Waking up this morning I was hearing the GMTV crew talking about earthquakes.  Half asleep, I thought that this must have been somewhere else in the world as I heard mumblings of 5.2 on the Rhicter Scale.  The geography teacher in me suddenly started thinking I should be recording this with Sky+ whereas the ICT teacher was saying, “don’t worry you will be able to download it from somewhere shortly.  The fact was that it wasn’t abroad it was here in the UK.

I can only remember one or two earthquakes that have hit the UK.  One of them was in Birmingham a few years ago and the other I can’t even remember where it was.  The fact of the matter is that we don’t get many earthquakes happening in this country, which has to be a good thing.  We are not very tectonically active as we do not sit on the boundary of the worlds major tectonics plates (pieces of the earth’s crust).  This very fact saves us from the grave dangers that many other countries suffer.  However having woke up this morning, not even knowing about the earthquake that had hit our country, I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed.

Is he mad I hear you all saying?  Maybe.  The fact of the matter is I have never experienced what it is like to be in an earthquake.  I have spent the last 5 years trying get across to a number of different classes what it must be like, and to have the opportunity so close and miss it makes me a little disappointed.  Don;t get me wrong I would not like to be in any danger and would have to know that I was safe for it to be in anyway and good experience.  But there is a big part of me that would like to experience/witness and earthquake.  I am sure that seeing it on video on the TV is just not the same.  I suppose this is geographer coming out of me.  It is probably for the same reason that I want to witness a volcano.  These have got to be one of the most surreal events that anyone can witness (particularly someone from the UK).

Maybe I will just have to wait until the next one in another 25 years time.  How ever long it takes I am sure that it will be worth waiting for!

Well I say almost, but there is still so much to do, but for now we have finished what we can in the garden.  We have extended the patio outside the dining room, doubled the widths of the paths at the back of the house, made a double path from back to front of the garden and half created a larger patio.

Still to do is to move the aviary, dig this out and fill it with concrete, finished the electrics for both inside the aviary and the patio plugs and then build the fencing for the rabbit run.  Oh and then there is getting some plants for the raised bed and the hanging tubs that also need putting on the wall.  It really has been a huge task but one that will have produced a great looking garden and one that we can really enjoy when it is finally finished.

Today we finally got round to the part of the work that lets you see instant results for your efforts.  After all the preparation of the last week, today it was finally down to flag laying.

I have laid 3 patios in the past.  Some at my house and some at others and each time we seem to use a different method.  Today was no different as we were going for method number 4.  Instead of using mortar to lay the flags on the idea was to use to boards to get the level of the flagging right.  Then we pile sand and cement (a dry mix) into the gaps and then level it off using the board after it has been run over a few times with the plate vibrator.  This is a fun gadget as it vibrates the ground to compact it.  In fact it is often called a ground compacter.  Then as your level is correct and the sand is compacted solid it is just a matter of dropping each flag on.  For the last 3 days I have been sceptical as to whether this new technique would work or not.  However I was proved wrong as once the preparation was done we had 15 flags laid in around 35 minutes.

The rest of the afternoon was spent mixing sand and cement in the new cement mixer and then laying the more tricky path in front of the house.  However using the plate compacter it was much easier than a couple of days ago using manual tools.

So then what is there left to do?  Well first of all tomorrow we need to lay as much of the main patio as we can.  I say as much because I think that we are going to run out of sand tomorrow.  One grab bag was just not enough!  Then after that we have to finish off the brick mowing strip that we are putting next to the wall that was built earlier in the week (its still standing by the way!).  There is the concreting under the aviary to start and finish and creating the rabbit run with fencing and then last but not least there is the drive at the front of the house.  We are going to widen this so that we can fit two cars on there.

So about July we may have just gotten it all finished off.  Its all good fun though!

Unfortunately the weather seems to be beating us again today as there has been no work carried out.  The reason is simple in that the ground is frozen solid.  It isn’t good to be cementing things when the weather is freezing cold as the cement doesn’t set right.

