Scythe: My Reference

Posted on by Al

Game

  • first turn: place your action token in a column and optionally take top action then optionally take bottom action
  • subsequent turns: move action token and repeat (i.e. can’t do same action twice in a row – unless you’re red star faction with Relentless ability)
  • Top Actions
    • Trade
      • Pay 1 coin to Gain 2 Resources or Gain 2 Popularities
      • If Armory built, Gain 1 Fighting power
    • Bolster
      • Pay 1 coin to Increase Fighting Power / Gain Combat Card
      • If Monument built, Gain 1 Popularity
    • Move/Gain
      • Move Units or Gain Coins
      • If Mine Built, use it
    • Produce
      • Pay cost shown (increases as you place workers) for workers in 2/3 (3/4 with Mill) territories to Produce on the terrain they’re in – 1 resource per worker:
        • Mountain – Metal
        • Farm – Food
        • Tundra – Oil
        • Forest – Wood
        • Village – Worker
      • If Mill built, produce there too
  • Bottom Actions
    • Upgrade – Pay Oil to Upgrade = Move cube from the top to bottom(, Gain Coin(s))
    • Deploy – Pay Iron to Deploy any Mech(, Gain Coin(s)) – mech appears in a hex with a worker
    • Build – Pay wood to Build a Structure(, Gain Coin(s)) – building appears in a hex with a worker, 1 structure limit per hex
    • Enlist – Pay food to Enlist (move one token brom bottom action area to the faction mat)(, Gain Coin(s))
      • Gets 1 time bonus from faction mat, ongoing bonus when neighbours do corresponding actions
  • Placement of 6th star immediately ends the game

During Play

  • Place stars for (10 options, 6th placement ends the game):
    • All 6 upgrades
    • All 4 mechs
    • All 4 structures
    • All 4 recruits
    • All 8 workers
    • 1 completed objective
    • Win combat (first time)
    • Win combat (second time)
    • reach 18 popularity
    • reach 16 power
  • Enlisted bonuses
    • Upgrade – gain 1 fighting power and pay attention if players on left/right upgrade
    • Deploy – gain 1 coin and pay attention if players on left/right deploy
    • Build – gain 1 popularity and pay attention if players on left/right build
    • Enlist – gain 1 combat card and attention if players on left/right enlist
  • Deployed mech bonuses (apply to mechs and character)
    • All: Riverwalk – travel across rivers to certain terrains
    • All: Speed – +1hex per movement
    • Underpass – move between controlled mountain and any tunnel
    • Disarm – before combat on a territory with a tunnel, opponent gets -2
    • Township – move between controlled villages or the factory
    • Peoples army – play an extra combat card if a worker is present
    • Seaworthy – move to/from lakes. Retreat into adjacent lakes
    • Artillery – before compat, pay 1 power for opponent to lose 2 power
    • Wayfare – move to any non-opponent home base
    • Scout – Before combat steal 1 combat card from opponent
    • Submerge – enter and move between lakes
    • Camaraderie – don’t lose popularity forcing opponent worker retreat
  • Faction bonuses
    • Dominate – no limit to objectives/combat stars
    • Relentless – can repeat same action as previous turn
    • Swim – workers may cross rivers
    • coercion – spend a combat card as a resource (once per turn)
    • Meander – pick up to 2 options per encounter card
  • Movement
    • Standard move action: move 2 different units 1 territory each
    • All units may carry any/all resources with them as they move
    • Mechs can pickup/drop off workers too
    • Movement ends for combat (including workers simply retreating), encounter, factory card
  • Combat
    • Select power value
    • Optionally add 1 card per unit involved
    • Winner gets territory (and resources if any) and places star
    • Winner loses 1 popularity for each worker forced into retreat (i.e. they were attacker)
    • Loser retreats units to home base and gains 1 combat card if they revealed more than 0
  • Encounters
    • Move character into hex with encounter token, take a card, choose a bonus
  • Factory
    • Center hex is worth 3 hex at end game scoring
    • If character ends turn in factory take a factory bonus card
  • Factory bonus card actions
    • Top action (one of):
      • Pay 1 popularity, Gain 1 Enlist or 1 Upgrade
      • Pay 2 coin, Gain 1 Upgrade and 1 Popularity
      • etc
    • Bottom action (all have):
      • Move 1 unit twice within the same move action (move 3 spaces if speed mech ability unlocked)

