Early Risers.

[NGT6 1315]

One of the most powerfully synaesthetic film scenes I've seen in a long time, to my mind providing an excellent impression of struggling against forces of nature beyond any imagination:

 

[Oldddudders]

Morning all

 

Yet another bright and sunny start, with the same forecast for another day or two, too. Sweet September, indeed!

 

I picked up two bucketsful of decent apples yesterday. Alison will get them for pressing into juice. I also put a first cut on the lawns - first for some weeks due to rain. Another topping before the next rain will be good.

 

Druggy Kirsty seems to have been bailed, so Sherry's local rag webpage tells me. Since another neighbour informs that the knife-victim regularly and openly wore a knife, there may be more to this. A plea of self-defence comes to mind. And the behaviour of folk under the infuence of drugs can be quite irrational, after all. Even drink can make us do the unexpected - like falling out of bed!

 

Moving swiftly on, more work on the shutters today may enable one of three sets to be re-installed, which would be nice.

 

Hope your week has launched as expected.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Oldddudders

[Ashcombe]

I'm ashamed to admit that when I read Sherry's first post about falling out of bed having imbibed a little too much I almost clicked the funny button. So apologies for that and really hope that the arnica is helping out, especially for the soon-come big day.

 

Ian, I think it unlikely that the druggy mother will be sent down, especially if she has a child. The costs of keeping someone inside are £35,000pa, and add on the costs of foster parenting and so on. Long-term she obviously needs help from drug-rehab - the problem is always returning to addiction. Good jobs help, too, once she's clean, so has less time on her hands and more use for her brain. Sorry for going on a bit.........

 

..........Edited again: how seriously do they take knife crime in England? In Scotland it is often treated as jailable just for possession, so perhaps they won't be so lenient. Jail may help her kicking the drugs habit but she needs a job after jail to make her rehabilitation settle in.

 

Thanks, Mal, and others for your kind comments and ratings. Much appreciated.

 

It is funny, in one way, that I had this accident caused by alcohol, since my late sister had been an alcoholic for many years! My cousin (a prescribing practice nurse) says the bruising should fade within a fortnight. The welding is four weeks this Thursday! The youngsters at Tadpoles (junior TOADs) were concerned last night. One said, "Well, at least it matches your purple tee shirt!"

 

As to the more serious matter of the stabbing:-

 

The boy is living with his grandmother at the moment.

 

I've heard on the grapevine (another neighbour is a porter at the hospital) that the victim doesn't want to press charges! Yet he needed life saving surgery on the night it happened.

 

Nevertheless, police will be charging the culprit with attempted murder.

 

You are right that the woman needs help; she is volatile and vindictive when crossed (a previous resident had her car keyed for calling the police) and is a nuisance to have as a neighbour (rows, loud music, etc) although I'm unaffected, being in the other half of the building from her.

 

You'll be surprised to hear that this is regarded as a "good" area locally! It consists mostly of care homes and smart flats with trees and parks interspersed amongst the buildings.

 

Hope your week is peaceful ......!

[big jim]

Morning all. a cat woke me up at 4.45 when it went outside did I think to follow it ? No I did not I sleep walked the cat out realised I wasn't wearing much and it was chilly and legged it back to my duvet!

2nd full moon of the night

[AndrewC]

Morning all from the boring borough. Yes, the world did not end last night much to the chagrin of the tinfoil hat brigade and some overly fanatic religious whackjobs. Managed to get up around 3 for a look. Sadly far too much light pollution around these parts to get any decent photography but it was still quite impressive out of the bedroom window.

 

Its a Monday but it feels like a Sunday. Last of my 5 day weekend. Yesterday was a bit of a write off as I was in too much pain from Saturday's final patio laying attempt to do anything. The remaining bits have been laid and the excess bricks finally cleared out of the front and stacked "neatly" out of the way. I may try marketing this as the next exercise fad. "The Brick Bash way to health and fitness". Lessons learned: get the lazy sod with the truck to deliver to the alleyway and don't drop 1500 bricks on 3 pallets in the front where they have to be carried through the house. Never ever buy Tarmac pre-mixed mortar. The stuff is crap with a capital SH*T. The sand and cement aren't mixed well so you can't just use a part bag, you have to dump the whole 25kg thing into a trug, blend it first, then shovel out what you need. Pretty much defeats the purpose of buying pre-mix in the first bloody place. I could have saved about half the £ by just buying separate bags of sand and cement and borrowing a mixer. So much for trying to save effort. I found this out yesterday when the mortar I put down on Saturday was nothing more than wet sand still. Today's job will be to lift about 100 bricks again, clean off the sandy mush, and re-mortar them in place. So much for a quiet day of playing trains and a pub lunch.

