My first victim

September 15, 2021 Michael Tyler Comments 0 Comment

For those familiar with the matter…..

I’m a bit of a hunter gatherer type. I like the appeal of free fayre springing up round and about in the countryside, the fresh fruit and vegatables that any tom, dick or harry can pick up for free. Left to grow, cultivate themselves and continue the Saṃsāra of life.

It’s natures way….
Previous posts:
https://www.michaeltyler.co.uk/can-you-eat-fairy-ring-mushrooms/

Wood Pigeon

Imagine my delight when I saw this sight above Bonnie Lady at 7am this morning.

Now I know woodpigeon is very tasty with new potatos, fresh vegatables, maybe a little gravy and beans.

Like all the other things in nature this one was free, fresh and organic.

Unlike meats we buy in the supermarket, this one had had a free and gainful life around the countryside; flying, mating, eating the farmers crops, just doing the general things that pigeons do.

A gainful existance.

Free.

Bird on a wire

I am the owner of an S410, which for those who don’t know, is an air rifle.

It’s quite a good air rifle. Probably the best air rifle, certainly at one point in time.

It’s a PCP, which means compressed air fueled. Like a bullet rifle, there is no cocking of barrels and compressing of springs as with a traditional air rifle.

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My first Bitcoin purchase

August 27, 2021 Michael Tyler Comments 1 comment

Today, I purchased my first item, or thing…… with the old ‘Bitcoin’.

It cost me, 0.00011000 BTC, or £3.22!

Here’s a screenshot.

This purchase took roughly 3 minutes from start to finish.

I’ve got more to do today. I just thought I’d let you know.

Advanced course in day trading

August 13, 2021 Michael Tyler Comments 2 comments

I’ve been pretty busy with work and what-not.

The news

Biggest news is, I’ve enrolled on a course called Level 5 Diploma in Financial Trading by the London Academy of Trading.

The London Academy of Trading offers a combination of on-campus and home study options.

I’d like to do some on-campus. It’s not something you can explain, but a lot of the more subtle aspects of learning are done face to face in an environment, so I thought that seeing as I was spending for my future, it’s an investment worth making.

Live account – Day trading the Nasdaq 100 on Non Farm Payrolls day

Financial Trading is basically a course in day trading with a certificate at the end provided by the British Accreditation Council, the recognised government body.

What is ‘day trading’?

To those of you not familiar, day trading is trading financial assets or futures on the digital markets. That’s stocks shares and commodities mostly, although you can trade in indices and currencies such as the Hong Kong Dollar or the Pound.

The prices of these assets and currencies, or ‘instruments’ as they call them, changes constantly, the name of the game is predicting the size and direction of the moves, and being on the right side of it!

I’ve been day trading for about 4 years.

I think last month was the first time I’ve made any money out of it but it’s something I’ve always been interested in.

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Car crushed by hay bales - Deddington A4260

Nearly Deddington

July 23, 2021 Michael Tyler Comments 3 comments

Yes indeed. This was the scene just outside Deddington when I went on my cycle ride yesterday.

A trailer loaded with bails had toppled over and crushed the motorist inside.

An ambulance was in attendance when I arrived and the road had been closed to all traffic.

It didn’t look too serious, but the motorist had obviously received some injuries looking at the state of the vehicle and the emergency. So, serious but not that serious.

Had it have been a cheaper vehicle than the BMW in certain it would have been a lot more so.

Adjourn to pub

Took this as a sign from god to adjourn to the pub where a group of motorists travelling on the A4260 had had the same idea.

Another ambulance and a police car arrived while I was having my Amstel in the beer garden of the Red Lion in the sunshine.

The police got a round of applause when they arrived, they must have felt proud.

During the course of the day I cycled around some of the villages in the Cherwell Valley. It sure was hot! and I had to stop off and get some water, not that I didn’t have some on the bike, but I discovered this ancient water fountain with an inscription over the top, like something out of a fighting fantasy book!

North Aston water fountain — As the birds drink and so lift up their head, so must man sip and think of better drink he may attain to after he is dead.

I’m not sure about the health and safety implications etc. but drink I did, being a bit of a risk taker and all that.

I left feeling refreshed…..