Gain Points From

  • Coins in hand
  • Structure bonus tile
  • Ranking on popularity track affects coins gained per count of:
    • Stars placed – 3/4/5 coins
    • Territories controlled – 2/3/4 coins
    • Per 2 resources – 1/2/3 coins

Tips

  • Start of game
    • familiarise yourself with your factions mech abilities
    • familiarise yourself with your factions bottom action costs/rewards (coins)
    • familiarise yourself with your factions special ability
    • familiarise yourself with the Structure bonus tile
  • Try to get both top and bottom actions as frequently as possible
  • Popularity is important for the multiplier – gain it from
    • Trade (top action)
    • Place monument to reveal gain popularity icon
    • Enlist from the Build action to reveal gain popluarity from neighbour bonus
  • Focus on points: popularity multiplier and winning stars/controlling territories
  • Basic strategy: spread out gaining territories while working towards stars
  • Lots of ways to get stars, choose which ones to ignore and which to focus on
    • Some are quicker than others (e.g. 4 mechs vs 6 upgrades)
  • Upgrade(s) can make it so that the top actions Trade/Produce can pay for their bottom actions all in the same turn
  • Build structures to keep control of a territory
  • Leave mechs defending workers/territory/resources
  • Get first 3 workers out early (target village first turn)
  • Combat cards and power track are only good for combat, no end game bonus
  • The same unit can’t use more than 1 move action per round (Speed mech bonus increases range, factory card gives double move action, double move +speed = 3 hex)
  • Add multiple units into combat to play multiple combat cards
  • Factory card facilitates consecutive movements
  • In combat, when forfeiting, playing 0 points, but 1 combat card will earn you a new combat card and lose no points

Rise & Fall: My Reference

Posted on by Al

Game

  • setup
    • builds a map – pay attention as starting location choice is critical
    • place 1 city, 1 ship, 1 nomad
  • turn
    • everyone place a card face down, reveal it simultaneously
    • go round in turn order doing an action for each piece on the board that matches your card
  • end of turn
    • Decline – dicard a card for each trophy won during the round
    • Decline buy back – cost shown on Trophy Board – limit of 1 buy back per round
    • if you’re out of cards pick up your dicard pile, advance first player token

During Play

NomadMountaineerMerchantShipCityTemple
Movement134any water
move across iceNoYesNo
move across cliffNoYesYes
move through enemiesNoNoYes
can stop in citiesNoNoYes
Produce wood/stoneYesYes (including glacier)No
Construct a city1 wood, 1 Stone2 Wood (not in plains)1 Stone
Construct a temple2 Stone2 Stone
Construct a ship1 Wood1 Wood
Become a NomadFree
Become a Merchant2GP
Spawn a nomadFree
Convert nomad to Merchant-2GP
Convert nomad to Mountaineer-1GP
Tax itself+1/2/3GP
Trade+3GP/coastal city+5GP/enemy, +3GP friendly
Trade with BankBuy/Sell for 5GP
Convert enemy Nomad-2GP
Convert enemy Mountaineer-3GP
Convert enemy Merchant-5GP
Convert enemy Ship-5GP
Tax friendly neighbours+2GP each
  • limit of 5 wood, 5 stone per player
  • Get a trophy for placing all units of a particular type
    • Triggers a 1 card Decline at end of round from each player
  • As your unit types join/leave the game add/remove their corresponding card to/from your hand

