Posting action on UK Dragonflies starts picking up in late March/early April as all us Odo-nutters eagerly await the first appearance of the new season’s specimens, normally the Large Red Damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula). The actual start of the season is weather-dependent, late March being reserved for good years. Last year, after a promising early start descended into the abyss weather-wise, Bedfordshire recorded its first Large Red on 21st April. Since this spring has thus far been in the abyss all along, everyone was expecting this to be a late start season. Given this context, I was stunned when one of the UK Dragonflies members relayed that a Large Red Damselfly had been reported (on a birding site, no less) as having emerged in Norfolk, three days ago on 14th April. Norfolk is further north and further east, from which our prevailing cold winds have been blowing. Normally the season would start first in the extreme south and work its way up the country.

Nonetheless, despite ones feelings of hopelessness, if there’s a Large Red somewhere in the country, one feels obliged to get out there and check. I went to my local Sandhouse Lane NR where I found almost nothing more than a lonely Pond Skater – not butterflies, not flies and certainly not dragonflies. With hardly any vegetation even, the place still felt more like winter than spring. Undeterred, I also tried Duck End NR which produced my first LRDs locally last year. Again nothing, more like winter than spring though the frogs were eagerly jumping on anything including what appeared to be a dead frog.

Today I stuck my nose in to King’s Wood, Heath and Reach, where I have seen LRDs in previous years. This was born more out of a desire for some fresh air than of hope. Sure enough, not an Odo in sight. I did, however, spot a Peacock (Inachis io) butterfly basking in the sporadic sunshine. I’m used to seeing these guys in spring after hibernating as adults. This one even appeared to be in good, clean condition after over-wintering.

I don’t know where my butterfly brain has been all these years but I was much more surprised to see a Comma (Polygonia c-album) also sunning itself. Clearly these characters over-winter as adults, too, which is not something I realized. Having submitted my Comma to iSpot, I now know that we have five hibernating butterfly species:

• Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni)
• Peacock (Inachis io)
• Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta).
• Comma (Polygonia c-album)
• Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urtcae)

I knew about three of them hibernated but the last two were news. Live and learn.

Still no Large Red Damselflies, though. Mind you, given the weather and lack of very much in the way of dragonfly food around, I’d say that emerging now might not be a good idea. I fear for the longevity of that apparently single Norfolk individual.

As usual, I’ve been desperately trying to think of some advantages to our crappy climate – it’s a typically British pastime, making the best of a bad job – and I’ve actually added a second benefit to my usual one. Our conservatory roof is real, fully transparent glass to enable us to see up into the trees which surround us. Most conservatories are built with translucent, not transparent, polycarbonate roofs. Our downside is that cleaning a glass roof is, not to put too fine a point on it, a pain in the arse/ass [pick your preferred word/spelling]. My newfound winter benefit is that a hefty covering of snow, as it slides down the roof and off, is that it cleans and polishes the glass as it goes. I guess it’s a bit like a glacier polishing the stones over which it flows. Saves me a job.

The only other benefit, the usual one to which I will admit, is the variety of birdlife that descends upon our garden in search of food during harsh conditions. There’re no berries left on our bushes at the moment so we haven’t seen any Redwings, Waxwings or Fieldfares since returning from Singapore and Cambodia, but we have recently been being eaten out of house and home by a veritable flock of Siskins (Carduelis spinus). This morning Carol counted at least eight occupying all the permanent perches on our feeders, both sunflower seed and nyjer seed feeders, and there were others in the trees beyond. At least the food’s not going to waste and we’re delighted to see them, though I think the year-round resident tit population might be a little distraught ‘cos they’re having a hard time getting a look in.

The Siskins have been around for a while vacuuming up the food but just recently they were joined by our first Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) of the season. Blackcaps are great little songsters in summer but difficult for us amateurs to distinguish from a Garden Warbler – very similar songs. Not that it’s got much to sing about at the moment, of course, though it is doing a good job of holding its own in the battle for feeder space.

Our cunning plan in arranging our trip to Singapore and Cambodia when we did was that Spring would be upon us when we returned. So much for that hope! Let’s fervently hope that change in our clocks brings a change in the weather, otherwise the dragonfly season won’t start, as it should, before we go to Spain.

Given Singapore’s location a mere 1.3°N of the equator, I suspected that it might have active populations of my favourite insects all year round but it was only a suspicion. Before fixing any Odo-hunting trip involving 13-hour flights in both directions, I needed confirmation. Enter the Internet. Carol found a blog, Dragonflies & Damselflies of Singapore, published by Anthony Quek. Not only does Anthony’s site have some truly stunning dragonfly portraits, but it also provided a contact form, so I sent him my question about Singapore flight seasons. Anthony was more helpful than I could have hoped; not only did he confirm my suspicion that in Singapore Odos were active year round, he offered, if our plans came to fruition, to meet us and take us to one of his favourite locations. He gave us his mobile phone number so we could contact him when/if we got there.

Sure enough our plans did come to fruition and we booked our trip to Singapore between 17th February and 3rd March, including a long weekend in Cambodia to get cultured out with a load of Cambodian temples, chief among which was, of course, Angkor Wat. Once back in Singapore for our second uninterrupted week, I messaged Anthony and, true to his word, he arranged to meet us at an entrance to Singapore’s Central Catchment Nature Reserve. [That link does look a bit confusing being called the Bukit Timah NR. The whole area is really one that got divided by a large road to the west of which is Bukit Timah NR and to the east, the much bigger Central Catchment NR. I think!] Anthony was referring to his favourite spot as the Lornie Trail. He sent a map and even a photo of the entrance he wanted us to meet at. Great stuff!

With considerable help from our host, Carol’s cousin, in getting us through the rush hour when Singapore taxis seemed to be as rare as rocking horse shit/hens’ teeth [or insert your own preferred witty analogy], we made it to our meeting point in time. A few minutes later, Anthony arrived and greeted us. The power of modern communications methods – two sets of hitherto complete strangers living 8,000 miles apart had managed to make arrangements and meet.

I’d seen the Lornie Trail on a map; it seemed to be mainly a boardwalk route skirting the southern side of the MacRitchie Reservoir. Where Anthony actually led us was along a rough track between a golf course and the western end of the MacRitchie Reservoir. He even snapped a few well-constructed pictures of us at work as we were being captivated by a dazzling array of new additions to our catalogue. No, it’s not the sandal that I’m photographing, I think it was this relatively uncommon Black-tipped Percher (Diplacodes nebulosa).

I was already very satisfied with our haul beside the golf course but then Anthony offered to take us into the forest section along Sime Track, if we wanted to go. In this climate that constantly varies between warm and hot, there are forest species of dragonfly the like of which we don’t get in Europe’s climate. You’re darn right we wanted to go. Once in the forest, Carol snapped Anthony and me at work on an unusually coloured Variable Sentinel (Orchithemis pulcherrima). Carol’s shot of the dragonfly was better than anything I got, too, so here it is. The Variable Sentinel gets its vernacular name from the array of colour forms in which it occurs. We added even more new species to our catalogue.

Eventually we had to part but we’d had a great day finding 22 species at this, Anthony’s favourite Singapore location for dragonflies. Without his guidance, I’d certianly have visited the Lornie Trail but would probably have stuck to the boardwalk and missed so much. I suspect I’d have come way disappointed and wondered what all the fuss had been about. As it was, thanks to Anthony’s help, we were more than delighted. Here’s a great memory of the day taken, we think, on Anthony’s mobile phone:

Clearly Anthony’s good photographic eye is not limited to dragonflies.

Not wishing yet to admit defeat, I unbolted the gate into the caravan storage field. At least the bolts weren’t actually frozen into their keeps this year. I drove into the snow-covered field. My positive attitude turned to foolish optimism as I released the tethering straps that secure our caravan’s cover. OK, so here’s the essential numbers of Billy’s dimensions (body, not including the draw bar):

• length = 5.5m
• height = 2.6m
• width = 2.18m

If that’s Billy’s size then that is also the size of his snug-fitting all over winter coat. Since Billy’s field was covered in about 3ins/75mm of that irritating white stuff, so was Billy even, I might add, about a metre of his slightly sloping front.

Foolishly, I began trying to raise the front of Billy’s cover, complete with ~2m² of 0.075m deep snow – let’s call that 0.15m³ snow.

Even that much snow is heavy – it’s difficult to shift it and it’s quite impossible to raise it to a height of 2.6m using what amounts to a broom handle, the implement provided by the manufacturers of the caravan covers.

