Early Risers.

[SouthernRegionSteam]

"Can you find the cat underneath the fur?"

It can be difficult at times! She knows to leave our fish well alone, although that's probably due to the fact that she's frightened of falling in the pond. She still catches after the odd bird, but seems to leave our friendly blackbird alone.

[NGT6 1315]

Well, it did turn out to be quite rainy today . Off to prepare dinner now!

[Tony_S]

I can't believe how tired I feel tonight. Apart from food shopping and taking Robbie for his walk all I did was go and look at cars, so I must assume that looking at cars is hard work. My tiny brain was getting confused looking at "online configurators" so I thought I'd visit a few garages. All the sales people were helpful and answered my questions and will get the models I want to look at in a few days. None of the cars I want seem to available in low mileage used and if I want a new one anything I want won't be built until August! I think I'll probably not bother and just hope mine stays working well enough to go on holiday in it.

 

Dominik, are you turning Luxembourgian?

 

Tony

[NGT6 1315]

Aren't we all, Tony? No, I'm not planning to do so, but I do think Luxembourg is a good place to live. Other than that, I would indeed like to remain what and who I am...there were times when I admit I did not, but I feel like I am very much at peace with myself now.

[Tony_S]

I can remember travelling through Luxembourg years ago (pre Euro) and they had clever cash tills that seemed to cope with any money. One of the reasons I'm looking for a new car is that when my wife finishes her doctoral studies we will resume our jaunts round Europe. We didn't have Matthew until I was 40 and I sometimes forget that he wasn't with us when we went off along the autoroutes, autobahns and autostrada! He has been with us on European holidays but either he was little and can't remember or we flew somewhere and only did local trips so he may still want to come with us.

 

Tony

[DonBradley]

Good morning all.

80% rain today. Snow is predicted on the inland mountains. Since my office is air conditioned I didn't add any layers of clothes, but I might feel it on the smoking balcony!

Might be warmer by the weekend.

Keep the home fires burning.

[JohnDMJ]

Morning all,

 

8 very leaky oktas here but 12C already!

 

Had a good day trip to Sunderland yesterday so still a little tired but still have the normal Newbury run shortly!

 

but I might feel it on the smoking balcony!

Might be warmer by the weekend.

Keep the home fires burning.

Why's the balcony smoking?

Good to see you're back, Don; can't comment about your front, though!!

[DonBradley]

'can't comment about your front, though"

What's wrong with my front?

[NGT6 1315]

Morning all...

 

7 oktas which still look like they could regale us with some rain. I'm not entirely present yet, so bear with me for needing to get something to wake up before I write anything more!

 

Cheers!

[Robert]

Like Dominik, I am not entirely present either - I seemed to have trouble getting out of bed this morning. Perhaps it has something to do with the weather (7 oktas and threatening rain), or perhaps it has something to do with the sore throat and cough that seems to be getting better, but slowly.

 

Time for a cup of coffee I think!

 

Have a good day everyone.

[skipepsi]

Morning all a brighter day but a bit chilly,tea and toast required.

[BoD]

Morning all

 

Bright blue sky here too - but quite cold.

I'm onto my third coffee and page six of exam marking.

[eldavo]

Morning All, Leaking oktas abound. Looks like I have to go into the office today, someone has booked a meeting! Still it's somewhere nice and quiet to think about the design of the control panel for the new layout. Have a good one all.

 

Cheers

Dave

[SouthernRegionSteam]

Morning all,

I've been up since 7:30. (Shocking I know! )

Just added some stand alone pages on my Blogger site: Calshot - Blogger including an 'About me' page and a 'Conception and construction' page. I've finally worked out the most important features of Blogger now, and I must say that I think it is a great way of publicising your layout. It's its own website with blog posts & stand-alone pages that can be designed how you like it. It certainly works for me, I just wish I had more 'traffic' and comments. Still, I'm not going to give up, as I'm pleased with how the site now looks. Looks like I will have to find something to update with!

 

Oh and yes, I have today off as well! Right, time for a cuppa and some breakfast...

[gordon s]

Morning all....

 

Glad to hear we are all well considering...

 

Just spent an enjoyable half an hour watching this little fella. Why build a nest of twigs when you can have something far more comfortable...

 

[DonBradley]

Gordon, what on earth is that?

He's building a nest from "fluff" but what is it's basis, laying on the table?

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

 

I think Gordon's nest building tit has found the prototype 2012 Olympic mascot cuddly toy. I tried leaving some of Robbie's surplus hair artfully placed in bushes but the bluetits nesting in one of our birdboxes (a recycled bat box!) are not interested.

 

Tony

[45156]

Morning all

 

Late start at work today, so getting a quick catch up at home while waiting for a skip to arrive so we can clear the garden of debris over the Bank Holiday weekend. One of the main objectives is getting the garage a bit more tidy, which is key to my getting a work area big enough to start building my baseboard, so there's a good incentive to get on with the task. Also, the tidy up should reveal where a lot of the timber that I'll need for the legs and bracing has been hidden - there's so much junk in there at the mo that I can't even get to the back without climbing over everything. Odd that we use the garage to hoard junk while keeping an expensive car out on the drive or in the street!

