Early Risers.

[andyram]

Good evening all I hope Thursday finds you well.

 

 Today has been the final day of the school "Sports Week". Most of the classes are back to normal lessons tomorrow and it is probably a good job, there were quite a few weary looking faces and bodies this afternoon (and that was not just the teachers). Today has been fun again with a visiting archery coach and a climbing wall. The junior children had a wonderful time. It was great to see so many conquering their fears and reaching the top of the wall and managing to abseil down. One girl managed to brave the climb, reaching the top after two aborted attempts, but had to be "rescued" by one of the instructors as she could not face the abseil! There were, though, a lot of very proud children at the end of the day.

 The younger children enjoyed ball skills, dance, fitness and team building activities although many cast an envious glance at the climbing wall!

 

 Back at home and I have had word that the necessary money has left our solicitors but has not arrived at the builder's solicitors just yet. There must be a small fortune floating around in the electronic world right now! Hopefully all will be sorted for us to get the keys tomorrow after work allowing us to move the small stuff over the weekend and complete the move on Monday,

 Sarah and Amber are back later this evening so it is a Chinese take away a cooling beer and then some serious packing up during the next few hours.

 

Enjoy your Friday.

[Oldddudders]

 

 Back at home and I have had word that the necessary money has left our solicitors but has not arrived at the builder's solicitors just yet. There must be a small fortune floating around in the electronic world right now! Hopefully all will be sorted for us to get the keys tomorrow after work allowing us to move the small stuff over the weekend and complete the move on Monday,

 Sarah and Amber are back later this evening so it is a Chinese take away a cooling beer and then some serious packing up during the next few hours.

 

 

Good luck with the move, Andy, and I hope Sarah is finally able to relax and enjoy her new home at last - once things are in and settled.

 

Our last move, from Kent to France, happened over a number of months. We had the keys to the place in June, and in early July Deb came and camped here, painting out some of the - fresh but hideous - previous owners' décor. Imagine lemon yellow walls with a narrow painted dado strip in green with watering cans every so often. Yeah, right. Then I think it was late August that the removal men did their thing, and Deb was here to greet them and assign locations to "stuff". We finally moved on September 7th, bringing both cars, three cats and a border collie. The sense of triumph on arrival was enormous - and I hope Andy has the same thrill.

[Ashcombe]

Crossing calm & now in fog! Passes quickly as we have a free cabin (yes, stuffy even w a/c on full) as we are Travel Club members and this is a less popular choice of crossing time.

 

Off to restaurant now for silver service dinner.

 

Good luck with the house move, Andy!

[trisonic]

Crossing calm & now in fog! Passes quickly as we have a free cabin (yes, stuffy even w a/c on full) as we are Travel Club members and this is a less popular choice of crossing time.

 

Off to restaurant now for silver service dinner.

 

Good luck with the house move, Andy!

That’s a much better idea than being carried out of the bar on docking, as I was once, many, moons ago.

 

Gives an idea as to why I no longer drink to excess...

 

Have a safe trip, Sherry.

 

Best, Pete.

[Smiffy2]

Don't have the sole with grapefruit sauce. It's horrible.

[Ashcombe]

Cod with red pepper sauce and rice was delicious & served by a charming waitress whose English was much better than my French! (not saying much!)

Edited June 26, 2014 by Ashcombe

[Tony_S]

Cod with red pepper sauce and rice was delicious & served by a charming waitress whose English was much better than my French! (not saying much!)

Aditi has been really trying to improve her French language skills at meetings of Le Cercle Français recently and so we are off to the Baltic. Matthew has been learning Spanish and is off to Australia. When we went on Ventura the kitchen language was Hindi, I wonder what it will be on Adonia? One of the onboard restaurants we ate in had one of those kitchens where you can see the chefs at work. The waiter told us that chef had told the other staff to be polite as there was a lady diner who could understand them! Aditi said she probably doesn't know any rude words in Hindi! She left India when she was six and I can't imagine anyone in her immediate family using naughty words. Until she left India her father had wanted Hindi to be his daughters first language but once here he said they should as a family speak only English. This didn't always work. If MiL got cross she would switch to Hindi and Punjabi if really cross.

Tony

[AndyB]

Crossing calm & now in fog! Passes quickly as we have a free cabin (yes, stuffy even w a/c on full) as we are Travel Club members and this is a less popular choice of crossing time.