 

Have a good one all.

[southern42]

' Morning all from red dragon land.  Sunny and thin cloud.

 

"30 new replies" as I start.  Catch up later! 

 

A thought crossed my mind when I got up.  Saturday, while stopping for water on Polly on one of my (trainee driver) laps, one of our young passengers asked what the "rocks" were in the tender.  A quick explanation and a "rock" duly ended up in his hand. By the time he left, I noticed he had acquired a veritable pocketful!  I wonder if they'll end up in the classroom this morning.  Over breakfast, with ex-teacher's hat on, I'd turned this small lump of coal into a term's (at least!) work.  All those subjects and topics that could come out of it all starting from a freelance locomotive on a seaside miniature railway and from a substance I grew up taking for granted.  By his age, I was already cleaning out our fireplace and not long after I'd be making and lighting it (via the gas pipe under the grate).  Hands up, who has a coal fire these days? (OK, we do and so do a lot of people in our in-the-middle-of-nowhere village)  but we're, probably, in a minority even in this far off corner of Wales.)

 

Lots to do this week with Wigan looming starting with putting the layout up again now that the youngest is settled in at Uni.

 

Hope your day is a good 'un and you can find something to get fired up about.

[AndyID]

Yes, the world did not end last night much to the chagrin of the tinfoil hat brigade and some overly fanatic religious whackjobs.

 

Oi! Watch it. You're talking about my neighbors you know.

[Tony_S]

I watched the clip from Interstellar that Dom posted. Very different on this tiny tablet. I had recorded the film onto my Sky+ box and watched it last week. The sound track for that scene certainly exercised my loudspeakers.

Tony

[Happy Hippo]

Morning all from the boring borough. Yes, the world did not end last night much to the chagrin of the tinfoil hat brigade and some overly fanatic religious whackjobs. Managed to get up around 3 for a look. Sadly far too much light pollution around these parts to get any decent photography but it was still quite impressive out of the bedroom window.

 

Its a Monday but it feels like a Sunday. Last of my 5 day weekend. Yesterday was a bit of a write off as I was in too much pain from Saturday's final patio laying attempt to do anything. The remaining bits have been laid and the excess bricks finally cleared out of the front and stacked "neatly" out of the way. I may try marketing this as the next exercise fad. "The Brick Bash way to health and fitness". Lessons learned: get the lazy sod with the truck to deliver to the alleyway and don't drop 1500 bricks on 3 pallets in the front where they have to be carried through the house. Never ever buy Tarmac pre-mixed mortar. The stuff is crap with a capital SH*T. The sand and cement aren't mixed well so you can't just use a part bag, you have to dump the whole 25kg thing into a trug, blend it first, then shovel out what you need. Pretty much defeats the purpose of buying pre-mix in the first bloody place. I could have saved about half the £ by just buying separate bags of sand and cement and borrowing a mixer. So much for trying to save effort. I found this out yesterday when the mortar I put down on Saturday was nothing more than wet sand still. Today's job will be to lift about 100 bricks again, clean off the sandy mush, and re-mortar them in place. So much for a quiet day of playing trains and a pub lunch.

 

Have a good one all.

I really wanted to poke the funny button.  I learned some time back that you even have to stir up bags of the quick setting postcrete.  (Which is great for 'small applications' in a garden railway environment).

 

Just wait until you try Mike's (SM) and my own versions of quick drying paint.

 

You will be into cockwomble curse mode much quicker than the bl**dy stuff dries!

 

I did stay up to watch the 'bloody' moon last night:  It was bl**dy cold in the muddy hollow I can tell you!

 

And the Obergrumpenfuhrer was not pleased when I got back to bed, as I disturbed her snoring.

 

However, whilst I was waiting, I did manage to get my satnav system updated with new maps:  It took 3 hours!

 

One day we'll get super speed, high fibre  broadband optics rather than two lengths of string and a tin can.