However I did, today, take delivery of all the rest of the materials that we needed.  The local builder merchant round the corner is one of the best in the north west and therefore we always use them.  Five to eight this morning and the lorry pulled up outside our house.  I quickly rushed to get some clothes on as I was only just awakened and then greeted the driver.  I managed to persuade him to drop the hardcore (20mm to dust rubble) over the garden wall and he placed the rest on the drive.  Quite how the lorry doesn’t top over when he hoists the material across I am not sure, but I was a very skilled manoeuvre of the crane.

Yesterday we got discussing the purchase of a cement mixer to do the work as it would be a better investment to buy one with friends and family rather than hiring one.  Today dad bought it from B&Q and got a bargain.  Somehow he managed to get an industrial type 700v machine for less than £100.  A bargain.  It is a bit of a beast of a machine but it will get well used over the years no doubt.

Tomorrow then we will be laying the hardcore down after levelling off and then, hopefully, we will get on to laying some of the flags.  Only trouble is it is supposed to rain and you can lay flags on a dry mix of sand and cement when its wet.

For a while now I have hosted a numver of website on the internet and therefore it was clear that I was going to need a host.  Back in early 2007 I did my research and came across a budget hosting company with good reviews called Streamline.net.  For a while everything was great and the standard of service was good.  How things can change in a year.

Many of the sites that I host are database driven using a MySQL database in order to generate the pages that you see.  This website is handled in this way to.  It seems that Streamline are cutting even more corners and pilling more and more databases onto the same server.  They currently have 13 MySQL servers.  I have 10 databases with them so if half of the domains that they host have the same number of databases then that means that there are approximately 500,000 databases.  All these stored on 13 servers?  That’s a massive 38,000 on each one.  It seems as though this is too much.

Also maybe the same is happening with their web servers.  Several on my domains are on the same IP address.  This is not unusual as  it is ’shared hosting’ which means that websites share a server.  However it is all the websites that are on one particular server that seem to be causing the problem.  The symptoms are as follows:

• Poor website uptime.  It seems as though every other time that I access some website it takes 2 or 3 page refreshes in order to get the site to display
• Terrible FTP connection.  Very slow and constantly dropping out
• White screen of doom.  This is where the browser thinks that it has loaded the page but just displays a white screen of doom.  I thought that it would mean that the web server was not connecting to the MySQL however there would be a warning message.  It is like the web server won’t communicate properly with the MySQL and delivers back a blank page as it has connected but doesn’t know what to do with the results?

Anyway to cut a long story short all of these problems with Streamline.net have led to me moving domains away from them.  At the moment I am in a complaint battle with them in order to get my money back for the second year as they are not providing the service that they advertise.  A shame as they started out so good.

Therefore you may find over that my email will not arrive shortly due to the domain transfer.  I will be transfering back to 123-reg.co.uk and then changing the name servers to the new host.  All this can take 24 - 48 hours.  In the meantime email me using the contact form on this site.

My advice is do not host your website with Streamline.net, as they cannot provide the services that they advertise.

Having had a well deserved rest day yesterday it was back to work today in the garden.  With lots to do it was important to make good progress.  We needed to finish the wall for the raised bed and get all the flagged areas dub out as the hardcore for underneath should arrive tomorrow.

We actually only started at about 1130 as the frosty morning ground was simply to hard to dig into.  After suitable thawing time has elapsed we begin work. Father completed the wall while I dug out the rest of the flagged areas and moved the soil into/onto the raised bed.  I really can feel my body getting accustomed to this.

