about JohnH
Sorted, fit. Current activities are photography, hiking, motorbiking, trail biking, music, geology/geoscience, dinner-at-home, travel and more.
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Sweeping the chimney... another use for these face masks we’ve all got a stache of now. Soot is an irritant and the fine particulate dust isn’t good to breathe. The chimney is capped so unfortunately no photo of the brush poking out of the top. The temporary curtain across the fireplace is to contain the soot and dust which previous owners didn’t sweep out when they stopped burning coal here.
It’s a fine ornamental fireplace: I’m presuming all the rock specimens are local but it’s going to take some time and specialist help to identify them all
That’s an electric fire on the left - there is central heating here though it’s only just about managing and is scheduled for urgent replacemnt.
Planting two apple trees in the garden I’ve taken over here in Keswick. This garden hasn’t had any fruit trees but it’s clear that apple trees do produce fruit in Cumbria, a bit to my surprise considering the climate. Acorn Bank has a renowned orchard not that far from here, the other side of Penrith. I’ve chosen varieties of the Pippins said to be tolerant of frost: one Fiesta and one Ellison’s Orange. M26 rootstock so they will grow as bushes for cropping without a ladder .
The fun part of kitchen appliance installation: stomping down the polystyrene bases that the big appliances arrive on. I handed this task over to the Big Kid in the house, ie me. Fair enough after all the frustrations associated with deliveries and anyhow I don’t find it much fun crawling under the counter ferkling the plumbing, nor heaving and hefting the heavy stuff so good to have the fun bit too. Maybe my hiking boots aren’t particularly well adapted to this work but they protect the toes and for the moment they are what I have in Keswick.
Maybe it’s time to move on from motorbikes? Car roofs aren't always necessary, but if there’s no roof is it still a “tintop”? This one in dark blue isn’t the one of the bright colour schemes - blue, red or yellow - but hey maybe some of us prefer to be discreet, which leaves the full-on yellow for the tearaways in from the Chilterns, the Cotswolds and the Kent coast.
’fraid not upping my game quite yet; the rather stylish Mercedes 280 SL, built about 1970, was parked at Putney Reach on the shores of the Thames which the rowing clubs usually monopolise.
I rediscovered my rowing ergometer in the last lockdown (ie November 2020). I’ve not been using it for some while and it’s just been gathering dust. It turns out that after my mildly obsessive work in my home gym during the previous lockdowns that I’m now strong enough to use the rower again.
There are of course niggles and strains to work around. But getting the kit on and selecting “just row” on the monitor gets me into the sports zone very nicely, concentrating on my stroke style and counting mindlessly.
I bought it in the 1980s for exactly that, now in this period of lockdown it’s great that I can again use it to lose myself in the sport and exertion. These days I’m being careful not to go all-out, though a short sprint finish is always fun and leaves the body xinging nicely.
