in a drawer and ignored them.

Then along came our wonderfully staged Olympics. The dear ol’ BBC transmits a daily highlights programme at 11:00 PM in 3D. OK, we’re game for a laugh, if we could stay awake until 11:00 PM one night, we’d give it a go. Eventually, we managed to stay awake for some 3D swimming coverage. Out with two pairs of 3D eyewear and onto the BBC HD channel. I set about figuring out how to smash the two completely separate, side-by-side pictures into overlaid but slightly out of alignment pictures. I presume the two images are like the old photographic stereoscope idea, two pictures taken from slightly different angles to produce a sort of binocular effect. I put my 3D eyewear over my glasses and the misalignment magically vanished to be replaced by a single image with some depth perception.

Observation: wearing 3D eyewear on top of regular prescription glasses is not the most comfortable of things.

I remember many years ago going to my first (maybe only) classical concert. This is when I realized that what we like to call hi-fi, high fidelity, is not actually highly faithful to the sounds produced by live concerts at all, it is more like FES or Falsely Enhanced Sound. The clarity and stereo separation of our so-called hi-fi systems are simply unreal.

3D TV seems to me to be the visual equivalent; it’s FEV or Falsely Enhanced Visuals. Most of the 3D effect seemed exaggerated. In the Olympic swimming pool, the blazered officials hanging about poolside as the competitors made their turns or touched at the finish, appeared to be much too far in front of the swimmers. We tried again yesterday for the eagerly anticipated Men’s 100m final; Usain Bolt seems to jump off the track at you. Mind you, he pretty much does that anyway. :)) It felt like watching many separate layers at multiple depths rather than there being a seamless transition to the depth. Not that pleasant, I thought. The 3D eyewear darkens things a little, too.

Watching 3D seemed tiring, in addition to being vaguely uncomfortable. We stuck it for about 15 minutes then decided it was far too much like hard work, not at all relaxing, and reverted to plain old BBC 2D coverage which was much more enjoyable. I put the 3D eyewear back in the drawer.

Still a darn good picture, though, in 2D.

[Incidentally, I’m not sure if it is possible to watch a 3D transmission in 2D. It would be a bummer if we were forced to watch 3D eventually. Must investigate.]

While I was in France on our recent spring trip – feels like a very long time ago, now – I managed to lose one of my lens caps. I seem to recall attempting to lose another of my lens caps many years ago but I failed on that occasion since it finally turned up somewhere. I rather hoped that this latest attempt would also fail and that this one might turn up when I unpacked the car back at home but unfortunately not. This lens cap being for an expensive lens, I thought I should order a replacement before any serious damage might be done.

Good ol’ Warehouse Express had the required Canon E-77U in stock (£6.99) but I’d have to pay for delivery (£2.99). I checked on Amazon who offered one of their associated storefronts but was a little surprised to see delivery being mentioned at 7-23 days. Yikes! I ordered it from Warehouse Express. [I’ve since found the item being sold by Amazon itself but too late.]

Having placed my order, the following day I received an “item despatched” email. It was being delivered by good ol’ Royal Mail. The email contained both a tracking number and tracking link, which I tried. Unsurprisingly, since it had only just been despatched, I was presented with a message saying that no information was yet available.

The following day I again tried the tracking link and number. Once again I was presented with the “no information available” screen. This was less than expected – surely it had been received into one depot or another by now? I looked more closely at the screen and spotted this:

Recorded Signed For™ items are only tracked after the item has been delivered. Depending on whether the item was sent first or second class, this may be a few days after posting. Please try again later.

See the key phrase? [I underlined it, BTW, not the Royal Mail website.]

Can somebody please tell me the use of a tracking system that tracks a parcel only after it has been delivered? I think I’d know where it was by then, wouldn’t I?

More confusingly, my lens cap was delivered two days ago – not sure Carol had to sign for it – and it still says the same thing.

God Bless Save the Royal Mail!