Balcony Life

My faithful Clematis Alpina.
(Two plants blending together on the trellis on my balcony.)

Sharing with Outdoor Wednesday

Ferns and Fairies

In a recent blog post by Jesh St Germain I came across The Fairy Name Generator, and of course I had to try it. (If you’d like to have a go, you can now also find the generator in my sidebar.)

Letting the widget having a go with my blogging signature, this is what it came up with:

Your fairy name is Bracken Pepperwitch

She plays tricks on small children and old folk.
She lives where bracken and curling ferns grow.
She can only be seen in the enchanted moment
between sleep and waking.
She wears leafy bracken-green
and has autumnal brown wings, like a butterfly.

Must be true magic, because I had already got these recent photos of uncurling ferns waiting in a blog draft:

 

These all grew quite close together on the same side of a little hill… Some just beginning to unfurl, others already opened out.

Sharing with Through My Lens

Shadow Shot Sunday - Tulips

Sharing with Shadow Shot Sunday 2

Weekend Reflections

I seem perpetually unable to keep up lately…

Last weekend, spring decided to go straight on to summer, as fast as possible – unfolding every leaf and blossom, and making people rush to get their their summer clothes out of storage, and put the winter coats away. In the afternoons this week (until yesterday), we had temperatures around 25°C or more. (And on my balcony, in the afternoon sun, too hot to sit there, even with parasols up, some days.)

Three days in a row this week, on my morning walk I passed by this view over the river and the cherry blossom trees in the town park – noticing the colours growing more intense every day!

Monday (9th May)

Tuesday (10th May)

Tuesday (10th May)

Wednesday (11th May)

Yesterday, though, Spring suddenly thought to itself: What am I doing? – and decided to rewind… Not able to make the leaves on the trees fold up again (I think); but drew some clouds over the sun, and dropped the temperature down to 7°C or so today. So I’ve been rummaging for whatever warm sweaters I did not put into seasonal storage… even to wear indoors… and I certainly feel no wish at all today to sit down outside!

Weekend Reflections

Skywatch Friday

Friday My Town

Resurrection(s)

The past week has been totally crazy on the technology front for me: One problem after another.

First it was my mobile phone. It went through a major update last Saturday. The day after it seemed to have come through it unharmed. Although, on second thought, it did seem to get hot rather quickly. But its condition must have got worse over night (while I slept, and assumed the phone was doing the same…). On Monday morning, when I tried to wake it up,  it complained about not being able to find the SIM-card; and it kept getting overheated and restarting itself spontaneously every few minutes. To force it to turn off completely I had to use a special hidden button to be pressed in by the end of a paperclip or something. (And to find that option, I first had to find and read the manual…)

So the next few days were spent trying to find info on what might be wrong and how one might try to fix it or if I would have to send it in somewhere, or… According to my mobile operator the SIM card was still valid, with both time and money left. I could have ordered a new card, but I wasn’t feeling at all sure that it was the card that was the problem. I found a computer app that might be used to repair the phone software, but before using that, I had to make sure I really knew all my relevant account settings; or I might end up in even bigger trouble than I already was.

This, in turn, made me realize what a mess of accounts and user names and passwords and email addresses and mobile phone numbers that have come to rule our (internet) lives… (Including the fact that some accounts want to use text messages for verification codes. Which may seem practical as long as the phone is working, and the number correct. But if not…) So made a promise to myself that if I got through the present troubles, then I’m going to do a major review of all my accounts try to get some better consistency into it all…

It wasn’t until Thursday morning that I felt ready and alert enough to finally let Xperia Companion have a go at repairing the phone. The operation went well, though. The patient was resurrected and all vital functions restored. Connection to the SIM-card re-established, and no more hot flushes and fainting. Most apps returned automatically as well. (It does involve a bit of manual “rehab” to restore various settings though.)

So I was happy for a while (a few hours!), and then felt encouraged by my success to also look into another problem. It was my ‘smart’ TV that had somehow disconnected itself from the internet, and now claimed it could not find it again. (Watching ordinary TV was ok though, so I put that problem aside while working on solving the more urgent phone issue.)

While I was looking for solutions to this, the TV told me to press a button on my router. So I did. Unfortunately I probably held the button down a bit longer than I was supposed to; with the result that the router was reset to default, and instead of connecting the TV, erased the whole home network and left all my other wifi devices without internet access as well… Except the PC (laptop), because I have that on cable in the study. (Which proved there was nothing wrong with the internet cable as such.)

I decided I needed  a night’s sleep before I tried resetting the router (as I also had to read up on how to – and make sure I knew the right settings, and so on and so forth)…

Right ho. This morning after breakfast I tackled the task, managed to find the required websites and and manuals and my notes from last time… moved the laptop to the living room, connected it to the router, managed to log in, supply the relevant data and so on, and recreated the network. All the devices happily reconnected themselves - except the TV…

Then, from somewhere at the back of my mind, I recalled that there is a restart function on the TV itself.  It’s been a while since I had to use it, so I hadn’t thought of it… It involves (surprise! – or rather, no surprise) holding down a button longer than usual… I did, and voilà. Another miracle. (TV reconnected immediately.)

Lesson learned: You really have to be very careful with how to press buttons. One second more or less may seem unimportant, but for a wifi appliance it may be a question of life or ‘death’…

Meanwhile, outdoors, nature seems to have successfully updated itself to Full Spring... Sunny, warm, and the birch trees exploding with pollen... (Achoo!) (Yes, I’m allergic.)