It was at this point that we had some lunch.  2 teacakes with ham. cheese, tomato and coleslaw for me made by the wife and a bag of cheese and onion crisps.  Very satisfying they were to!  During lunch we got into a debate (me and dad) about how helpful a cement mixer would be.  We would still have much to mix and we are currently mixing in a small trough like palette which is placed on the ground.  This is OK but is hard work and not good for the back!  On the way here Dad stopped at B&Q in order to buy more building sand.  Our early estimates were clearly way out.  Whilst in B&Q he saw a cement mixer for a bargain £100.  Therefore over lunch it was discussed that we would purchase the mixer and then sell shares to other members of the family.  Brother and Uncle came to mind.  This would make it a bargain £22.50 each as it was 10% on Wednesday when dad would buy it.

After lunch it was time to do the preparation for when the hardcore (dad calls them scalpings) arrive in the morning.  It is all a matter of levels.  You need to get the patio sloping just a little so the water doesn’t sit on top but not to much so you don’t feel like you are walking on a slope.  To get this right we knocked some pegs into the ground at the correct height (getting the correct height is the hard part!) and the fastened some long boards to each end.  The sand and cement/hardcore mix would be levelled to these boards and the flags will be laid on top.  That’s the theory anyway and we will see whether it works on Wednesday or Thursday.

The end of day two and after lots of digging and other work to do I am shattered.  Therefore here are some photos of the days work!

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Garden Work Part One

It was over 6 months ago since I helped out with the third patio and garden construction project and today it was the start of the fourth.  After the house move late last year we wanted to take advantage of the half term holiday to make some changes/improvements to the garden.  This was day one.

The plan is to create two new patios.  One is an extension of an existing one that the house builder gives you, but it is only 3×3 flags and as they are only 600 x 600mm wide its not very big.  Therefore we are extending this to be 5 x 5 flags making it 3 metres square.  The other is going to be at the top of the garden, the main patio being much bigger at 6 x 5 flags or 3 x 4.2 metres.

Today it was a preparation day.  It started out with a trip to Berry’s down the road (this is the local tradesman’s B&Q).  We purchased sand, chippings and some electrical stuff to power some lights at the far end of the garden.  We also ordered the Scalpings? (Dad said they were scalping’s but I still think they are called MOT!).

First job was to dig the trench out for the raised bed. The raised bed will hold all the soil that is dug out from underneath the patios and the paths etc and therefore we need a small wall (starting out at 3 bricks high but may get higher) in order to hold this in place.  The trench was quick to dig and then we put some ’shuttering’ in the trench that would create a straight edge for the concrete to set against.

Then it was mixing the concrete which is the hard part.  At this point it was the time of the day when we started to discuss how we could make this tasks easier.  I suggested hiring a cement mixer, but was quickly told the hire shop would be closed.  Later in the day when the digging became a bore I decided that we needed a machine that took off the required amount of turf and soil, laid your scalpings and levelled them and then dropped all the flags on.  Dream on!

The trench was filled in and the left to dry, except a small amount at the end which will need to be done tomorrow.  The we started to dig out the patio area at the top of the garden for the large patio.  About an hour and a half later the job was done and it was packing up time.  Tomorrow will be building the wall to hold the raised bed.

Last weekend we acquired some more budgies. 4 new members of the budgie clan joined the others in the aviary. The new arrivals were Richard and Hyacinth and Niles and Daphne. Named after TV character (Richard and Hyacinth after characters from ‘Keeping Up Appearances’ and Daphne and Niles after characters from ‘Frasier’.

All seem to be getting on well together so far:

Richard

Niles

Daphne

All the Birds

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Good Luck Harry

I have been a Sky customer for a number of years now and therefore they often send me loyalty benefits for inviting friends to join Sky too.  These are often very good offers both for me and the new customer that joins, however there is just one problem.  Everyone I know has Sky already.

Therefore I thought that I would broadcast this offer to the viewers of Penny4Them, just in case there is someone out there who doesn’t have Sky TV but wants it.  If so we can both get a good deal.   What is in it for you, you might ask?  The answer is that when you sign up you will get a free Sky+ box and free installation.  Good offer as Sky+ really is the bogs dollocks.  And for me, well I get £50 worth of M&S vouchers.

There are two of these offers up for grabs and it is first come first served using the contact form on this site.