140/90

High Blood pressure, or not?
Playing with a blood pressure gadget at home. I  got three readings within a few minutes:
172/93 x77
144/78 x92
111/81 x113
100/63 x 120
Systolic/diastolic x heartrate.
Perhaps best ignore this device.

The standard top measure is 140/90.
If the first readings are right, I have high blood pressure. In order to improve I should:
1 eat less salt,
2 eat more fruit and vegetables,
3 healthy weight,
4 Drink less alcohol,
5 exercise more.
But I cook without salt (and ready meals- never), eat almost only vegetarian, Bmi 23, 1 unit per week average, 10-14 hours exercise each week.
Ignore it?
It’s probably like the bathroom scales. They’re not much use either if you weigh yourself at a different time each day.

Georg Friedrich Haas.

5°C, heavy rain, this morning’s flooding is the worst of the winter here.
Hear and Now – Donaueschingen Musiktage 2015 – @BBCRadio3 “>
Remember how entranced I was by Hans Abrahamsen’s Schnee?
Here is another: Georg Friedrich Haas. It’s the yet unreleased Trombone Octet played on the radio last Saturday.
Full of space, the clean sound is under precise control and unwavering harmony. It times you in the opener, it sounds like school kids playing rather badly. Then it rights itself.

Georg Friedrich Haas

I want a hard copy, but from where?

Clearing John’s effects.

5°C clear light N, chilly.
I missed the funeral but went along to help clear John’s things. Today, all we needed to do was identify what could be kept, sold or disposed of. Stuff will go to jeweller’s, eBay and into our houses.
John was an engineer by trade. He started his career in maintaining Sunderland flying boats. There are dozens of pictures, models and books about that aircraft. Similarly the other passion of his, two Velocette motorbikes. Again, models in display cabinets, magazines and books in every room.
The motorbikes are in beautiful condition and only need a bit of pressure in the tyres. I couldn’t find the pump amongst all the tools however.
Those tools were amazing by themselves, Tig welder, lathes, drill stands and intricate pieces like tap and die sets. That workshop was very cramped. No doubt, John was expert in their use. He wired his own house, a natural thing to do if that’s how your mind works.

In a drawer was this object. It’s probably his apprentice piece. If would have made this when about 19 or 20 years old. That puts it shortly after WWII.

Apprentice piece.

It probably used a compressed air feed to drive it like one of those working model steam engines.
I had one when I was a lad. It vanished when we moved house and still, to this day, I don’t know what happened to it.