 

I'm actually getting quite keen to get going on a layout now, even if it's only a modest affair, as it should give me a lot of practice in long lost techniques - the one I'm least looking forward to is ballasting and weathering the track - never been my forte.

 

One possible snag on what I hope to do is that the local area's main bulding material was red sandstone, and the station building, and both the bridges I'm going to use as scenic breaks were built from that material, and as far as I can see, most of the modelling materials available represent brick or "stone" which appears to be a lot less red and a lot less sandy than what I need. Once I get to the buildings stage, I'll probably start posting lots and lots of queries.

 

Results of the numeracy and literacy tests came in yesterday, and it worried me that most of my younger colleagues were struggling (particularly the numeracy where they had to use their heads and no aids like calculators) with what would, when I was young, have been considered primary school stuff like calculating the area of a floor, and expressing a large number in words! It's not their fault, as nowadays there seems to be no emphasis in numeracy, spelling or grammar. With the words bit, one of the tasks was to identify spelling errors in a document and at least one colleague had to ask if they could copy the document and run it though a spell checker! This was certainly a task where the older people did better, as they had been taught the basic skills at an early age.

[DDolfelin]

You're getting some good shots, Gordon.

Any tips to pass on?

[BoD]

Gordon, what on earth is that?

 

 

It looks like one of his old toupees.

[gordon s]

A few tips...

 

1. Lay off the booze before 10am.

 

2. Find a bird.

 

3. Forget the photography for an hour or so...

 

4. Once first bird has gone home, look in the garden.

 

5. Take 200 pics. The law of averages will say one shot will be in focus and said bird will be in the shot and facing the right way.

 

6. Buy a bird book. Their pics are much better..

 

7. Occasionally you will get lucky...

 

 

No, it's not one of my toupee's....Thanks BoD..

 

Thanks to Mrs S, our two dogs have more toys than Pets at Home. They last a short while before the heads are pulled off and squeakers pulled out. Once destroyed the dogs tend to drag them out into the garden and just leave them there. To cut the grass, said dead bodies must be removed and placed out of the way. This one seems to be undergoing a recycling exercise...

 

The nest is at the bottom of an old chimney pot. Needless to say this is now out of bounds for clumsy males, such as I...

[sixoh8sixoh]

Toupee or not toupee, that is the question!

 

Morning all. Yesterday was fairly constructive as I got the living room tidied, ironed all my laundry, cleaned and checked the bike over and fitted 3 decoders to my new Strathclyde livery 107. (3 decoders?? Cheers, Bachmann, could you not just have put metal connectors in the couplings??)

 

Very cloudy and heavy showers are forecast so don't know if I'll get out on the bike today. Going to the opera this evening to see Verdi's Macbeth and plan to listen to TMS for the rest of the day. Possibly while doing a few long-outstanding modelling jobs if I don't get out on the bike.

[DDolfelin]

Don't take any notice, Gordon.

Hair today and gone tomorrow.

[Tony_S]

Robbie used to shred his toys in a similar manner to the one photographed by Gordon. I must be a mean dog owner I then started buying the Kong range usually the ones that say suitable for powerful dogs. I know he isn't but he doesn't know that. He limits the destruction to tennis balls and golf balls. I was quite impressed the first time he crushed a golf ball. Considering that spaniels are not particularly known for having over developed jaws it just shows how powerful some of the bigger breeds must be. Robbie now seems to have given up golf ball crushing. I think he has finally realised there isn't a snack inside. His favourite toys at the moment are ice cream tubs.

 

The eggs in our bird box must have hatched. The parents are flying and out all day with food. I was worried about disturbing them if I cut the grass and suggested leaving it until the babies had fledged. Apparently I'm "silly".

 

Tony

[45156]

Robbie used to shred his toys in a similar manner to the one photographed by Gordon. I must be a mean dog owner I then started buying the Kong range usually the ones that say suitable for powerful dogs. I know he isn't but he doesn't know that. He limits the destruction to tennis balls and golf balls. I was quite impressed the first time he crushed a golf ball. Considering that spaniels are not particularly known for having over developed jaws it just shows how powerful some of the bigger breeds must be.

Tony

 

Tony, never underestimate the power of a dog's jaws - even the smaller ones - a vet friend of mine gave me that advice many years ago, and I've heeded it ever since. His opinion was the they have a tenancy to grip and stay gripped similar to that of a Mole wrench. When a dog is gripping something, it is actually best to keep fingers well out of the way. My last Sussex Spaniel (you might remember him from the old forum) was a rehome, and he had some sort of brain problem, as he would bite while his body language was saying something totally different. He nearly put me in hospital when he clamped his jaws onto my foot when it got too close to him - and it took two of us to get him to release once he was gripping - and all of our combined strength as well. It turned out that he had possibly been injured in the head before we took him on, and also it may be that he had been assaulted by a man, as he had no similar aggressive tendencies to women. After that heart wrenching incident, he had to be put to sleep by the rehome co-ordinator.