Foolishness gave way to blind stupidity; I brushed off the front snow and actually succeeded in raising the front panel of the cover up onto Billy’s roof. What on earth was I thinking I was going to do next? I might have brushed off the relatively modest amount of snow clinging to Billy’s nose but the roof was also covered side to side and front to back in 3in/75mm of the blasted stuff.

• area of roof = 5.5m * 2.18m = 12m²
• volume of wet snow = 12m² * 0.075m = 0.9m³

I’ve no idea what nearly one cubic metre of wet snow weighs but I do know that even thinking that I could get the cover out from under it was dumb in the extreme.

I returned home, mentally calculating the above as I drove, suffering from a severe attack of reality.

Billy is now six years old and, despite a bunch of new technologies being introduced in caravan manufacture, we remain convinced that Billy is the pinnacle of caravan design for empty nesters. In our case, of course, we never actually filled the nest but that’s a different issue. For a couple wishing to enjoy travelling freedom on their own, Billy is the bees knees. I have, however, learned a valuable lesson that will come into play as and when the time comes to consider a Billy replacement: never buy a caravan in February. Come to that, don’t buy one in January, either.

OK, so what’s the problem?

Fortunately, given British manufacturing skills, modern caravans come with a so-called “water ingress” warranty. Baileys exhibited a fair amount of confidence by supplying Billy with a 6-year water ingress warranty. Another manufacturer, Lunar Caravans, earned the nickname “leaky Lunars” for obvious reasons. I know, our previous van was one and it did, indeed, leak to the tune of over £1000. Longer running warranties are very nice but the problem is, in order to maintain that warranty you have to have the van serviced at an authorized dealer within a few weeks of the purchase date anniversaries. Sod’s Law being what it is, in the middle of February that pretty much constitutes a snow guarantee. Quite apart from the delights of facing a journey towing a trailer on slippery roads, I have to go to Billy’s field, remove his frozen stiff cover, refit his battery and water pump (the water pump needs removing over winter to avoid frost damage) and drag him over to the dismal depths of dismal Luton. Joy unbounded!

Right on schedule, tomorrow is time for Billy’s sixth annual service and, for the second time this season, snow is precisely what we awoke to. I’d have put money on it happening. The birds were clearly impressed! You can just see that Blackbird thinking, “you’re not seriously going anywhere near a caravan in this, are you?” One year, I had trouble getting Billy’s gate open because the bolt was frozen into the keep. Getting Billy’s cover off covered in two inches of snow is probably impossible so I hope this stuff melts tomorrow. Then I’ll just have to get very cold and wet.

Being Billy’s sixth year, this is the last year of our warranty cover and, despite any future problem being on our own bank account, I’m quite looking forward to being able to schedule future services at a more clement time of year.

The construction technology used on Bailey’s latest incarnations come with a 10-year water ingress warranty. You definitely don’t want to take delivery of one of those in January or February.

Last week when we were going through the checkout at our local Morrison’s supermarket, we were presented with a discount voucher. The voucher was for £10 off an Internet order of wine, costing £30 or more, from Morrisons Cellar. The words wine and discount instantly made me take notice, though I assumed that there might be some hidden gotcha – delivery charges might dull my assumed pleasure, for example. Once back at home and with the unpacking and storing away to do, I forgot about it.

On Monday, I came across our voucher and, for want of something better to do, I dived onto the good ol’ InterWeb thingy to check out Morrisons Cellar. Right at the top of the page I spotted the appealing phrase, “FREE STANDARD DELIVERY ON ALL ORDERS” [and yes, it was in caps]. The phrase was linked and read:

Whatever size case you choose, whether it is a case of 6 or 12 you go for, we will deliver to your home or office, wherever you like in the UK, and delivery is free for all our wine. For full delivery or return information click here.

“Standard Delivery” was defined as 3-5 days, which is not unusual and follows good ol’ Amazon’s lead. We had no great plans for the week ahead so 3-5 days would be fine. I still couldn’t find a gotcha.

I rummaged around in Morrisons Cellar for mixed cases and found several of them “out of stock”, but I eventually settled on one that was in stock and that seemed worth trying [Fresh New Year Dozen: £66.00]. I applied our voucher code and the price came down to £56.00 with no delivery charge showing up. I went ahead and placed my order.

I received a confirmation email almost immediately.