Gain Points From

  • Area control (most units in an area – draws are lost)
    • Plains – 1VP
    • Sea – 2VP
    • Forest – 3VP
    • Mountain – 4VP (includes glacier in area)
  • Each Active card (not reserve/decline)
    • Score for number of pieces in play
  • 1VP for each 2GP
  • Trophies

Tips

  • Keep enough money to buy cards out of decline – 2 trophies in 1 round can wipe a player out of the game
    • Starting position tips
    • spread out
    • aim for wood/stone
    • avoid neighbours (avoid being fenced in)
    • look for areas to monopolise that others won’t get to easily (on edges surrounded by cliffs/glaciers)
  • Early on quick expansion: nomads to cities to spawn nomads
    • has risk of no money to buy cards out of decline
  • City spawning nomad is the main way to add pieces to the board (only other way is temple converting enemy)
  • Leave spawned nomads by their spawning city to immediately convert to Merchant/Mountaineer
  • Mountaineer not that useful – only needed for traversing ice/ice mining – only converts out to a city
  • To spread out across water:
    • coastal city -> spawn nomad -> convert to ship -> travel away -> create coastal city/temple
  • To spread out across land:
    • coastal city -> spawn nomad -> convert to merchant -> travel away -> convert to ship -> optional travel away -> create coastal city/temple
  • Get a merchant in a nest of cities for big trade income
  • Get multiple ships in water with many coastal cities for big trade income
  • Early focus should be on getting cities out

Terra Mystica: My Reference

Posted on by Al

Game

  • start of each game, and after passing each round, choose a bonus scroll
  • unused scrolls get 1 coin added at the start of each round
  • Get income from hand palm up symbol (most are covered by buildings)
  • Play actions until you can’t then pass – passing order becomes play order of next round
    • transform and build (indirectly adjacent – i.e. connected with shipping or other faction ability)
    • upgrade a structure
      • when building or upgrading: other players directly adjacent tiles (includes bridges) trigger purple power income equal to their tile value. Owner has to lose vp equal to their purple power income minus one (e.g. gain 4 purple power, lose 3 VP)
      • trading house upgrade cost is cheaper if directly adjacent to another player
    • advance shipping track
    • upgrade spade exchange rate
    • send a priest to priest track
      • priest track can grant purple power
    • purple power market
    • use and yellow/orange hex action
  • Free action
    • spend purple power for a priest, worker or coin
    • downgrade a priest to worker and/or worker to coin

During Play

  • get a town for 4 directly adjacent structures with a value of at least 7
    • town can be build with just 3 tiles if one of them is the sanctuary
    • town gives a key to lock in top spot of a priest track
    • bridges can be used for directly connecting over water
      • this is their only use
      • they’re only available from the purple power market
  • get a favour tile for building a temple or sanctuary
  • end of each round gives a bonus powered by the priest track

Gain Points From

  • each round has a bonus scoring option
  • bonus for forming a town
  • advancing the shipping track
  • advancing the spade exchange rate track
  • end game bonus for largest count of connected tiles (indirectly adjacent)
  • end game bonus for ranking on priest tracks

Tips

  • at start of game digest your factions dig track and the good spots on the board to start in – starting areas are important
    • you want neighbouring tiles that are cheap to convert
    • you want other players nearby for purple power bonuses and cheaper upgrades
    • edges can be dangerous as you can be fenced in
    • overpopulation can be dangerous as you can be fenced in
  • at start of game digest which rounds give which scoring bonuses, in particular:
    • 5 points for towns
    • 5 points for stronghold/sanctuary
    • 3 points for trading house
  • at start of game digest which rounds give which end of round priest track bonuses, in particluar:
    • 1 coin for each brown
    • 1 worker for 2 red/2 silver
  • Purple power is important
    • sacrifice 1 purple power in bowl 2, to move a purple power from bowl 2 to 3
    • reduce purple power early on to use the market asap
    • with fewer purple power tokens they move around the bowls quicker
    • the purple power market is powerful
    • being first in the player order gives first access to the purple power market
  • focus on getting quantity of buildings out early on – uncovered buildings are income, this is the engine
  • stronghold upgrade early can be worthwhile depending on the faction
  • target the priest track in the second half of the game – many points live there
  • some favour tiles have added value early on:
    • give points for building or points at end of round for buildings
    • action space to advance priest track
    • reduce town power requirement to 6 (lot’s of points in towns, can be a strategy to try to build many)
    • extra income (power, worker, coin)

