August is proving to be rather busy on the personal front as much as it is on the work side of things. Two projects at work are proving to be quite heavy on the old grey matter and I am feeling somewhat wiped out by it all. So as much as I would like to carry on producing my usual content here, I am having to put that on pause for a bit and write occasional journals like this instead.

I powered down a little bit back in Spring, as I needed some extra funds for a few things, which was a bit of a shame, as it has dented my Hive holdings quite a bit, so now, it's time to restack and head in the right direction. I am going to concentrate on powering up Hive for the most part and not worry quite so much about HBD, I hear the interest on that has now gone down to 15%, which is still amazing but I read that it is damaging the Hive ecosystem now and therefore the decision had to be made, which is sensible of course.

Photography

I came up with some project ideas recently, mainly to rekindle my love for the medium of photography. One of them, which I am committing to now over the remnants of 2024 into 2025, is to photograph every bridge over the River Thames from the Cotswolds, all the way down to the Dartford Bridge just outside London. I want to sell some prints and for that purpose, I am going to look at rekindling some online stores, in order to do that.

I will be serialising the project here and dropping the photos into the appropriate Hive communities. I've got some images to share in this blog post, to get things started, here we go.

Whitchurch-on-Thames Bridge

The first bridge that spanned the river between Pangbourne Meadows and Whitchurch-on Thames was built in the 1700s and has been refreshed two or three times since, with the most recent upgrade taking place in 2014. It is one of the two remaining privately owned toll bridges on the whole river.

I think it is rather lovely.

Taking a walk along the pavement that crosses the bridge, I was looking for some detail photos and came across this composition. Hey, this is a great one for #shadowhunters isn't it!

I am looking for various unusual angles and ways of framing the bridges I visit for the project, so found a great vantage point from the other side of the river entirely. I did have to edit some distractions out, including a builders van on the bridge and used Lightroom's AI cleaning up tool, which is very good indeed.

Whilst on the bridge, I was taking a look over the edge to explore my options and thought this structure with the contrast of the dark waters around it, would look great, the weeds painting a directional picture of the water flow.

Last of all, the more traditional angle, which shows how pretty this bridge is. It is one of my favourite places to kayak here, as you might have seen from videos I've shared in the past. Not only is it a toll bridge, it is single carriageway too, with traffic lights controlling the direction of traffic. I must admit, I waited for awhile, as it was very busy on the day.

Music

Hive sound project hits a major snag

We have a problem in that nft.storage (the classic servers) are being decommissioned which means, in time the content I've shared on this particular space, will start to degrade until it doesn't work reliably any longer. So I am going to need to rethink how this will work in the future or simply use a more traditional space to share and sell sampled audio, such as Bandcamp, Gumroad and so on. It looks like IPFS is slowly dying a death from what I can tell.

Collaboration projects

I would like to say a massive thanks to @melibee for sending me her vocal samples recently, which will go into the library once I've found a new home for the files, so let's try something out, rather than NFT Storage, I am going to try Arweave, as i have uploaded Melibee's audio file for you to have a listen to. Not only that I am including her as a beneficiary to this post, so that she can earn something from it too.

https://v2.akord.com/public/vaults/active/zbPqauNmlJTyXubxhvQMEGvW7oRIq_FfQwjQi-I3oyA/gallery#09e6737a-2a1f-4f02-8ffe-311b83c1b770

I've created a folder on this Arweave vault, which is free, unless I go over a certain amount, so I shall keep on hunting around for other free storage online!!

Hive Sound Library - Arweave vault

I have started to play around with the sample but haven't got anything to share as of yet. If you'd like to contribute to the vault, let me know and I'll mention you in posts as a beneficiary too.

My health, not bad at all

I have a blood test this week on Thursday to check up on my kidney function, which for those of you who know me, has become an important regularity for the past 17 years. Every three months, I have my bloods taken, analysed and then see my nephrologist, to discuss their findings.

At one point last year, it looked like tough times were soon to be endured due to my transplant from 2008 beginning to show signs of deterioration, maybe within 12-18 months, I would be back in hospital seeking a donor or on dialysis.

However, since then the tides have turned in the best way that they can as I have been put on some new medication which has delayed this inevitability by another two years, perhaps longer, perhaps full stop.

So let's see how things are in two weeks time, when I see the doctor next, I am hoping still stable.

It is quite tough living with this but there are other people out there who are chronically ill which always gives me a reality check because if I can live with this condition and maintain it, I have very little to worry about.

Trips coming up

Next month, in about 4 weeks time, we are heading for Snowdonia and then five weeks after that, we are heading for Mexico!