Late that afternoon I received a text message that our order had been passed on to the courier service (Yodel, I think). “Excellent”, I thought; “it should, indeed be here in a few days.”

At 10:15 the following morning a van parked outside and our wine was walked down to our door. This was less than 24 hours since I placed the order.

“Stunned” may be going a bit too far but I was certainly surprised – very pleasantly so.

I’d never heard of Morrisons Cellar before so this may be a new operation in its honeymoon period but nonetheless.

One other thing is worthy of note. My chosen mixed case (which I notice has now joined those that are “out of stock”), has thus-far proved to contain quite lightweight, very drinkable wine. I have personally been “suffering” recently from wines, particularly red wines, that seem to be in competition with each other to increase their alcohol content and jamminess to such a point that they get somewhat overpowering and/or cloying. These days, 13% alcohol is on the low side of normal with 14% being not unusual. I remember reading years ago that a Chateauneuf-du-Pape had to be at least 12.5% in order to bear the name; 12.5% was like its badge of office. Nowadays, 12.5% is low. Where are the 11% and 12% easy going, quaffing wines hiding?

Well, some, at least, are in this (sadly now out of stock) case.

Our welcome “residents” include about six Blackbirds (Turdus merula), members of the thrush family, who’ve proved difficult to feed without attracting the unwelcome guests. Put out a tray with seed on it and it quickly gets vacuumed up by a combined assault force of Grey Squirrels, Magpies and Woodpigeons. One blackbird, like the Magpie, has managed to crack the sunflower seed feeder but, in general, its kin have had to content themselves with scraps dropped onto the ground by the smaller birds. In the recent snows, however, we weakened and tried another blackbird-friendly approach: a modestly sized bird table. We were hoping that the larger Magpies and Pigeons would be unable to negotiate the bird table’s roof and be unable to land on it. That may have been a contributory factor but I think our choice of feed was more crucial; we put out just dried fruit and suet which the Magpies and Pigeons seem to shun. Result!

In our harsher winter weather, we’ve become used to seeing Redwings (Turdus iliacus), a  winter migrant species of thrush, dining on the Cotoneaster berries overhanging our garden. Our resident Blackbirds have been quick to defend this food source and chase the noticeably smaller Redwings away. [See Berry Defensive.] This year, though we were delighted to be visited by another member of the thrush family, a Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris). [First Time Visitor.] Though I managed to snag a shot of it, a fence and its post were involved and I was keen for a better chance.

A couple of years ago, I remembered seeing Martin Hughes-Games, on a BBC Winterwatch programme, mention Fieldfares being fond of fallen apples, so I pinched Carol’s last Cox’s Orange Pippin, quartered it and put it out on the ground as Fieldfare bait. My Carol’s apple lay there untouched for five days. “So much for Fieldfares liking fallen apples”, I mused.

Things changed this morning, however, when we awoke and peered out of the window to be greeted by the sight of a Fieldfare very calmly breakfasting in the snow on Carol’s 5-day old apple pieces. Our guest had clearly been sitting there a little while because some of the previous contents of its gut had already been deposited on the ground where it sat. Well, snow makes that sort of thing fairly obvious. We watched. It continued sitting there, peering about watchfully, every now and then pecking at the apple.

Our resident Blackbirds arrived for their breakfast of dried fruit and suet. The Fieldfare stopped sitting calmly, became very animated and began chasing away any Blackbird within reach. I didn’t seem interested in the dried fruit and suet but it flew at the bird table and dislodged any Blackbird there. If a Blackbird chose to sit in the Cotoneaster bush, the Fieldfare flew up and chased it out. If a Blackbird simply landed on our patio, the Fieldfare hopped hurriedly after it puffing itself up and flaring its wings and tail feathers. This was a single-mindedly determined Fieldfare. The Blackbirds were outnumbered 1 : 6 – they’d met their match.

My book has Fieldfares being about the same length as Blackbirds but to my eye it looks a tad bigger. Certainly, Fieldfares seem to be slightly more heavily built. I refreshed my Fieldfare bait with yet another of Carol’s apples, opened an upstairs window, dressed in coat and gloves against the freezing air and sat in wait hoping my quarry would follow a Blackbird or two into the Cotoneaster bush and sit in a more advantageous position. As I hope you can see, it eventually did just that.

