19.07.2026 All that glisters.

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  Sunday 19th 57F/14C [7.10] A cloudy day with possible thunderstorms is promised. While the sun is currently shining and has been since early on. Wind gusting to 12m/s from the northwest. 23C/72F indoors. 14C in the fully open greenhouse. The pond water temperature has dropped to 67F/19.5C With the pond plants noticeably spreading across the gravel base of the pond.

 Up at 5.30 after a quiet night. Attending rather too often to the fire bucket. 

 I have watered the plants indoors and out. Run one tour of the robot mower along the drive. The first load of laundry has gone into the machine.

 7.45 I have cleaned and polished all the windows in the Morris. Collected all the waste paper, removed and shaken the floor mats. The accumulated detritus has been moved to the boot, arranged more neatly. Or discarded as appropriate. 

 Completed my five physio exercises. Three repetitions of ten. Except for the alternative foot, step-up exercise. Three repetitions of 20. The only exercise I find difficult. No, really painful. Is sitting up from lying on the floor. My feet are too light to balance my upper body. The strain on my back muscles is agony. I don't even notice my abdominal muscles. So I must be doing it wrong.

 Had an online chat. Checking for signs of life. Mine.

 I have vacuumed the car. Cleaned the grey filth from the steering wheel. I need to go out again. To clean the door linings and reveals. Done. Zip-tied the conduit hose to the post of the new security camera. 

 I am still looking for big staples. To fix the hose into the weed infested bank/verge. I could use big tent pegs but they haven't the security of a proper garden staple. Fix and forget. 

 Staples are readily available. That they only sell them in expensive packs of 100. Makes them too readily available. I shall only ever use half a dozen. I'll find some galvanized electric fence wire and make some. 

 I dragged the two recycling bins along the drive. 

 Dinner was an organic, pork chop, organic peas, organic mashed potatoes and Bisto 'Original' gravy. One bag of organic carrots short of a Sunday dinner. 

 

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18.07.2026 Hands free robot mowing?

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  Saturday 18th 60F/16C [7.45] Heavy overcast but dry. A change to cooler weather. Rather windy from the west. 

 75F/24C in the room. 60F/16C in the greenhouse. Pond water at 70F/21C.

 Up at 6.10 after a quiet night. 

 8.00 Started the robot mowing along the drive. 

 9.30 I have repeatedly strimmed the long grass and weeds on the neighbours' verges. Then mowed the drive again and again with the big mower. Using the collector bag to clean up the ground. Then clipped the overhanging hedge. Raked it all up and sent the robot mower out to expand its territory. 

 I am hoping it will discover the verges on its own. Now there are not so many obstacles in its AI FSD field of vision. It has just extended its map of the verge as I watched. Even returning with a parallel mowing path to ensure it was covered. It has just found a narrow gateway though the hedge and mowed, explored and mapped the indent. 

 As mentioned before: It shows where it has mowed by leaving a paler green path behind it on its map. Which is constantly updated and shown on the screen via Wi-Fi. It is supposed to remember where it has not mowed and should return. To tidy up missed areas. Not always with perfect recall. There is some discussion of this subject online. With various suggestions on how to overcome the problem.

 It is fun to see it exploring. If the Wi-Fi signal is weak it leaves no green update of its track on the map. As it has just done on the newly cleared verge. It was leaving no trace of its progress as it reached the far end of the drive. About 100m from the house. The map is usually updated when it returns for recharging. 

 The map image [above] shows the extra length it has added to the right side verge. Well beyond its previous limit before turning back. The drive's entire area has now been mowed flat with the Makita. So there should be no hindrance to the auto-mapping as it mows.

 A complication is that the robot avoids the gravel. Where the vehicle tires usually run. So it will not usually cross from the wider, central strip of grass out to the narrower verges. It will usually "borrow" a more overgrown section. As a bridge to find the verges. 

 Some users have suggested throwing grass clippings where it is desired to mow or cross a narrow strip  of bare ground. Thus overcoming the software inhibition to mowing gravel. Which might damage the blades. 

 Setting a Must Mow Zone on the map will also mow missed areas. Though there is some complication in that it won't go outside its original mowing map. It can be very frustrating to watch the mower running in a nice straight line. Hoping it will push the boundaries. Only for it to abruptly pause and change direction. Without apparent reason.