 

Off to restaurant now for silver service dinner.

 

Good luck with the house move, Andy!

 

Wishing you a safe and happy trip. We also found the cabin on the MstM somewhat stuffy; not good for those with sea sickness.

It was also a tad breezy on deck, but handy if you needed a brackish shower.  

A few brave souls did use the restaurant; quite amusing seeing them trying to set a decent trajectory towards the restaurant doors due to the swell!

I have to say we preferred the crossing to St Malo. But the staff were delightful on both crossings.  

Edited June 26, 2014 by AndyB

[Tony_S]

I don't think I've been on Brittany Ferries since the Channel Tunnel opened. Even on the rough crossings I made it to the restaurant. We have used the North Sea ferries  to Holland and from Denmark. They were quite nice.

Edited June 26, 2014 by Tony_S

[pH]

I have a book called 'London's Lost Riverscape' which has a photograph of Cottons Wharf taken in 1937. The PLA sent a photographer to photograph the Thames riverside (both sides) from London Bridge to Greenwich, taking photographs from the opposite bank, each photograph connecting with the next to form a montage. These were published in the above mentioned book. If you can find a copy its well worth studying. There is no sign of an ISBN number, only the reference CN1481, the book was published in 1988 by Guild Publishing, authors Chris Elmers and Alex Werner.

 

ISBN 10: 0670812633 , ISBN 13: 9780670812639

 

There are quite a few available on Abebooks.

[New Haven Neil]

Phew.

 

Busy day.  retiement? Sheesh.

 

Up at 5, ferry, 6 hour drive, went to Poole for dinner -  mistake, it's a bit of a dump now, very disappointed.  Came back to campsite and went to village pub, (Lychett Manor - big but nice site) and had a nice meal.

 

Jersey tomorrow.  Did I mention we're on holiday?  The life the retired lead.....

 

MRI's - oh yeah noisy. On the IoM we got to take our own CD, I chose laid back and relaing....i couldn't hear it for some bloke banging or the side of the thing with a big hammer.  Meat Loaf next time.

 

No trains in site, bummer. 

[PhilJ W]

ISBN 10: 0670812633 , ISBN 13: 9780670812639

 

There are quite a few available on Abebooks.

I knew it had to have an ISBN number, but I still can't find it on my copy. I found mine on a second hand book stall for the grand sum of £3.50.

[Barry O]

bit of a long day.

 

Managed to umpire the North of England U15s (100 overs) then a T20 (40 overs).. tomorrow its shopping, post office, more cricket, then 100 overs Saturday and 90 overs Sunday... although rain is forecast...

 

Anyone on holiday - have a nice time!

if you are at work.. hope all goes well on Friday and

for everyone - have a great Friday!

 

Baz

[The Stationmaster]

All this talk about the Channel, the last time we were there (crikey, was it really almost 2 weeks ago?) we spent almost 5 hours moored to the vessel you see below using a winch on our ship to lift the its anchor - an interesting piece of work.

 

 

 

[southern42]

Good morning all,

Another lovely day in  prospect with sunshine & blue sky!

Pebbledasher has done his bit with repairs to the front of the house and has left everything neat & tidy. Very impressed especially with the care he took cleaning up afterwards. He washed the windows three times before he was satisfied! Paul the painter has started on the back of the house and I'm also pleased with his efforts so far. He thinks he'll be here for about two and a half weeks(ish).

Been reading the APT-E thread and keep telling myself that I don't need one really - however my layout has gradually changed from eastern/midland 50's BR to sort of preservation so maybe - just maybe?

Polly - we were on the Watercress last Tuesday and had a couple of rides behind this:

 

photo of 31806  [Edit: for some reason, it didn't copy into the "Reply quoting this post"]

 

Hope you enjoyed it.

Nice photo.  Difficult to get a decent pic - loco seems to disappear as it gets covered by large areas of the sky's reflection, the side of the loco ends up in deep shadow or the photo is washed out because the sun is so high in the sky and you end up shooting into it.

 

So, last Tuesday - possibly passed each other, then.  Should've worn the RMweb t-shirt     though I still had my National ID card from the War on the Line day - no name on it, of course.   Well, if they could cover up the station name, I sure wasn't revealing mine.

 

 

We stopped off at Ropley to have a look at the locos in the yard and headed for the buffet car for a cuppa on our afternoon run back - not used to the summer heat!

