Early Risers.

[travelintrev]

Good morning all, 

 

Just getting light here so not sure what the weathers going to do.....though the local forecast  is for heavy rain....

 

Managed to wake a nano-second before the alarm this morning, breakfasted, sandwiches made, kettle on for flask and .....just a day of corporate **** in front of me..........

 

 

What ever you're up to today, try and remember to smile!

 

Trev

[Debs.]

  "I go, I come back!"

[sixoh8sixoh]

Morning all. Lousy night's sleep as the herring gulls woke me several times. This has been the worst year for how noisy an intrusive they've been.

 

Welcome aboard Twa_dogs, which big tin sheds are you driving? 66s?

 

Sifting job applications this morning and then a team leaders' meeting in the afternoon. Joy...

 

The mechanics will be looking at the car today and seeing if they can manage a short term fix to the power steering pipe.

 

Have a good one all.

[sixoh8sixoh]

Morning Debs, hope things are getting a little easier now. 5 years on now and I still miss my dog...

[Robert]

Yes Debs - Somehow I managed to miss your news.

 

Sorry to hear

[roundhouse]

Overcast here in SouthEast Surrey.

 

Yesterday we went to the sorting office butbInthinkmthat thy were struggling o find a PDA (for dignatures) that was charged before they opened so we had to go o catch our train.

 

This morning they opened promptly but still trying to find a working PDA which worked in our favour as there was another parcel thatbtheybwere about to try and deliver so we got the parcel from Hattons (decoders Dapol N class 22 more Dapol Easy mate couplers) and a parcel from Sunningwell. My other half will take that with her to work as it will get too much attention from my work! The Attos box has now been disposed of and the small packages in my work bag.

 

It's really handy having the sorting office behind the station and that it opens at 7am. They are a friendly bunch there too..

 

Ian

[Barry O]

Morning all from the City of Leeds - Blue Skies, wet pavements and..... a nice new pond in the garden after two good down pours yesterday.

 

New shower used today - it works- plumbers to return to refit old bathroom - once plasterers/joiners/sparkies are done..

 

Have a Yippeedddoo type of day good people!

[Gruffalo]

Morning all from the City of Leeds - Blue Skies, wet pavements and..... a nice new pond in the garden after two good down pours yesterday.

 

New shower used today - it works- plumbers to return to refit old bathroom - once plasterers/joiners/sparkies are done..

 

Have a Yippeedddoo type of day good people!

So you have come through the conversion pretty much unscathed then Barry, congratulations! Just watch the bill for personal and shower cleaning products rocket!

[Oldddudders]

Morning all

 

Gordon's Venom does sound a bit puissant, but I had to delve into the website to confirm my first thought that this is a Lotus. Colin Chapman used the phrase "speed through lightness", I think.

 

Roundhouse getting his parcels at the crack of dawn does sound fun. And a parcel from Sunningwell is always gonna contain something good! I've never owned a PDA, but did have one on loan when we were first installing the pilot Avantix Mobiles - those ticket machines most train conductors now use, for which I was part of the specifying & procuring team. I found it was great for playing Patience..... It also occurs to me that the firm which came second in the beauty parade for the contract is/was based at Redhill. They asked for a meeting to discuss why they hadn't got the contract, and I was deputed to chair it. 3 of them travelled from Redhill to Central London, for a meeting that essentially took two minutes, but they went away wiser.

 

Cooler today again, but forecast to hit the silly heights again before the end of the week. How nice.

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

Rather overcast here. I shall continue tidying the garage today. 

Aditi can really start her holiday now. She was on a course yesterday, not for work though, it was the motoring version of the "naughty step". 

 

We will probably do some shopping today. Instead of waiting in all day for couriers I have persuaded Aditi that if she orders stuff from John Lewis it is easier to collect it from a local Waitrose.  Something is I believe on its way to Leigh on Sea at present.

 

Tony

[DDolfelin]

More BiL problems - this time connected with his health.

His operation recently (which I offered to carry out for him) was unsuccessful.

Now he has a very big and growing rapidly problem "downstairs".

