Switch on the scooter - I am off for a ride.

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Grandad
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Switch on the scooter - I am off for a ride.

Post by Grandad »

Today is very cold but sunny with a cloudless blue sky so a trip on the scooter seemed appropriate. I thought I would go to the local park to see if the trees were showing any colour and also go to the Cathedral where my daughter had told me there is a new sculpture in the precincts.
First stop was in the Cathedral precincts. Unfortunately for visitors there is a considerable amount of work going on so the first impression is not a welcoming one. This is the south west tower clad in scaffolding while restoration work is in progress.
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I set off to find this new sculpture which I found at the eastern end. It is of a war horse constructed from off cuts of wood given by a local fencing company. It was made by the Canterbury School of Visual Arts as part of the Canterbury Festival but also to coincide with the WWI Centenary. It is rather splendid, looks well in its location, and the poppies at its feet are made from plastics drinks bottles. It commemorates the many thousands of horses that served and died in WWI and symbolises Resilience, Struggle, Peace and Solemnity.
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There was a small area marked out on the precincts lawn which I learned contained 541 white crosses each with the name of a soldier from the local Buffs Regiment who died in WWI. Another item of the centenary remembrance.
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I then made my way back towards home and called into the Westgate Gardens Park. It was all looking really nice as usual but there was little sign, as yet, of much autumn colour.
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I wended my way the one mile to home by which time my battery lights were down from 5 to 2-3 so about half battery I guess. I have to keep an eye on them because to have a dead battery could mean a long wait for a pick up. :( :)


:gg:
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LovelyLadyLux
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Re: Switch on the scooter - I am off for a ride.

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Interesting day out Grandad and I loved the pictures. Never realized you lived in the tropics as you sure have lots of green there!

The horse is lovely and interesting it is made of cut off of wooden swords. Wonder if they did something to preserve the wood so as to keep the statue alive, so to speak, for longer or wonder if it'll be moved inside.

The cross display is quite impressive too. Lovely remembrance.

As for your scooter - how long are you getting on a charge? and so as to preserve the battery do you have to draw it right down before a recharge or can you basically keep it topped up and fully charged? Just wondering as it would add lots of extra planning for you to have to draw it down but within arms reach of you residence.
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Grandad
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Re: Switch on the scooter - I am off for a ride.

Post by Grandad »

@LovelyLadyLux
I doubt if the wood was treated. I expect the sculpture will end up in some garden where it will weather until maybe it just falls apart. I don't think it was created to last forever.
As for my batteries, there are two sealed 12v 17Ah batteries. I have read varying opinions about charging but a Youtube video by a retailer said if you continually run the charge right down you will shorten the battery life. I don't know about that but I top up every time I use the scooter. The charging light goes out when fully charged so that is good enough for me. ;)
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Re: Switch on the scooter - I am off for a ride.

Post by Horus »

Grandad, with regards the batteries they should be OK to keep topping up as and when like you are doing, modern batteries do not have the old 'memory' problem as in the past, but fully discharging (deep discharge) is not good on any battery, but yours will be designed to do that. I would not rely on the battery charge state meter to mean there is 1/2 a charge remaining, like most rechargeable batteries they will die off pretty fast once a certain discharge level is reached.

The pictures are as usual really good, so it looks like you are certainly getting your eyesight back on target. Your trees are certainly much greener than ours as most have now lost their leaves and Autumn is well underway here and like you it has been a beatiful day here, gorgeous warm sunshine. We are starting to see the fruition of lots of local efforts to comemorate Rememberance Day and I hope to do a post on this later in the month.
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Re: Switch on the scooter - I am off for a ride.

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

I had to ask about the batteries as I still have vivid memories of getting the first huge cell phones in the office way back when and it became a perennial problem to keep the batteries going. You had to fully discharge them so you could fully charge them and nobody ever did so most of our phones only ever ended up with about 10% battery life which rendered them useless. Our Admin staff had a terrible issue with keeping the phones charged for us so they continually had them sitting on the charger so the battery would show 100% all the time but 1 phone call and the battery was dead.

I see on my new laptop that I got a message telling me NOT to have it continuously plugged in (I did do that when I first got it) and now it will also send an icon to the screen when I need to plug it in which is prior to the battery being fully dead.

I guess with your scooter though it wouldn't be practical or possible to carry a spare battery with you on your travels.
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Re: Switch on the scooter - I am off for a ride.

Post by Kiya »

Good to see the Cathedral again even under scaffolding :)

The horse looks fantastic, pity its not treated to keep it longer.

Great pictures again from your area :)
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Re: Switch on the scooter - I am off for a ride.

Post by Grandad »

This mornings excursion into town was for the specific purpose of seeing a new exhibit in the Nave of the Cathedral. This is made up of suspended glass globes in the shape of a ship. It is not illuminated but is most impressive with the glass globes looking like crystal. What I didn't get was the descriptive text about the work. Everybody was describing it as being a boat but when trying to relate the work to the text, I am inclined to think of it as a huge teardrop.
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Level access for me is by a door on the north side and with so much work going on around the precinct they have created a very good covered way access to avoid any risk of items falling from the scaffolding outside.
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Re: Switch on the scooter - I am off for a ride.

Post by FABlux »

That looks like a lovely trip, I think the horse is gorgeous.

Your second picture of the exhibit makes the globes look quite boat like. Very attractive anyway :)
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Re: Switch on the scooter - I am off for a ride.

Post by Horus »

I could see it as a boat
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Re: Switch on the scooter - I am off for a ride.

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

When I saw your first photo before I enlarged it to see it I thought the glass globes were crystal. The display in that setting IS absolutely gorgeous. I'm having a hard time seeing a boat - I suppose kinda a canoe but never the less the display is impressive.

The words of the artist are also worthy of thought and they also reference the growing divide between all of us. Yes there are natural disasters, Europe does appear to be fracturing and conflict has & is happening however they also allude to we need to have empathy for others. I'd say we do have empathy. It is there but it is also hard to feel empathy for somebody who has continually made decisions and acted in a way contrary to their own bests interests (am talking the rise of addictions, street life, wasting your $$ on unnecessary things i.e. tattoos and piercings that leave you unable to pay your bills but with full expectation others will chip in and continue to support you in your squandering ways. People who suffer natural disasters are in a totally different boat altogether.

The artists words "Can we move towards a more equal world?" are somewhat provocative and I'd love to know how they're defining equal? Do they mean should we all live in a truly socialistic (enormous step backwards IMO) world? Or should we all have to pay more to maintain people who refuse to look after themselves? or?
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Re: Switch on the scooter - I am off for a ride.

Post by Kiya »

I can see it as a boat and a tear drop, really I think it could be anything your imagination sees :)
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