Prompted by the country currently being disrupted by the inconvenient white stuff and having last week screened their now annual Winterwatch live nature extravaganzas, our good ol’ BBC took the opportunity for a bit of cheap telly by digging into their archives and screening an old black and white programme on the devastating winter of 1963 in the guise of a Winterwatch special: Winterwatch, 1963 – The Big Freeze. 1963 was the most severe winter of the 20th century.

What a trip down memory lane that programme was – I loved it. I was 10 at the time and I have vivid memories of struggling back with my mother, on foot, from the town hospital where we had been to visit my father. The snow came down and we slipped and tottered our way to the train station where we joined a lengthy queue. Finally we managed to get a taxi which slithered and skidded us the three miles home in awful driving conditions.

Firstly I loved it because my memory did not extending to the severity and duration of the conditions we endured, and the old black and white programme demonstrated it admirably. I’ve never particularly enjoyed snow, other than a few skiing trips, but perhaps as a youth it might have been more fun than it was for my poor mother who had to do her best to keep me fed, with shopping excursions being difficult, and reasonably warm, before the days of modern conveniences like central heating. I think the thing I loved about it most, though, was the delight of hearing good BBC English once again. There was the charming Cliff Michelmore, along with Kenneth Allsop, both speaking clearly and with grammatical precision, in the way that the BBC used to do. I am only too keenly aware of the way in which language standards have dropped, even at the BBC, but I didn’t realize just how much they’ve plummeted in 50 years. This blast from the past was music to my ears and made me distressingly sentimental.

Cheap TV it may have been but the BBC did put some extra value into this latest broadcast by adding an assessment of the effect that the 2-month long spell of arctic conditions had on our wildlife – an aspect that was missed from the original 1963 programme. I’m sure that indicates a very welcome, generally increased interest in wildlife throughout much of our society. I was staggered to hear it estimated that 50% of our birds died that winter. That adds weight to the need for us to do our bit by putting out plenty of food to help birds through this current spell of snow.

There are few highpoints to any winter, in my view. To a small extent, I even used to think of skiing as making the best of a bad job, though, I must say, the Austrian Alps blanketed in crisp, fresh snow is an awe-inspiring sight and there’s no better way of seeing it. The only real benefit I see now (that we don’t ski) is that we do get visited by some interesting migrant species of bird. We are lucky enough to have some of them turn up in our own back garden. We’ve become used to winter visits by Redwings (Turdus iliacus) and Eurasian Siskins (Carduelis spinus) in most years. This year, I managed to snag a much longed-for Siskin shot without a bird feeder propping it up. Hoorah! Last year we were thrilled when our red berries attracted a passing flock of Bohemian Waxwings (Bombycilla garrulus) and, a couple of years ago, a single Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla) turned up.

Yesterday, though, there was a considerable amount of dashing about the house caused by the arrival in our garden, for the first time ever witnessed by us, of a Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris). Actually, there were two, I think, and I spotted two flitting about again this morning. They supposedly love apples so I may have to put one out as bait. I’ve seen them before on just a few occasions but certainly never snapped one. So, although this shot includes our fence together with a rather unattractive concrete fence post, I was very happy to have it to add to our catalogue. Nice one!

Let’s hope this lot doesn’t continue for as long as it did in 1963.

I began investigating Cloud stuff and found myself drawing distinctions between:

1. sharing data with/transferring data to other machines, be they yours or other peoples;
2. synchronizing data between your own machines (i.e. desktop and laptop);
3. backing up data.

Dropbox is probably the best known for #1. It’s pretty good at #2 as well but there are two features that make me dislike it for that. Firstly, you have to move the relevant files into the Dropbox folder rather than operating from your own choice of folders. Secondly, the default action is a move rather than a copy unless you hit <Ctrl> as well. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve forgotten <Ctrl> and “lost” a file on one of my machines when I was trying to copy it to the other.

I discovered SugarSync for #2 which does not require that you move files into it; it will keep a laptop and desktop in sync from, say, that childishly named location, “My Documents”. I signed up for the free account and, in theory, I can now update my Odometers (dragonfly species spreadsheets) when travelling with my laptop and once back at home [boo hoo] my desktop will get the latest updated versions – assuming the desktop is still working, of course. SugarSync’s one annoying habit seems to be bothering me with “you’ve almost used all your storage” messages when it’s only ~60% used. I don’t call 60% nearly full.