 Most of my own problems are letting the robot mow a long, thin map. With almost continuous gravel between the 100m long, grass stripes. It's fun but demanding of the condition of the grass. Before the mower can be sent off to map and mow.

 Eufy seem to be updating the software as they enjoy feedback from users. As do the manufacturers of my security cameras. The robot is now recognized by the cameras' software. Where, before, there was no registration at all.  

 12.20 There is no problem recognizing the Morris. Which has just had a wash and rinse. I gave it several washes with a fluffy hand mop and car shampoo. Then gallons of clean water from the large watering can without a rose. Requiring that I perch on a stepladder. I'll polish the car after lunch. If it is not too hot.

 14.15 I have just clipped the outside of the front beach hedge. Then clipped the hedge along the drive. By the house and bordering the eastern boundary. Now I am hot, breathless and knackered.

 18.10 66F/19C. I waited until it was cool and cloudy before polishing the Morris. With Turtle Wax Blue Magic. It's been a busy day! 

 Now I have to make some dinner. 

 Dinner was an organic pork chop and half of an organic cauliflower. With generous helpings of butter on the cauliflower.

 

 

  ~?~

 

 

17.07.2026 Incoming!

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  Friday 17th 64F/18C [7.15]  Bright, but highly variable overcast. Some sunshine on the last warm day for a while. 26C/79F peak but risk of thunderstorms all day. With possible cloudbursts. The weather map is punctuated with local thunderstorms in the west but moving northwards and eastwards.

 Up at 7.10 after a quiet night. My back and hips were painful at first. Caused by the return to cycling? 

 The new security camera lights were on all night again. Lighting up the room. So I have switched them off altogether. The four blinding LEDS are supposed to make night scenes show natural colour. Though this still needs at least some ambient light. 

 My other, identical cameras haven't shown the same determination to compete with sunlight! There is a schedule option to limit these lights to specific hours. The problem is the sheer number of insects flying into the bright lights. Closely followed by spiders webs. Festooning the view on the monitor. 

  New molehills were forming on The West lawn as I peered out of the bathroom window. The grass is pale and badly in need of a rest. After frequent tours of the robot mower. Hopefully today's showers and the return to lower temperatures from tomorrow onward, will help. There is a long history of pale grass in the summer months here. What is now a graveled parking space was often the colour of straw in the past.

 The largest of the goldfish in the greenhouse pond is getting very fat. I hope this doesn't mean hundreds of baby fish swimming about! One of the others has grown to almost the same size but is much slimmer. They must both be around 20cm/8" long by now. There has been some gentle chasing of each other around but who knows? Not a great picture. It needs a darker background to penetrate the surface reflection of the sky. So I hung some black garden fleece as a backdrop. Which upset them. So they started darting about!

 I have been researching the Eufy mower maps and naming zones. So that I can send the mower to mow specific areas on demand and not others. The trick is simply to name zones. Then choose a particular zone to mow. Now I have named the Drive and The West Lawn. The app asks me which zone to mow before it starts. There seemed to be no logic to when the mower would head across the parking space to the West Lawn. Or to wander up the drive. The drive seemed not to be getting the attention it deserved. Now I am back in control.

 I have been remote controlling the mower to the far end of the drive. Including deliberately driving it along the overgrown verges. Which I obviously want to cut too. The idea being to teach the AI vision what it looks like there and hopefully remembers to map it. For some reason it got stuck on memorizing the map at 80%. Requiring a forced system stop and restart.  The first so far. I have sent it off again to see if it remembers to mow to the very end. The displayed map doesn't look any different so far. Nor did it.

 I have spent the day playing with the robot mower. Without managing to get it to reach the end of the drive. I may have to make a Multi-zone Path and make an additional zone of the far end. The Wi-Fi signal should still be useful thanks to the Access Point. I was still getting -67dBm. With clear vision of the antenna back at the house.

 16.00 The "mashed potato" is piling up after a long, hot, sunny day. Just back from the shops in the Morris. A large storm has just slipped past to the west heading north north east.

 Dinner was two boiled eggs on fresh, bread rolls. Still no rain. 

 

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