One lives in hope. If my tv had its own voice it would probably have said ‘I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that’. Funny how one always expects electronic goods of any sort to start channeling HAL when things go wrong. Blue or Yellow made no odds. Change channel, turn off, turn back on, message in black box. So I thought maybe it’s imminent and therefore necessary that I do something right now. So I Googled when the digital switchover was due putting in my postcode and noticed that my house name or number was also requested. A little strange, so I made use of the ‘Why do you need this?’ link only to be told that the results would be a lot more accurate if I input this detail.

Now I’m no expert on public transmitters, digital or otherwise, but I have the sneaking suspicion that, unless you live on a road the length of the M3 the number of your house isn’t going to make that much difference to which transmitter you are getting your signal from. This suspicion was born out when the results came back saying ‘The Rowridge transmitter in the Meridian TV region is your most likely transmitter.’ So much for accuracy.

Expecting the changeover date to be that night because of the insistence of my tv, I was a little surprised to see that it was in March 2012. A horrible thought then dawned on me, what if this was going to happen every time I changed channel or switched on until Spring next year? Fortunately it seemed that there was to be no repeat the following day, or the day after. One cannot help but have the sneaking suspicion that the black box may be appearing again before we are launched into the digital wonderland next March. One last little point to give us all the feeling this will all go fine and dandy is a note on the Digital UK website which says “You won’t see these messages if you already watching digital TV (e.g Sky TV, Freview or another) or if your aerial is pointing at another transmitter that will switch at a different time.” That worked then and nice to know they can spell ‘Freeview’. Details such as they are below.

It was announced earlier today that The Torch would travel to within ten miles of 90% of the population during its roughly 8000 mile journey. You have to wonder how they do it, I suspect dark arts, or at least Google Maps. Actually at times they seem to be the same thing. Wonder if Google will sponsor it. They could put a camera in The Torch and update a whole bunch of their spy camera Street View images at the same time. I’ve been expecting a knock on the door any time with them offering untold amounts of dosh for my insightful marketing ideas for a while now. Strange it hasn’t happened yet though…

Anyways, for more information than you probably care for on the subject, the Blessed Beeb have the dope on it at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15572381

But if you’re looking for info on whether it’s going to come down your road, don’t hold your breath. At least not unless you can hold it until ‘later in 2012′ which is when the detailed map comes out.

Not suprisingly there is a Wikipedia (aka always utterly, utterly true) entry just on that one guitar. However if you view it any romantic ideas of one man, one guitar are quickly dispelled. Lucille is many. And some weren’t even Gibsons, oh the horror. I guess if you’re not into guitars then that won’t make any sense to you, but at least I didn’t start on about whether the guitar had  a Tune-o-matic bridge or a TP-6 stop tailpiece. It does amuse me how intense some guitarists get about the techie side of things. I’m not one of them, if it sounds right then it is right as far as I am concerned. So get to the point I hear you say. OK, I will.

For I while now, well since I made the mistake of looking on the Dean Guitars website, I have been somewhat enamoured with one of their acoustic guitars. Watching the documentary about the bloke from House and his blues music I saw him play the exact same model. Sounded mighty fine. But still costs money for those of us who aren’t sufficiently gifted or high-profile to have one with our own signature printed on it given free by the kindly manufacturers. But a chance to sell one of my current guitars came up and so taking the plunge I got the object of my desires and sold my previous BFF. Best Friend Forever if you’re not down with da kidz. Whatever.

Which got me thinking. I also own a Fender 12 string electro acoustic JG12CE-12 (image below) which would get played more if there were more blue moons. As it stands it is therefore not only surplus to requirements, it is also an asset. So anyone with 300 of the Queens pounds gets the guitar along with a pretty decent hard case and I get to wonder what delights I can purchase in the music shop next visit. Now that I think you will agree is what we call an equitable agreement. If interested, use the Contact page to send me a message. If not interested, find someone who is and pass it on. Simples.