Castles of Burgundy: My Reference

Posted on by Al

Game

  • roll 2 dice (3 if you’re the lead player)
  • using number on dice to do 2 actions
    • buy a tile from the corresponding market into your holding area
    • place a tile from your holding area onto a corresponding slot on your board
    • sell corresponding goods from your crate area (gain 1 silver and each worth 4 at the end)
    • without needing corresponding: gain 2 workers (can be used to +/- 1 from your action dice)
  • Free action during your turn (max once per round)
    • spend 2 silver to buy a tile from the black market in the middle

During Play

When playing tiles onto your board you gain bonuses:

  • mines – give you silver at the end of each round – target these early on
  • tiles for extra actions from:
    • have an extra action (pretend you have another dice of any number) – castle
    • have an extra action using the white dice number – white castle
    • gain extra tiles from market – carpenter, church, market
    • place a tile on your board – town hall
  • monastries
    • keep an eye on which bonuses are on offer
  • farms
    • keep an eye on which animals have been/gone
  • ships
    • get you goods and advance up the shipping (turn order) track
  • other tiles
    • get 2 silver – bank
    • get 4 workers – boarding house
    • get 4 VP – watchtower
    • sell 2 type of good – warehouse

Gain Points From

  • completing areas – the earlier the era for more points
  • being the first/second to complete all areas of a colour gets bonus chit
  • being the first/second to link the 3 castles around the edges of the board gets a bonus chit
  • sold goods are worth 4 points each
  • building a farmland of similar animals adds up (1 point per matching animal, each time you add/expand the farm)

Tips

  • mines have their own colour on the board
  • don’t mix up yellow monastry and beige building
  • roll the white dice too if you’re first player
  • In a 4 player game the goods don’t stay in the market area for long
  • at the start of each era read the power ups on offer from the monastry tiles in the market
    some are really good (1 silver for 2 workers)
  • some work well with others (2 workers for 1 building)
  • get some for bonus scoring at the end
  • 2 of the same building types (beige) can’t be in the same area as eachother (e.g. 2 banks)
    Inns expand an area by a bonus 1 – best used within bigger areas for bigger bonuses
  • Look for shipping opportunities to get goods that stack so that 1 selling action gets multiple tiles scoring
  • Look to sell goods that match covered bonus tiles on the trade route (sell a stack to cover multiple bonus tiles – they unstack)
  • Try to place tiles in a way that there are a range of numbers and colours connecting to keep options open

Exploding Kittens Review

Posted on by Al

I got Exploding Kittens on an impulse buy yesterday … I’m really disappointed as it is so overpriced!

I feel like a mug – I just paid £18 for 56 cards in a box.

Gameplay is basic. No strategy. I guess if you’re really into Oatmeal style humour there may be some value but I still wouldn’t want to pay more than £5.

My advice: don’t believe the hype and get Uno, Uno Flip, or one of the many Flux games instead.

★

Stadia thoughts

Posted on by Al

I tried Stadia at the start of Lockdown#1 – around the middle of April 2020. I didn’t play huge sessions but I had a go of GRID for about 2 hrs and Destiny for about 4 hrs.

I had low expectations but I was really surprised at how good it was. Fair enough I was only running at 1080p but it ran really well. There was no input lag at all.

Given this good experience I convinced 2 friends to try it out too and they also reported that it was as if they were running it locally with no input lag.