Smart, eh?

 

  Hot in the cab, too:

Oops!  Caught on camera - my shadow of taking the photo.  Careless but captures the camera phone-type of the day!

I sure wasn't the only one wielding one of those things!  Thanks to the kind driver who let us on for a few minutes.

 

Polly

[Gwiwer]

The individual patient exposure is minimal, but for the techs it would be repeated exposure and exposure to radiation has a cumulative effect.

 

And during any radiology assessment you should also get a lead jockstrap (or equivelant) to protect your nadgers/ovaries

 

I had the "lead jockstrap" (it was actually called a "clamshell") during the radiation treatment of a nearby and socially popular part of anatomy.  Being already of a certain age I'm not able to tell you whether or not it actually protected the life-forms it was intended to.

 

Friday morning here.  Domestic Engineering Day in the Great Land Downunder.  Dragon-in-Law has been resident all week as it seems to be our turn on the couch-surfing roster.  She is still with us but mostly asleep thank goodness as that reduces the opportunities for conflict. This morning it also reduces the opportunities to make noises with cleaning equipment so I'm here instead.  To each cloud there is a silver lining  

 

Thoughts are with those enduring medical procedures however trivial.   I can at least say I came through two major periods of uncertainty on that front and am here to tell the tales.

[travelintrev]

Good Morning all, TGIF!  

 

Day from ***** yesterday,  spent most of it sat in Traffic due to a shipping container falling off a truck blocking most of one roads  in and out of the Apapa docks area.

Then:  yesterday  afternoon the guy who books our flight tickets had prevaricated for so long about confirming the booking of my next flight that the cost had gone up by $200 ...the bit I have to pay. Company will only pay to UK, any were else I have to pay the difference.

Then:  Laptop had a wobbly while I was eating my evening meal .....the pointer turned into a an egg-timer shape....then  Chrome crashed, followed by the lap-top its self. Several hours and many badwords later I got it working again. 

Then: Out to the kitchen to make bed-time cuppa and found the fridge covered with ants......

 

But the bright thing was my GF sent some pics from her Local Station... (hopefully mine too next year) and beach.

 

Lets see if we can all survive another day? 

 

Trev.

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

It is rather cloudy here but the overnight rain has freshened the garden up nicely.

I don't have any plans for today but I'm sure Aditi will have some suggestions for me. 

Tony

[trisonic]

Morning all.

It is rather cloudy here but the overnight rain has freshened the garden up nicely.

I don't have any plans for today but I'm sure Aditi will have some suggestions for me. 

Tony

Sunbathing?

 

I’m not totally stupid but the BBC may be - the weather for this afternoon was Sun and Rain for Benfleet(!) It  now says torrential downpours....

 

Best, Pete.

Edited June 27, 2014 by trisonic

[Tony_S]

Sunbathing?

 

Best, Pete.

I suspect from the forecast that I would get plenty of exercise dodging the showers to take advantage of the occasional sun.

Tony

[trisonic]

Confusing isn’t it? See my addenda added at the same time as your response.

 

Best, Pwtw.

[Tony_S]

Confusing isn’t it? See my addenda added at the same time as your response.

 

Best, Pwtw.

The BBC forecast for Benfleet takes its data from somewhere near Southend. I'm not sure what feature of local geography affects the weather but we don't always get what Southend does. 

Tony

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Lots of overnight rain, dry at the moment but more rain forecast from midday.

Painting finished at rear of house and it looks excellent. The side elevation will be started today however the weather may put a damper on that.

Talking of dampers on things my PVR died last night and I've lost several hours of recorded "stuff" which is a pain. I'm thinking of replacing it with a BT Vision box.

Last night after a lot of faffing about on my part I've finally decided to order the Rapido APT-E. I reached this decision after words of encouragement from a certain Lifeboatman. Thanks Pete!

Have a good one,

Bob.

[BoD]

Best, Pwtw.

Ruddy text speak, don't understand a word of it.

 

Giid mirnung all.

[skipepsi]

Morning all, not a warm start to the day and the kittens are hungry. Work beckons but not very alluringly...... If I stopped at home I could clean and tidy through the house and get some washing done work now seems more appealing. Matt phoned last night to say he would like to come home next weekend when the road past Silverstone is closed any recommendations for an alternative route gratefully received.... best idea stay longer weekend after is soon enough.