Changing face of Manchester: Oxford rd, St Peter's square

The demolition of the Odeon Cinema on Oxford rd was expected for several years. Nevertheless when I passed in front of it last week I felt the view of the disembowelled cinema against the new building was really sad and brutal. 

Odeon cinema demolition
https://www.flickr.com/photos/afortiorama/35482516246

I'm in favour of progress but I'm also in favour of preserving certain things. While Elisabeth house was a really depressing building, the cinema was a piece of history and many people spent memorable hours in, including me. Seeing it like a big wounded animal is poignant. Here is a reminder of how it used to be

Odeon Cinema and Elisabeth house
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jazzketeer/5109667911

And how it will be

Building that will replace the Odeon cinema

Elisabeth house from another angle

Elisabeth house 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jazzketeer/5109663643

Replaced by One St Peter's square

One St Peter's square
http://www.flickr.com/photos/126038429@N02/14707662741/

Rock the Casbah

Today for no reason other than I passed in front of it, I went into a lego shop. After browsing some of the packages I arrived to a stall where people could build their own lego figures. Since I had time to waste I spent several minutes choosing pieces for my figure.... amusingly I wasn't alone, five other adults were doing the same two young women and three young men.  No children in sight. The figure above was my creation, I was satisfied enough to buy it.

Sequoia project: day 110

Number 1,2,3&4

Following from this post a couple of months ago. I've transplanted the seedlings a while ago because they were too crowded in the kit container. They are growing nicely. They all have branches now. I used normal garden compost, even though some bonsai purists seemed pretty against it. It worked well. N2 (second from the left) which in the kit used to be the biggest, is now the smallest because it was the last to be transplanted in its pot. Trick is really, like for all plants, to give the the right amount of water and light. I put them in my mini bow window where they get plenty of light and some direct sun in the late afternoon and evening. I also spray them with water every couple of days (which is even more important if one lives in a dry climate). They do bend heavily towards the light so I rotate  them every few days to make them grow straight. I've now put also some tooth picks to keep them straight because some of the branches are quite heavy for the size of the plant. N4 (last on the right) was particularly unbalanced by that big branch also visible in the picture.

The sequoia project

I went to visit the Muir woods, the Giant Redwood woods near San Francisco.

While I was going there I was chatting to my sister who jokingly challenged me to bring back one tree. I answered that the trunk of one of those would occupy my entire back garden. I then thought about bonsai trees and that I could grow a bonsai if I could find any seed. Of course I couldn't find any seed under trees because it was spotless under wood with no cones and tourists have to walk on paths anyway, also I didn't know at the time but, as giant as the trees are, the seeds are instead really small. Luckily the shop in the park sells redwood growing kits, so i could fulfill my promise to bring back if not a tree at least the seeds.

I finally planted the seeds a couple of months ago. They suggest to leave the seeds in the fridge for few weeks, which I did and, while they guarantuee the germination of at least one seed, it's really lucky to get more because the redwood germination rate is quite low. I was really lucky and I got four seedlings.

First born

Four seedlings

I'm really happy. I was already thrilled when I had one, but now if they survive my clumsiness I can give it a go to make a little bonsai wood or at any rate I have more chances to grow properly at least one. ☺️

Timeline:

* 27 January planted seeds
* 16 February Taken out of the fridge
* 3-17 March germination
* 27 March transplanted 3 in pots

Garden Ramblings

I think my neighbour mountain ash tree (that with elongated dented leaves and clusters of orange berries) has reproduced in my garden. It's not the first time I gain a new plant like this but I'm surprised that I manage to recognise the potential of a seedling not to be a weed and I'm pretty sure that if I did plant them willingly I would be frustrated. There are other 3 different type of seedlings that look interesting 2 are now big enough to look like 2 type of ivy and I'm waiting to see what the third will become. Now the decision I have to take is if to transplant them before the winter. I think I'll wait for spring.

Hard work and patience. This spider has rebuilt his web already twice, once from scratch, plus several small repairs. Since I never see it in the morning I wonder if it has other webs to attend to like a real landlord. It's bigger than usual so I assume it is a rich well fed spider. :)

Life of a cherry tree

It is remarkable and even surprising that my cherry is still alive and thriving. I used to make posts on flickr, with a summary of the struggle and here on this blog about it being really slow at growing and its very asymmetrical growth taking pictures every year and being happy for every new flower or every new cherry it produced, but I never realised how much dead wood it had to overcome to grow. It is surprising it is still alive at all. I have other examples of plants suddenly regrowing from little and not so little pieces in my garden, the most remarkable of which was the deepest roots of a fuchia I eradicated years before because I thought it was dead, sprouting once again from under the rose that took its place (sprouts have been carefully moved to a vase now and are happily producing more and more branches) or the buddleia buzz midnight eradicated by the wind this year that didn't die, but the cherry is for me the most impressive. I've always found it a good metaphor of how I feel about myself and when I'm a bit low on morals I go to look at it and I feel reassured, even more now in the knowledge that even if there was dead wood slowing everything down it will crumble away and disappear at some point. I'm happy I kept it and didn't go to buy another specimen. If it ain't completely dead life will take over. Next update next year.

Dreaming of circuits

Pantheon, originally uploaded by afortiorama.

Tanto tempo fa - circa 20 anni - quando ho ricevuto il mio primo computer serio ho fatto un sogno: Il mio sistema operativo aveva dei bachi seri e l'unico modo per mantenere la macchina attiva anche se a potenza ridotta era quello di spegnere una parte delle funzionalita'. Il sogno e' talmente lapalissiano che non c'e' bisogno di spiegarlo. Nel corso degli anni sono passata ad altri sogni in cui il sistema operativo veniva aggiornato correggendo alcuni bachi e diventando piu' potente fino a che, un giorno, non ho cominciato e sognare che l'hardware era troppo vecchio per ulteriori aggiornamenti e che bisognava cominciare a cambiare i pezzi. A questo e' seguito un altro periodo di sogni in cui tonnellate di cavi vecchi, che sicuramente non potevano portare bene i segnali elettronici, venivano rimossi. L'altra notte per la prima volta ho sognato che non c'erano piu' cavi da rimuovere e che qualcuno stava mettendo dei circuiti integrati. Mi son svegliata pensando che tra qualche anno mi metteranno Voyager bio-neural gel packs and then I'll almost be human. :D