That being said – there’s no way I’m going to pay for it! The selection of games for a subscription based service just isn’t there. Furthermore I’m not sure the model really works for the way I play games. I tend to play the same game for many many hours – it just makes sense to buy it rather than pay monthly.

It is interesting that the technology does work though – I can imagine this could change the shape of gaming in 5 to 10 years but not until they fix the pricing model. Certainly nVidia Now has a more appealing offer. I could see how gamers could transition to it as the hardware demands of new games surpass their current rigs.

Why are my radiators not hot?

Posted on by Al

I’m not proud about this one and feel rather stupid but I’m going to share it anyway – it may help someone avoid falling foul of the same stupidity that I did.

I’ve seen adverts (by British Gas I think) whereby the elderly lady is getting help to save energy over the phone and she follows the instruction and turns down her boiler. I internalised this and one summers day turned down my boiler. You can see where this is going can’t you?

So the following winter my radiators weren’t hot and I was scratching my head. I checked the hot water cylinder thermostat was working, the 3-way valve, the Nest control hub, the individual thermostatic radiator valves, I bled all the radiators, I balanced the system.

Then, Eureka! I realised that the dial on the front of the boiler wasn’t a simple “use more or less energy for the same result” dial. It is actually, like most other controls in a heating system, driven by temperatures. In this case it tells the boiler how hot to get the water flowing through it.

So, if it’s in a middling setting my radiators will only get to a middling temperature and they won’t heat the house effectively and, therefore, the heating will be on all of the time because it’s never warm enough. By dialing it up to a higher setting, what do you know, the radiators get warmer! The house gets warmer! Not only a bit warmer but it actually gets to a temperature whereby the house is warm enough and the heating turns off!

If I had the time I’m the sort of person who would like to do some experiments and understand what the optimal setting is. Too hot and, no doubt, there will be a point of diminishing returns. Too cold and, as I now know all too well, the house doesn’t warm up and the heating ends up being on all day.

Anyway – lesson learnt. Hope my sharing of my stupidity helps someone else!

How I got rid of Google

Posted on by Al

For the last couple of years I’ve been gradually removing myself from Google.

Why? Snowden.

Before Snowden I knew, in my heart, that I wasn’t happy with a big company hoovering up data about me (I’d quit Facebook for this very reason).  I’d previously convinced myself that Google was OK and that they would “Do no evil”.  I still believe that of them today, but what about tomorrow.  There’s a great quote which I first encountered due to a post that went viral on metafilter: “If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.“.  Am I happy with Google having my data as the price for using their services?  No, I’m not.

Back on the topic of privacy, I’ve got nothing to hide – that doesn’t mean that my privacy doesn’t matter.  Spend 20 minutes to watch this ted talk on Why Privacy Matters.

So, motivation aside, what have I done?

Well let’s list what I used to use and what I now use:

  • Google Search – Starting with the easiest – I simply switched which search engine I use.  My first search engine is now DuckDuckGo (scroll down on their homepage to learn more about them).  It’s not as good as Google but it’s good enough and getting better all the time.  For the cases that it does let me down I mix and match between bing and google; I realise that’s against the whole point of this post, but I’m ok with it due to the next item in the list …
  • Google Chrome – I switched to Firefox, simple.  AND … I got some plugins.  They’re awesome! The following 3 plugins combine to get rid of all tracking by the likes of Google.
    • uBlock Origin blocks ads, trackers and malware sites.  It’s brilliant.  It blocks around 10% of my browsers requests and I don’t notice a thing.
    • Self-Destructing Cookes – Once you close a tab it’s cookies are deleted (and you can whitelist for sites that you want cookies for).
    • I don’t care about cookies – If you blow up all your cookies you start getting very annoying popups on sites saying “we use cookies, click to acknowledge”.  Well, this plugin stops that nonsense.
  •  Gmail – This is when things start getting more difficult.  To replace a service like gmail when you’ve been so invested in it for over a decade isn’t as simple as switching your browser.  The way I did it was to get my own domain name and run my own email server.  I’ve done this before so it didn’t daunt me but I knew it was going to be a lot of effort.