#3 is about stuffing encrypted data onto remote servers and being able subsequently to reinstate it.

Both Dropbox and SugarSync offer a limited storage free account and put your chosen data into The Cloud as well. There are a bunch of other Cloud storage services that concentrate on one or more of those aspects mentioned above and generally they offer some level of free service. If you don’t have a huge amount of data, the following freebies, in some combination or other, may serve your purpose:

• 7Gb – Windows Live (Microsoft) SkyDrive
• 7Gb – mimedia
• 5Gb – Google Drive
• 5Gb – Amazon Cloud
• 5Gb – Comodo Backup
• 5Gb – SugarSync

That’s 34Gb without too much effort (apart from managing what’s where, of course). I’ve signed up for all of those along with Dropbox (which, like many others, gives 2Gb free) but we have 150Gb to deal with and it will grow considerably this year. For that, I needed a paying service and, after a decent-looking review, I signed up for a year’s contract with Crashplan, the Crashplan+ account of which which gives me unlimited storage for a single machine.

If you haven’t discovered the following as part of your reading, you very quickly discover it when you start using a Cloud service: getting large amounts of data into The Cloud in the first instance is a complete pain in the derri&egrave;re.

I am now fortunate enough to be on a fibre optic broadband service which gives me an upload speed of ~1Mb/sec. A “regular” broadband connection offers about one third of that speed. What I don’t have, as I fortunately remembered after day 1 of initiating the backup into The Cloud, is an unlimited usage contract. During day 1, I managed to upload ~5Gb of photos. My monthly usage limit is set to 40Gb of which we only normally use ~15Gb. Fortunately, running overnight between the hours of midnight and 8:00 AM, is “free” – it doesn’t count against my 40Gb limit. The Crashplan software allows you to set times between which backup will run. Well done! Actually, I find the Crashplan software pretty darn good. I switched it to run only during in my 8-hour free overnight window. Each night I manage to upload ~ 1.5Gb. Do the maths: running every night it will take me 100 days, getting on for 4 months, to upload all our existing photos. On a “regular” broadband connection, I’d be taking the entire year that I’ve signed up for. Of course, during that 4 months, our data will actually grow, probably by quite a chunk. I could wind up constantly chasing an ever-disappearing end point.

Actually, mimedia has what looks like a neat solution to this initial load problem. They will send you, free of charge, a so-called shuttle drive which  appears to be a limited usage external hard drive. You load it up and mail it back to them whereupon they load it up for you. It can be done in a few days. What a wonderfully elegant, effective solution. Here’s the catch … only if you live in America! (I didn’t find the mimedia software very friendly, either.)

It takes a potentially embarrassingly long time to sew that Velcro to the waistband of your trousers and shirt in order to give added security to the occasionally breaking belt and braces. Both my Dell machines failed in their first year and you could easily be still uploading your data into the offsite Cloud when they failed again. The amounts of data we are creating these days are huge. Unfortunately, the technological barriers to dealing with them effectively are also huge.

Worth a thought.

When it comes to irreplaceable digital information, a belt and braces approach is definitely a good idea, just in case the belt breaks or the braces snap. My belt was our ever-growing collection of optical media (DVDs). Since that belt had already broken once, I was keen to buy a pair of braces, too. A USB-connected external hard drive would, in the embarrassing event of a catastrophic computer failure, enable me simply to plug said external hard drive into any replacement machine and once again be able to access our data. I started casting around on good ol’ Amazon and good ol’ John Lewis for candidate purchases.

Now, there are clearly a lot of total plonkers in the world and many of them appear to write product reviews on Amazon. After reading several ludicrous comments one begins to see the level at which some of Joe Public operates so it is well to take many of these reviews with a hefty pinch of salt. However, when it comes to external hard drives, a pattern definitely begins to emerge: external hard drives are clearly prone to more than infrequent failure. My Dell laptop suffered a catastrophic failure of its original hard drive and that’s the only hard drive crash I’ve ever experienced, mercifully. The external hard drives, though, for some reason sound as though they fail more readily than internal hard drives. I have no statistics to substantiate this but it’s a feeling I developed from the numerous reviews I read written by apparently sane examples of Joe Public. Nonetheless, with at least a number of positive reviews and at a mere £69.99 on Amazon, I was attracted to a Seagate STBV2000200 2TB Expansion USB 3.0 3.5 inch External Hard Drive. Let the fun commence!