I must be a very bad person because all I feel is some irritation that, yet again, this oaf is intruding on our everyday lives.

[roundhouse]

Ian

 

Redhill isn't a pretty town at all but it does have its benefits and its great being able to do that so I generally try to get parcels sent via Royal Mail.

 

Parcelforce tend to leave them at our Post office which is now in WH Smiths in the shopping centre so can be awkward to collect as weekend are often showtime or out early for pub crawls.

 

The parcel from Sunningwell is a C19 for a future layout. its a case of getting such items when they come out rather than wait till you need them and they have all gone! its been an expensive month for rolling stock so good job that I have been good in previous months!!

 

Ian

[trisonic]

Hi Guys, as a 100% petrol head, I watched TG last night and heard about the Hennessey Venom GT, which somehow must have passed me by.  Just spent and enjoyable time scrolling through these videos.

 

What a machine...:-)

 

 

Makes the Bugatti look bloated, doesn't it?

Best, Pete.

[grandadbob]

Oh dear - it's raining - how disappointing that as I am a fair weather gardener only I will not be able to get out there & do horticultural stuff!

 

Sigh - never mind -these things are sent to try us!  

[AndyB]

Morning all from sunny Hampshire, where the cloud is low level and depositing it's contents on the lawn. So, not really very sunny at all!

 

Some of you may remember that earlier in the year we had a new garden fence installed. This seems to have spurred me on to get stuck in to some gardening (albeit at the expense of working on my layout). The result is not too bad for an amateur with plants growing, flowers flowering and tomatoes tomatoeing! 

 

A rather sad and reflective day here as it is a year since my dad passed away; feeling quite low to be honest. Hope my mood doesn't rub off on the children as we get ready to go on holiday in a couple of days. 

 

Best wishes to all, Andy

[beast66606]

Morning all.

 

I managed to nip out and get a 57/0, 2 X 47/8s running light and a 66 on the stone empties through my local station - Eccles Road - last night, this Internet based train spotting (http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/advanced in my case) is superb when time is tight, I monitored the light engines as they headed East, they appeared to have gone into the loop at Brandon but then a passing time for Thetford appeared, off I went and made it with about 30 seconds to spare (I didn't mean to cut it that fine), by the time they had passed me I checked again and the stone was on it's way from Trowse (Norwich), a few minutes later a nicely clagging 66128 thundered by heading for Mountsorrel.

 

A slightly cooler morning down here, warm but the rain is heading our way, heavy later apparently.

 

Whilst driving to work (no rabbits today - I think a lesson was learnt yesterday, running increases flight time and the likelihood of ditch clearance is exponentially increased) I passed my usual "owl tree" and sitting in the opening was a perfect baby owl, not fluffy, a tiny version of the adults, I stopped the car but it had retreated, 20 minutes later I had to give up, no photo - the owl had won that Mexican standoff.

 

Hope we all have a good day.

[beast66606]

A rather sad and reflective day here as it is a year since my dad passed away; feeling quite low to be honest. Hope my mood doesn't rub off on the children as we get ready to go on holiday in a couple of days. 

 

 

Over 30 years since my dad went, I still have days like that - nothing wrong with it, accept it and think of the happy times, that normally turns my low mood into a better one.

[NGT6 1315]

Well, the technician has been there and done his work, so I'll only need to plug in the router again once we move in next week and we'll be online. Forecast predicts 30°-ish temperatures this time next week, so deep joy while unpacking will be guaranteed...

 

It does feel good to have a nice employment certificate in hand! Though we also got a taste of the supreme role of paperwork in officialdom at the appointment conference yesterday. For my personal matters, I try to run a low-paper office, if you want to call it that, but in my new job, I guess this won't always be possible...

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, sunny on Fraggle Rock.  Less so at work......

 

Aditi's 'naughty step' sounds similar to a process we use a lot with young people, rather than prosecute for minor driving offences (only achieves a fine that the parents pay anyway) as an alternative we send them on a course of 2, one hour driving 'refreshers' at their own expense, concentrating on the issues that brought them to our notice, ahem.  An hour with a roads police officer showing them the horror slideshow at the end finishes it off.  Works well, very few repeat offenders, a 99% success rate. 

