Life & Times

Despite it raining in Devon almost every day since we moved here in October last year, South West Water is imposing a hosepipe ban on us from 25th April.

Since last summer, our region has been in drought. Low rainfall and high demand have stopped our reservoirs from recovering to levels we would usually see going into the summer. Roadford Lake, our main reservoir in Devon, remains around 27% lower than this time last year, despite the recent rain. To see our latest reservoir levels, please visit our website here.

We must rethink how our utilities are run, as these companies have a monopoly over the consumer. We have no choice over who supplies our water, so they can charge what they like and impose restrictions on the service.

This made me chuckle. Read the A-Z of Tory sleaze here

We need to check the tide times when walking the dog, as it’s easy to get caught on the wrong side of the causeway if we get it wrong.

iPhone 11, Lightroom app, processed in Lightroom Classic 📷

Currently listening to … Multitudes from Feist.

Listen on Spotify 🎶

Why invest in Roon when Apple’s Music (the app, not the service) and Spotify are “free?”

I wanted to use Apple Music to bring all my music into one place, consisting of over 2,000 albums I’ve ripped or purchased that sat on a Synology NAS and music from Apple’s streaming service. Unfortunately, this approach didn’t work because Apple struggled to match my albums with the versions on its servers.

After days spent watching Apple Music processing & uploading, I gave up. The workaround was to have two Apple Music libraries, one for digital files and another for streaming music, which wasn’t an elegant or practical solution.

I own a Naim Uniti Atom, which supports Apple’s service via AirPlay, but Spotify, Tidal and Qobuz are better integrated. I’ve used Spotify for many years and still have a free account, but the continued lack of high-res content left me looking for another provider. I tried Tidal but grew tired of the way they push music I don’t like at me. Ultimately, I settled on Qobuz, and bought a 12-month subscription.

I still didn’t have all of my music in one place. After some research during the Christmas break, I signed up for a 14-day trial of Roon.

As a test, I installed Roon on my MacBook Air, pointed it at a subset of my music collection, added my Qobuz subscription, sat back whilst Roon scanned my music and installed the mobile app on my iPhone and iPad.

Roon must always be on and connected to the Internet to work correctly, so using my MacBook as the Roon server wasn’t a long-term solution. I couldn’t use my Synology NAS as it was in storage between houses, and the spec was too low to support Roon.

As an interim solution, I bought a “previously enjoyed” NUC from eBay. I installed Roon ROCK, which is a dedicated operating system and Roon core with the music files located on an external SSD drive. It’s a relatively old i5 model but came with 16Gb RAM. It sits in the kitchen, next to the router and has never missed a beat.

It manages almost 30,000 tracks across my music and what I’ve saved as favourites in Qobuz.

Use this link for a free 30-day trial, but be warned—it’s addictive.

In Part 2, I’ll talk about some of the benefits of using Roon.

The walk down into Hope Cove, Devon.

iPhone 11, Lightroom app, processed in Lightroom Classic 📷

Listening to … Dub No Frontiers by Adrian Sherwood

This was recommended by i newspaper’s Ian Dunt, who said:

Really well thought-through collection by British producer Adrian Sherwood, who challenges the male-dominated world of reggae with a female-only album. That’s laudable, but this stuff only works where the content is good. What’s extraordinary here is the delicate balance of diversity and consistency. It’s all elegantly produced, emphasising the vocals, but the vocals veer from Mandarin Chinese to Japanese to Hindi. A really impeccable effort.

I couldn’t agree more.

Listen on Spotify 🎶

One of the things I really appreciate about roon is the discovery tab that surfaces music in your library that you haven’t listened to for a while. This is today’s:

🎶

This was the highest tide we’ve experienced since we moved to Aveton Gifford in South Devon.

The stream is usually a few inches deep, but it was over the bridge handrails this morning.

iPhone 11, Lightroom app, processed in Lightroom Classic 📷

Our government and the water companies' lack of effort and urgency about the declining state of our rivers and streams is frustrating. Our rivers are too precious for us to allow them to be polluted by human and farmyard sewage, pesticides and fertilisers.

This is a photo I took of the River Avon near Topsham Bridge, Hendham, Devon. It looks lovely, doesn’t it?

However, according to a report in the Kingsbridge & Salcombe Gazette:

South Hams’ beautiful River Avon is one of 20 rivers nationwide that have been highlighted by the Wildlife Trusts as being at particular risk from pollution

Read the full article here.

Good days work at the allotment. We have the asparagus bed and two rows of broad beans planted. Ten bags of rubbish were taken to the tip. Loads more to do. 🌱

The sun has finally come out in Kingsbridge

We’ve got a dog that thinks he’s a cat 🐕

Please support this campaign by the RSPB to ban the industrial fishing of sandeels in UK waters.

Our threatened seabirds need your help. The UK Government could make the game-changing decision to ban industrial sandeel fishing in English waters.  Please take action today to help make it happen.

Sandeels are massively important for UK sea life. They’re a vital food source for many seabirds, including puffins and kittiwakes, globally threatened with extinction. Every summer, hundreds of thousands of UK birds rely on them to feed their young. But right now, sandeels are under immense pressure.

More information here

After a gap of six months, I’m back on micro.blog. Anything interesting happened while I’ve been away?