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Despite my attempts to stay awake to watch the Lunar eclipse last night tiredness got the better of me and I retired to bed at 2 o'clock. I did however see a substantial bite taken out of the moon and as Essex C.C. deem fit to switch all the street lights off at midnight I had a reasonably good view. The bins turned out to be useless, mainly due to my eyesight. I have long vision in one eye and short in the other which meant that using the bins I got double vision. No great problem with cloud fortunately as the strong breeze moved them across quite quickly and most were very high and thin. The moon didn't seem any larger than normal to me but in some of the pictures on TV it looked enormous.

[Happy Hippo]

' Morning all from red dragon land.  Sunny and thin cloud.

 

 

 

it all starting from a freelance locomotive on a seaside miniature railway and from a substance I grew up taking for granted. 

Hey Polly,

 

That'll be the coke yeah?

 

Try the Mamod tablets if you want to smoke some sh*t!

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

Missed the moon - waited until 00.50 for the start of penumbra and then found it was in the wrong place to be visible, dratted seasons keep on moving the sky around.  And as for so called pre-mixed mortar don't bother with any of it - it's all as bad as that 'quick' drying paint in my experience.  Far simpler to just mix sand and cement add water and plasticiser and Robert is your father's brother, and you can gauge the mix to suit the job in hand and use whatever grade of sand suits you/the job.

 

That promised photo will come along later when I can find the camera and download it, I know it's not far away, I think.  Meanwhile another sunny-ish day and no doubt the g word will be mentioned, probably quite loudly, before too long.  Have a good day one & all

[AndrewC]

Oi! Watch it. You're talking about my neighbors you know.

You're surrounded by them. Conspiracy theorists, survivalists, neo nazis to the north, and extreme God botherers to the south.

 

Mr Hippo, The premix from Hansen is quite good with the cement and sand well mixed. Tarmac on the other hand had the top of the bag mixed but the bottom 1/4 was almost pure sand. I'll pass on the "never dry" paint if it's all the same.

[DDolfelin]

 

One day we'll get super speed, high fibre  broadband optics rather than two lengths of string and a tin can.

 

Just received the latest Internet security device:

 

 

[jamie92208]

Morning again from the village that's now a bit brighter even if I'm fading a bit.  However I've managed the various chores and have also managed to download the piccys from the early hours from Beth's camera.  It has a higher power zoom lens than mine and thus I was able to avoid the light pollution from a streetlamp that was in the wring place.  Anyway here's a couple of shots. 

This one was shortly after 2am.

This was about 3.20am but worth waiting to see.

While I was setting up the second shot a fox stalked silently across the top of the drive.   First time in 37 years I've seen one on our street.

 

Now off to the chapel to get some photos of the first stage of the lighting rig for Green Ayre that's currently laid out on the church floor.

 

Jamie

Edited September 28, 2015 by jamie92208

[trisonic]

2nd full moon of the night

I’m wondering what Mick eclipsed.

 

Best, Pete.

[Jock67B]

Good morning one and all

 

I took no precautions to see the red supermoon and didn't.  For longer than I can remember I have "enjoyed" fitful sleep and could almost set my watch by waking from what passed for slumber at 3 am.  Not last night!  Perhaps the new jar of Horlicks has a surprise ingredient, for after retiring at 10.30 and surfacing briefly at midnight, that was it until 5.20.  Should I be spared, I will be 85 next time.

 

I heard another definition of "blue moon" when I was on holiday in August.  The man on the radio said that it is when there are two new moons in a month.  As the man on the radio was Simon Bates I'm not sure how much faith to place in his utterance. 

 

The stash of weedkiller had a bit of a dent made in it yesterday.  The not inconsiderable amount of unwelcome growth in paved areas had a good dose and while I was at it I attacked the plague of dock leaves that has taken over the territory allocated to the tulips and the daffodil [just the one, it would seem].   It remains to be seen how effective my weedkiller is compared with the rather pointless one used by Network Rail but there may be time today to top up the green bin for it to be emptied tomorrow.

 

Last evening I wandered over to the multiplex hoping to see "The Martian", only to find that the screening was dedicated to those with 'unlimited' cards, whatever they are.  Never mind, the exercise would have been beneficial, I'm sure.  It comes out properly later in the week and there may be a suitable slot between the blood test and the injection. 

 

I hope I have spotted all the typos.  Some of the above first looked like dialogue for Officer Crabtree in 'Allo Allo'.

