Total Pageviews

Monday 11 August 2014

Batteries, bottling and bargains

I went out last night to see the super moon. I noticed how light it was and looked up to see the sky had cleared and the moon was full and extremely bright. It seems that the moon is the closest it gets and so appears 16% larger and 30% brighter. By the time I saw it it was quite high in the sky so doesn't look so big, but heck it was bright.

My photograph of the moon yesterday.

The closest point in the orbit is called the perigee (the furthest away is the apogee). At this point it is 271765 miles away from us.The super moon phenomena occurs every 13 months and 18 days so is not the same league as the fact that August has five Friday's, five Saturdays and five Sundays as this occurs 823 years. I hope that the brightness doesn't stop us seeing the Perseid shower over the next few days.

Stargazers around the world looked up into the nightsky to catch a glimpse of the supermoon, including in Blenheim, New Zealand where this spectacular picture was taken
This photo was a little better than mine.

I checked the battery cell levels and topped them up as required. There was one cell that was well down on the others in the battery but checking back to last month there was one then also, but not the same one so they must rectify themselves over the month.

I was undecided as to what to do with my wild plums so to put the choice off I thought I would just bottle them. I had not done this before so I hope that it will work okay. It means that I will be able to use them at a later date. They fitted in the jar perfectly when raw but when slightly cooked they shrank and I was left with space. Oh well, you can't open the jar and put more in or you break the seal. All the rejected plums and damsons were stewed up and I am now deciding whether to jam them or just eat them. There must be a tool that will make it easier to get the stones out of these fruits and keep them in halves rather than just chop them up?

Bottled plums.

As the sun was out and despite the fresh breeze we need to stretch our legs so decided to wander up to the garden centre just up the road. We had a good poke about and managed to come out after only spending about £2. We didn't even have a coffee and cake moment at the cafe. On the way back we crossed the canal to the Bulbourne yard and went to see the blacksmiths/decorative iron workers display. Unfortunately despite it saying it was open, it wasn't so we retreated back to the boat and arrived without getting wet.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Tony. I love reading all your interesting facts on your blog but the one above, about the repetition of 5 Friday's, Saturdays and Sundays only happening every 823 years is wrong. It happens every time a month with 31 days in it starts on a Friday. The last time was March last year and the next time will be May next year. As for super moons I think the next one will be next month.

Ann.