The 45th Parallel Déjà Vu

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The above programme was supposed to be aired last Sunday but WRMI was down all evening last week on 9395kHz. Fingers crossed the Imaginary Stations 45th Parallel Midwinter Broadcast will now be on in a few hours time (Sunday 19th February 2023) on 9395 kHz at 2300 hrs UTC. At 20 minutes in One Deck Pete presents “A 45 mix” with tracks from Borealism, Boca 45, mndbd, Jah Wobble and Mad Professor. Tune in and get on that circle of lattitude and enjoy! If you haven’t a shortwave radio do tune in on this online SDR here on 9395kHz on AM mode.

Who’s in the garden tomorrow?

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We took Friday off work hoping to do few jobs in the garden but we didn’t actually get around to it as it was a bit cold and tried again this afternoon but the weather was rubbish again with some light rain. The forecast looks great for tomorrow though so we’re keeping our fingers crossed.

And here’s a nice bit of chilled business, a track from GORE in Tokyo, Japan with Bills are piling up. Get some rest tonight as we all may busy in the garden tomorrow.

And talking of spring which we weren’t directly, here’s a favourite of ours from a long time ago. Very apt!

Radio connects us all

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A while ago we heard a wonderful Radio 4 programme in the Lights Out series called Call Signs. It featured the story of a radio ham, Wlad Gurtovy (US7IGN) talking about life in Kyiv, Ukraine on his own after his wife and children had to flee to Poland because of the crazy war.

It’s a capitating story, one about radios, home-made antennas and even features his children’s hamster called Mouse. He jokes that when his family contacts him, sometimes they ask how Mouse is before they ask how he is! It’s all mixed in with various radio noises and a nice soundtrack from 8ctavius. Download and listen to the programme here.

Wlad has also published a book about his experiences called “War Diaries – A Radio Amateur in Kyiv” which is presented as a record of events from the first day of the war on 24 February to the end of September 2022. We’ve still not finished the book yet but it’s an excellent read so far and one well worth buying. More on purchasing it here.

A big thanks to Wlad for passing on the pictures of his good friend Sergiy (UT3UFD)’s banana plant presently growing indoors in his apartment in Kyiv and it looks as healthy as anything. We’re not the best with indoor plants here sadly but it certainly looks like it is getting a lot of care an attention from Sergiy as it is thriving.

Wlad mentioned that Sergiy uses a lamp to heat the plant as it needs an environment of about 20°C. When the temperature in the apartment recently dropped to 14°C because of the blackouts he had to turn the gas stove on to get the heat back up to the right temperature. That’s dedication for you.

Thanks again to Wlad and also Sergiy for the photographs. We look forward to any updates!

Seed swapping in SE15

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This morning we popped into Glengall Wharf Gardens SE15 for their seed swap. We picked up some Orange Pumpkin, Chard, Hollyhock, Cherokee Vale of Tears Beans, Tree Spinach and American Pokeweed seeds so it was well worth popping down.

The garden itself is interesting and well worth visiting. They also have regular sessions and workshops which are very good by all accounts. Check their twitter here for what’s on and have a look at their website here. By the way on their seed swap table we saw a nomination for possibly the best rock band name ever (above).

And here’s a few pictures taken whilst walking around said gardens. There’s some great gardening ideas dotted about which are inspiring and could be adapted for use at home.

And there’s even some hens. We love that hanging cabbage feeder!

An alternative to Michael McIntyre and some morse dub

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Here’s a couple of mad ones for a Saturday night. The first is a Intiche remix of a tune from lagartijeando out of Argentina called Antiguos Deuños De Las Flechas. To say it’s a bit out there is an understatement, great graphics too! We’ve just had a quick look into Intiche, originally from Argentina and now resident In Berlin who makes some mad chilled out tunes. Worth taking a look into too if you like the above type of gear.

And here’s Mad Professor with Psychic Vampire with some morse code in it for good measure! Dubbed out CW, we’re always up for that!

And if that isn’t enough, here’s another example from ECHO BEACH Lifefidelity. New genre alert?

Today some frost and on Sunday a radio transmission

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This morning was the coldest it’s been here in a while with some heavy frost on the grass and the bed at the bottom of the garden stayed frozen solid all day even though there was some nice sunshine for a good part of the day which warmed up the other parts of the garden.

Typically a couple of days ago we took the foxgloves from the kitchen window as we didn’t want them to get used to the warmth of the house. We put them outside, half of them under a glass cloche and the other half under the protection of a raised bed with some plastic over the top (on the left of the above picture). These home-made mini greenhouses do keep in the heat from any warmth generated by the sun during the day but will they do their job in this kind of cold? Every year we seem to do this, we see the sun and think it’s spring. We’ll keep you posted!

This weekend by the powers of shortwave and WRMI we have the Imaginary Stations 45th Parallel Midwinter Broadcast which will feature a good bit of circular latitude fun and some fine tunes throughout. Tune in with your shortwave radio to 9395 kHz at 2300 UTC on Sunday 12th February 2023. At 20 mins in they’ll be a mix from One Deck Pete featuring Borealism, Boca 45, mndbd, Jah Wobble and the Mad Professor.

Monday night serious listening

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Thanks to our good friend Marc B for letting us know today about this great show featuring the late great Penny Reel which starts with a couple of old doo-wop tunes with their reggae counterparts and then into some very choice tunes, a show well worth listening to!

There’s another show up on Weeds, posted not long after his passing which featured Penny with Paul Bradshaw here. Below is one of the tunes he played on it, The Lord’s Army by Hy Mann that we’d previously never heard of. The tune sounded like it may have been recorded at the same session as a personal favourite of ours Follow You by M (Martell?) Robinson. This music lark never fails to disappoint, opening a can of worms also comes to mind.

STOP PRESS And talking of opening cans of worms, as if by magic we have been directed to a Jamaican born singer called Martel Robinson who used to sing in working mens clubs in Coventry and Birmingham and release records under M Robinson. Same chap? We do hope so!

STOP PRESS JULY 2023: Also known as Ray Martell!

https://www.discogs.com/artist/2205400-Martel-Robinson

Garlic update, garlic update

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We took the protection off the raised bed this afternoon so we could pop the foxgloves in pots in there. No idea if the cold nights will knock them for six but we’ll take a chance. When we took the frame off we were chuffed with what we saw of the giant garlic. They’re starting to make a break for it.

Seed Swap in SE15

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This Sunday coming February 12th 2023 is the annual Seed Swap at Glengall Wharf Garden, Peckham SE15 6NF. Last year we picked up a great assortment of seeds including some Texsel Greens (Ethiopian Mustard), some nice tomato varieties and lots of poppy seeds and hopefully will do the same ths year. The eventbrite link is here.

Bring your duplicate packs of free seeds from the gardening magazines or bring your surplus seeds down to SE15 6NF from 11am – 2pm.

Is it spring yet?

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The sun is out today and cue a million of us gardeners getting all excited. It may be a false start to the season but who knows, we can see buds forming on some of the shrubs, the mint we transferred a few weeks ago into a pot (above) is looking healthy and it isn’t a bad thing to get out in the garden now and do a bit of tidying which will save you a bit of time when spring does finally spring.