Hops

Spent yesterday mending fences after storm Malik, and trying to ensure storm Corrie doesn't blow them all down again.

The South side graves are having a new carpet of mulch. It's actually spent hops from local heroes Torrside Brewing. We think they look lovely.

Obviously you have to imagine this scene without the ugly barriers, and with enough hops to actually cover the ground. But you get the picture. More hops are arriving regularly (it's a thirsty town) so I'll post more later.

In other news, we really are trying to move things on with planning, and to keep our hopes up of actually being able to finish the project. Stay with us and don't give up - we're not.

For the geeks #2

Hi there, bespectacled reader.

Well, I tried and tried (and tried) to get Camera#3 working with a SIM card, uploading pics to my website as described previously. A few problems with that:

1. I'm rubbish at soldering. Appalling. So actually constructing the rig was so time-consuming and error-strewn, by the time I got to the software I was already losing the will.

Hell

2. The SIM assembly has very proscriptive power demands. It would run on my desk as long as I used a USB port to supply it, but an actual USB charger made it shriek "Over Voltage" and switch off. Since the thing was going to be powered from a USB charger, this was a showstopper.

3. The SIM card I bought from Three refused to register on the Three network. The O2 SIM from my phone would connect in a heartbeat, so at that point there was nothing wrong with the rig. The Three SIM worked perfectly in a phone. This was infuriating.

4. Once on the network, the software required to upload files to the internet (minicom) is so badly documented, I felt like I was 15 and trying to buy a round, getting no help from the gorillas at the bar, and sarcastic answers, winks and nudges if I asked a question. Basically I don't have the patience to learn the skills required.

So, I decided to improve on Camer#2 by putting it in a specially constructed waterproof enclosure. 

Well, it's a sandwich box. 

Camera#2.1 now has the following upgrades:

• Wired access as well as wireless capability. Plan is to take a laptop once a month, plug in and use WinSCP to download what we have.
• I've protected the 10 metre USB cables, hoping the comms won't degrade over time as in the past.
• I've put magnets on the box so it can be attached easily to the steel which will be in the way of the current camera position. These magnets are proper strong. I plonked it on a radiator in the house and virtually had to use a crowbar to remove it.
• The Raspberry Pi at the heart of this has been beefed up to 64gb on the Micro SD card. That will hold roughly 10,000 photos, in case I'm too bone idle to go and harvest images every month.
• The software has been improved so that the camera only fires every 20 minutes from 9am-4pm in Winter, 8am-5pm in Summer. I'm fed up deleting black images taken during hours of darkness..

Some pics:

Yes, that really is a sandwich box.

I hope to have this installed in the next couple of weeks, more news as I get it. 

I now have a full 5-minute movie of the site since October 2020, but thanks to the GORT (gods of red tape) there's nothing much to look at, unless you like the leaves falling as the seasons change, occasional snow cover, or next door's wandering cat. 

Later, geeks.

The last post

Just read back my last post. How naiive I was. How trusting.

No, we were not allowed to build the road. Once again punched in the kidney by the gods of red tape, curse them all to early retirement.

Despite paying exorbitant monthly fees to the town council for their poxy piece of field, we're not allowed to set foot on it until the conditions for planning permission on the main build are met (or at least some of them). This condition was cleverly added to the lease by - you guessed it - the town council 

Well played, dark forces.

Hopefully the planning authorities will check the check box that needs checking, very soon. Then we'll be underway.

In other news, there is none. Oh wait - there's a chance Lyn will be a town councillor soon. Will that mean she then starts doing everything in her powers to stop the build? Wouldn't that be funny.

More jokes soon

Let's make a road #1

So we think we're allowed to build a road now. Never absolutely sure, but we did get notice that the red tape has been snipped, so here's what we have so far...

Ain't she a beauty? The road, not me.

Plan is to lay a membrane on the cleared section, then a special roll-out honeycomb thing that gets filled with gravel. More pics soon 

(unless we get told to stop, of course)

For the Geeks

A history of my attempts to create a timelapse movie of the build.

The idea: put a camera on the inner apex of the front wall, capture all the goings-on at 1 minute (later 20 second) intervals for the duration, make a movie out of it. Simples.

Camera #1 (Autumn 2020)

With the help of No.1 son Jack, we managed to put together a camera run by a Raspberry Pi Zero computer, in a nifty little box and bracket, all available from https://thepihut.com/ at a fraction of the price of a real timelapse rig, which was going to cost hundreds of poundlings. 

Plus points: cheap, easy

Minus points: had to offload the photos regularly via a USB interface. Given the position of the camera 8m off the ground, this required a laptop and a very long micro USB lead, which eventually degraded so badly that comms became more and more unreliable.

Camera #2 (April 2021)

Again with help from Jack, we went wireless with a Raspberry Pi Zero W in a near identical setup. Now the means of downloading was via wireless interface to my phone. I was really quite proud of this as I did the code mostly on my own like a grown-up.

Plus points: convenience. Saunter up, turn on wireless hotspot on phone, wait for the Pi to connect, download the files. Range about 15m so adequate.

Minus points: Battery life. The setup used motorcycle-type batteries that needed swapping about every 10 days. We eventually rigged up a phone charger to feed the Pi via the original 10m USB lead, which was ok for that purpose. Also speed of download, which was roughly 30 seconds per file. Since I upped the frames to one every 20 seconds (daylight hours only), the rig produced 33 frames per day, which is a lot of standing around. I eventually stopped downloading the files, having calculated the disk space on the Pi could hold enough data to give me time to develop camera #3. WRONNNNG

Camera #3 (Currently half-built)

Again with the Raspberry Pi Zero, again with the nifty box. This time we include a SIM card and program it to upload resulting images to my web storage. 

Plus points: completely independent.

Minus points: well.

My first attempt to do the soldering required to interface the SIM assembly to the Pi circuit board resulted in a damaged SIM (sorry Jack) so I had to order a replacement. 

While I await the new SIM assembly (I ordered two), I have discovered that Camera #2 has stopped taking new images. I presume the disk is full. This puts the pressure on somewhat, so I thought the best solution was to come on here and whinge about it.

Feel better now. More later.

More progress

Well, I thought I should do a more positive post after my rant. So here are some uplifting titbits:

Paul's made good progress on the South side of the main building, having converted the fifth window to a doorway. This will be our main way to the house, as opposed to the big old front door, which will be for the venue. 

Just inside this door on the left will be the main stairwell and lift up to the living space above. Progress has also been made on that section..

All in all a good couple of weeks, especially considering work done on preparing for the front wall reinforcement. That now has full footings in place, and the steel man will measure up in the next few days, for the structure to hold up that precious front wall during the build process.

We still await one detail of planning permission for our access road, and Lyn is emailing and phoning almost daily to get that sorted out. hopefully soon there will be good news.

All the work Paul is doing would have to be done at some point, it's just being done out of the normal order, but it's all good.

More soon, faithful Owlers.

First Concrete Pour

Historic day today - our first concrete pour. It's only for holding up the front wall so we don't lose a quarter of the building before we even start, but at least it's real actual progress.

Rant:

Who'd have thought, nearly two years after buying the place, 15 months after an (almost) unanimous decision by the council to grant us access over the co-op field, 6 months after a unanimous decision by the borough planning office to pass the planning permission, and two months after signing a lease on said field and beginning to pay (exorbitant) rent on it - who'd have thought we still wouldn't be allowed to build the access road? It beggars belief. To the gods of red tape, I say congratulations. Because of you, we've had to spend a huge amount on shoring up the front edifice. Because of you we have a builder doing his utmost to continue with roughly 40 tonnes of rubble still on site. Because of you we cannot build our footings and the steel structure that would preserve this increasingly fragile building into the future. Be proud. Puff out your chests. You have achieved great things these past two years.

Rant ends.

Some photographs of our hole:

And a video of it being filled:

..and more pictures

This massive footing has cost an arm and a leg, and would not have been necessary had it not been for the huge delay since clearing the trees. Thanks again guys.

More when I'm happier.