Following on from that, I must have therefore unknowingly recently used the services of a member of the Techie Magic Circle. Now I don’t know for certain that there is such an august body, but a flawed use of logic suggests there has to be. Anyway, Wife wanted a iPod with all the trimmings on a budget, which could be an iPhone without a valid Sim card. As luck would have it, good friend had an iPhone which had a broken Home button, thus rendering it if not unusable, at least the most frustrating bit of tech he owned and had ditched it at upgrade time. If you have an iPhone, just consider how annoying it would be to have to turn it off and on every time you wanted to switch apps. Not nice.

Enter second friend on Facebook who had broken their iPhone screen and had it repaired in short time for reasonable amount of money i.e. not by Apple. Glowing recommendation for something called corePhone which having all lower case before the Phone bit of the name obviously had to be the real deal. Short email conversation and I was off to Whiteley to get said vagrant iPhone sorted for the very reasonable sum of two £20 promissory notes from the Bank of England. Fixed, tested and now returning home with regularity, that counts I think as a result. Should you require similar help, not just with iPhones, take a look at their website corePhone or call them on 07771 868346. I don’t get anything for this, I just happen to think Apple have a tendency to over-charge and corePhone works.

Having recently had an upgrade to a tad over 10Mbits broadband, I wanted more! So having seen BT’s new series of adverts for fibre-optic broadband I went in search of yet higher speeds. No dice. Lymington (01590) isn’t on the horizon yet, let alone in the centre of the great fibre-optic constellation. So what to do? Well if you are on the Lymington exchange and would like to see even faster than ‘up to 20Mbits’ then you need to vote. No, really. Regrettably few have yet, so get your skates on and go to The Race to Infinity. Yes I know it sounds like something from Toy Story, but if up to 40Mbits broadband appeals, you know what to do.

Having put in a wildlife pond last year, we were delighted to see that the local wildlife had taken the hint and pretty much choked up one end with frogspawn. Our excitement retreated a tad when we went through that short sharp cold snap after we’d been lulled into a false sense of security. I have to confess I have never seen frozen frogspawn before and it wasn’t boding well for Frogs: The Next Generation.

Goes to show what I know. We now have hundreds and hundreds of elongated commas swimming around the pond, and we spotted the most likely culprit when a fairly large frog surfaced only to take fright and crash dive. So a quick census ensued and we concluded that we have enough tadpoles to remake that Star Trek episode with the Tribbles only with tadpoles. Except it would be under water so maybe it would be 20 Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, or in our case a couple of inches under the pond surface. Anyway, there’s an awful lot of them.

As of today it looks like there are a few less as we seem to have a newt moved in as well. A newt with a fondness for tadpoles. And I don’t mean liable to adopt them either. Ah well, as the circle of life goes on, we now have quite a number of snails which we think were seeded when we got some pond water from a friend to accelerate the balancing of the water. Just after the frogspawn was laid, they were gently grazing the spawn so what with the newt and all, we’re beginning to realise why frogs lay quite so many eggs. They have joined a number of pond skimmers and something that looks like an aquatic wood louse, although we don’t think they are involved in culling the tadpoles.

Whisper it quietly, but when the little frogs finally get big enough to leave the pond, they may face yet another ‘life challenge’. In London we had a wildlife pond, frogs came, spawned and we had half a plague full of tiny frogs. As Tiny Cat was still around at the time, and was pretty quick, he was inclined to have some sport with them. Yes we sat him down and explained the issues involved, but since he was a cat, he didn’t get it and continued in his merry way. We still have our other cat, and truth be told she was more likely to suffocate them by sitting on them being somewhat over weight at the time. She is now quite svelte, so it depends on whether her lack of frog hunting ability was size related or just a matter of genetic makeup. For the frogs’ sake you have to hope the latter.

If we get any more wild life in the pond we may have to build an extension or else we may be done for wilfully overcrowding a pond. In the meantime our expectation is a visit from either Kate Humble, Ray Mears or David Attenborough is merely moments away.

