Storage Revolution and Invention

 Besides being an interesting and relevant addition to our garden, the former coal-yard, the coal truck has an immense storage capacity.   Big trouble though has been the end door.  Top hinged, it was designed to open when the entire truck, and its load was tipped up and discharged into a ship or wherever.

When horizontal that door is immensely heavy - at least a two-man lift.  Once lifted, what then?  Unless there is a way of keeping it open it drops again, so limiting or forbidding access to the loadspace.

Today I have solved that problem, after a very long time thinking about it.  I relocated the T Davit crane from the top of the tower to within the truck by that large top-swung door.   With a winch, this enables the heavy door to be swung open or closed at will, enabling access anytime:

Even SWMBO was impressed   "You should have been an inventor" she said.

UPDATE  Two problems with that set up.  1.  That's a lot of pull on just one wire.  2. The in-line tensioned, once the door is raised, remains locked - it is a one-way pull - upwards!

IMPROVEMENT  Double the number of wired=s by introducing a snatch-block on the door with a two-way and neutral  windlass:

Much easier and safer, should the door suddenly drop.  When in operation the wire is above head height.  When idle and the door closed the wire is wound back in.

Meanwhile, here is this morning's view from our bedroom balcony - not bad for a garden full of 'weeds' eh?  Dalehead vets looks a lot better with its cedar cladding and solar panels.  The greenery and the trees make it hard to believe we are in the middle of the town of Settle.

The Bees' Bank has Blossomed

We have a fairly large amount of garden on this coal-yard site, much of it almost un-gardenable in the usual sense.  Nowhere more so than the new embankment which runs along the back of the rear extension. It is steep, has almost no topsoil and is almost hidden from view, at least from the public side of the site.

Our new policy of 'Let's see what wants to grow there and encourage it' is paying off handsomely - with dandelions:

Handsome flowers but with the reputation of weeds.

For that embankment though, dandelions it is and they are responding splendidly, firstly with their flowers of course but then with their seed heads:

Any 'proper' gardener regards these at the enemy but we shall leave these to do their own thing and see what happens.

Mitzy the Shogun has PASSED her MOT

Thanks to some brilliant work by Kevin Chadwick at Clapham, Mitzy has been mended. Properly seam welded underneath, new exhaust, new fuel filler pipe, one new rear lamp, undersealed fully. Good as new and has today passed its re-test.   Feels, drives and looks like a new car.   Under 50k miles on the clock too!

Ultra High Definition Coronation and Dandelions

 As one who remembers watching the 1952 coronation on somebody else's tiny black and white television I could but marvel at Sunday May 6th in our very own living room.  Because of the room's size we have a ginormous telly in there.   Not only that, it is a Smart TV - a computer in many ways.  We also have five-channel sound that fills the place gloriously if you wish, cinema style

The coronation could be viewed on the BBC iPlayer in ultra high definition at the press of a red button.  What better occasion to give that a go - so we did. 

Not sure if this will work as it is an iPhone picture of the screen so it cannot do justice to the UHD image on the screen but here goes.   Click on the picture to enlarge it and zoom in if you can:

Stunning.

Rather less stunning but remarkable in their way are the water tower garden areas - given over to nature in between larger deliberate plantings.  A feast for the bees and rather lovely in their way:

Meanwhile in Gerrards Cross, here are a couple of glimpses of darling daughter Lorna's magnificent garden.  She gets if from her father of course: