🌈 Nick Sellen 🌻 @nicksellen@social.coop

I really wanted to ride a cargo bike here and today I had my first day riding one!

From now I'll ride every week or two collecting and delivering things for a local share and repair project.

Today I delivered some clothes to be repaired by a retired seamstress, collected a newly fixed pressure washer, delivered a dehumidifier on loan, and more.

The bike itself is also on loan, and after me used to pickup surplus food for another project.

Small steps individually but a nice way I think.

I made some Christmas cards for the kids I know round here. I think they look like they were made by kids. Seems a good fit then!

My first self-haircut! ✂️ 💇

Inspired by @redoak doing the same some time back I recall and helped by some youtube video telling me it's easy... which was reasonably true.

... well, depends on the result too, seems OK to me ...

I've been working on this 50 year old bike. My dad bought it in the 70s and used it for a couple of decades, he was riding it on my first bike tour when I was 8.

I rode it for some years, including across europe. But it's been in the shed for over 10 years now waiting for some love.

It's new life is going to be as a single speed for the city.

Old bikes are hard work though. Axles not compatible, 5/16" vs 9mm, had an old axle in the shed to swap in fortunately.

I'm sorting out old hard drives, but it takes so long as I keep coming across stuff to read or listen to.

In one folder, some angry conversations with my ex-boyfriend that I saved, and right next to it this music track I made almost 20 years ago :)

I must archive it all!

Years ago I created a kind of programming framework thing that would be able to generate a visual graph of the application logic, I just found this screenshot and find it surprisingly readable.

I still like this kind of idea, although at the time I developed it in a total vacuum, and didn't really think about who might use it very much.

I would love having easier visualisation of the logic, and also allow non-coders to be able to answer questions like "When will notifications be sent?".

Ah this is the kind of transport check in process I like. Empty. They told me I'm the only foot passenger on this whole ship. And had to boot up the computer just for me.

It was cheaper than the eurostar too. And gives me a nights sleep in a bed and some time for contemplation.

Remote working Corona edition, joining our weekly @karrot meeting whilst on a train journey, including a change of trains part way through.

Amazingly my jitsi call and vpn stayed connected the whole time, even when I switched from the onboard train WiFi to my mobile connection.

One example of why I hate how software permissions systems frame things. In our project rocket chat, it says prominently next to my name that I am "Admin" and "Owner".

"Admin" I can kind of accept, as I do have all the permissions as I set it up, but "Owner" really feels wrong and suggests to people joining something really misleading about my role.

(Well, I hope I'm not an Owner, or am I?).

I'm really enjoying some more productive work on @karrot in the last few days with this nice cosy desk setup, thanks to kanthaus for having me here.

I've been adding the first part of custom activity types (pickups, meetings, events, etc.), geoip to show local groups more prominently, saving message drafts, playing with new cool vue state management techniques, and maybe more.

... oh and there was a very scared little mousething in the field, having been deprived of it's nice cover.

It looks pretty chill in the photo, but it seemed like it was about to have a heart attack.

Plenty of large birds circling around. Run little mousething run!

... and I only described the wastage from the carrot top there.

This photo shows a small proportion of the rest that is left behind in the field.

Last week I took part in some gleaning action (actually authorized by the farmer).

The harvesting machinery was still in the field so we got to look how it works.

The machine that first passes chops off the tops, and the next machine pulls them out the ground.

... but it chops off quite a lot off the top that is discarded in the field.

The photo attached shows the worst case I found, others were less bad, but overall a huge amount of edible carrot was still attached to the green bit.

Quite pleased with my tired self for making some food. The neighbour came by yesterday to say another neighbour is in hospital and we can collect pears in his garden, there are more than they can use. I made pear puree I'll eat with museli or yogurt.

And then some bean dip/spread from "cheapest beans in the nice unpackaged shop" (soya, 4€/kg I think) with herbs from the garden (rosemary, thyme, and oregano), olive oil and salt. Yummy!

Some gleaning success! I'm hoping to do a lot more as I cycle past the fields post-harvest. So much food. Hundreds of cabbages and cauliflowers left wasting in the fields I passed in a couple of hours or cycling.

That cabbage is unbelievably huge!

well, I tried!

I put my mastodon profile in the twitter profile box... denied...

Four pictures of poppies I took over the years. I really love poppies, especially when scattered with other plants/flowers on the edge of a field.

A slightly rambling me from yesterday enjoying my last rest stop on the #biketour at a very nice peaceful bench with the setting sun

I saved this haul of food a day or two ago, I've been eating a lot of cheese since...

Despite the very hot weather I've not had any/much food go bad, despite the fact that the supermarket already considered it way too old it can actually keep just about alright in 30+ degree weather for several days.

The weirdest is the salami, it's literally designed to last for ages, but still has a short expiry slapped on it and to the bin! I bet it'll keep for weeks/months still.

#biketour #foodwaste

My touring bike. A Thorn Nomad Mk2 with lots of stuff attached 😀 #biketour