Dear ol’ Amazon has a relatively new facility called Amazon Locker and was offering a reduced (£1.99) one-day delivery trial. Rather than waiting in at home on tenter-hooks awaiting a delivery, using Amazon Locker you can have your purchase delivered to a collection facility and pick it up at a time that suits you. In the UK, the collection facilities used are those run by Collect+. Here’s the theory: Amazon delivers to your chosen Collect+ depot, you then receive a Collect+ collection code and trot down to claim your parcel at your leisure. What a great idea. I’d previously used Collect+ to return an item to Craghoppers and that went well but was yet to use it for collection.

I placed my order on Friday 28th December, albeit with a little fuss ‘cos the Amazon website didn’t seem to want actually to use the trial delivery charge; a chat with customer services fixed that. Sure enough, on Saturday 29th December the courier’s tracking code showed me that my order was delivered to my nominated Collect+ depot at 9:45 AM. I eagerly awaited my collection code. At midday I was still eagerly awaiting my collection code. Late that afternoon I still continued eagerly to await my collection code and began the first of several further contacts with Amazon customer services.

“Give it 24-48 hours”, they said.

“That rather ruins the point of paying for next day delivery”, I replied, logically.

Amazon, bless them, refunded my delivery charge.

I actually trotted down to the Collect+ depot and explained the situation but, as I expected, without a collection code I could not pick up my parcel because it could not be released by “the system”. There are times when automated systems suck and this was one of them. I knew my package was sitting in the storeroom but I couldn’t have it.

48 hours later I was continuing eagerly to await any collection code and wqas now fearing the worst. After another couple of interactions with Amazon customer services over another couple of days, we learned that Collect+ wasn’t issuing a collection code because the package didn’t seem to have been entered into the system. Amazon (bless them) shipped me a replacement Seagate STBV2000200 2TB Expansion USB 3.0 3.5 inch External Hard Drive to be sent by guaranteed delivery to my door. It duly arrived successfully and I plugged it in, received the traditional “new hardware detected, driver being installed” malarkey, and was up and running almost immediately. Better!

Of course, just having a “spare” external hard drive installed does not do anything to ensure backups are taken any more than does possessing a spindle of DVDs – you still have to remember to make your backup. However, as a part of my investigations, I had found a couple of companies providing freeware that will monitor selected folders and maintain a duplicate/synchronized copy for you automagically. I installed and began to use Comodo Backup.

Using Comodo Backup, you can choose when synchronized copies of your specified directories are maintained. One option is “automatic” meaning that the software sits watching for changes to occur and replicates them. I duplicated our “Photo Library” on my new external hard drive and, lo and behold, as soon as I made a trial change to my “live” library, the duplicate was immediately synchronized and remained in step. Marvelous! I got carried away with this seemingly wonderful facility and repeated the exercise using “My Documents” and “My Pictures”. [I detest those childish phrases/names.]

Mistake! Our “Photo Library” is one thing; I put images in there after we’ve finished monkeying around with them – “Photo Library” is completed work. A couple of days ago I’d been snapping garden birds and went through my digital dark room work flow which begins by loading my RAW files into “My Pictures”. I decided to delete two v. poor images for good to try and protect my reputation. I selected the pictures in question and hit the <Del> key. Away went the pictures. Next time I looked, I was more than a tad surprised to see them still in the folder. Was I dreaming? Had I forgotten to hit <Del>? I selected them again and once more hit <Del>. This time I continued to watch my screen. Sure enough they disappeared but about a second later, bing! – the two pictures magically reappeared. Arghhh! The penny dropped: my smart new automated synchronization task was re-instating the deleted pictures from my duplicate copy. Laugh, I nearly cried!! Deletion was impossible from either place. Now that’s what I call secure. Best to use delayed synchronization on work in progress type folders/files such as “My Pictures” and “My Documents” … daily perhaps. Another lesson learned.

Interestingly and most frustratingly, I failed to find any way to redefine previously defined synchronization tasks in Comodo Backup. I found some instructions for doing so on a Comodo forum but those instructions did not match my software – they weren’t even close – so I fell at that hurdle. I uninstalled the software and deleted all its data. I’m hoping that reinstallation will allow me to define sensible sync schedules for my work in progress folders, though I have yet to try. Duh!

Anyway, belt and braces in place.