Sunday 26th June 2016

Sunday, and the plan had been to head out to snap some local orchids, but in the event the sun failed to break through the clouds, and in truth my heart wasn't in it. A week away and a day on the road yesterday, and I was shattered, and just wanted to chill out and maybe watch the footy in the afternoon.

We begin the day with bacon sandwiches, which is as good a day to start the day with anyway. I review the shots from the day before, and upload some of the Frog Orchid shots, and shots of the other orchids, then got down to deal with unpacking and setting up the turntable.

This is only the second brand new turntable I have ever bought, the last one was a small Technics thing in 1983, which was really plug and play as it had a linear arm rather than the usual pivot one. That required no setting up. Back at the salesroom, the owner made it very clear hat the arm had to be balanced very carefully, turn these dials to zero, adjust this weight until it floats, then set both of the dials to 1.75. Sounds simple.

I took the box into the kitchen, then unboxed it, removed the old deck from the hifi, plugged in the new one in and set about balancing the arm.

I did as was told and what was in the instructions. That done I tried to play Altered Images' Don't Talk to me About Love, it skipped dreadfully. I rebalanced the arm again, and got the same result. Through the day I did it many more times, adjusted the two dials and some made it better, slightly. I was frustrated to say the least.

I gave up and helped in the garden, made coffee, watched football. And I thought, one last try.

I thought I could hear something dragging as the platter turned, it didn't sound right to me, but I could not work where the noise was coming from. I looked at the needle in the groove and liked the reflection, and as I moved my head I could see the wires from the cartridge meeting their reflection, meaning they were touching the record! I looked closer, and that was the case, so I lifted the arm us, pressed on the wires making them run closer to the arm and away from the vinyl. I put the arm back down and had Madonna blasting out Like a Prayer in perfect audio. Wowzers.

I had done it, which meant that when we had dinner, aubergine and pasta salad as you asked, whilst we listened to the new Public Service Broadcasting new remix album which arrived at Chez Jelltex this week. Super it is too.

Football in the evening, and that was about it for another weekend. Seemed so short and tomrrow nothing but work and travel expenses to look forward to!