    • Server – On the server side I’m running a fairly standard Dovecot and Postfix setup.  I put in some extra effort so that accounts and aliases are configured in a mysql database.  Later on I also configured Solr for full text search of email – this was always the killer feature in gmail and I’m more than happy with my substitute.  All of the emails are indexed and searches on them (server-side) take place in milliseconds.  The data migration was a bit of a pain – I used Google Takeout to get all of my emails in one place, then added them to thunderbird and then copied them accross to my email server.  It took a while but it worked.
    • Web client – Nextcloud (owncloud when this all started but that forked and I moved to Nextcloud).  This is a recurring theme on how I replaced google.  In a nutshell it is an open-source piece of software that let’s you host your own private cloud.  There is a comprehensive suite of plugins available, one of which gives you a web client for email.  It’s a nice UI and it does everything I want.
    • Mobile client – I run android and there’s an app called K-9 Mail that meets my needs perfectly.
  • Google Contacts – Nextcloud does this for me.  Synchronisation to my android device is done with an app called DAVdroid
  • Google Calendar – Nextcloud does this for me.  Synchronisation to my android device is also done with DAVdroid
  • Google Photos – Nextcloud does this for me.
  • Google Drive – Nextcloud does this for me.
  • Google Maps – OpenStreetMap is perfectly capable for my needs
  • Google Keep – Nextcloud does this for me.  For tasks the synchronisation to my android device is also done with DAVdroid
  • Google+ – I stopped using it.  This took a bit of thinking about but in the end I realised that an online social network has never actually made my life any better.
  • Google Android – The problem with the android phone you buy in a shop is that it comes with “Google Play Services” already on there.  This gives google full access to everything on your phone – eek.  The good news is that underneath this software there is the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) which other developers have taken and made awesome without the Google octopus being wrapped around it.  Personally I’ve been running omnirom for the best part of 2 years and I love it.
  • Google Play Services – Running a different rom only solves the first part of the problem with Android.  This problem is deeper than it first appears though.  Some applications depend on you having Google Play Services installed.  Most of these I can live without but there were 2 that this posed a problem for me.  The app I use to control my thermostat at home apparently needs Google Play Services to do it.  So does the app I use to interface with my burglar alarm (I can understand this more as it uses Google Cloud Messaging to push notifications such as “you have an alarm”).  The solution (and this one took a while to get right) was microG.  This is an open-source reimplementation of Google Play Services.  It works perfectly for me 🙂
  • Google Instant Upload – Take a photo and have it uploaded – great idea … and, Nextcloud does this for me 🙂
  • Google Play Store – The place to get apps for an android device.  Nicely substituted by f-droid.  Even better, every app on there is open-source.  This makes me a very happy man.
  • Google Navigation – OsmAnd is a nice app (open source ofcourse) that does navigation on my android.  Good enough for me.
  • Google Reader – I realise this has been gone for a long time but I’ve never found a replacement I’ve been happy with.  I have now, Nextcloud has a plugin that does what I want.

So to recap by turning things on it’s head, this is what I’m running and what it replaces:

  • Ubuntu server
    • Dovecot, postfix, solr – gmail server
    • Nextcloud – Server for contacts, calendar, photos, drive and keep.  Web client for gmail, contacts, calendar, photos, drive, keep
  • Omnirom android – Google android
    • Nextcloud client – instant upload, drive
    • DavDroid – contacts, calendar, tasks
    • K9 – gmail client
    • F-Droid – Google Play Store
    • microG – Google Play Services
    • OsmAnd – Google Navigation
  • NAS – backups.  I have nightly backups running for all of these services, they go across to my NAS which is, in turn, backed up to external drives.
  • My own domain – For a lot of this to work and to run it out of my own home I needed a few extra services (I don’t have a static IP address)
    • No-IP Plus Domain – so that when my IP changes the domain still resolves to me
    • Backup MX – if, for whatever reason, my email server was offline I didn’t want to miss any emails, this sorts that problem out.
    • Alternate-Port SMTP – some email servers will reject email that comes from specific IP address ranges (e.g. domestic).  It’s annoying and wrong but I can’t change it.  This service gets around the problem.
  • Encryption – https achieved thanks to Let’s Encrypt

