Fiddlesticks TV

The morning JackFM came to breakfast...

2009-06-08T12:47:00.000-07:00

This morning we had the very great pleasure to welcome our friends from JackFM to Longworth. They brought their caravan, parked it outside and did the Jack's Morning Glory programme. We had a great time and we hope everyone that came along did too!

Sally Pointer: Creator of Plague Rats

2009-04-19T13:38:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of meeting Sally Pointer this weekend. Sally makes the best cat toys ever, known as Plague Rats. You can take a look at her website here.

I took the opportunity to ask Sally a little about the history of plague rats and how they are made.

Bat Detecting

2009-04-08T13:37:00.000-07:00

Towards the end of last summer, we bought a bat detector. This evening it was great to see bats flying around the house again. So here's a little video about the detector and what it sounds like when the detector finds bats!

In case you don't like bats, you can't see one - just hear it!

The G20 Protests in London, 1st April, 2009

2009-04-01T11:56:00.000-07:00

With the G20 meeting in London on the 1st and 2nd April, protests had been planned on both days; protests against Climate Change, War, the Global Economy. Oh and a little anarchy for good measure. Some 5,000 police were deployed on the streets of London to keep the peace.

One of the protests, Financial Fools Day, was planned to take place at the Bank of England, which is just down the road from work. On the way in and out of the office, I shot a little video.

There was a sense that there were more police and curious office workers there than actual protesters. By and large, the feeling was ok - I didn't feel uncomfortable at any time. A friend said that he became a little concerned when Police donned riot gear. I would have too. But when I was there, the crowd was good natured.

A flying start at the Cotswold Falconry Centre

2009-03-30T07:55:00.000-07:00

Julie bought me a 'Flying Start' session at the Cotswold Falconry Centre for Christmas. I went over there this morning and had a very happy couple of hours. I got to handle a number of birds, some of which I've videoed here. I was also able to fly a Harris Hawk, named Ben - how magical to have him flying back to my glove.

Anyway, here's a video. Not my best production, but holding the Flip in one hand and making sure the bird is comfortable in the other is an interesting balancing act. Literally! Dropping an eagle might be a bad thing.

A bit of what we get up to on shortwave

2008-11-29T10:01:00.000-08:00

This weekend, on amateur radio, there's a huge amount of activity in a worldwide competition where all the people taking part use Morse Code. In essence, we try to contact as many people in as many different countries over the weekend.

I thought those of you not familiar with amateur radio might be interested to hear what a bit of Morse Code, as we do it, sounds like! This little video shows Keith, GM4YXI a friend who lives near Aberdeen coming through on my set. You'll hear him make some contacts and then at the end of the video, I make a quick contact with him. Apologies for the dodgy camera work. It's hard to film with one hand and send morse with the other!

Preparation Day for the Village Woodland

2008-11-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

Today we started work preparing the ground for the new woodland that we're planting as a community project here in Longworth.

I shot a little video to show the sort of tasks we were doing today. More to follow over the next weeks as we progress the project.

Prerequisites for Gervase's Fencing Masterclass

2008-09-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

Scything practice

2008-06-29T08:13:00.000-07:00

I did a little scything practice around the polytunnel today to keep the grass down a bit. Russell planted some chillies in the tunnel whilst Lawrence filmed us.

Bitzy features on Qik

2008-06-21T13:59:00.000-07:00

Playing around with the Qik video streaming service the other evening, Bitzy was on hand to be filmed.

Qik allows you to stream video and audio from your mobile phone. Probably heavy on GPRS bandwidth, but absolutely fine if you've got WiFi available.

Bee Video

2008-06-07T03:41:00.000-07:00

We had a quick check on the bees this morning. Here's a little video of the activity at the front of the hive after we'd done the inspection. Julie, resplendent in her bee suit is cleaning off a queen excluder behind the hive.

Downsizer Music

2008-06-02T13:58:00.000-07:00

Here's a short video of some of the music from this weekend's Downsizer Skill Sharing Weekend held in Carmarthen.

Sound quality isn't great - it was recorded on a camera phone - but hopefully you'll enjoy it all the same.

Tim