Blog for Plants, AI and things

Looking out the kitchen window, I saw a man who lives a couple of houses away from us, walking slowly past our house. He smiled at me, but I was a little concerned; he had aged significantly since the last time I saw him. I went out and asked him how he was doing, and he looked at me for a while and then said he was alright and went on. I think he wanted to say;

Some days I feel broken and tired. I carried pain I don't always talk about, memories that still ache when I'm alone. I still fall apart in the quiet moments and miss what once meant everything to me. But every day I wake up and try again, I may be broken, but I haven't given up.

I realise also, I’m not as strong as I used to be; the years are taking their toll.

Sometimes I forget small things. Sometimes I say the same words again. Do not get me wrong, I still wake up every morning looking forward to what the day will bring.

Just an observation from my garden. 

We are like expecting parents, round and plump, the fruits of our endeavours. Shortly, we will have day lilies flowering and the lavender is just waiting for the right time to bloom.

The Day Lillies are getting close to blooming; they do have the most beautiful flowers, and I will treat you to a photo I took two years ago. The other plant that is looking like a hopeful contender is the Lavender - small buds have appeared, but it is a little late. I have seen plenty of lavender out and about, and they are all in full flower; maybe ours are just a little shy.

Talking of the garden, Susan has been busy planting hanging baskets and repotting plants on Saturday. After a quick tour of the garden centre, we came home with a boot full of plants and a leaner bank account. We now have baskets of plants hanging from anything that will take the weight. I must admit, it does make the garden less minimalistic and also gives it colour. Sadly for Susan, the bending down for about 4 hours did not go kindly on her back, and Sunday was spent feeling tender. 

The subject of AI

We see headlines daily that are extolling the virtues and wonders of AI or trying to caution us on the use of AI. 

“Everything you need to know about AI.”

“Who decides what AI tells you?”

But the cracks are already there. 

“Apple offers $1 million to find flaws in its AI cloud systems.”

Michael, Robert and Gary use AI extensively to substantially improve their output of their work, mostly for the better. 

There are so many people giving their views on what AI will do for us, some good and some bad. We have found AI to be very helpful. Cutting down on those time-consuming tasks that we do every day, which would have taken us 2 days, is now achieved in a matter of minutes. The way we work will have to change, but the one consolation is that the normal person does not have the knowledge to ask the right questions to achieve a satisfactory result. 

Campbell Brown, once Meta’s news chief, had this to say; 

"You hear from the leaders of the big tech companies, 'This technology is going to change the world,' 'it's going to put you out of work,' 'it's going to cure cancer,'" she said. "But then to a normal person who's just using a chatbot to ask basic questions, they're still getting a lot of slop and wrong answers."

Yes, soon, we will not be building small websites, which AI can do now and do well. More database-driven applications will have to be our focus. We are in the early stages of this new technology, and the challenge is to keep up with every new aspect and feature that comes along; this happens almost daily. 

Where it will end, I have no idea, but it is exciting and will demand that we accept change and embrace it with an open mind. I would be a little cautious about taking on advice from people who have no idea where this will lead. 

I said at the start, AI is a source of good and bad. Already, we have the hackers, scammers and phishers using AI to steal our information and money. Like the pickpockets in all our cities, we must just be aware they are there, so double-check anything that seems harmless, but could lead to substantial loss. 

My one frustration is that accuracy didn’t seem to be anyone’s priority.

Gary wrote a news article for our website and summed up the future for all businesses.

The question in 2026 is no longer "should we use AI?" It is "Are we structured to let AI work?" The businesses pulling ahead are those with clean data, bespoke systems and the right partner to connect all three.

In summary, where will AI take us? I have no idea, but I am enjoying the ride. My advice is to try it out. I took a very old, grainy photo and asked ChatGPT to clean it up and restore the colour. I could do this in Photoshop; it would have taken me about an hour. ChatGPT did it in 3 minutes. These images below are all AI-generated.

There are some things AI cannot do. Take a simple thing like rain. AI will be able to forecast when it will rain more accurately, but when we’re caught in the rain, we will still get wet. 

Conclusion

AI has the potential to greatly enhance our lives, but it also poses significant challenges that need careful management. 

Kingston Lacey, Saturday, the 16th of May

Susan and I were keen to go on a walk and decided Kingston Lacy would be the perfect place to wander.

A slight bit of rain on the way to Kingston Lacy, but we took our jackets with us. What struck us about the place immediately on arrival was the lack of people. For Kingston Lacy on a Saturday, this was unheard of.

I did manage to take quite a few good photographs of the formal gardens outside the house, and then walked along the Lime Avenue to meet Susan at the bottom. The plan was for Susan to walk through the formal gardens, and I would take Jenson on the dog-friendly route back to the cafe. Jensen wasn’t playing ball, wanted to go with Susan, so we both walked back, and Susan did not have the opportunity of seeing the beautiful gardens absolutely clear of people. 

There’s something so refreshing about going to Kingston Lacy and being able to walk around, take photos and just enjoy the quiet solitude of the place without loads of people getting in your way, children shouting, and dogs barking. This was one of those rare occasions.

I’ve included some images for you to see what I meant. Not sure how good they are, but they give an insight into how quiet it was. 

After our leisurely walk, Susan and I decided to have a coffee and a snack. Susan accompanied her coffee with a slice of coffee and walnut cake, and I had a cheese scone with butter. Susan felt her cake was a little dry, and she couldn’t really taste the coffee, so she wasn’t that impressed, but then she wasn’t impressed with the coffee either. I just think it was just one of those times. My scone was delicious, my coffee was just as I wanted it, and we sat and chatted for about half an hour until we decided it was time to go home. The rain was threatening.

Can anyone tell me what make of SUV this is?