*Cough*. Back from sepia-tinted revery. They really have to be commended on how far they have come, and if you listen you’ll realise that not only will they be shortly broadcasting in FM, they have plans for a video channel. Of course if I was any kind of a proper writer, I’d have asked them where that would be. Probably not Sky HD, but may be their own YouTube channel? No doubt we will hear when we need to know.

Now they have moved to the new HQ in Lymington (yay) all is go and the magic number has been confirmed as 96.9FM by Ofcom. If you are feeling just a tad left out that you didn’t know all the Park FM news, why not become a fan of their Facebook page . It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s oh so now! If you don’t have a Facebook account then you’ll wonder what the heck I’m on about. But then I’m told that’s quite a normal reaction when I communicate, so don’t feel bad.

Just in passing, listened to Louisa and Stephen yesterday afternoon, nice job guys. So back to the plot. They have beautifully crafted six hours of special programmes, featuring archive interviews from over the last 12 months, so lend an ear tomorrow (Tuesday) and listen to a little bit of history!

Anyway, the point in mentioning any of this is that they have just been granted a licence to broadcast by Ofcom. The normal persons version of this is they get to send their programs over the airways as well as online, thus giving the New Forest an easily accessible community broadcaster. Good news in my book.

Cat Lake, Managing Editor for NFCM, said: “This is a great reward after two-and-a-half years of hard work.  This licence will enable us to operate a full FM radio service serving the New Forest which brings local communities together. ” Seeing as one of the charms of the New Forest, the many small communities also creates one of it’s biggest problems, viz communication, The Park looks to be a good fit. What’s more having talked with some of the Park people, I have not doubt that their concern to promote community interaction within the Forest is entirely genuine.

If you need proof that it’s A Good Thing, then the fact that the leaders of both Hampshire County Council and New Forest District Council agree has to lend credence being as how their respective organisations normally agree on so many things…. they were even at the opening of the station together. But regardless of whether you live in the area, or are one of the numerous visitors to this site contemplating a move here, go to the listen again section of the website and check out some of the guests from the breakfast show. It’ll be informative and who knows, you might even learn something you didn’t know.

The Park’s strapline is “Community radio for the New Forest” and to quote a famous philosopher, it does exactly what it says on the tin.

We had one of those easy walks books which seem to have been written by a not so retired SAS sergeant major, but it seemed straight forward enough. I have mentioned before to beware of books that use trees as landmarks, particularly if they are over a couple of years old. Well here’s another proviso. If the book doesn’t define what it considers to be a path, with maps drawn by what appears to be a five year old, don’t start on the walk. See the trouble with the country is that lots of other creatures are walking around when humans aren’t and are inclined to make their own paths and not let the SAS sergeant major know so he can ask his five year old to add it to the map. As a consequence of which, you may well find that you miss a path (or two) or count too many paths (or three), and end up somewhere you were neither expecting nor have much knowledge of.

In fact if you continue around a hill too far, it’s just about possible you might end up going in the wrong direction. Now I’m not saying that is what happened, but I am grateful that there was a straight road that we could orientate ourselves to from the five year olds map. And march along in the wrong direction. Of course if we had gone the right way we wouldn’t have met the very friendly elderly couple in their camper van parked up having a cup of tea. And wouldn’t have been offered a lift back to the car by them. Mind you we may well have managed to get back to the car ourselves in that time, but it’s nice to meet new people isn’t it? The view will have to wait for another day.

Well actually we started with lunch at the Rising Sun on Tiptoe Road north of Bashley. In my experience a pint and a Plough persons lunch all round sets you up for a good yomp, and although acceptable it was never going to match the Plough persons lunch of gargatuan proportions we enjoyed several years ago in the Fleur de Lys, Pilley. It is the yardstick by which all other Plough persons lunches will be gauged, and my suspicion is that none will quite measure up.