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Spiceball park – Banbury

July 1, 2021 Michael Tyler Comments 2 comments

Moored up in the center of Banbury, right near Spicegirlsballs park, named after the Spicegirls who once lost their balls in the park.

Why they call it Spiceball I’ve not been able to find out, as yet. Suffice to know, I’m moored up in the middle of it and I’ve not seen any spice girls yet, not the famous type, or spice balls for that matter. There’s a bakery behind me. Don’t think there’s much spice going off in there. Smells mostly like baking bread at the moment. For the moment, the spiceball bit remains a mystery.

Life here is different, noisier and more populated than what I’m used to.

When I first moved down. I was aware of the sound of the factory behind me, and wondered how much it would affect my sleep, so I gave it a couple of nights to find out if all the banging and whirring would keep me awake. Suffice to say, it didn’t. Well not too much anyhow….

More balls

Now I’m here on day 3. I like the fact there are more people around, it makes a change from being out in the middle of no-where. I had a ride down the towpath yesterday on my bike in the reasonable weather. The next stop South is a long way off.

There are stops on the way down. But they a) don’t have parking b) they don’t have solar c) they don’t have mobile signal.

Any one of those three makes it a bit of a ‘no-no’. All three together…. It’s like mega-too-much.

So it’s Spiceballs all the way for the moment. Factories or no factories.

In the meantime

Things have been happening around the boat, in one way or another.

For a start, I’ve moved down.

Fine lady bread factory Banbury — Fine Lady Bakery – Banbury

This is the Fine Lady bread factory! Haven’t seen the fine lady yet. Maybe that comes later.

As you can see, it’s right close to the old window…

Flowery narrowboat Kalamazoo — Flowery narrowboat

This is the boat next to mine. Flowery business that it is. Two women came past me in it earlier, Here it stopped just next to the ‘Castle Quay’ shopping arcade which is Banbury central and about a 5 minute walk away from my house.

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Things I’ve seen around Oxfordshire 🧐😲😍

June 17, 2021 Michael Tyler Comments 0 Comment

Yeah bouy.

There’s so much to live for around here, at least that’s what the animals believe, as there seems to be rather a lot of them. Flying insects and birds…… birds on the water, animals that crawl and creep, hop and swim. There are a great diversity of the critters here. There is no doubt….

What I’d put this down to I don’t know. I can only guess that the local wild spaces by way of the country park and the Cotswold AONB has let some of those that would otherwise have perished, survive.

Time spent – time wasted

Seeing as I have so much time on my hands at the moment, I’ve taken some and committed it to a little fishing.

I’ve been a few times, 4 to be exact, with varying results. 2 times I caught these.

They are biggies….. especially the second one.

The other 2 times I caught nothing, or very little, just sat in the sunshine drank and listened to Youtube music streaming on my bluetooth speaker until it got dark, or I got bored. Whichever came first.

These two grand specimens more than make up for it.

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Painting a narrowboat water-tank – The third coming…..

June 5, 2021 Michael Tyler Comments 10 comments

Update 5th June, 2021.

How long does Vactan last?

I’d say the last coat, (of Vactan), stopped working around 12 months ago. That’s around the summer of 2020, so it lasted around 2 years.

The symptoms of it stopping working were; flaking into the watertank, sinking to the bottom, and after some time, maybe a year, going into and clogging the waterpump filter.

That is: the very thin coating that is Vactan eventually flaked off, sometimes taking a coat of the Rylards beneath it, sometimes not, coming free from the sides of the tank and falling to the bottom…

This is what the watertank looked like as I started work on it.

It’s a combination of the paints that I’ve talked about lower down in this post. As you can see, some of it has been flaked off, either by me going around with my

or come away over the course of time.

There isn’t much bare metal, nor is there a lot of the original iron oxide that I put on there to start with.

It took from the 27th July 2018 to get fully to this point. So 3 years.

Prep for a brighter better future (for your watertank)

In my case, the prepping is already done…

The majority of the paint remains intact on the layers beneath. To prep in this case, I need to remove the flaking paint. Then make sure the surface is good to receive another 2 coats of Vactan.

Doesn’t take long. Maybe an hour to get it all off.

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