 

Best wishes to all who deserve them

 

Chris

Chris, master Bates wasn't far off. I have been lucky enough to see a couple of such moons over my many years of studying the Universe. Wiki give quite a clear description - 'blue moon' is the name given to a full moon which is the third of four full moons in one season, or a second full moon in a calendar month. The phrase has nothing to do with colour, although a blue tinged moon can be observed when certain atmospheric conditions prevail, such as after a major volcanic eruption like the Mount St Helens one. The phrase 'once in a blue moon' obviously relates to the rarity of such a phenomenon. Hope this is of interest to you, but perhaps I should apologise for my excitement over all celestial events. Thoroughly enjoyed the early hours but I think a siesta might be on the cards later!

Kind regards,

Jock.

[skipepsi]

In reply to Pete's question the cat was eclipsed or evicted or expelled or anything else beginning with e.

[southern42]

Time to get the s out again.

 

We have had a terrific run of rail tours over the last few years.  A few days ago,  we were told tomorrow's tour is off. 

We'd booked it because it was was the closest to our big red anniversary and was advertised with a big red engine. 

 

But don't soak the hankies just yet because, unexpectedly, as you've already seen, we are now the proud owners of our own (little) big red engine and we'll be seeing a few RMwebbers on the day itself (Sunday) and, hopefully, more, now that you know (see post above)!.  

[lightengine]

'Hands up, who has a coal fire these days?

Your comment reminded me of the Not The Nine O'clock News sketch, "Come home to a real fire this winter, buy a cottage in Wales".

[The Lurker]

Greetings all, it's a beautiful clear blue sky over Borough Market Junction with a little high cloud. I can clearly see the new track being laid on the new bridge over the market.

 

I have had a mini catch up but no time to do it all so commiserations and congratulations as due.

 

I didn't stay up for the red moon and part of me wishes I had done.

 

Enjoy your day!

[Oldddudders]

Your comment reminded me of the Not The Nine O'clock News sketch, "Come home to a real fire this winter, buy a cottage in Wales".

I've long suspected that it was that unwelcome campaign that triggered Westminster's willingness to celebrate Welshness by making the language visible just about everywhere. That and allowing multiple communities to rename themselves. Must have cost many millions and is an ongoing cost.

[Ian Abel]

Morning from Long Island...

 

Well, another cock-up at JFK - everything inbound in the evening on a ground-hold because of the continuing runway work.

What they SHOULD do is simply change ALL inbounds that will arrive at the "critical time" to depart later until they finish the bloody work, then again that's just me...thinking...! That'd save a lot of folks the wasted time at the airport, and also the anxiety of the non-frequent travelers who are on the delayed planes trying to make connections <sigh>

Missed the blood moon except for a slight glimpse once we landed of the end of the event <sigh>

 

Little of note from Sunday, too brief a time at home before heading to the airport, however, I DID have time to demonstrate the railway to Jemmas' boyfriend who was suitably impressed by the whole DCC concept of multiple trains running, especially when I ran them ALSO from my smartphone (JMRI/wireless throttle) and my one sound 4MT

 

Very foggy this morning on the drive to the basement prison office and 16, expecting to be sticky and high of 26 later.

 

Hope your week starts well.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Ian Abel

[newbryford]

One of the most powerfully synaesthetic film scenes I've seen in a long time, to my mind providing an excellent impression of struggling against forces of nature beyond any imagination:

 

 

Watched it on the plane on the way back from holiday earlier this year.

 

Excellent movie, but I need to see it again to really take it all in.

 

 

Off out to work again for a few hours and then off to Gisburn Forest for some night-time mountain biking - catch up later.

 

Cheers,

Mick

Edited September 28, 2015 by newbryford

[southern42]

Morning from Long Island...

 

Well, another cock-up at JFK - everything inbound in the evening on a ground-hold because of the continuing runway work.

What they SHOULD do is simply change ALL inbounds that will arrive at the "critical time" to depart later until they finish the bloody work, then again that's just me...thinking...! That'd save a lot of folks the wasted time at the airport, and also the anxiety of the non-frequent travelers who are on the delayed planes trying to make connections <sigh>

Missed the blood moon except for a slight glimpse once we landed of the end of the event <sigh>

 

Little of note from Sunday, too brief a time at home before heading to the airport, however, I DID have time to demonstrate the railway to Jemmas' boyfriend who was suitably impressed by the whole DCC concept of multiple trains running, especially when I ran them ALSO from my smartphone (JMRI/wireless throttle) and my one sound 4MT

 

Very foggy this morning on the drive to the basement prison office and 16, expecting to be sticky and high of 26 later.

 

Hope your week starts well.

 

<sigh>