So here I am, finally Google free.  It’s been a long journey that’s taken the best part of 2 years (yes, I could have been quicker but this was a free-time hobby thing and I don’t get a lot of time for that sort of thing).

It’s sort of a hollow victory now though … during this time our wonderful government in the UK passed a law (nicknamed the “Snooper’s Charter”) that says our ISPs have to store all internet activity for a year.  The cherry on the cake?  It doesn’t apply to our MPs!  Fortunately, for now at least, there’s a way around it.

 

Declutter update 01

Posted on by Al

As an update to my resolution to declutter here are things disposed of:

1/1 Six coasters – never used

2/1 A Guinness tray (checked on ebay – not worth anything)

3/1 (short of time) timer clock wall mount, corner baby proofer, gadget charger

4/1 previous years page-a-day calendars (previously saved for note paper)

5/1 space themed magnetic toy – recently broken but could have been mended

6/1 given the last 3 days weren’t too fruitfull I put in some extra effort: Disposable film camera, spare car key that was cut but never worked, lighter holder, label maker, 7 old wallets, a large bag of old socks, underwear, a t-shirt and a pair of old shoes

7/1 sorted out the “bits and bobs” storage and got rid of a large bag full of all sorts. Eclipse glasses, sky viewing card, £1 coin holder, key ring, poppy seeds etc etc

8/1 tea light holding lantern

9/1 Encyclopedia, Dictionary, Tesaurus

10/1 A dozen CDs with drivers and linux distributions etc

11/1 Went through my wallet and got rid of receipts, expired memberships etc

12/1 A large cup for pop from a theme park

13/1 41 books

14/1 25 DVDs

It’s been going quite well – I haven’t even looked in the garage/shed. This is the easy stuff though, it will get more difficult.

Has there been any benefit? Yes. All the books now fit on the bookshelf instead of being stacked. There is space for more DVDs rather than that space being taken up by junk we won’t watch. There is also a little less clutter in my head, especially after sorting out the bits and bobs. Knowing what I’ve got and where it is removes a tiny mental weight I didn’t know I had.

Lawn Care

Posted on by Al

So I’ve apparently hit a point in my life when lawn care gains relevance.  I didn’t see that coming.

It used to be a chore to cut the grass but, over recent years, it’s become less so.  I thoroughly enjoy spending time with my family, but sometimes it’s also nice to spend time alone … and it doesn’t happen very often any more.  I’ve heard of people talk of a “third place”; the first two are work and home, the magic “third place” is somewhere for oneself. Somewhere to be away from both work and home.  My third place is becoming my lawn.  One of the few activities that will guarantee time without being interrupted (much) is cutting the grass.  Something to do with high speed rotating blades and children with no sense of danger I suppose.

So I’ve found myself, dare I say, enjoying cutting the grass.  That in turn has led to a new pride in seeing little bits of extra effort actually showing improvements.  In 2016 I bought a motorised scarifier and, in Spring and Autumn, I’ve used it to remove moss and thatch from the lawn.  The result has been a much improved lawn.  I’ve also done a couple of “weed and feed” treatments which have also shown visible results.

This success has led me to do a bit of research and I’m going to take things a little bit more seriously.  I’m now the proud owner of a hollow tine aerator and a 16 litre backpack sprayer.  This coming spring I’m all ready to start “the (second) year of the lawn”.  There will be scarifying, aeration, chemical spraying and mowing.

I’m actually looking forward to it.

Sad really.