Category Archives: Phil

Various musings from Phil

A Weather Station

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We have an underground storage tank, which was used for irrigation when the surrounding area was an orchard before the house was built. It’s not as deep as it used to be, but still holds around 2000 gallons of water when full. It’s filled from half of our house roof, and all of the garage roof. There is a submersible pump in it which we use to water the garden.

Measuring the water depth has always been a challenge, and you can just see a white measuring stick – but all the markings on this faded over time!

Last year, I purchased an ultrasonic depth sensor which worked fairly well but wasn’t robust enough to survive outdoors.

So this year, I bought an industrial pressure sensor, which now sits at the bottom of the tank:

I found an small microcontroller board that has a suitable input for this – this board also has integrated WiFi so it can send the measurements back to the house.

This sends the data to some logging software running on our Raspberry Pi based server.

This works just fine, but being a pressure sensor, the recorded level varies slightly with atmospheric pressure changes. So a bit more digging found this little board, which measures barometric pressure and temperature:

I found a design for a small “Stevenson Screen” to hold this board, which I printed on my 3D printer:

This also connects to the WiFi board.

You can see the results from these sensors by viewing http://home.wsn.uk:5555 username ‘view’, password ‘view’. Click on the icons to see the graphs showing these inputs change.

The next task is to adjust the Water Level reading with atmospheric pressure!

A visit to London 2

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Time for my second vaccination, so it’s back on the train (now 2 fast trains per hour, which is an improvement from February) and again I went to Charing Cross as it’s a much nicer walk to St Thomas.

I was going to use the eastern Golden Jubilee Bridge this time, but it was closed for maintenance. The western bridge does have more interesting views though!

The Eye was still stationary, and looks enormous from its base:

After my jab, I followed the river eastwards, past the South Bank and on to Bankside with St Pauls and Blackfriars coming into view:

Further on is Southwark Bridge and Cannon Street station:

From there on, the route to London Bridge station heads away from the river and past Southwark Cathedral:

No photos of London Bridge station this time as I arrived just as a fast train home was due.

 

A visit to London

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It was time for my Covid vaccination, so a good opportunity to get on a train to London without feeling guilty about bending lockdown rules. The nearest station to the appointment at St Thomas was Waterloo, but looking at the map, I decided that it would be a much nicer walk from Charing Cross.

There is only one fast train per hour to London these days (it used to be four), so I had plenty of time to explore before my appointment.

I crossed the river using the western Golden Jubilee bridge – there used to be a grotty walkway alongside Hungerford Bridge, so this is a vast improvement:

A nice view of the (closed) London Eye from the bridge:

and then to a very deserted South Bank:

then Westminster Bridge, looking quite resplendent in the gloom:

Time for a quick mid-morning snack opposite the Houses of Parliament:

Then it was time to get vaccinated at St Thomas:

I then walked over Westminster Bridge to St James Park:

then past Horse Guards parade and The Mall (looking very empty indeed):

finally, through Admiralty Arch into a very empty Trafalgar Square:

then past the National Gallery & St Martin in the Fields:

and to Charing Cross Station and the train home:

It all made a nice change! And it was nice to see bits of London without pushing through lots of foreign tourists…

 

A Cold Weekend

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No fresh snow for a while, but the temperature has remained below freezing all week, so the paths through woods were frozen solid, and consequently quite hard to walk on. The one benefit was returning home with a clean dog – this photo was taken almost at the end of our walk in High Elms:

We went to Shoreham Woods on Sunday. I normally avoid this path because it is so muddy during the winter, today it was just rough walking on ice:

Rocco enjoyed himself though:

The views from Polhill Bank are always nice:

And the paths along the Darenth Valley:

Rocco enjoyed himself crossing the large field:

And then back home, with a clean dog yet again!

Boxing Day at Shoreham Woods

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The woods were almost deserted this morning; in fact I only met three other dog walkers the entire time. A bit warmer than yesterday as well, though less sunshine.

Rocco likes these woods as it is very muddy, and there are plenty of sticks for him:

If there’s an opportunity, he does like to chew them into small pieces:

Shoreham village looks nice as always:

And the path across the fields unusually didn’t have any cows in it:

Christmas 2020

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Like most of the country (world?), our Christmas was a much quieter affair than recent years, but we had an enjoyable day nevertheless.

Gemma had wrapped a chew for Rocco, but he was very unsure what to do with it:

An hour later, it had disappeared, so he either ate it or hid it somewhere!

After lunch, we went for a walk in the sunshine. This is Rocco waiting me to throw his stick for him:

The park looked nice in the sun:

But it didn’t stop Rocco getting muddy:

Sunrise at High Elms

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It’s a lovely crisp morning, and really quiet at my favourite place to walk Rocco – High Elms Country Park. Not too muddy this morning, which is a bonus.

As we descended down the hill, the sun was just rising over the opposite hill, bringing a bit of colour to the woods:

Merry Christmas to one and all!

Kyd Brook

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Very heavy rain overnight, though it had eased a bit by the time I took Rocco for his morning walk. We went to a rather muddy Petts Wood & Hawkwood – one of his favourite walks as there is a lot of mud, water and sticks!

Kyd Brook was seriously in spate following the overnight rain – I’ve not seen that much water in it for a fair while:

Rocco leapt in as usual, but really struggled to swim against the current, and only just got out again. At which point he ran over the bridge and got in that side. Again, he was swept down the brook and this time, he really did have a hard time getting out. Luckily after that, he treated the brook with a bit more caution!

This bit further down is normally about 6″ deep with a little “beach” to the side:

Further on, Pondwood Pond was a bit calmer, and he had a swim there instead:

Shoreham Woods

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Rocco and I regularly walk in Shoreham Woods (at least we do when it’s reasonably dry!) so today I thought I’d document our walk in pictures.

The first bit is across the M25 motorway, so very noisy, but soon it becomes quieter and Rocco starts collecting sticks:

This section of the path is on a slope, and can be really muddy in winter:

The view down the valley is lovely:

We then climb into Pilots Wood:

and shortly arrive at the top of the North Downs:

The path soon dives back into woods

and follows the Darenth Valley, with views of Shoreham village:

All too soon, we’re climbing back up the hill:

then down and up across the valley. Luckily Rocco ignores the cows!

Another short break, then it’s back up the last hill to the car park:

A LOT of up & down in a short distance!

 

 

Office Changes

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This is photo of the north west corner of the office taken in 2001 – what a lot has changed since then, including the “old” monitor, a record player and lots of cassettes. But the desk is clear, which is unusual…

The corner behind the door has evolved since then, and by 2013, you can just see a rack of DVD’s, a rack of books and just a few cassettes behind the door:

The cassettes are now past history, but the number of books has increased, so after a bit of reworking, I’ve ended up with this:

Note that the main shelves on the left were rebuilt in 2017!