Freecycle:

Our local Freecycle group was in the paper this week.

A copy of the article follows:

AN OCKLEY man is doing his bit to reduce landfill and the idea is catching on. Hedley Phillips moderates the web-based group, MoleValley Freecycle, part of the international Freecycle Network.

The website welcomes postings from anyone with items they want to get rid of, and which they would otherwise throw out. The items are then free to anyone who wants to collect them.

“Recycling is a way of life for me and my family,” said Mr Phillips.

Almost anything can be offered. Since June this year, when Hedley set up the site, computer printers, a wheelbarrow, vacuum cleaners and even a large number of plastic bags have all been advertised and taken.

Perhaps the most unusual posting so far has been several hundred 44-gallon plastic drums from a local farmer.

“Most of those went to a gamekeeper for grain storage,” said Mr Phillips.
It is also possible to request items, though it’s a Freecycle rule that no one asks for anything too valuable.

MoleValleyFreecycle has 200 members. Anyone interested in joining should go to www.freecycle.org and follow the links to the UK.

Moon:

I have always had a love of astronomy and love watching the stars, but up until now this has been through either binoculars or by naked eye.

Until I was given a telescope on Freecycle. It's a Skylux refractor with 700mm focal length.

I had to wait a good while until there was clear sky, but once the clouds had gone, the moon was full and I took some pictures.

This one is not great, I had to hold the camera up to the viewfinder and try not to let it wobble around, next time I will use a tripod for the camera. But, pretty chuffed with the results, and the view through the scope was a 100 times better than this, you could actually see craters and hills on the edge of the moon.

The techncial info on the scope is here:

"It's a proper 70mm F10 achromatic refractor, coated lens, with 2 eyepieces,
star diagonal, 2x barlow, erecting (terrestrial) 1.5x barlow, & finder, AND
it's on a proper German Equatorial mount, on a steady adjustable tripod, with
accessory tray & slow motions on both axes." ...er yeah right, of course.

And for those interested, Lidl (yes the food shop) sell them every year around Nov/Dec for about £59.99 which according to all of the sites I have read is a very good price for a pretty decent scope.

No need to say that I am 'over the moon' with it and now get angry every time it is cloudy at night.

Beating:

Ah,

the first day of beating at our local estate. It was great to see all the old faces again, the usaul beaters banter in the back of the wagon, the smell of wet dog and mud, taking the 'P' out of the guns. Love it!

It was a fairly sedate day, with 4 drives in the morning and just the one after lunch. Finished by 2pm, so had time to do some gardening afterwards.

The guns were ok shots, some of them better than others, although I think a few should have practised during the closed season as they missed some really easy shots. The total was about 120 birds for the day. That's not many between 8 guns. Thankfully it's not one of those pile 'em high shoots.

It started off fine, but around lunchtime a horrible shower came through, while it didn't manage to dampen our spirits, it did make wading through the mustard and sorgam a little tricky.