I went for a walk on Thursday, following a Saturday Walkers Club route from Effingham Junction to Westhumble. It was mild and cloudy, so quite pleasant weather for a walk, but I came to regret my choice to wear shorts when navigating some of the nettle-overgrown parts of the route.

The latter part of the walk goes through the largest vineyard in England. It’s a strange feeling to see such a continental sight on this cursed island. I bought a small bottle of sparkling wine at the visitor centre. I’m intrigued to find out how it tastes.

Rows of grape vines, trained along wires, stretch down the hill. In the distance is a small wood, a settlement, and mostly trees and hills to the horizon.

The Denbies vineyard

The visitor centre is also home to the Surrey Hills brewery where they sell the cheapest pint I’ve seen this decade at £3.50. I took my beer outside and sat down in a chair that I quickly, but not quickly enough, discovered was full of water. At least it only took me half an hour to dry off in the breeze. And the beer was nice.

I’ve updated my MIDI footswitch project to use a Raspberry Pi Pico instead of the no-longer-available Teensy 2.0. As well as being easy to obtain, the Pico is much cheaper, so it’s a better solution all round. There will be more on that to come in a separate post soon.

I made udon from scratch for the first time in many years. You can buy packaged ones in the shops, so I don’t usually bother, but I didn’t have any in. It’s not hard, and the results are excellent. It really makes a difference compared to the commercial ones. I’m definitely going to do it more often. Home-made udon are also extremely cheap as the only ingredients are plain flour, water, salt, and a dusting of cornflour to prevent sticking.

Interesting things I’ve bookmarked: