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St James’ Church in Tedstone Delemere Herefordshire We are the Village Green Preservation Society (Ooh, ooh, ooh) The Kinks - The Village Green Preservation Society. When researching churches, sites like National Churches Trust and Churches Conservation Trust and indeed the churches themselves, make it very clear they want people to visit, to sign the visitor book and perhaps drop a little donation into the provided wall safe. Its how they stay open and get money from the Diocese. These days, if they don’t, then churches are likely to end up as ‘unique period 4 bed-room property. Room for a pony’. ...

Down the road a bit (and by road I mean overgrown single track with grass in the middle) from the ogham stone is the Ardgroom stone circle and the only other stone circle I got to see on this trip. Seriously atmospheric, in the shadow of mountains and the two drumlins ( Dromárd, and Drombeg) that give it its name in Gaelic. There are 9 of the 11 total stones standing upright in a tight rough circle although there are others dotting the landscape around. ...

As a fairly regular ‘stone botherer’ I’ll always try to see some stone circles, burial mounds, landscape features etc when I’m out and about somewhere. This time my travels took me to the beautiful south west of Ireland and despite limited time, I was able to see something really special. The ‘Ballycrovane stone’ is the tallest ogham stone in Ireland, stands 4.7m (or 5m something depending on what website you read) in height in an area with amazing views of the surrounding hills and water below. ...

1 : something devised or contrived: such as a(1) : a piece of equipment or a mechanism designed to serve a special purpose or perform a special function Merriam-Webster Dictionary I’m not, it must be said, the worlds most practical man. I can do a few things however, and have enough practical background to recognise when something is a truly beautiful example of a tool. Something made to be used, but also made itself of metal and wood and human ingenuity and a thing of beauty in its own right. ...

Day out to an orchid nursery - pretty pics below. Came back with a new Paph (one of those photographed, but mine isn’t in bloom and a very cute new Neo (vanda) falcata

Since doing an awful lot of thinking about the value of books my brain has gone down some weird rabbit holes. 20 odd years ago, in a different life when I was a different person, I very briefly worked for a company involved in book data. At the time, as now, I had a deep love of books, but the company and life moved in other directions and I was only there for about 9 months. In the same period I spent a lot of time on sites like LibraryThing and Bookcrossing. ...

I’ve been going down lots of rabbit holes on finding new blogs last day or so - mostly tech as that’s what there is, some accessibility (in tech), some books (about tech) etc etc. Today I was met with this. Look I know I know only too well this is a result of ridiculous UK Internet law. I know its a problem brought about by various streams of idiotic, tech illiterate, hateful UK political parties… but please please if you’re a blogger and you want things to be accessible to the UK audience, don’t host all your bloody images on imgur. Why host images externally at all really, especially if you’re a tech blogger. ...

Time for a minor orchid update. First off the UK has essentially been seeing temperatures in the high 20s°C and regularly over 30°C since May. This summer has been the hottest and driest I can remember. I largely grow cool growing cloud forest orchids in a grow tent under L.e.d lights in my garage. It should be cool enough in the summer and able to be heated easily and cheaply in the winter. This year however the extreme temps and lack of cooling at night has meant utter disaster for my plants. ...

They don't gotta burn the books, they just remove 'em. Rage against the machine - Bulls on parade There’s been a lot of discourse on my remaining social media this week about certain AI companies purchasing what used to be called ’long tail’ books when I worked in a book data company (admittedly it was a long time ago). The purpose being, that these books of all types are a form of undigested, pre AI information/sentence structure ripe to be absorbed. ...

I wasn’t going to give this church a full post as it was more an amusing distraction on a hike than a destination in its own right, but I decided it had enough interest to warrant its own post. First off, I’m not going to say where this church is, although its not a secret. I am in a round about and slightly pretentious way, making the point that the breadth of the UK is filled with places like this. Remote, calming, beautiful and nearly a 1000 years old. Go out and find your own, visit and hopefully appreciate what’s there. Sign the guest book (most churches have one) so hopefully its kept open for another 1000 years. ...