So suitably fortified we started off on what was promised to be a gentle 2 or so mile walk through the forest and a nearby Inclosure. Now just a word to the wise, when you are walking from a guide book, read at least two sentences ahead from where you think you are. It will stop you having to backtrack along a road you should have turned off several hundred yards back. I’m just saying….

GUIDES FROM AMAZONPub Walks Along the Solent WayPub Walks for the Family in Hampshire and the New ForestPocket Pub Walks The New Forest Waterside Walks in Hampshire (Waterside walks) The New Forest National Park: Leisure Walks for All Ages (Jarrold Short Walks Guides) The Solent Cruising Companion

So anyway, many small ponies and a flying display  of Swifts (I think) later, we were told to look out for a ‘small stand’ of trees. Hmm. See trouble is if you use trees as a navigational aid in the forest, there is some room for misinterpretation. This is where tip number two comes in. Look at the front of the guide book before you start and see when it was last printed. This will give you some idea of whether a small stand of trees is likely to have become half a plantation. It will also tell you whether travelling along the river bank is likely to be possible without the aid of a machete, which in our case it was most definitely not. We did however learn that the mud didn’t come over the top of your boots if you kept moving fast enough, that Adders can grow rather longer than we had thought, and there is a beautiful tiny pink speckled orchid growing commonly in the area. This is after all the reason for country walks, that and being able to feel self-righteous about the healthy way you have spent the afternoon.

I guess we’ll just have to do it again next time they visit. It’s tough, but I like to support the local publicans when I can.

So having goaded the clouds with a sea wall walk on Saturday and found them only too willing to offload a considerable amount of water in our general direction, we opted for a more inland walk for Sunday. The reasoning being that trees equal cover if it all goes pear-shaped.

The Set Thorns inclosure near Sway is worth a wander around as it is a little more diverse than some we have visited, actually having a couple of hills in the Great Ashen Bank and the Oaken Brow. It is possible to wander into the camp-site situated on the Burley road side, but equally easy enough to avoid it if you know it’s there. This inclosure has the advantage of broad stone paths as well as muddy sidetracks, so whatever your bent short of fell-walking you should be happy. In fact on a previous visit, wife and I were somewhat surprised to see a lady taking her dogs for a walk with her motorised buggy.

Anyway with fair winds and just the suspicion of sun as we drove out, it looked like the wet weather gear might not be called into service, that is until we parked at the entrance and it started persisting down as if it had a quota to meet. Nothing daunted, we donned our trusty waterproofs and set out. One of the things I like about this particular inclosure is that you can wander in and out of it, taking in short tracts of Forest should you wish. More by instinct than design this is what we ended up doing. Strangely for the last weekend in the Easter holidays, we found few other walkers out to enjoy the bracing fresh air, well only three including one with a dog in fact. What we also found is that a lot of thought has to be given to where you intend walking if you decide to go downhill and walk along any hollows. Oh and it helps to have a rudimentary knowledge of which flora prefers to grow in excessively damp areas, although to be entirely honest, it would have been pretty tricky to have found anything that wasn’t an excessively damp area that particular walk.

Having traversed enough mud to fuel a serious attempt on the world mud pie making record, and as if to mock us when we finally decided to head back to the car over the top of the Great Ashen Bank, the sun comes out. Although it did make for somewhat warmer walking than is strictly preferable since we were engaged in a bit of a climb, at least we were treated to the vision of clouds of water vapour climbing skywards were the sun hit the soaked vegetation. All a bit Jurassic Park, though fortunately without any T-Rex sightings.

A bit of history. The inclosures are the timber plantations of the New Forest and those that survive today date from 1700 to 1968. There are two types, Statutory inclosures and the Verderer’s inclosures, with Statutory inclosures being the only areas in the New Forest where commercial forestry is practised. Though allowed in certain inclosures in the past, commoner grazing is no longer allowed in inclosures. They are now subject to various plans and initiatives which broadly seek to promote biodiversity and conservation. Hope that makes it clear then.