 

Forecast is for Ark weather tomorrow, grumble.

[The Stationmaster]

  "I go, I come back!"

To which one might reply "always glad to see you're back" - which looks far better written than it would sound when spoken (as long as the punctuation and spelling is correct of course  )  So a special good morning to Debs - because she deserves one.

[The Stationmaster]

And now 'morning all' to the rest of you 

 

Well it's raining so the command structure has deemed vacuuming to be the target for today.  However the weather is doing the garden a bit of good (although it is probably upsetting the farmers) and we had our first picking of runner beans yesterday, plus more of our own spuds - just a shame that herself still had some peppers in stock in the fridge or we'd have had the first of those as well; regrettably the pork came from Waitrose although I do think a pig would enjoy our early windfall apples and at least we'd know who we were eating at due time.

 

Talking of post the lad had a package, containing an HO Thalys, arrive from Germany yesterday with all sorts of tracking info off the net from DHL following its despatch last Thursday which let us know it was in England, and not too far away, by Friday afternoon.  Somewhat inexplicably it was delivered by Parcel Force

 

Have a  good day one & all

[Danemouth]

We've had some rain in Cardiff, enough to turn the brown patches green on my lawn  grass.

 

Just been to Lord & Butler to collect my Hornby BR Shunters truck weathered by them - will post piccies on the Hornby thread later,

 

Dave

[Rugd1022]

Belated 'morning all' once agin

 

Bit of a late finish last night as I was 'purloined' from my own Oxford - Stud Farm job to go and rescue a colleagues failed train on the Midland Mainline, right in the middle of the rush hour! I was just weighing the train it at Stud Farm Quarry when the call came to go light engine with all due haste to Desborough and drop onto the front of 6M79 which had suffered a complete failure due to 66 599's compressor chucking the towel in. Luckily, this particular stretch of the MML is signalled for bi-directional working so Derby PSB were able to get all the commuters round the stricken freight train asap... dropping onto 6M79 a little later I was reminded just how loud detonators are when you drive over them, my failed colleague had put his protection down in the required place so apologies to any nearby residents who wondered what the three very loud bangs were!

 

Referring back to 'Top Gear' from last Sunday night, I watched it yesterday and felt the old heart strings tugging when James May did his piece on the 'Stringer' Porsche 911... what a beautiful machine it is, but at £280k a pop I think I'll give it a miss....!

 

Have a good day folks

Edited July 30, 2013 by Rugd1022

[BoD]

Morning all

 

Am sitting in Waterstone's typing this and drinking coffee. I have a pile of new books sitting next to me thanks to a gift card I was recently given. The only railway connection is one of the books is 'On the Slow Line'. As much of the travel writing genre as it is about railways but I have previously read the first chapter and enjoyed it.

I must own to being a bit of a bibliophile, well a huge bibliophile actually. I cannot bear to discard any book, even to good causes. I think today's to do list will have to include either a new shelf somewhere (difficult to find space) or a complete new set of shelves.

[Tony_S]

 

 

Aditi's 'naughty step' sounds similar to a process we use a lot with young people, rather than prosecute for minor driving offences (only achieves a fine that the parents pay anyway) as an alternative we send them on a course of 2, one hour driving 'refreshers' at their own expense, concentrating on the issues that brought them to our notice, ahem.  An hour with a roads police officer showing them the horror slideshow at the end finishes it off.  Works well, very few repeat offenders, a 99% success rate. 

 

It was a Speed Awareness Course delivered by the AA on behalf of the Met Police. Aditi said the course was quite good though she didn't see the point of the first 30 minutes which was about the history of Speed Awareness courses. So she still has an unblemished licence and insisted on telling me all the stuff they had learned. To be honest Aditi wouldn't ever be speeding in a town or a country lane especially in inclement weather but I'm sure she will now be extra aware of 50mph signs (for that was her offence, 56mph in a 50 zone) on dual carriage-way A roads. I don't think she has needed any kind of naughty step (unless marrying me against parental advice counts) for years. She did get a detention for singing in the corridor between lessons at school.